“Christmas Connections”

So, what will your risk be?  Thank you, Kathy. 

Let's take our Bibles and find Isaiah Chapter 59, please, Isaiah 59.  I'll read this. Some of you may think this quite an odd passage for December.  In many ways, I guess it could be.  I want to talk about Christmas connections  this morning, how connected are you to the reality of Christmas?

Isaiah Chapter 59 beginning with Verse 1, and for now I'll read the first 6 verses:

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

Isa 59:2  but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Isa 59:3  For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.

Isa 59:4  No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

Isa 59:5  They hatch adders' eggs; they weave the spider's web; he who eats their eggs dies, and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched.

Isa 59:6  Their webs will not serve as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.

Now, if I wanted a real pick-me-up in the morning that probably wouldn't be my chosen devotional reading.  So what in the world are we doing looking at Isaiah 59, why, is a matter of fact, something like that in the Bible? 

Well, I want to come back to that, but so you can see where we are going let me lay a little groundwork.  We are at Christmastime, obviously.  It's December.  Some of you are looking forward to Christmas with great excitement; many of you are looking forward to it with great dread, and, in all honesty, some of you are looking at it with a great deal of sadness because the holidays bring back so many things that are memories that are now only memories and those are difficult days for some.  The stress of Christmas is well noted and so are the debts of Christmas for which we very unthinkingly dive into debt and pay for this year's Christmas maybe by next year's.

But we want to talk about Christmas in its reality.  Maybe that will be a theme word today, is the word real, because as we move into things like Christmas that have saturated our culture and has kind of eased its way out into all areas.  We know we are going to have to shave away a whole lot of plastic to get down to what is real.  Tell me, when is the time of year that you can go into any secular business almost, any restaurant in the public square and hear them singing plain songs about the redemption of Jesus Christ at Christmastime? If that's not an oxymoron, I don't know what one is.  I've never known department stores or anybody else that plays that music to be real proponents for the gospel, the exclusive saving gospel of Jesus Christ but in this time, we’ll play that music!  Anywhere!  And, do you know what, it can go in one ear and out the other of everybody that is in the store or the restaurant, including the believers in Christ, as if it has no impact. That, my friend is the numbing effect of when things become less than real.  So, over the next few weeks up to Christmas, we're going to talk about Christmas!  Isn't that great?  And we're going to talk about how today what connections Christmas makes and what conflicts Christmas has brought, and what things in all of life Christmas itself has completed, that is the real Christmas.  We're going to learn how Christmas grounds us in truth and sends us out in mission, gives us purpose in life.  How Christmas connects us to God, to each other, and to the world.  It gives a real in-depth purpose in life, as we move through the Christmas story. Lord willing, as we get past Christmas into the new year, we're going to take a look at the state of the church the first Sunday of the New Year.  We're going to look at who we are as a body and what God has called us to do and together, covenant together to move forward, and then we’ll take a detailed look at a passage in the Book of Ephesians, Ephesians 4.  We're going to march through that phrase by phrase to understand who the church is, how she became the church, and how the church acts in this world and for what purpose.  So this all lays the groundwork for that.

Kathy used the word sentiment or sentimental before she sang.  I have used the word sentiment or sentimental at least in my prayer, so I want to offer a definition from the Oxford English Dictionary of sentiment and sentimental.  Now, in all fairness, there are some positive ways the words sentiment and sentimental can be used. However, I'm going to use them in their actual sense which I think is chiefly pejorative or negative.  It is not a solid word; it is a descriptive word.  It is a word that talks about what we are and what we do at times, its basic meaning, sentiment, is a mental feeling.  Now put that one together if you could.  That's about how hard to define sentiment is.  What Christmas has become is a sentimental holiday or season.  Would somebody please help me understand today what the Christmas spirit is?  Everybody gets in the Christmas spirit.  What would that be? Is that a feeling? Is that green trees and red poinsettias? Is it shopping? Is it music?  What is the Christmas spirit?  Nobody could possibly define that.  You ask it in the church and you get one thing.  You ask it in the public square you get another thing.  You ask it of somebody who is a total pagan you get another thing.  What is the Christmas spirit? It is undefinable.  It's sentiment. 

