Genesis 12-25

5. The Impossible Command Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor

Genesis 22:1-14 13 March 2022

As somebody relatively new to the United States, I love learning new things about your history and culture.

Now you probably learned this in Elementary School, but I just learned this week about the Jefferson Bible.

Some background about Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was the third president of the United States, and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He was highly educated, having studied mathematics, metaphysics and philosophy at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Just a few years later he was admitted to the Virginia bar, where he pursued reforms to slavery. Jefferson was well read in English classics and political works, history, religion, ethics and a number of areas of science, including agriculture. He was also an accomplished architect, and musician.

But this is what I learned only this week: Jefferson also authored his own version of the Bible, the New Testament anyway.

Jefferson was a great admirer of Jesus, but as a philosopher and modernist, he couldn’t abide by the idea of Jesus as divine. And so in the years after his presidency, Jefferson started to curate his own version of the Bible. Using a razor and glue, he selected the parts of Jesus’ life that made sense to him as a rationalist. He kept Jesus’ birth but got rid of the angels. He kept Jesus’ teachings, but discarded almost all the miracles. His account ends with Jesus buried in a tomb, and no resurrection.

Jefferson called his book: The Life and Morals of Jesus, and apparently, he read it most nights before bed.

Now why do I bring this up?

Well I think many people have a Jeffersonian attitude when it comes to the Bible. There are parts we like, and we choose to read them. And there are parts that we don’t like and so we ignore them – functionally it’s the same as cutting them out of the Bible with a razor.

But some people go further. They find certain parts of the Bible so problematic that they throw the entire book away. And today’s Bible passage is one of those passages. In my own family, I have a family member who says that the story we’re going to read today is the reason why she could never be a Christian. She just finds it too challenging.

So what I want to do is to look at the story and share some tools for understanding difficult parts of the Bible. That way, when we come across other challenging

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sections, we’ll have a way of approaching it that helps us to look for the deeper meaning.

So why don’t we pray, and ask God to help us as we open this challenging passage?

Our heavenly Father, please help us to see clearly today as we open this part of your Holy Scriptures. Give us minds that understand and hearts that are ready to learn. Show us the beauty of the plans and promises you have for us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen

So we are in the middle of our Old Testament series following the story of Abraham and God’s promises to him. We have been working our way through Genesis 12-25 over the last month or so. And the story really started when God called Abraham out of the land of his father, and called him to go to a land that God would show him.

Here’s where we give the little pop quiz. God made three promises to Abraham back in chapter 12. Do you remember what they were?

Land, Nation and Blessing.

God promised to give Abraham a land, the area that we now know as Israel. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation – that he would have so many offspring that they would be like sand on the seashore, or like stars in the sky. And lastly God promised Abraham that he would bring blessing to all the world through Abraham’s family...

Fast forward 24 years from that original promise. Who can tell me what the big problem was? What part of God’s promise is still unfulfilled?

Abraham has been waiting 24 years for God to bring about that cornerstone promise – an heir, a child. Remember Abraham was 75 years old when God first made the promise to him. Sarah was 65. They were already past childbearing age, but Sarah had never been able to have children. It seemed like an impossible promise.

But we had a breakthrough in the story last week, didn’t we?

When Abraham was 99 and Sarah was 89, God spoke to them again and said: This time next year, you’ll have a baby.

And true to his word, that’s exactly what happened. A year later, we read in Genesis 21, Sarah gives birth to baby Isaac. His name means laughter. And Sarah comments on the joy that it is to finally have a baby after all those years of infertility.

“God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Genesis 21:6-7)

God’s promises were coming true, just as he had said they would, with a miracle baby born in impossible circumstances.

The Impossible Command

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And that’s why Genesis 22 comes as such a shock. How could God ask Abraham do the impossible? How could he ask him to kill his own son?

1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.

2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:1-2)

I can’t imagine what was going through Abraham’s mind as he listened to the voice of God that he had heard so many times before. The voice that had promised him a son was now asking him to take that son and sacrifice him as a burnt offering...

It’s the impossible command, isn’t it? How can God ask Abraham to kill his own son?

We don’t get an insight into Abraham’s mind, and what he must have been thinking. Commentator Kent Hughes describes this passage as “artfully minimalist” – we’re left to fill in the blanks ourselves. But I imagine those words would have gone round and round in Abraham’s head all that night – your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac.

It's the impossible command. How does Abraham respond?

3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:3-5)

It's quite an extraordinary response, isn’t it? Abraham obeys God.

He packs his donkey and some firewood, and sets out with Isaac and two of his servants. They travel for three days until Mount Moriah is visible in the distance. I can only guess what the mood must have been like on the journey. Uncomfortable silences, I imagine.

But with the destination on the horizon, Abraham tells the servants to wait behind. And finally we get an insight into what Abraham was thinking (v5)

5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5)

We will worship, and then we will come back to you.

