Pastor Mark Mikels - December 2h 2014 "ADORE HIM - HE IS THE SON OF MARY!" 'Season of Adoration ' Series - Part Four (Luke 2:7) InUo ... This morning we come to the final message is this little Advent Series. Here once again is our Series Key Concept . SERIES KEY CONCEPT ... CHRISTMAS should be a 'Season of Adoration' . Exhortation : Let us truly ADORE our SAVIOR ' this Christmas Season! Part One of our Advent Series declared that ... ADORATION SERIES PARTONE ... Colossians 1:15-17 He is most WORTHY of our adoration - He is the SON of GOD/ "He CREATED and SUSTAINS all things." Part Two of the Series added that ... ADORATION SERIES PART TWO' ... hAo^ew 1 :1 He is most WORTHY of our adoration - He is the SON of ABRAHAM ! "The Family PROMISE culminates in him." Last Sur)day we noted that ... ADORATION SERIES PART THREE' ... Matthew 1 :1 He is most WORTHY of our adoration - He is the SON of DAVID ! "He is the rightful HEIR to the THRONE." And so here now is the final reason Jesus Christ is most worthy of our adoration this Christmas Season ... ADORATION SERIES PART FOUR' ... Luke 2:7 He is most WORTHY of our adoration - He is the SON of MARY ! "He is the BABY that CHANGED EVERYTHING." This morning on this fourth and final Sunday of the Advent Season I would share with you ... TWO UNIVERSE -ALTERING CHANGES brought about by the Coming of Jesus Christ into the world ... this Baby whose birth changed everything! 7. HIS BIRTH FOREVER CHANGED THE WAY THAT MAN WOULD LOOK AT GOD * MAN previously looked at GOD as AWESOME and UNAPPROACHABLE Certainly from the Flood of Adam onward human beings understood that the God who created all things can easily destroy all things - that He is a God of power and might - a God of Righteousness and Judgment - a God to be revered and feared but if at all possible avoided. Oh, there were some - Like Abraham (who was called 'A friend of God') and Moses (who would talk face to face with God) and later on like Samuel (who as a little boy would hear God call his name) and David (who in the quietness of the pasture under the starlit night would revel in the Majesty of God and in the Provision and Protection of God) but by and large Man ' feared God ' and stayed a safe distance from God more than he 'loved God' and drew near to Him. Think of the response of the newly rescued Hebrews slaves from Egypt (who had seen the results of the 10 Plagues upon Egypt) when God presented Himself to them on Mount Sinai ... God on Mt. Sinai . . . "Do not hove God speak to us. " (Exodus 20:18-19) When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses ... "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning." And indeed that was the bottom line for them ... to the degree that they truly feared God, to the degree than they remembered the power and might of God, to that degree they obeyed him and walked in His Ways. But they preferred it to be a long distance relationship. Think of the people's response At the Dedication of the Temple - "The priests could not enter fhe femp/e." (2 Chronicles 7:1-3) When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. When all the Israelites sow the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshipped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, "He is good; h/s love endures torever." At this point in their notional life and identity they hod come to know that God had set his heart upon them for their Fathers' sake ... but they were still mostly overwhelmed by His Otherness - His Unopproochableness. Consider even the response of one of the greatest of Israel's prophets: Isaiah himself ... the one blessed with great prophetic insights concerning the Coming Messiah - the One who would lead the people into a Glorious Kingdom. Consider the impact of ... Isaiah's Vision of the Lord - "Woe is me!" (Isaiah 6:1-5) In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: "Holy, tioly, tioly is ttie LORD Almigtity; ttie who/e earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. " Woe to me !" I cried. "/ am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Before the Coming of Christ - before the birth of the Baby who would change everything - Man definitely viewed God as Awesome and Unapproachable ! An Eternal Being of Majesty and Might - Producing Awe and Wonder. But with the conning of Jesus Christ (everything changed)... * MAN could now look at GOD as HUMBLE and TOUCHABLE In His BIRTH Christ Humbled Himself ... "Made himself nothing" (Philippians 2:6-8) "Your oftitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!" Though Jesus Christ was God - though He was the very Son of God through whom all things were nnade and by whom all things ore sustained - he did not cling to the trappings of Divinity when he come into this world. He humbled himself (Paul says) ... He stepped down from Heaven's Glory, He took upon Himself human flesh. He stepped away from Heaven's Prerogatives and He allowed himself to become ' nothing ' relatively speaking. He was born into poverty - He was born under oppression - He was born most vulnerably. He was anything but awesome in his physical presentation. He appeared to be just like all the rest of us - he shared our humanity. He wasn't scary. And even as in his birth he humbled himself so ... In His LIFE Christ Offered Himself ... "Come unto me" (Matthew 1 1 :28-29) "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. " He offered himself as the answer to man's desperate condition. 