Sentiment:    Sentiment is a mental feeling.  It is the tendency to be swayed by feelings rather than by reason.

That's the definition out of the dictionary.  Sentiment is the tendency to be swayed by feelings rather than by reason.  It is a display of mockish tenderness.

Now, I want you to think hard with me.  I think we live in a very sentimental culture.  I'm confident we have a sentimental church subculture. 

Sentimental: Sentimental is the showing or being affected by emotion rather than reason.

Have you ever heard a song sung, the music moved you, you had never heard it before; the words were somewhat compelling and you wept at the song?  Have you ever watched a movie and you sat there the whole time telling yourself, "It's just a movie, it's just a movie." [boo-hoo, sniff] and you are boo-hooing at the end of the movie, and it's a cartoon!

So, God called us in Isaiah 1:18

Isa 1:18  "Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

It is the nature of wool to be white.  It is the nature to be snow to be white.  It is more than color that he changes; it is our very nature.  And he wants us to reason.  He wants us to go back and forth with him about this issue that we have to deal with at Christmas.  I think the verse, you don't need to turn there, we're going to stay in Isaiah 59, but the verse that captured this for me is Matthew 1:21.

Mat 1:21  … and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."

Oh, you know what?  Now, would you classify that as a sentimental verse or a factual verse? You can have all the sentiment you want to about that verse, but there is no sentiment in it.  There is fact in it.  It is an action that God took on behalf of his people to take away their sins, and that's what God wants us to reason about.  Yes, he wants us to feel about it.  Feeling is part of the very God-given makeup that we have, but feelings are never in the driver's seat.  They are guided by this understanding that he has given us according to facts and as high as the fact go, that's how high your feelings should go, and my friend, the facts of the gospel go higher than we can measure.  There is not a thing wrong with real emotion about Christmas.  So reason with me for just a few minutes, would you?

There's a bit of a spectrum in this room.  In all honesty it's not really broad.  If it was we wouldn't be in church on Sunday morning.  You'd be at home sleeping in, watching some kind of television program, if the weather permitted fishing or playing golf, or out shopping.  But you're here, so…. But within us there is a pretty wide spectrum of those who might say we believe the Bible from cover-to-cover.  There are those who say, "It's got some truth in it."  There are some who are here because their mother made them.  I don't know why you are here, but at least let's reason at this level.  Most of us, if not all of us in this room, believe there is a God.  Most of us, if not all of us in this room, believe that God created the heavens and the earth.  We may not have an agreement whether he really did it in 6 days or whether he did it over eons of time and that's not my subject this morning, but we do believe that God is the cause of what is here.  Most of us believe that.  Now, if that is the case, and we believe God is the source and the maker of all that is here, reason would tell us then that God is also the owner of everything that exists.  Is that fair?  That has to be fair.  I don't see any other way around it.  And, since he is the owner of everything that is here, and he designed me, he designed all humans, he breathed into us the breath of life, then as the owner and the creator and God-ruler over all, he does have expectations of how we are to live.  He has put those expectations in print for us and it isn't really that hard to know what we should do, so the question we have to ask, this is working our way into making Christmas connections and understanding Isaiah 59, is have we lived according to the way God would have us live? Now I want you to answer that question for yourself, not out loud, not by shaking of the head, nothing.  But let's make it personal.  Have you lived  the way you know God expects you to live? Now, I'm reasoning with you.  I'm not asking you to feel like you have.  I'm asking you to answer that question directly. 

It's interesting how we think about that. Right after a wedding here yesterday, Connie Homola - a man bumped into her and he had come in off the Interstate needing help and I've done this for so many years I could have told you his story before he talked to me, but we almost always help everybody that comes through here unless they just pull some really bad stunt, and he was hitchhiking, he said, from Jackson, Mississippi to Dayton, Ohio; he made it all the way here.  First of all, I wanted to congratulate him on what a good hitchhiker he was; that's pretty tough this day and time.  I got him some food through vouchers and a night's stay so he could clean up and began to talk with him about the gospel.  I don't think I have ever talked to anybody coming through the church that doesn’t say they know the gospel or they know Christ and they have made a commitment to him.  Strangely, however, it's very much like people I talk to every day, about their commitment to Christ.  I said, "Well, do you understand what it means to be right with God through Jesus Christ?" "Yes sir. I made the alter call back in 1989.  Now, now I like to drink my beer, and I like to smoke my cigarettes, I guess you'd say I'm backslidin' right now."  And I said, "Well, you know what, God really isn't too worried about you drinking your beer and you smoking your cigarettes.  What God is concerned about is do you have a real relationship with him through his son? Because it's not your not drinking and your not smoking that gets you to heaven.  It's taking all you are and placing that on Christ alone and trusting Him to do the work to get you there. 