I underlined this sentence when I was doing my preparation. Was Abraham telling a lie? I don’t think the servants knew what God had said to Abraham, and certainly Abraham isn’t going to say: wait here while I go and sacrifice my only son... So was

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Abraham telling a lie? Or did the servants know, but not Isaac? That would make the whole thing conspiratorial.

Or perhaps Abraham was speaking the truth?

We will worship, and then we will come back to you.

Could Abraham somehow believe that both he and Isaac would return? Let’s find out what happened next.

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” (Genesis 22:6-7)

By the way, Isaac is probably 12 or 13 years old at this point. Back in v1 it says this story takes place some time later. Verse 6 shows us that Isaac is young and strong, probably the stronger of the two, as he easily carries the wood on his back up the mountain path.

Isaac is also old enough to be suspicious about what is going on.

7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (Genesis 22:7)

Isaac knows there is something missing. The animal to be sacrificed.

8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” (Genesis 22:8)

PAUSE

The tension is palpable, isn’t it? Because we know who the lamb is. It’s Isaac, right? It seems like one of those half-truths we tell our kids to protect them, where we don’t tell them the whole story, just enough to make them feel ok. But older kids don’t usually fall for that...

The two of them went on together. And then the drama reaches its peak: (v9)

9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

I have so many questions about how this played out. As one commentator conjectured, Isaac was probably strong enough to overpower his father, so it seems unlikely that Isaac was an unwilling victim. Perhaps he had understood the whole time what was going on. Or perhaps he understood for the first time when his father asked him to hold out his hands, and began to bind them.

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And then I wonder about Abraham. He had possibly witnessed human sacrifices as part of the moon cult in the land of Ur where he grew up. And now it seemed that he was being called to the same, grotesque ‘worship’ by his new God.

When we read the rest of the Bible, God condemns child sacrifice in the strongest terms.1 It’s abhorrent to him. And so rightly we ask, how can God ask Abraham to do the same?

Abraham raises the knife to kill Isaac.

And that’s when the angel of the Lord calls out to him from heaven (v11):

11 “Abraham! Abraham!” [the angel called] “Here I am,” he replied.

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. (Genesis 22:11-13)

It’s such a relief, isn’t it? Isaac is saved, Abraham kills the ram instead. And God has provided, just like Abraham had said back in v8.

A Disgraceful Story Or A Deeper Meaning?

Is there anybody here who is hearing this story for the first time? I wonder what you think?

Like I said before, some people find this a very hard story to swallow.

Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, calls this a disgraceful story in his book The God

Delusion.

“God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trussed Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, ‘tempting’ Abraham, and testing his faith. [...] this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: ‘I was only obeying orders.’ Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.”

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

1 Leviticus 20:1-4; 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Isaiah 57:5; Ezekiel 23:37-39 5

A scathing review. For Dawkins, this story makes God look like a capricious bully, tempting Abraham in a cruel joke. And lots of people find this a persuasive argument.

I don’t think Dawkins is right.

Like I said before, I want to share some tools that help us when we encounter a part of Scripture that presents as challenging. Those tools will help us dig for the deeper meaning, and they’ll make us better readers of the Bible as well.

The first tool is a question to ask of any Bible text which is: what does it teach us about God?

The whole Bible is a disclosure of who God is, and how he is at work in the world. And as we read through the Bible, we get a very clear picture of what God is like – his character of goodness and mercy and forgiveness. God doesn’t tolerate injustice, or evil.

And so Richard Dawkins’ impression of God as a capricious bully doesn’t make sense of the God we meet in the Bible. Even if we think through the last few chapters in Genesis, God’s big plan is to bless Abraham, and to bring blessing to the entire world through Abraham’s offspring. It doesn’t make sense that God would torture Abraham along the way. That wouldn’t be a blessing to Abraham – it would make God evil. And if God is evil, then it’s hard to see how he would want to bring blessing to the entire world. It would be logically inconsistent.

So if the passage doesn’t teach us the Dawkinesque view of God, what does it teach us about God?

However hard we find his command to sacrifice Isaac, what we do learn is that God will provide. Abraham had learned to trust God during 25 years of waiting. Abraham had his ups and his downs during that time, but God had made good on his promises. God had provided for Abraham. So why shouldn’t God provide in this circumstance?

When we read the story through that lens, it makes a little more sense of v5. Abraham truly believed that both he and Isaac would return from Mount Moriah. Even if that meant that he had to go through with killing Isaac.

The writer to the Hebrews makes that exact argument in Hebrews 11:

17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only

son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17-19)

It's right there in the last sentence, isn’t it?

Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead.

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Abraham had already experienced a resurrection in his life – Isaac had been born in impossible circumstances, life had been born where hope was dead. Why couldn’t God do it again? After all, God had said to Abraham just a year earlier,

Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:14)

That’s a question for all of us when circumstances seem impossible. Is anything too hard for the Lord? The answer is no. There is nothing that is too hard for the Lord, there is nothing he cannot accomplish, if he so wills it to be.

