Advent Sermon - "O Come, O Come"

Greetings,
Here is my Advent sermon from last Wednesday.  The theme was "O Come, O Come" based on the song, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. 

Advent blessings to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who is Immanuel. Amen.
    Our text for today comes from Isaiah 7 verse 14: “There the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” SFOT
    Ahaz, king of Judah, believes he is in a helpless situation. Being king ain’t easy is what they say. You are responsible for the lives of the people in your nation, each decision you make is a huge gamble, and you constantly have enemies trying to end your kingship. Ahaz finds himself in this very predicament. The two kings to the north, of Israel and Syria, seem to be joining forces and their next move in Ahaz’s mind is as clear as day. They are coming to attack him, and with two armies together he doesn’t stand a chance. If he wants to remain a king, and alive for that matter he must do something.
    This is his mindset when Isaiah comes to him as a prophet of God. Isaiah gives him great news that God has promised these nations will not stand against Jerusalem. God has promised Ahaz is safe as King, but warns him that is he is not firm in faith, he will not be firm at all. God even goes so far as to tell Ahaz to ask a sign from God in order that he may know this war will not happen. What an awesome turn of events. Ahaz, shaking in his boots, now has God’s word he and his country is safe. And to top the cake, he can even ask God for a sign.
   But Ahaz, already having made up his mind that He would find his own way to survive this war, arrogantly tries to act pious and says that he will not test the Lord. Can you imagine, God gives you a beautiful promise, and instead of just trusting in His way, you trust in your own human capabilities.
    Well maybe we can imagine this, or at least I can. How many times have you felt hopeless, trapped, buried, burdened, or captive. Whether it be your own sinful doing or the enemies of this world holding you down, I think we have all been stuck in a situation that seems inevitable to smoother us and not let us back up. In fact, we have probably all found ourselves in countless situations like this.
    The stress of that extremely busy life not only has you feeling exhausted, but makes you question if you are doing anything right at all.
    The fear of failing or letting down your loved ones, leaves you frozen and unable to make a decision one way or the other.
   Your struggling relationship that seems to have no hope of surviving the hurt and pain it has endured, leaves us thinking divorce and a new start is our only option.
    Crippling debt leaves you living pay check to pay check for too long, and suddenly being desperate for even just the slightest financial peace causes us to think maybe a few immoral decisions is our only choice to survive.
   Being the provider for your family may have you feeling trapped in working a job that burdens your conscious, but hey it’s a paycheck.
    Addiction to that favorite sin has you feeling trapped beyond your own ability, and yet guilt shames you into thinking you have to break the habit on your own without anyone else finding out. These are just a few examples.
    But almost every time, we try to get creative, we think through every option possible of what I can do, how can I fix this, how can I get myself out of this hopeless situation. I got myself into this, I have to get myself out. Or, everyone is counting on me to do the right thing and keep everyone happy, so I have to do this just right. And we get so dug into that mind set, that even as we read through our devotions, or sit in the pews at church, the Word of the Lord goes in one ear and right back out the other. It doesn’t change our game plan at all.
    Now, you might be thinking, Pastor, I’ve never had a prophet of God come to me and tell me that everything is going to be fine. I wish I did, then I would trust and believe. Or Pastor, I have never once been offered the chance to ask God for a sign to prove He is with me and will keep His promise to me.
    Well, that’s sort of true. You have never had Isaiah tell you that God will allow you to ask for a sign, but you don’t need to. See, the sign that God promised to Ahaz, was not just for him. When Ahaz refuses to ask God for a sign, God says, alright, I’ll give you the sign. It will be a better sign that you could have ever asked for. And it will be a sign for all people. This sign will change everything.
   This sign that God chooses to send, truly is a sign for all people in all situations. The virgin shall conceive and bear a son and His name shall be Immanuel. As we heard in our Gospel reading from Matthew, Immanuel means God with us. God promises to send Himself as a sign. And He does.
    We are less than two weeks away from Christmas, when we will celebrate the virgin bearing a son, who is to be named Jesus and who is Immanuel, because He is God with us. God sends His own Son to come be born in the flesh and dwell among us. Because we as God’s people are all the same in flesh and blood, Immanuel himself partook of the same things, becoming flesh and blood. And Jesus, who is Immanuel will give us the greatest sign of God’s promise to us. The angel Gabriel told Joseph that you are to name the baby Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And this is exactly what He came to do. He came, for the entire purpose to die… for us… for you. As he took on flesh and blood to be like us, through death He has destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And through His death he has delivered us from the slavery of fear of death. He went to that cross, allowed himself to be nailed to it, lifted high for the whole town of Jerusalem to see, to pay for every one of your sins and every one of my sins. So that when we look to the sign of the cross, we remember Immanuel. We can always trust God is with us, because He has not only saved us from our sins, but He who himself has suffered when tempted, is able to help us who are being tempted.
    So, when we find ourselves in those helpless situations, when we feel buried, burdened, captive, and hopeless, it is not up to us to free ourselves. It is not up to our own creativity or power, it is not up to our ability to fix it. When we are in those predicaments of life, we look to the cross, and we remember the sign God has already sent us. We put our trust in the baby in the manger named Jesus. We know He is Immanuel, He is God with us. And just as God promised He would send us this sign who is born, Immanuel Himself promises us He will be with us always to the end of the age.
    Tough situations will continue to be a part of this life. We will continue to find ourselves in the consequences of our sins. We will still find ourselves in situations beyond our control. There will be bad days, and sad days, and frustrating day, and even hopeless days. But during those times, instead of feeling alone, instead of getting stubborn and thickheaded, instead of trusting in yourself, trust in the Lord. Look to the sign He has sent for you. Look to the cross and simply pray, O Come O Come Immanuel. And Know that God is with you, Immanuel took on flesh and blood to be there for you, to pay for all your sins, even your sins of pride and trusting in yourself. There is no situation God can’t save you from, there is no sin God won’t forgive you for, and there is no amount of shame and guilt that God can’t remove from you. He can and will save you from anything, not matter how desperate or hopeless it may seem. God has sent you the sign to prove to you, He is always with you.
    And because He is always with us, we always have hope! Salvation has nothing to do with your actions. Eternal life is not dependent upon how well you can avoid or get out of tough spots. Salvation and eternal life are yours through faith alone. Salvation and eternal life are yours because they have been won for you by Immanuel, who is God with you.
    God sent His Son, the son born of the virgin, Jesus who is Immanuel, to ransom you from the captivity of sin, to show you the path of wisdom and teach you the way, to free you from Satan’s tyranny and give you the victory over the grave, to open wide your heavenly home, to give you pardon and peace.
    And all of this is yours through faith, as you look to the sign of the cross, as you look to the sign of son born of the virgin who is Immanuel. As we sing O Come O Come Immanuel, we pray that God come be with us, that God would help us through all things in life, and that God would give us the faith to trust in Him above all things. And we know our prayer is answered. Because He has come. Immanuel is born, He has set us free, He has defeated all our enemies, He has saved us from our sins, and with the hope of eternal life, we know everything will always be more than OK.
    As that good news hits our ears, our hearts rejoice! Rejoice Rejoice! Immanuel has come and shall come again to thee, O Israel.
    In the name of Immanuel, God with us. Amen.