'Come unfo me' he would say again and again in a thousand different ways and situations. And come they did ... He was eminently approachable. The blind man cried out to him - the woman with the issue of blood slipped up behind him and touched the hem of his robe - a group of ten lepers approached him - a roman centurion came requesting his aid - entire villages turned out to see and hear him - the Samaritan woman at the well was drawn into conversation with him - the woman caught in adultery was forgiven and sent on her way by him. He never hid the fact that he was God - that he had come from heaven itself. In fact he once said: '/ and the Father are One' and 'Before Abraham was, I am': he said that he was 'The Living Bread come down from heaven". His miracles declared his Divine Power - His words testified to his Divine Origin - His Sinless Nature demonstrated his Divine Purity and Holiness but He communicated a Humbleness - an openness - a 'fouchableness' (if you will) that Man had never before associated with the Almighty God. Christ's birth on earth forever changed the way that Man would look at God ! Has His Birth changed the way that you view God? Here now is the Second UNIVERSE-ALTERING CHANGE brought about by Christ's Birth on Earth ... 2. HIS BIRTH FOREVER CHANGED THE WAY THAT GOD WOULD LOOK AT MAN * GOD had previously looked at MAN as FATALLY FLAWED . . . This is not too difficult an assertion to demonstrate - the Old Testament Scriptures are filled with evidence. Consider with me these three examples of the way that God was forced to view man after Adam's sin took full effect in his descendants ... There was no other way for God to view man than . . . AS IMPERFECT ... Jeremiah 17:9 "Heart of man is deceitful above all ttiings and desperately wicked." That's a pretty 'perfect description of imperfection' wouldn't you say? Man is flawed at his very core - He cares not for the truth of things or for the goodness of things. Only the promise of God made to Noah would keep God from wiping mankind off the face of the earth a second time. Now in addition to seeing man as a most imperfect being, the Old Testament Scriptures would reveal that God has always seen man (because of those inherent imperfections) ... AS UNPROFITABLE ... Isaiah 64:6 "All your rightteousness are as filttiy rags." There are none of man's actions - even the ones that he thinks are noteworthy - that rise to the level of true purity and holiness. Compared to God's righteous standard all of men's efforts fall short. They are conceived in a self-centered heart and they are ultimately designed to promote (even as our own national documents say) 'human happiness' . God indeed has always been forced (due to His commitment to truth) to view man as both imperfect and unprofitable and thus ... AS UNWORTHY OF PRAISE ... Psalm 14:3 "There is none that does good not even one." The bottom line is that man is a mess ... Mankind is imperfect ; mankind is unprofitable (or as my Grandfather used to say: ''Good for nothing.") and surely mankind is unworthy of praise - certainly uny\/orthy of God's praise. For centuries of time it had been w\ih a most discouraged heart that God looked down upon mankind for there was no other y\^ay to v\ew man than as FATALLY FLAWED . But then Jesus was born and he was the baby that changed everything! And one of the things that was changed was the way that God would from then on view man . And with the conning of Jesus Christ ... * GOD could now look at MAN as WONDERFULLY ALTERED ... Man has become PERFECTIBLE - Just needs the right BIRTH Condition 'The Ho/y Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1 :35) If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation." (2 Corinthians 5:1 7) Just as the Holy Spirit of God overshadowed Mary and enabled her to conceive and then give birth to a perfectly holy human being, so in the new birth the Holy Spirit can come upon an imperfect, unprofitable, unpraiseworthy human being and place in that human being a seed of God's own Divine Life - being 'born from above' Jesus called it. And when nurtured properly, that seed can take root and grow into maturity and produce Godly living in this still fallen world. In addition, the Almighty God, the Righteous Judge of all the universe himself, declares all such 'spiritually re-born human beings' to be His own Sons and Daughters - members of His Own Eternal Family. His Spirit is placed within them and is committed to 'perfecting them' for through Jesus Christ they are now indeed ' perfectible' - able to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (become like him). What a much more encouraging view of man! And as a result of God now seeing man as perfectible , he also sees that... Man can become PROFITABLE - Just needs the right LIFE Orientation Hear these words of the perfect man - the God/Man - Jesus himself. "/ come to do Your Will, O God" (Hebrews 10:7) That's the life orientation of one who would truly become 'Good for something' ... Good for God in this fallen world. 'Doing the will of God' is the best 'something' that a human being can ever do. Jesus Christ led the way in demonstrating such a life orientation . The Apostle Paul - one of those 'spiritually re-born perfectible men' - adopted that very same point of view, that very same life orientation - the orientation that leads toward God-pleasing, spiritually productive living. Here's what Paul wrote to the Philippion Church ... "/ press toward fhe goal to win the prize for which God has called me" (Philippians 3:14) So fhe Birth of Jesus Christ has enabled God to view man as Perfectible (something can be done to change him) and possibly Profitable (his life can take on real meaning). Therefore it follows that God can also take the view that ... Man can become PRAISE - WORTHY - Just needs the right LIFE Resume "Th/s is my Son in whom I am well-pleased." (Matthew 3:1 7) "He became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name" (Philippians 2:9) There has never been a life-resume so worthy of praise as that compiled by Jesus Christ ... Such praise the Father has lavished on him as the first-fruits of those who will follow in his train and walk in his steps. All who put their faith in Jesus Christ - all who are born-again and indwelt by and submitted to the Spirit of God - can become Praise-Worthy . They can anticipate hearing these words from the Heavenly Father Himself ... "And his master replied, "Well done. Good and faithful servant! Come and share your master's happinessl" (Matthew 25:23) Final Thot (and a point to ponder) ... This SON OF MARY has indeed changed everything! How much has He CHANGED for you?