That's not sentimental, that's factual.  Have you responded to an alter call?  Have you prayed a little prayer? Have you done some religious things, but you just have feelings about God and Christ?  Reason  with me today.  "You shall call his name, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."  That phrase is pregnant with truth that could take us from here to eternity.  His people; why do his people need to be saved from their sins if they are his people?  You could ask questions about that all along.  Who is he saving?  What's he doing? Who did he die for? If you will come to him, if you will place your faith in this one who came at Christmas who made the greatest connection from heaven to earth that ever has been made, can be made or will be made, he, my friend, will save you.  And that's reason because it's fact. 

Matthew 1 sets the stage.  Jesus is being born.  They are instructing his parents what to name him, Jesus, Jehovah is salvation because that's what he's going to do.  So, my point is this:  Why do I end up in Isaiah 59?  Because, if you take away the issue of sins and people, specifically sins, we have no need of Christmas.  Why did Jesus come? To save his people from their sins.  So let's look at Isaiah 59. 

Isaiah 59:1

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

That is what Jesus came to save us from.  Let me say this up front.  The very first thing that Isaiah said is that God is not incapable of saving you.  He is not too weak, his hand is not too weak nor too short.  His ear is not dull that he cannot hear, but there is something keeping him from saving you and there is something keeping him from hearing you.

Psalm 66:18 says:

Psa 66:18  If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Sentimental people think, "I can live any way I want to.  God is just a really nice God.  I feel like God is good; I feel like he is that.  So I'm going to pray and God will hear me and God will answer my prayers."  It's like praying before the football game that your team will win. 

Let's talk a minute.  Sin really is not a popular issue to talk about, and to be very honest with you there are some times we preachers talk about it with great pride because you see when we talk about sin, we can go home and tell the choir that we really let them have it this morning.  It's kind of like preaching on hell and enjoying it.  You can't do that.  You see, whenever a preacher preaches on sin, that's one sinner telling other sinners what God has said about us.  The one thing that does puzzle me about our society and our churches is our fear to deal with reality.

My Bible says that Jesus came to save his people from their sins.  God's word says "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  The Bible says "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."  It seems to me that to get to the free gift and to get to the forgiveness that Jesus offers and the removal of sins, I've got to see my sins in the first place.  So, when I begin to reason about it, and then I think, Okay, what does this mean, and I look at myself and I look at our world…. Let me just read you a couple of other verses.  Look in Chapter 59, and I want you to jump down to verse 14 and you tell me if this doesn’t sound like a bit of a description of today's society.  God is saying this is what a society looks like that is infected by sin and separated from God.  Verse 14:

Isa 59:14  Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter.

Isa 59:15  Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

The one who tries to do right in the public square becomes the prey of the people who are confused, blinded by sin.  We look across our world at the behavior of humanity who is supposedly the peak of civilization and we find that we're not operating very well in this world and when we take a look at ourselves, and we think about our thoughts and our envies and our, just all about us, we know something isn't right! And that something, the Bible uses the word called sin to describe it.  And we must read Verse 1 again and then we move on….

Isa 59:1  Behold [take a look at this, wake up, look at this truth] the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

Isa 59:2  but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

We find in the New Testament the Bible saying "You shall call his name Jesus for He shall save his people from their sins."  That's when  God made the connection all the way from heaven down all the way to earth.  This separation did not keep his arm away nor his ear from hearing the cries of those who would return to him.  The real barrier is not a misunderstanding.  The real barrier is that we know there is a God who made everything and owns everything and has a way for us to live and we have rebelled and gone our own way.  That's the barrier.  What do we do about it?

