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And together we’ve just been studying the idea of God and what is important for us as a group of people to believe. What is it we can put our lives towards? And what is this life really worth living for? Last week we looked and answered the question and we saw how God pursues. And throughout the entire Bible. It’s one major theme after you as a follower of Jesus this morning, God is after you. He’s been cleverly termed by theologians and people who’ve come to know the Lord as the great hound of heaven. Jesus is not okay with the current condition of your relationship between he and you. He always desires to draw closer to you and love you more deeply and intimately than the day before. That is God’s plan for your life. Life is all about relationships, and it starts with your relationship with God. And we saw this whole pursuit of God after us as people culminate in one important fact that God became flesh, God came. The birth of children is sort of an important event, isn’t it? I mean, it’s the most beautiful, grossest thing combined together to to create a delightful experience for those who have had kids or to those who have been there at the hospital when a young sister, brother, niece or nephew was born. It is a glorious thing. At the birth of the child or a child, you get to witness something sacred. The first time that you hold a baby in your arms and see its frail body.
There is something miraculous about those moments, and I can’t help but think that God, on his throne, subjected himself to such frailty in our world, to prove to us as people that God loves you and that God is after you and that God wants a relationship with you. God came to this world because he wasn’t okay with the way things were. God is our creator and yet being our creator, he lived among the created. He accommodated us by becoming flesh and living among us. He wrapped himself in the way that man lives to explain to us the way that God is. Some important questions. This morning I’m going to ask just about the coming of Jesus, and I’m only going to make one large point at the end of this sermon that I want us to take with us today. But the first important question I want to begin with this morning, as we think about the coming of Jesus, as did we know that Christ was coming. Some of you may be able to answer this question just immediately if if you’ve studied much in the Old Testament, especially, did we know that Christ was coming? Let me just throw out an important idea when we study about the the the birth of Jesus, when we celebrate Christmas together. There were some people who showed up at the time that Jesus was born. We call them the wise Men.
They came from Babylon, which coincidentally happened to be the place that Israel was taken into captivity. And all of a sudden these men from Babylon, influenced by Jewish culture, came to the understanding that when they saw the star over Bethlehem, that the Messiah was born and had enough understanding of the Old Testament to know that the Savior was here, and so took the journey into Jerusalem to figure out where Jesus was. Did we know Jesus was coming? Absolutely. The Bible has given us all sorts of clues throughout the Old Testament that Christ was coming. Here’s six significant ones that I’ve just pointed out to us this morning. The Bible is loaded with hundreds of references, prophetic references about Jesus. And the coolest thing about these prophetic references is that they were written hundreds of years before Jesus. We have scrolls of the Book of Isaiah, that date 200 years before the coming of Christ. And if you were to turn in your Bible to Isaiah 53, it’s as if someone is sitting below the cross of Jesus, was being crucified and dictating to us everything that’s taking place hundreds of years before Jesus would hang there. Did we know he was coming? Absolutely. The Bible gave us all sorts of clues. When things are coming that are important, we look for a cry to those events, don’t we? I mean, the more that television advertises a new television series coming out, the more you might be drawn to see it, right? The more a particular band might be playing a revenue, and the more they or a venue, excuse me.
And the more they send towards advertising, the more they’re going to draw a crowd to come and recognize that someone, something important is about to happen. And God did the same. God sent out his voice for us to recognize that the Messiah would come. I can remember as a little kid shopping in Kmart back in the day when Kmart was cool, right? I don’t know if that was ever really a day. That was a long, long time ago. And I remember one time as a kid, I lost my mom. I got so fixated on this toy that I needed, and all of a sudden I look around, she’s not there. Have you ever been there as a kid? You get panicked and all of a sudden you begin running around. Mommy, mommy! But before you see your mom and that important uniting together again, what you begin to hear is her voice. It brings us a certain amount of comfort and knowing that she’s near. And for thousands of years, that’s what God did to us before the coming of Christ. The Jewish people knew that they needed a messiah. They were practicing an opportunity to recognize that through the Passover, the shedding of an innocent animal, a lamb, they would sacrifice and apply the blood to their life. And whoever applied that blood, the death angel passed over we saw last week.