Psalm 15

     I think we may give the people of God of the Old Testament, Israelites/Hebrews/Jews, a little too hard of a time for works righteousness. I mean if you only had the Old Testament to go off of, would you really get the point that it is by faith alone you are justified? When looking Psalm 15, it seems like how we live and act is exactly what matters. The psalmist asks the question of who will sojourn in your tent, and who will dwell on your holy hill O God. Basically he is asking who will be part of the people of God in this life (sojourn in tent refers to tabernacle and God’s presence amongst His people here), and who will be part of the righteous people in the afterlife (dwell in the presence on His holy hill, another view of what we would see as heaven). So who will be the people of God and be in His presence both in this life and the next? Then when you look at the answer, it is all about how one lives and acts. The one who walks blamelessly and does what is right. Well what does that mean? Well it means you don’t slander, do evil, take up reproach, put out money at interest, or take a bribe. Instead you swear to your own hurt and do not change, you speak truth in your heart, and when you do these things you are part of God’s people. So in order to be part of God’s people and to be in the presence of God, I have to live a life like this and be this type of person. I have to do these things in order to be saved. It is all up to what I do and how I live that determines if I am part of God’s people right? That what this psalm is saying isn’t it?
      This is where I think it is not that far off to see passages or psalms like these this way. However, when you use the rest of the Old Testament you can see this is not true. When you go back to the covenant with Abraham, God is the only one who walks between the animal halves showing He and He alone is responsible for keeping the covenant. It is not dependent on what Abraham and His followers do. There are many other examples that show God is still the subject of the one salvation is dependent on. So, what do we do with these passage and a psalm like this that seem to be going against the Christian message of how one is saved? We remember that even in the New Testament Jesus gives us lessons on how we are to live. He says that the world will hate us for His name sake. Well how will the world know we are under His name? How will they know we are the ones they hate? Because as Jesus says in John 15:19 “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” The world knows to hate us because we do not live like the rest of the world. We do not look like the rest of the world by the way we live and act. Is this because we think our actions are what save us? No, absolutely not. However, because we know we have our salvation from God, now we live a life of loving obedience to our Lord who has redeemed us. So do we still have a certain way we live and act? Absolutely. God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does. It is not for our passive righteousness, but it is for our active righteousness. (If you don’t understand these terms, please ask and I will further explain the Two Kinds of Righteousness). So if someone who doesn’t know the whole story of salvation and of God’s people were to read this psalm alone, could they think works righteousness is a correct teaching? Yes, but we who do know the who story and the whole Gospel message understand passages like this one in the correct light. So, we should help those who don’t to better understand what this passage is saying. It is basically asking how do you recognize one of God’s people? Well they will look this, not because this is what saves them, but because since they already know they are saved, this is how they live. The only thing left to do is to ask yourself, do people recognize you are a Christian by the way you live or only when you tell them you are a Christian? Maybe this psalm is the perfect reminder that we as Christians do strive to live good lives. Again, not for salvation, but out of loving obedience to the God who gives us our salvation.