Verse 3 is just a description of what people are and do apart from God.  It is both literal and metaphorical.  He is using pictures with words that these people understood to grasp what sin actually does.  Verse 3:

Isa 59:3  For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity;

[In other words there is nothing about what we do that is not tainted in some way with sin]

…your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness.

Out of the heart the tongue speaks or the mouth speaks, Jesus said, so our heart is the effect of our very words.

Isa 59:4  No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; [I think that describes the American people] they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.

First we think it up and then we act it out and then he gives this amazing word picture, Verse 5:

Isa 59:5  They hatch adders' eggs [That's a snake]; they weave the spider's web;

What does that mean?  Well, what he's saying is, what you have conceived in you and then you bring birth to is like a snake egg. And if somebody eats that or takes that into their lifestyle, what does it do?

… he who eats their eggs dies,

That's the effect of sin in society, it poisons us, and then when we, on our own, see that and we decide to stomp it out, every adder's egg we stomp, out comes a worse snake, a viper.  And without a remedy from God, every remedy we try to apply to it just makes the problem worse.  As a matter of fact, then we're going to weave things, we're going to make things to put over our troublesome stuff.  We're going to cover ourselves like Adam and Eve did with their fig leaves.

They've woven a spider's web, but verse 6 says "Their webs will not serve as clothing.  Men will not cover themselves with what they make."

The clothing made with these sinful webs will neither cover nor comfort us, and so we're left with a problem.  Verses 14-16 we just read are the picture of society infected by sin and disconnected from God.  We have no guide and no ground for truth or righteousness and we just kind of go our way. 

Now, look at the second half of verse 15:

Isa 59:15  Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

God is never totally disconnected from this earth.  There is no where you can go that God is not.  He sees what is going on.  He knows what is happening and what he saw on earth displeased him.  It displeased him because he is holy and he is righteous.  He created earth for different purposes.  We've rebelled and gone away and he is displeased with that.  All of this happened with God's full awareness.  Then in Verse 16 we read these words:

Isa 59:16  He [God] saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede; Total disconnect!  And that is frightening.

Do you have any real connection with God?  Not a sentimental one, a serious and factual one?  What do we do?  Nobody willing and nobody able. He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no one to intercede.  Disconnect!  But look at the next half of the verse… this is where it turns the corner:

….then his own arm brought him salvation.

Isa 59:1  Behold, the LORD's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear;

What Isaiah is saying to a wicked and wayward people, God has the power to do it, God will listen if you will call, but you must first confess your sins and that is exactly what they did.  They made a confession in verses 9 through 16.  God was amazed there was no one to go between, so what does he do? He does it himself and he does it with zeal.  Look at these word pictures.  Verse 17:

Isa 59:17  He put on righteousness as a breastplate [that's a piece of a warrior's armor], and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing…

As if God needed any armor - he's talking to us in human terms so that we can get a feel for the zeal of God that performs this according to what Isaiah also said, I think, in Chapter 9; the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will make this happen.

Oh… he put on garments of vengeance for clothing….

…. and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.

What that says is, when God went about to save his people through Jesus, he took all of his divine omnipotence, his power without limit, and he worked a plan that was so real, absolute, concrete and sufficient that nothing could stop  God's saving arm, not even our sin, and he did it all on his own.  There was no one to intercede.  Now, there's two sides to this salvation, if we're going to look at it really instead of sentimentally.  The first side is that these connections of Christmas, it is kind of surmised in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "And he made him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."  An exchange took place: Total righteousness met total sin and they exchanged.  Jesus took our sin, died for it and did away with it.  We were given his righteousness that can never be done away with and that's what happened at Christmas.  But that's the two sides.  On the Cross you have the meeting of perfect justice and wrath, yes, and perfect love and grace.  You think they don't mix.  Oh, but in God they do!  Because he's the only one that could do it. 

Verse 18:

Isa 59:18  According to their deeds, so will he repay,

Remember we talked about, we knew there was a way in which God wanted us to live according to their deeds so he will repay them, repay is an important word to remember. 

….He will repay wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment.

Isa 59:19  So they shall fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the LORD drives.

But there's a second side.  I think that's to make sure we understand that there's nothing unreal or sentimental about Christmas.  There is never, and you need to understand this, there is never a sin swept under the rug by God. Why do I need to drive that home, so you can feel bad? No.  So that you can understand what happened on the cross. 