And the cry of the coming of Jesus was dictated to us throughout the Old Testament. Clue number one. Genesis 315. It tells us that he would be born of the seed of a woman, not of a man. He would come directly just from the seed of a woman. Isaiah 714 that it would be a virgin birth, and his name would be called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. He would be born in Bethlehem. You know how incredible it is that God pinpointed out all the places in the world that Jesus could be born. He picked like Podunk Bethlehem. And that’s like that’s like, I don’t even know. Payson. 20 years ago, you know, nothing was going on there, right? Bethlehem had. Sorry if you’re from Payson. Bethlehem had had, like, 2000 people. I mean, this is where nobody sang out. I’m not saying that about Payson, but that’s where nobody hung out in Bethlehem. Hosea 11 one, he’ll be brought out of Egypt. Now, explain that Jesus is born in Bethlehem, but he’s coming out of Egypt. That doesn’t even make sense. But when the coming of Christ came, we saw that Jesus fled into Egypt out of fear for his life, with his with his family. He didn’t have the choice, but his dad took him there and God called him out of Egypt when the leaders passed away. It tells us in Malachi three one that John the Baptizer would come first. And not only that, if you read Malachi three one, it also says that Jesus would go preach into the temple.
Meaning that Jesus had to come before 70 AD because Jerusalem, the temple that the Jews worshipped, was destroyed in 70 A.D. for 2000 years, the Jewish people have longed for another temple to be built, but nothing has existed there. And yet this Messiah would preach at the presence of this temple. In Psalm 2223, Isaiah 53, all referring to the death of Jesus on the cross, prophetically fulfilling that Jesus would die on the cross, that Jesus would be mocked when he sat there. That Jesus would be scourged for for proclaiming his name to to the Jewish people. Jesus would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. All of this pointing to us as an indicator that yes, hope is coming. Jesus is coming. So the question then becomes Then how did God come? What did that look like when Jesus came? Do you know there’s people that actually believe that Jesus never existed? I’m going to show you in just a few minutes that that’s just bonkers. But. But there are people who believe that Jesus never even walked the face of the earth. How did he come? What did that look like? Begins to open up a picture for us in the book of Matthew, the coming of Christ and Matthew chapter one and verse 18, and just describing Mary. If you’re here this morning as ladies, maybe you can begin to relate to the life of Mary being a woman, maybe having some similar experiences.
Mary was a very young lady at this time, and it tells us about Mary, that Mary loved, loved God. And I can imagine she’s about to be married. She’s betrothed to to Joseph. And in Jewish culture, when you’re going to be married, you you have what they would kind of call an engagement period or a betrothal period where you’re you’re connected to your spouse and saying before public, yes, I want to marry this individual. Yes, I want to be betrothed to this individual. And the husband would go away and for the next year prepare a home for his future bride. And in Jewish culture at that point that you were betrothed, although the marriage was never consummated, you were considered in the eyes of Jewish culture as being married. And if you ever wanted to annul that betrothal, you had to get a legal to divorce to do so. And so, in the eyes of the Jewish culture, Mary and Joseph were considered married, but the marriage hasn’t been consummated yet. They hadn’t become one flesh. And Mary is dreaming about this opportunity when she’s going to be able to walk down that aisle with her beautiful Joseph. Right. And all those things that she’s thought about as a young girl growing up. And all of a sudden God comes to her and says, oh, yeah, Mary, you’re pregnant. This is going to look a little weird in our culture today especially.
You’re you’re not being married and you’re pregnant. But it says in verse 18, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together. She was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit, to give an indicator of the type of ridicule that Mary received in the Babylonian Talmud. It wasn’t enough for these people just to leave her alone and and just trust the fact that their prophetic scripture said that a virgin will conceive and give birth, and his name would be God among us. But the Babylonian Talmud, it refers to Jesus as the son of a leopard. It goes on and calls Jesus. I didn’t put the word up there. That’s that’s a curse word. I don’t even know what that looks like on the screen. But Jesus is a insert whatever you want. Actually, don’t think about that. Jesus is a of an adulteress. The Babylonian Talmud, it goes on to call Jesus if I can get it, Mary strayed from her husband. Or it goes on to say about her that she’s the descendant of princes and of kings and governors, but she played the harlot with carpenters. Could you imagine the experience that Mary was enduring by her own people, writing such remarks about her as a young lady. She just simply loved God. And she understood that she wanted to grow in her relationship with God.