And that brings me to our second tool for understanding difficult passages like this. Which is the question: what does it teach us about Jesus?

I said a minute ago that the whole Bible is a disclosure of who God is, and how he is at work in the world. As we read the whole Bible, we see that the story culminates in Jesus. And so when we read an Old Testament story like Abraham and Isaac, we read it through the lens of a story that ultimately points to Jesus.

And that’s where this story takes on a whole new depth of meaning.

Because many years later, another son would walk up the same mountain with wood on his back, willingly allowing himself to die as a sacrifice.

I’m talking about Jesus, of course. God’s only, beloved son. The wood that he carried was his cross.

Mount Moriah, where God had told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, it was the site where hundreds of years later, Jerusalem would be built, along with the temple which was the center of the Jewish sacrificial system. And for hundreds of years, it was through the sacrificial system in the temple that God provided forgiveness of sins.

But again, all those sacrificial lambs pointed ahead to the one true sacrifice. When John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he said:

“Look! The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29)

And of course in Jesus, we see not just a metaphorical raising of the dead. After dying on the cross, Jesus spent three days in the tomb before being resurrected to new life. Which is coincidentally the same amount of time that Abraham had to wait, from the time of God’s command to the moment where God provided the ram, and his son was given back to him from certain death.

There are so many parallels.

God knows what it is like to sacrifice his only son, his beloved son. And he did that because he is the God who provides. Even when it seems impossible. He is the God who we can trust, even in the face of death.

And so this passage asks us what God asked Abraham: Do you trust me? Do you trust God, even to the point of death?

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Watch at: https://youtu.be/Zejx1thFMi4 File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/05/11/20/23/15/97731977-598d-42c6-8c64-830345fb3094/03.13.22%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf

Genesis 12-25

4. I will establish my covenant

Genesis 17:1-22

I wonder if you remember what were you doing in 2009? (speak to neighbour best answer? most outrageous?

Here are some of the world events that happened in 2009.

Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 6 March 2022

- Barack Obama became the first African American President of the USA. (Joe Biden was sworn in as Vice President)

- In March of 2009, the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic. Remember what? Swine flu H1N1. (Total 12,500 US deaths. Kind of pales in comparison with COVID...)

- Miracle on the Hudson Pilot Sully Chesley Sullenberger landed US Airways Flight 1549 safely on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers survived.

- 2009 was the year that Michael Jackson died. Bitcoin was created. And the world was still getting over the global financial crisis...

Me, I was in Bible college. I had quit my job as a school teacher at the end of 2007 and enrolled in a 4 year full time theology degree, aged 32 with a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage.

Now thats a long introduction to talk about the idea of the mortgage contract.

We all understand how a mortgage works we enter into a contract or an agreement with the bank where they agree to pay for the house upfront and I agree to repay the loan for the rest of my life. If I fail to make repayments, the agreement is broken the bank sells the house and keeps any money still owing to them, and I get whatevers left over.

Thats the mortgage contract, right?

We all understand how contracts work. Both parties have obligations to meet, otherwise the deal is over. The agreements broken.

Our Bible story today is all about a contract a covenant that God makes with Abram, and a covenant that he makes with us.

So why dont we pray that God would speak to us today about his covenant promises? 1

Our Father, you are the God who spoke creation into being. Your words shaped stars and planets. They cause the world to keep turning even today. So we ask that you would speak life- shaping words to us today, helping us to understand your promises to us from this part of the Bible. Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen

COVENANT CONTEXT

So our Bible passage today is all about a contract that God makes with Abram a covenant. Actually its not the first covenant God has made with Abram.

As weve traced the story of Abram over the last 4 weeks or so, youll remember that this section of the Bible is all about how God called Abram out of the country of his father, and made three promises to him.

- God promised he would give Abraham Land

- God promised hed make Abrams family into a great nation

- And he promised Abram that through Abrams family, he would bring blessing to the

whole worldThree promises land, nation and blessing.

But God had made those promises to Abram 24 years earlier than the chapter we open up to today. And for those 24 years, Abram waited and waited for God to fulfil his promises.

You see, there were problems. The land was already occupied by the Canaanites, and after 24 years that hadnt changed.

And the great nation? Abram and his wife Sarai remained childless. 24 years after Gods original promise, Abram is 99 years old, Sarah is 89 and it seems impossible that they will ever have children. Not humanly possible, anyway.

Not that they hadnt tried. In our story last week Abram and Sarah had tried to have an heir another way. Sarah had given her Egyptian maidservant to Abraham so that he could have his heir through her. And they did have a son, Ishmael. But everything about the story tells us Ishmael was not the son God intended to give Abram.

24 years is a long time to wait... They werent 24 years of complete silence though.

You see, 13 years earlier God had made a covenant with Abram (thats in Genesis chapter 15). God had reminded Abram of his first promises Land, Great Nation, Blessing. And God had performed a symbolic sign that he would keep the covenant he had animals cut in half and God passed between them as a sign that he was deadly serious about keeping his covenant.