I don't even know all of my sin or sins, but God does because God knows everything.  And, you see, the act of Christ on the cross was no random act. He took that perfect knowledge of me being a sinner and he took his perfect knowledge and the perfection of his son and on the cross he was crucified.  It wasn't a general crucifixion for I think Tony could be saved and I think he's got this much sin.  I'm not trying to make light of it because I think the reverse makes light of it.  According to the perfections of God and the revelation of his Word, when he died on the cross for my sin he did not miss one atom of it.  He didn't waste his blood on sin I don't have.  I don't think he wasted one drop.  I think every drop of blood paid for sin because you see God is perfect and he is just and when Jesus took God's wrath on the cross, it wasn't a random wrath, so that's why he knows his children by name.  That's how well he knows you, and that's why we need to know God did not sweep any sin under the rug because it would have been assault on his perfect justice and it would have so rounded off his love we would have made it sentimental.  Oh, Jesus just loves everybody, and there is truth to that.  "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son," but is that love for you? Do you know that? Have you trusted him?  Or are you just sentimental that God is love!  Look at what happened, Verse 20:

Isa 59:20  "And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression," declares the LORD.

Oh, what do you want out of this passage of scripture? When he comes with his breastplate of righteousness and his helmet of salvation, garments of vengeance on for clothing, wrapped in his own zeal as a cloak, do you want him to come according to your deeds and be repaid for them, or do you want him to come in that same zeal and him be your redeemer?  I want a redeemer!  Oh….oh I want a redeemer!  It was God's idea, "And you shall call his name, Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 

Oh, I've been a Christian for a long time now by the grace of God.  It's not because of anything I do, because of what he's done, and I want to tell you something. The more I learn about how he dressed himself to come and deal sufficiently with my sin, the more comfortable I am recognizing the depths of its corruption within me because I know no matter how deep it goes the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save.  The cleansing power of the blood of Jesus has not missed one spot of my soul nor yours if you will trust him.  That, my friend, is Christmas.  It's when God connected himself to the earth and that which was conceived in Mary, the angel told Joseph, was of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit overshadowed her, conceived in her was God the Son.  The Son of God!  The God-man, Jesus Christ.  So, at Christmas you have God and man in Christ.  At Christmas you have the angels of heaven singing the praises of God's savior on earth. At Christmas you have perfect justice meeting perfect grace.  You have perfect holiness meeting perfect and awful sinfulness, and you have God meeting you!  And that removes the sentiment.

"But to as many as received him," John wrote, "to them gave he the power to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name."

This is history.  This is reality!  Now, the question that has to be asked, "Are you connected to the real Christmas by Christ?"  Now is not the time for church sentimental games.  God really did this.  This was his idea, it was not ours.  No man could dream it up.  How do I get connected here?  Well, it is as simple as a child's faith, but it's a believing faith.  It's a faith that sees "I'm one of those guys he's coming to repay if I don't repent and get a redeemer." So you face yourself, you face God, you say, "I repent of my sins and I trust Jesus through his death on the cross, his burial and his resurrection to give me eternal life."  Now, when that happens that gives you new life in Christ, it makes you a new creature, but then starts the process of Christian living.  It doesn’t mean you're perfect now, as far as earthly living.  It means you have willful choices to make, day by day, and the sign of that faith being real is that you desire to make those choices day by day to become more like Christ.  A sentimental Christmas connection is "Oh, I need to pray a prayer, yeah, I need to trust Jesus so I can go to heaven when I die" and then it doesn’t make a lick of difference in your life.  That's sentimental.  Serious and real is when you recognize truth and say, Oh, God really did do this and I really am a sinner, but this one who came wrapped in zeal, clothed in a breastplate of righteousness, having on the helmet of salvation, he can take away my sin, he can do this!  This is a real salvation, it is not sentimental! And my friends what does this mean for you and me?  Oh…. It means we can be connected now to heaven on earth.  Are you?  And finally, we as a church, this December and through the next year and the rest of our life together, we must ask the question, are we connected? Are we missional? Are we like Christ incarnating the gospel, is it in us so we can take it to other people?  May God do so among all of us.  Let's pray.