And here comes these people all of a sudden, just inserting their opinions into her life and bringing such a hindrance and a burden upon her shoulders. The Bible not only records that Mary was with child, but it also records for us Joseph’s reaction to this. Could you imagine Joseph’s experience? Mary now having to convince Joseph? No, Joseph. It’s it’s a virgin child. It says in verse 19, and Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, plan to send her away secretly. At this point, Joseph’s thinking about his beautiful bride and all of a sudden begins to receive the ridicule of the community. What was to be a beautiful wedding with his bride has now become a nightmare for him. And rather than just publicly humiliate Mary at the time that Joseph and Mary were living. It was even proper, according to the Jewish law, to take Mary out and stone her. As a matter of fact, when young ladies got married, if they were married and it was found out that they were not a virgin, that they were taken to the father’s home of the young girl, and they were stoned on the father’s front porch, because it was the father’s responsibility to look after the nurturing and caring of the daughter. When she got married, she was to be a virgin. And Joseph, not wanting to disgrace Mary, comes up with a plan to send her away. And it says in verse 20, but when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.
For the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. God came in the flesh. Now could you imagine in verse 20 being Joseph. Verse 19. You were thinking, this is such a stressful situation. Everything that’s happened, all the pressure that we’re experiencing in our community now, and then all of a sudden God says, well, you think that’s tough? You’re about to take care of God. God in the flesh. You’re about to adopt Jesus. And can I pause here for a minute and just say to our men who maybe have adopted kids, have ever considered adopting kids, that this is a mark of a godly example? God is all about adoption in his kingdom. God is all about taking single women with young children into your home and nurturing and love them and caring for them the way that God would desire. I mean, we as people of God. The Bible describes us before we knew Jesus, before we placed our faith in Christ that we were aliens to his kingdom.
But when we accepted what Jesus has done and we were invited into his family, the Bible says that we were adopted under him. Joseph himself came and adopted God in the flesh. I could imagine the pressure he faced. What was it like when God came? Could you just picture for a moment what Mary and Joseph were going through in the culture in which they lived in? But the question is, I don’t want to over conclude this, but did Jesus really come? Did Jesus really walk the earth? How do we know that the people in our Bible aren’t just making this up for gain? I mean, did they get a Lexus out of this deal? You know? Did they lie and get everything they ever wanted and live in big, wealthy mansions? And the answer to that is no. I mean, for 300 years, the church faced such tremendous persecution that to say that you followed after Jesus, you lost your life. First Corinthians chapter 15, it says about the early church, and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day, is talking about Jesus according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, which is Peter, and to the 12 apostles, and that he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Talking about death or not sleeping for a long time, the Bible says to itself that even after the resurrection of Jesus, hundreds of people saw Jesus resurrected.
So many people saw Jesus resurrected that 500 people saw Jesus resurrected at one time. Did Jesus really come? Yes. How do we know that? Well, the evidence suggests that for the next 300 years, these people who saw the resurrected Jesus lived in such a way in this world that they knew nothing, even death was going to stop them from experiencing eternity with God. And so when people threatened their life, they laughed in the face of death because they knew they had a greater hope having seen a resurrected Christ. And you could say, well, that’s what the Bible says. But do we really have any other evidence outside of Scripture that might suggest to us that other people knew Jesus was a real person? Maybe this might be new to you this morning if you’ve never seen such things like this. But history is full of individuals who are alive at the time of Christ who wrote about Jesus. Cornelius Tacitus said of Nero, this is around 55 A.D. if you don’t know. Nero. Nero is one of the heaviest persecutors of the Christian church. When it first began, says, said Nero, falsely charged with guilt, and punished the most exquisite tortures the persons called Christians who were hated. Christ, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, who pressed for a time but broke. Broke out again, not only through Judea, but through the city of Rome.
Just 20 years after the death of Jesus, this guy is writing about this Christ in which people follow it all the way to the point of death, even from Jerusalem to Rome. Now, within 20 years after the time of Jesus, people have traveled so far proclaiming this name that even in Rome, at the face of death, they’re still talking about Christ. Did Jesus really come? Well, it goes on and tells us, even in different historical places. There are references in your notes to these. What? Am I having trouble? Give me a clicker. So Estonia’s writing about the rule of Claudius in A.D. 49 said the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Christ. He, talking about Claudius, expelled them from Rome, proclaiming Jesus. And you can even read about that in acts chapter 18 in your Bible. Thalleous, this is really cool. Thalleous inflation existed in two different regions of the world, but on the day Jesus was crucified, they wrote about in a total eclipse of the sun. When you read in the Gospels about the death of Jesus, you see that there is darkness over the world. And what’s interesting about it is when you go back in history and you see that these guys have written about an eclipse of the sun, that the day that Jesus was crucified, it was a full moon. You can’t have an eclipse on a full moon. And yet we have two different men from two different regions writing on the day that Jesus was crucified, that there was an enormous eclipse of the sun that was taking place.