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But that was 13 years earlier thats why we thought about 2009 just before 13 years and the promise had not yet been kept.

Can you imagine if you had signed a mortgage contract in 2009, but nothing had happened between then and now? Imagine you were still waiting for payment to come through towards the house? I think you probably would have given up expecting it to happen. Youd cut your losses and get on with life, right?

I wonder if thats how Abram felt?

COVENANT PROMISE

Open up Genesis 17 with me because after 24 years the bank is about to pay out... Reading at v 1

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."

Can you imagine? After 24 years? How does Abram react?

3 Abram fell facedown...and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you:

You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."

The great nation, the land of Canaan God promises them again to Abram. And now God changes Abrams name to reflect the reality of the covenant promises coming true. Abraham one little syllable change and Abrahams new name means father of many nations!

Sarai gets a name change as well. Pop down to v15: 3

God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."

Sarah means princess she and Abraham will have descendants who rule as kings...

After all this time, Gods promises to Abraham were coming true. But the most precious promise the promise that he and Sarah had probably given up on so long ago the promise they had probably cried about and mourned over the fact that they would never have children that human impossibility was now being overcome by God himself.

Abraham is overcome with joy!

17 Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, "Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?"

And God tells Abraham that, indeed, Sarah will have her son within the year (v21). The childs name will be Isaac which means he laughs... Just like Abraham had laughed with joy at the thought of his long awaited son.

Thats the covenant promise.

All the questions that Abraham must have had for those 24 years, now they were all answered. When? And how? And who? All answered.

Now there was just one thing for Abraham to do.

Covenant Sign

Abraham had to keep his end of the covenant bargain... v9:

9 Then God said to Abraham, "As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

PAUSEWhy circumcision?Why does God ask every man descended from Abraham to perform this sign of the covenant?

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Theres no way out of it. Its clear what God says to Abraham here Abraham and all his descendants must be circumcised if they want to be included in Gods covenant. Theres no exceptions even slaves and foreigners who come to live in Abrahams family. They all have to be circumcised. If not, theyll be cut off from Gods people cut off from the covenant...

Trying very hard not to make inappropriate jokes here...

Whats so magical about circumcision that it means God will accept you if youve done it, and hell cut you off if you havent?

Let me ask you a question. How do you know Im married? (Audience participation) I wear a wedding ring.

When we get married, we exchange rings as a token of our pledge the ring doesnt mean were married, but its a symbol of our promises to one another. Its a sign of the exclusivity of our relationship this ring lets other people know that Im married. This ring should remind me if Im ever tempted that I belong to one woman only the woman who put this ring on my finger.

Now I can take my wedding ring off, and it doesnt change the fact that Im married. But youve seen the movies. We all know what it means when a husband takes his wedding ring off and slips it into his pocket.

God wanted his people to have a permanent symbol of their pledge, a permanent sign of the covenant. Circumcision is not something you can undo, or take off.

So is there anything magical about circumcision? Couldnt God have made it some other sign? Like a tattoo, or a piercing? Why circumcision?

I think it comes back to Abraham and Sarah and how only God could overcome their childlessness. Abraham tried to produce an heir on his own terms he tried to play God with his reproductive bits. But God wanted Abraham to know that life comes from the Creator alone. And no descendant of Abraham will exist without Gods blessing of life poured out upon his people, poured out upon his children. When theyre in the land, and when they become a great people and they are enjoying blessing after blessing, God wants his people to remember where it all came from. Where it all started. With a promise to an old man... And the sign of circumcision was to be a permanent and constant reminder.

Its worth pausing there and asking yourself whether you recognise Gods goodness to you in the normalness of life. If God is the source of life then you are made by him do you remember

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that with thankfulness? And if God is the sustainer of this world do you remember that every breath you take is only because God allows it?

Our world wants us to swallow the lie that God doesnt exist. The world wants us to believe that we create our own luck; that our destiny is in our own hands; that were in control...

But the covenant of circumcision reminds us that there is only one person who is in control of everything God alone...

If youve forgotten our blessings come from God alone, wouldnt it be great to go home this week and really focus your prayers on being thankful to God for all the ways he looks after you?

Covenant Confusion

Now I think there are two potentially confusing ideas in our Genesis Bible reading today... The first is this What does God mean when he says: you must keep my covenant? And the second, what does God mean when he says, this is an everlasting covenant?

I think plenty of people get confused about this Christians and non-Christians the question of whether God still wants us to circumcise boys. I have Christian friends who decided to circumcise their baby boys because of this passage. The thinking goes, if God says to Abraham, this is a sign for all your descendants and this is an everlasting covenant, and God says we have to keep the covenant, some Christians say, we should get it done. Circumcise him.

Maybe some of you have done that, or had it done to you. I know some people feel very strongly about circumcision. In a second I want to take you to the New Testament to see what the Bible says about circumcision in the light of Jesus and its going to tell us that circumcision is not that important.

The far more important question is the first one what does God mean when he says you must keep my covenant?

