1 Thing Matters

Jesus grabbed the attention of Peter, James, and John on top of a high mountain when he was transfigured - changed - right before their eyes, revealing himself to be much more than a normal man. Here was God himself revealing his glory in their presence! He got their attention!

Peter encourages us to continue to pay attention to the words and works of Jesus recorded for us in his Word, the Bible. Those works include the very suffering Jesus would endure after descending from that mountain to make his way to the cross, where he would die the death we deserved for our salvation. So during Lent - and always - prayerfully pay attention!

The word “holy” comes from an Old English word, “halig” which means “whole” or “healthy.” We have a holy God. He wants us to live a holy life, one that is wholly dedicated to him, one that is spiritually and emotionally healthy for us. So, as Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount, he makes a crucial point that not all his followers (including present-day followers) understand well: Jesus came to free us from sin. He did not come to free us to sin.

After examining our lives, we can only despair over our lack of holiness. So we flee to Christ who loves us despite our failures and who sacrificed himself for unholy people. Secure in his grace and empowered by the Holy Spirit, each day we strive to live the holy lives to which we have been called.

Jesus made the world. Jesus made you.

Sin marred the world. Sin marred you.

But Jesus is better. He redeemed the world. He redeemed you - and he redeemed you to make the world better and brighter. Go and be what he has made you to be.

Pay attention the next time someone shares some good news and follows it up with, “I am so blessed.” Are they referring to spiritual blessings? Probably not. When we consider how blessed we are, often we are thinking in terms of physical blessings, temporal blessings, worldly blessings. That isn’t bad… but it isn’t all! We have an abundance of spiritual blessings, and we have them right now. That’s because we’ve been brought into the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom that isn’t just ours in the future when we die and go home to heaven, but a kingdom that is ours right now. That means we’re free to live like it!

The prophet Isaiah vividly described humanity as “people walking in darkness.” We are completely enveloped by sin and suffering and death. Worse, when we honestly assess the content of our minds and hearts, we find darkness there too. However, the prophet also foretold that within this deep darkness, a light would shine. The light would be so brilliant that it would be impossible to miss. As Jesus began his teaching and preaching ministry, that prophecy was fulfilled.

Today Jesus continues to shine his light by preaching repentance and the good news of the nearing kingdom. He invites us to live a life that is illuminated by him. He calls us to walk in the light of love for God and for the brothers and sisters around us. Our Savior is the Light of the world, and so we shine his reflected light onto everyone around us.

For centuries the priests of Israel offered sacrifices to God for sin. Over and over blood flowed, testifying that the penalty of sin was death. But over and over a substitute stood in the place of the sinner. Countless animals died under the priestly knife as generations of the faithful brought lamb after lamb to the temple.

This week we see the Lamb that God himself was bringing to the temple. This was the Lamb that God himself would sacrifice. In the great act that would remove our condemnation, the Messiah took our sins, stood in our place, and died as the substitute for sinful mankind. This was the fulfillment of the entire sacrificial system. Every lamb and goat and bird pointed to God’s Lamb who takes away our sin.

The heart that sees his Savior willingly becoming the Lamb cannot help but take this news of salvation to the ends of the earth.

As our celebration of Christmas winds down and we head into a new year, we look back on the past year and see a trail of broken promises - both to ourselves and to others. We said we were going to do something or maybe stop doing something, but our actions didn’t match our words.

This morning then, and with the remaining days of Christmas, celebrate that our Savior’s words and actions on our behalf always matched up perfectly. Rejoice that Christmas means completion because our Savior was born not just to make empty promises, but to fulfill them by taking action.

Families cherish their Christmas traditions. Year after year, they decorate the tree with the same ornaments, play the same music, bake the same Christmas cookies. Without asking, family members know when they will open presents. If you try to change your family’s Christmas traditions, you just might pick a fight! When it comes to family Christmases, people generally don’t like things to change.

Because our celebration of Christmas is so steeped in unchanging traditions, it might be easy for us to miss that the Nativity of the Son of God meant radical change for the world. The birth of the Christ child meant that nothing in the world would ever be the same. We even divide history into the events that occurred “Before Christ” (BC) and after “Anno Domini” (AD), Latin for “Year of our Lord.”

Christmas traditions are wonderful. But make no mistake about it. Christmas is all about change. The Lord God came to change the world by becoming part of the world. Because we are part of the world, that means Christmas changes us too. This Christmas Eve, we see how.

We want control. We want to be able to determine the outcome. We want to be able to follow the prescribed set of rules so that everything works out the way that it should.

But then it doesn’t. Even when we did everything we thought we were supposed to. This happens in all areas of life, but the one that matters most is our inability to make up for or account for our sin. This problem we cannot fix. God had to take care of it. God had to roll up his sleeves and do the dirty work. And he did just that.

To do what mankind could not do—remove all the burdens of sin—God became man. When you look into the manger, what do you see? A baby? Yes. But, more. That is Immanuel, “God-with-us.” The Son of God became Mary’s son, so that he could do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

"Come, Lord Jesus!" Series

The Messiah who came at Christmas will return on the Last Day. How do we wait for him? Patiently. But patient waiting is not passive waiting. Patient waiting expresses itself in a confidence displayed both in words and actions. Such patience will graciously be rewarded by a Messiah who, at just the right time, will return to permanently fix all that is broken in this life.

"Come, Lord Jesus" Series