Again, there’s the references to that, One of the more interesting, and I’ve referred to this this morning as Pliny the Younger. He’s the governor of an area, and he’s writing to an emperor asking how to handle the Christians. He stated in his letter that he had killed so many of them, including children, that he wondered how he should continue killing them. He wrote they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light. They sang an alternate verses, a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bound themselves to a solemn oath not to do any wicked deeds. That just happened within 80 years after the death of Jesus. Maybe one of the most interesting figures who wrote about Jesus in history was a man by the name of Josephus. Josephus, to our knowledge, never at any point became a Christian. But Josephus is really recognized in history because he is a. He was the Jewish historian in the first century. Josephus was born just a couple of years after the death of Christ, and so it’s still fresh on the minds of the people. And when Josephus begins to record for the Jewish people the history that took place during the time of his life. And the few centuries just before him. This is what he says.
Jesus, a wise man and doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. Pilate had condemned him to the cross. Those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, and the tribe of Christians so named for him are not extinct at this day. It’s amazing to me that Josephus, not a follower of Jesus, still said that he’s a teacher of truth and able to do wonderful works, recognizing what Jesus did on this earth. Did Jesus come? Carl Sagan would say no. Ignorance would say, you could say no. But history says absolutely not only in the lives of the believers is it evident that Jesus has come, but even the lives of unbelievers. You can see the evidence of Jesus as a reality in the lives of people. Jesus. That baby comes so fragile in this world, made such an impact that now when we write the year on our checks, it signifies the coming of Jesus. He separated the AD and the BC for us. This was an important event. Jesus came. And so the question I want to ask this morning is God comes. Did God really come in the flesh? Is Jesus really God and man? How exactly does that work? If you want some theologian impressive terms this morning, you can just toss out to your friends later. We just talk about, you know, the hypostatic union that is the combination of man and God come together, you know what I mean? Or or the kenosis of Christ.
When Jesus becomes God in the flesh and he empties Himself as God, but lives as man, that is referred to as the kenosis. You know, one of the most interesting things about Christ is that no other religion in the world, any any of the religious leaders, ever proclaim themselves to be God except for one. And that is Jesus, you’ll find cult leaders claiming to be God. But no major religion ever has a leader claiming to be God except for Jesus. And Jesus in fact, thought himself to be God in the flesh, says John 1030, I and the father are one. And what’s Jesus saying when he when he says that the Jews, you see the response of the Jewish people picked up stones again to stone him. And Jesus answered them, I showed you many good works from the father. For which of them are you stoning me? And the Jews answered him, for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy. And this is the important part, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God. The Jewish people understood what Jesus was saying, I am Emmanuel. I am God in the flesh. As a matter of fact, when John began the book of John Clever that he titled it that right. He started in the very first verse, as we would read in the book of Genesis, in the beginning, in Genesis one and in John one.
In the beginning was the word, and the word is referring to Jesus. Here it says, and the word was with God. And so we see Jesus and the father having a relationship, but it also says, and the word was God, the triunity being spoken of here. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. Jesus created it all, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. Everything Jesus made and in him was life, and the life was the light of men. If you want to experience eternal life, if you want to experience life for which you were created, the answer is in Genesis four, look to Jesus. John goes on and tells us through the rest of Scripture in verse nine, there was the true light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him, but as many as received him. To them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. You see God in this passage becoming a God who adopts. If you trust in Jesus and what he’s done for you by coming to the flesh and dying on the cross, you become a child of God.
Quit working to earn your way into heaven because it’s not possible. Jesus has paid it all. The great joy of knowing Jesus is that Jesus brings into our life both humility and joy. He brings into our life humility and knowing that we can never live up to the standard that God has called us to, which is perfection. But he brings us such joy in knowing that when Jesus hung on the cross and he said it was finished, it was finished. God brings us both humility and joy in that relationship with him. He tells us in this passage of Scripture that even though Jesus came, that even though Jesus proclaimed that his coming was near, that even though Jesus lived out every prophetic fulfillment that he could about his coming, when he came to his own, his own still chose to reject him. Them, goes on to tell us in John chapter one verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw the glory of God. For the first time in our flesh, glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than I. Notice what John is saying about Jesus. He who comes after me is higher than I.