See, lots of us will read Genesis 17:1 and say, God wants me to be blameless before hell keep his promises to me. Do you see what I mean?

The LORD appeared to [Abraham] and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.

Sounds like God is saying, first you live a perfect life blameless You walk in front of me, Ill be watching. If you can do that, then Ill do my bit. Kids, land. Whole shebang.

IS that what Gods saying there?

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It sounds like an impossible covenant for humans to keep, if God expects us to be perfect before hell accept us as his children...

Thats how lots of people imagine God.So I want to show you from the New Testament that actually, God knows we can never be

perfect without him, and so God keeps the covenant for us in the person of Jesus Christ.

Covenant Fulfilled

I want to spend a minute thinking about being good enough for God.

A few years ago in an Alpha class, I had a lovely lady in the group, shed been in church for 20 years. I asked, What must we do to be saved?

Her answer: You have to be a good person! Its the Gen 17:1 answer, right? Walk before me and be blameless!

But the reality is, we arent able to do that. Look at Romans 3:10-12 on your handout. Its actually not possible for anyone to walk blamelessly before God.

There is no one righteous, not even one... there is no one who seeks God.All have turned away... (Rom 3:10-12)

As sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, weve all turned our backs on God. We dont walk before God, we walk away from him. And we do things that put us on the wrong side of God. Were not righteous, we dont seek God.

If God were to say, I will not establish my covenant with you until you turn back and do the right thing, none of us could be saved. There would be nobody who would turn back to God. Not even one. Wed all be cut off from God.

But the great news of the Bible is that God doesnt cut us off, even though thats what we deserve. Because of his great love, God made it possible for sinful humans to be made righteous again through faith in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (on your handout) says

God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus is the only human who ever lived a blameless life. And so Jesus became the covenant keeper for us. His righteous life was exchanged with our sinful life. His blameless walk was

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exchanged with our walking-away-from-God life. Jesus exchanged his life for ours, so that we can receive the benefits of Jesus sinless life. Thats what the cross is all about. But the way we receive Jesus righteousness is by faith.

And thats where Abraham comes back into the picture. You see, right back in Genesis 15, before God made any covenant with Abraham, before the sign of circumcision was ever mentioned, Abraham believed Gods promises and God credited Abrahams faith to him as righteousness.

Abraham never had to earn Gods favour, or earn his own righteousness by doing some religious act, like circumcision. No instead circumcision was just an outward sign of the inner righteousness Abraham already had by faith when he was uncircumcised (Romans 4:11).

And if circumcision is just an outward symbol, it means that anyone can be right with God through faith in Jesus, circumcised or not.

So circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing in the end its the heart that matters. And funnily enough even Gods people understood this long before Jesus was around. In Deuteronomy 10 and Deuteronomy 30 God talks about people having circumcised hearts hearts that know they belong to God alone. Hearts that seek no longer to turn away from God, but instead to walk faithfully before God and to be blameless. Hearts that want to keep Gods covenant through faith.

So I want to finish this morning by asking, where is your heart at?

Are you seeking God, and trying to walk faithfully before him? Are you trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins? And are you turning away from the things that you know arent good for you, and turning your life back towards God?

Because thats what the heart of the Christian faith is. A heart that turns back to God. A heart that sees to do his will, a heart that wants to see his will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Our hearts are so much more important than outward symbols of religion...

So as we finish, God is asking us: where is your heart at?

In a moment, we are going to sing our final song, and thats a chance to reflect on where your heart is at. Every time we sing here at church, its a chance to let God speak to you in a different way and sometimes the words of a song, or a tune will impact us differently. So let this song wash over you. And as you do, you might like to think about how your heart will respond to God today.

Will you pray with me?

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Genesis 12-253. Giving God a Helping Hand Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor Genesis 16:1-15 27 February 2022

What are you waiting for?

Have you ever had to wait for something in your life? I dont mean waiting in a queue, I mean waiting a long time. Like weeks or months or years... Have you ever had to wait for something, where you waited so long that you almost began to doubt that it might happen?

Its time to open the confessional. Im terrible at waiting. I hate waiting for things.

I was thinking back through my life and some of the things Ive had to wait for.

My wife Jo and I met when we were 16, right at the end of the 10th grade. I knew pretty quickly that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Jo, but you cant get married at 16. So we waited 5 years to get married, until we were both 21. I remember, at the time, it felt like a long time to wait!

(Now weve been married 25 years and weve kind of forgotten about that waiting stage?)

There was another thing I remember waiting for kids.

We have two kids Charlotte and Jamie. Charlotte is in college now, and Jamie is a senior in High School. We didnt have kids right away, and when we decided we wanted kids, it took a while before Charlotte came along, then Jamie a few years later.

But the hardest waiting was when they were born. Both of them they went 2 weeks overdue, before they were finally born. I remember those 2 weeks dragging on when we had Charlotte, our eldest. It almost felt like shed never arrive. (Kept asking Jo if she was in labour?)

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But Charlotte did eventually arrive. And then we had exactly the same with Jamie 2 weeks overdue, the longest 2 weeks of Jos life Id guess!

Well, in life we wait for lots of things. Me, I was lucky I guess that waiting to marry Jo and waiting for the kids to be born, they were both things that I could see. I was waiting for things that were within reach.

But what happens when the promise seems out of reach? When what you are waiting for seems like its never going to happen?

In our sermon series weve been following the story of Abraham, and its a story of waiting, isnt it?

God had made Abraham three promises that he would bring him to a land, that he would make Abraham into a great nation, and that he would bless the whole world through Abraham.

But as we open up Genesis 16, 10 years have passed since God made that original promise to Abram. But Abram still doesnt possess the land. He still has no offspring, no heir.

What do you do when the promise seems to be slipping out of reach? When you cant see how your waiting will ever come to an end? What do you do when God seems to have forgotten you?

Lets pray then well dig into the Bible passage.

Our heavenly Father, we are impatient creatures. Will you show us today that you see us, and you hear us, and that you will keep every one of your promises to us. Help us to trust you in our season of waiting, to the glory of your son Jesus. Amen

Well the biggest obstacle to Gods plan was that Sarah couldnt have children. How will Abram be the father of a great nation without an heir?

Abraham was 75 when God first called him and promised him Land, Nation and Blessing. Sarai was 65, and even then she had been unable to have children. Now it was 10 years later and neither of them was getting any younger.

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Perhaps God had never planned that Sarah would be part of the promise... Perhaps there was another way that God was planning to grow a nation out of Abram.

In the last chapter, Abram had asked God how it would work... Would God use Abrahams servant Eliezer of Damascus to carry on the family line?

3 And Abram said (to God), "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir,

but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." (Genesis 15:3-4)

Abram believed God, but to make doubly sure God made a covenant with Abram to ratify the promise. God made a symbolic show of passing between pieces of dead animals to show that he was deadly serious about the promise...

Thats the backstory. (It wont be your servant, Abram, but your son...)

Sarah

Now chapter 16 begins with the reminder that Sarah had borne Abram no children... Perhaps she was the problem? Perhaps her infertility was preventing Gods plans from being fulfilled? Perhaps God had meant that the heir would come from Abrams body, but not her own...

And so Sarai looks to her own servant her young Egyptian slave Hagar. Perhaps God had meant for this woman to bear the long-awaited son?

It was custom in that ancient culture that a woman could use her own maidservant as a surrogate to produce a legitimate heir, if she herself was unable. There was no law against polygamy, and down the track in Genesis well see Jacob marry two sisters Leah and Rachel, and then have more children through their maidservants Zilpah and Bilhah...

So at surface level there is nothing unlawful about what Sarah suggests.

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But think a little deeper, just a few chapters ago Abram gave Sarah to the king of Egypt so he wouldnt be killed. He allowed his wife to be given sexually to another man its morally an outrage.

Now Sarai is giving her servant sexually to another man as if Hagar were mere property, to be used as needed. Its true, thats how they thought about slaves back then. Does it make it morally right? No its an outrage. And Hagar has no choice in the matter, it seems.

For Sarah, the concern is building her family, not Hagars welfare. Look back at v2. Sarah blames God for keeping her from having children and so she looks to build her family a different way.

And even though Abram takes Hagar as his wife (16:3), they are not a happy throuple, not a happy family. Theres a lot of resentment. Verse 4...

[Abram] slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When [Hagar] knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." (Genesis 16:4-5)

Sarahs plan to build a family has backfired. A child will be born, but the family is falling apart.

Sarahs position as Abrams wife is undermined: and Hagars status as a mere servant is elevated as she becomes Abrams second wife, and the mother of an heir.

Sarah strikes out at Abram, blames him for everything.

The whole scene sounds a lot like Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, doesnt it? Eve took the fruit and gave it to her husband, he took it. Sarah took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband. And he took her... Then everything was messed up...

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Abraham

What about Abraham? What did Abraham think about all this? After all, God had made the promise to him, not once, but twice, that he would have offspring from his own body, that he would be the father of nations. Perhaps his wife, Sarai was right perhaps God meant him to have the child with the Egyptian girl, not the wife of his youth.

Really?

Men, what do you think?

If we look at the way the story is told, right from the beginning, Abrams wife Sarai had been at his side, even before God made the three promises to Abram. We learned right back in ch11 that Sarah was childless. Some other translations say barren its a horrible expression. But she was Abrams wife for better for worse, for richer for poorer. In sickness and in health. Why would Abram expect his heir to come from anyone but his own wife?

Especially after what happened in Egypt, when Abram had jeopardised Sarahs safety.

When Abram had let Pharaoh take Sarai into his harem, what did God do to Pharaoh? God struck Pharaoh with plagues until he gave Sarai back to Abram. Sarah is central to Gods promises, but Abram is quick to look elsewhere.