And it says in the very last line of verse 15, for he existed before me. John was born six months before Jesus. Yet John is saying something significant about Christ and being before him, because Jesus has existed for eternity as God. In verse 16, for of his fullness we have received grace upon grace, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus, and the answer that Christ brought to her life wasn’t that we needed to try harder. In fact, trying harder became impossible to ever please God. What we needed was grace. And when Jesus came, he didn’t just bring grace, he brought grace upon grace because at any moment God could have called due the sin that you the sin payment that you owed him. But yet when Jesus came in that frail nature, he came for one reason to contextualize to us what we needed to know and to die for us what we could not give to God ourselves. And so in him we receive grace upon grace. So the question is, as Jesus became God and man, how do we really even begin to understand that as people, Jesus came from glory to humility, from throne to a manger, as a king to a servant, from wealth to poverty, he took on flesh. He contextualized himself as God into a man. He read books that we read. He wore clothes that we where he ate the foods that we ate. He spoke words that we spoke.
He became everything that we needed him to be. For us to understand what God desired for us to know. Jesus did that in Philippians chapter two. It begins to explain to us how Jesus did this. It says Jesus existed in the form of God. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and being made in the likeness of men. Verse seven isn’t saying that Jesus was God, and he became man, and he just forgot about being God for a while. What it’s saying is Jesus was God. He became. He became a man. And that God status that he had, that ruling and reigning throne that he lived upon, he emptied himself of that position and he just served this world to meet our need. Jesus emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient even to the point of death on the cross. Jesus says to us as people that he can relate. He doesn’t draw or run away from us. Excuse me in trouble, but he draws near to us. He gave up his glory to love us. The Bible says he came to the point of death. Religion asked the question, what can we do for God? But Jesus says he’s already done it all for us.
In verse nine, the Bible goes on and tells us, for this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. What it’s saying to us is that Jesus, when he came to this earth as God, ruling and reigning, he emptied himself as that of that status of God, and he served as a bond servant to us as people. As a slave to the needs of people. And when he died and was resurrected, he assumed his position of authority back into heaven. And so God is telling us, regardless of whatever you choose to do with Jesus in your life, one day you will bow. Jesus is Lord. The statement is often said bow now or bow later, but one day you will bow. The first time that Jesus came into this world, he came as a servant. But the next time that Jesus comes, he will come as a conquering king, ready to be a warrior against sin. And so what’s the point of all this? And this is what I want to draw to us this morning. Jesus became flesh, and he contextualized himself in this world so that I could hear God’s cry to me. Jesus prophetically proclaimed that he was coming into this world so that I could recognize him when he came, Jesus took on flesh and he ate the way we ate.
He slept the way we slept. And he served us so that we could recognize our need as a as a parent. You ever came to a young child and they asked you a complex question, and you realize if you explained to them the answer to this question in adult words, this is going to shoot right over your kid, and they’re just not going to get the point. And so you think for a minute, how in the world am I going to begin to explain this in a way that this child can understand? Jesus did the same thing. God’s saying to us, if I explained everything about my nature and everything that they need to understand about me, we’re going to watch their skulls explode. They’re not going to understand it, but I’m going to come in the flesh. I’m going to die for their sins, and I’m going to demonstrate to them what it is that God looks like in this world, so that they can understand, and so that we, being followers of Jesus, can begin to duplicate that in the lives of other people. And so precluding all of these verses. Paul made an important point before he said this about Jesus. He said this to us have this attitude in yourself, which was also in Christ Jesus. You know what the purpose of our church is? The purpose of our church is not you.
The purpose of our church is not to give you everything that you want. It’s not. We want to have fun and we want to do things that we enjoy together. That’s not the purpose. The purpose of the church is to go into this world, reach the lost for the sake of Christ, and watch them grow into a relationship with the Lord. That’s why we exist. And so everything that we should do as a body of believers isn’t. I want to come into church and this is what I want to see happen. I want this and this and this to happen. We shouldn’t view church that way. What we should say is, I want to go into this body of believers, and I want to become everything that Jesus was. So that way we can go out into this world and make disciples and push people closer to Christ and that growing relationship with him. How as a church can we do that? And sometimes the things that we like about meeting together, it may require us to get rid of. And sometimes the things that we don’t like, it may require us to add, you know, the church. Our church doesn’t run exactly the way that I might want it to, but we try to do it as best we can to meet the needs of people so that they can get closer to a relationship with Jesus.