When there was famine in Canaan, when the land was barren, Abram looked to Egypt for its fertile soils. And now in his wifes season of barrenness, Abram looks again to Egypt...

Married men, I think we need to pay close attention to what this story teaches us. Because there is a bit of Abram in all of us. When things arent working out the way you thought they would, dont go looking elsewhere. Instead, look to the one who has been at your side since the beginning and remember the promises you made to her on your wedding day.

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Abram frustrates me because he doesnt seem to fight for his marriage in this section of the story. Instead he is portrayed as a passive bystander.

His wife offers him a young slave girl, and he sleeps with her. Although hes heard Gods voice promise him offspring, now he listens to his wifes voice (16:2) rather than trusting Gods promise.

And then when the tension builds between the two women, what does Abram do?

He tells his wife, v6 Your slave is in your hands. Do with her whatever you think best. Abram stands by passively while Sarai mistreats Hagar.

What do you make of this? This is a picture of a family in trouble. And, frankly, a man who doesnt seem to be standing up for what is right, and what is good. The Old Testament laws upheld the virtue of marriage in a way that Abram seems to have forgotten in his troubled season. The idea that a husband and wife are one flesh. The Apostle Paul applies that idea in the New Testament, saying that husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. (Ephesians 5:28)

Men, I think the challenge of this chapter is to examine ourselves, and to see if weve fallen into the same kinds of behaviors. I know Jesus wasnt married, but in Jesus we see this model of love and care for women that is protective and restorative and compassionate. Thats where the gospel should lead us, in all our relationships, whether its our wives or our kids or just our friends. Jesus teaches us to do better.

Ladies, I feel I should say something to you about Sarais behaviour. So I say this extremely carefully.

I think it might have been very difficult to be married to Abram. Perhaps all their married life, Abram had been resentful of Sarais inability to have kids. It doesnt say that anywhere in the Bible, but perhaps Abram couldnt resist the chance to remind Sarai whose fault it was that they were still childless. The nasty comment when she was feeling down, the cheap shot. Twisting the knife in the open wound... Maybe.

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Perhaps Abram was the model of supportive husband. Except when he gave his wife to a foreign king to save his own life. Twice. It would be easy to resent your husband for that, and it would be almost impossible to rebuild trust after that kind of betrayal...

It would be easy to keep reminding him of his failure, to keep blaming him. To belittle him. To ignore him.

And it would be easy to focus on building the family, the kids anyway, without making the effort to reconcile properly with your husband...

Ladies, does this sound like you? I hope Im miles off the mark. But if you notice even the smallest resemblance in your behavior to Sarais, then this passage might be speaking to you today. God might be speaking to you today. And leading you to do better as you follow the example of Jesus in all things...

Thats enough of that for now. We have one more character to look at Hagar.

Hagar

Put yourself in Hagars shoes. She is perhaps the innocent one in all this. Shes an Egyptian slave, probably given to Sarai by the Egyptian Pharaoh when he sent Abram and Sarai away from Egypt... Slaves do what theyre told... They didnt have rights in that society. They were like property, for the master to do with as he or she pleased.

But when Hagar was given to Abram, and he took her as his wife, not just a concubine Hagars place in the world went up a notch. She was carrying the child her mistress could not have. Perhaps she had become Abrams favourite... And so Hagar began to look down on the woman who owned her it says in v4: she despised her mistress.

But Sarai would not be dethroned as the matriarch. She mistreated Hagar, put her in her place, while Abram did nothing about it. And so Hagar, frightened and pregnant, fled into the desert.

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Hagars story actually takes up more than half the chapter. Im going to say almost nothing about it.

But what I want to say is this even though Hagar is perhaps the least important character in this story, God treats her with the dignity that she never received as the slave of Sarai and Abram. See, God himself comes to Hagar at the spring on the road to Shur. It says the angel of the Lord in v7, 9 11 but if you look at v13 Hagar knows it is the LORD himself who has been speaking to her.

And when the Lord comes to Hagar, he blesses her far beyond what her importance in the story would suggest she deserves. To the little slave girl from Egypt, God promises that he will give her more descendants than she can count. God gives Hagar a promise not dissimilar to the promise he gave Abram. She will be the mother of a great people, her son Ishmael the firstborn of the Arab peoples... Thats the historical side of this promise to Hagar, which is accepted in Jewish and Christian and Islamic tradition.

But theres more to it than the interesting history. This is a story of God stepping into the lives of the little people. People like you and me.

In this story God tells us that he hears of our misery thats what Ishmaels name means, but it could be our name. You might have been suffering loss or affliction or childlessness or suffering in a terrible marriage for years, and God has heard of your misery. You might be like Hagar, lost and alone and crying in the desert, but God has heard of your misery.

Look at what Hagar says to God v13 she says, You are the God who sees me. Hagar was right we have a God who sees us and hears us and is ready to step into our lives to deal with our misery.