The purpose of the church exists for reaching people for Christ and leading people to Christ. The Bible tells us to have this mind in us, which is also in Christ Jesus. Do you know what the world takes notice of? The world takes notice of people who sacrificially love. I mean, big deal. If we make up a body of of a church believers who are just like us, you know what I mean? A people that are easy to love. People that have similar ideas and characteristics and and interests that I have. Big deal. If we do that, there’s nothing significant about us as a body of believers. If that’s what we’re after, I want to live comfortable Christianity. I want to live the kind of life where I kind of serve Jesus, but I only do it when my schedule offers the free time. Jesus is saying to us in this passage of Scripture, listen, all these things that you saw Christ do. Everything that he gave up in his throne, he came to serve. And he says to us, have this mind in you, which is also in Christ Jesus. This requires us to wake up every day and think, God, how can I just love people unconditionally to you? You know who we still talk about today because of their unconditional love, who’s been dead for a while now? Mother Teresa. I mean, do you know what Mother Teresa did? She was only known because she having things that she needed in this world and having her needs met and could have lived comfortably the rest of her life, decided to go to India and loved the most unloved people you could ever imagine.
And the world stood in all of that love. What about Nelson Mandela. You’re familiar with Nelson Mandela. You know, Nelson Mandela only ruled as a leader for five years in South Africa as president. Do you know why everybody is so attracted to Nelson Mandela? It’s because Nelson Mandela lived in South Africa, and he believed he tried to lead a government regime that taught democracy and freedom for people. And the people who were in charge of South Africa at the time decided they didn’t like that. And for 25 years plus, through Nelson Mandela, into a prison in which he was in a labor camp, having to carry rocks back and forth in his camp. When Nelson Mandela got out of prison, do you know what he said? It wasn’t revenge. It was love and forgive. Everyone is so good at reading verses like this and saying, you know, we need to have that attitude like Jesus and and we need to sacrifice like Jesus. But then when someone wrongs you, they need to pay. The world stood in awe of people like Mother Teresa. And the world stood of all people like Nelson Mandela, because at the opportunity they had to go after theirs and just make themselves happy and to get vengeance for things that have been done wrong against them.
They decided just to love and to see that change take place. What I’m saying to you this morning is verse five is a tremendous verse to the life of us as believers. And this is a verse that you can write on a note card and hang above your head every morning and just memorize it and think about it and let it saturate into your mind as you look at the needs of the people in this world and begin to love the way that Jesus loved you. See how significant of a change Jesus is calling us to make into this world. God is calling us to serve him, and at times where it’s easy to think about my own needs, to think about the needs of others, and at times where I think about hurting other people the way that they’ve hurt me. Instead, I just love and forgive this mind in which Jesus carried contextualizes who Christ is in the lives of other people I love. One of my favorite quotes comes from Winston Churchill that says, these are not dark days. These are great days. For no matter how dark the day may be, the greater your light may shine. For Christ is saying to us, whenever you’re in any obstacle in this world, it’s not an opportunity to think about vengeance. It’s an opportunity to think that if in this situation full of hatred, if I love the name of Jesus, is going to be proclaimed more beautifully into this world.
It’s important for us to think about because we’re about to take on a bigger facility, which means we need to fill more seats. There are people that aren’t here, but the Lord wants them here. The responsibility doesn’t just rest on my shoulders. It’s on everyone’s shoulders. Thinking about verse five. We look at our community in which we live, and we just give it everything that we have, the way that Jesus has done. And in the end, we say for us, it doesn’t matter what happens, whether we’re mocked or shamed, because in the end, we have a greater hope than anything this world has to offer. Anyway, I’m going to take the opportunity to just close in a word of prayer. I want you guys, as we get ready to close, to think about your relationship with God. Think about verse five as we lead today, think about what it meant for Jesus, why he came in the flesh, and what it means for us to live that out as followers of Christ, too. It’s not an easy road, it’s a sacrificial road. But in that sacrifice, people see Christ in you. When I pray, I’m going to invite Mark and Russ up for just a brief meeting for you guys to be a part of, and then we’ll dismiss after that. But let’s pray. God, we thank you so much for your love, your grace, and your.