No matter how small we feel, no matter how unimportant our lives may look, God has already stepped into this world in the person of Jesus Christ, to deal with the messes we make of life, to deal with the injustices that affect our lives, and to show us that God cares. That God is with us. And that God is for us.

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And we need to be reminded of that because we humans are impatient creatures.

We wait through the difficult seasons of life, and sometimes the waiting is so hard that were tempted to give up on God.

PAUSE

Brothers and sisters, God is bringing about his promises to Abraham even today, and through faith in Jesus we are recipients of the promise.

God doesnt promise us land, nation and blessing in the same way he promised it to Abram. Actually, his promise to us is even better!

You see, we live at the other end of the promise to Abraham we live in the fulfilment of Gods promise to bless the whole world through Abrahams family.

Through faith in Jesus, we are adopted into a new family the church in this lifetime and in the life to come, the family of all the descendants of Abraham. The great nation of Gods forever people.

Through faith in Jesus, well be brought into the true land of Gods promise the new heavens and the new earth where well live with God forever.

And through faith in Jesus, we will receive blessings far beyond anything we could imagine, and far beyond anything we deserve.

You see, the world has sold us short on what it means to be blessed.

Blessing is often misunderstood as financial success (prosperity gospel). Or having family. Or children. Or good health.

But life doesnt always turn out like that? Does that mean you are cursed by God? No, I think it means you havent understood what real blessing it.

Real blessing is what we receive when we put our faith and trust in Jesus.

In Ephesians 1 God tells us that in Jesus, we have received every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms...

- Weve been adopted as sons and daughters of God, 9

- redeemed through his blood,

- forgiven our sins,

- given understanding of Gods will for our lives,

- sealed with the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance on the

day Jesus returns...

I began this morning by asking the question -

What do you do when the promise seems to be slipping out of reach? When you cant see how your waiting will ever come to an end? What do you do when God seems to have forgotten you?

Weve seen this morning that God has not forgotten us, and that our waiting will come to an end, when Jesus returns if not sooner.

So brothers and sisters, take heart and trust in the God who sees you... Lets pray.

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Genesis 12-25

2. Choices: Faith or Sight

Genesis 13:2, 5-18

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 20 February 2022

The Road Not Taken, Robert FrostThat, of course, is Robert Frosts famous poem The Road Not Taken. It explores the idea that every

choice we make leads us down one pathway or another.Not every choice we make is life altering Sir, will you have the chicken or the fish?

But some choices have enduring consequences. And when we embark down those pathways, we often cant see where they might lead us. And the path we take makes all the difference...

At the heart of our Bible passage today is a choice. A decision to go one way or another, which ends up making all the difference for one of the characters in our story.

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So why dont we pray that God would speak to us today as we listen to this very ancient story.

Our heavenly Father, as we open the Bible this morning, will you speak to us from its pages. Will you teach us how to make wise choices in this lifetime, and to choose the pathways that you lay out before us. Father, may all our choices lead us to Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen

Well, this is our second week in our new teaching series. We are spending the next 7 weeks or so in Genesis 12-25 following the story of Abraham and the Promises of God. This is a section with all kinds of interesting historical narrative, that teach us about the origins of Gods Old Testament people. But it does more than that. These chapters actually teach us foundational truths about the way that God has been working in the world to fulfill the promises he made some 4000 years ago. So lots to take away from this part of the Bible.

But I want to start by taking us back to where we started last week to remind you we are up to in the story. In the generations after the great flood, Noahs children spread out and populated the earth again. Generations pass and the story focuses in on one of Noahs descendants called Abram.

Abram and his family were living in the Middle East, modern day Iraq, when God spoke to Abram, telling him to leave behind his country, his people, even his fathers household to go to a land that God would show him.

And so God made three great promises to Abram. Do you remember what they were? Ive just mentioned one...

Land, Nation and Blessing.

God promised Abram that he would bring him into a land where he could settle. Second, he promised Abram that he would make him into a great nation. And third, he promised to bless Abram, but not just Abram. God promised to bring blessing to all the peoples of the earth through Abrams family.

Land, Nation and Blessing. Three promises that shape not only the Old Testament, but our story too...

Abram hears God speak. And he goes. He obeys God. Packs up his family and his belongings and starts the 800 mile journey to Canaan modern day Israel and Palestine. Where we finished last week, Abram had arrived in Canaan (but the land was full of Canaanites). God spoke to Abram again, saying: Ill give this land to your offspring.1 And Abram shows his trust in God by building an altar to the Lord and calling on his name and worshiping him.

So far, so good, right? Abram hears God speak, and he obeys. Abram is a model of what it looks like to trust in God.

1 Genesis 12:7

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Choice #1

And thats where the next part of the story comes as a bit of a surprise. Abram makes a choice that seems highly questionable.

Now we dont have time to read every part of the story in church, so I want to encourage you to read your way through Genesis 12-25 at home. That way the story will be a little bit familiar to you. Anyway let me tell you about Abrams questionable choice.

God has led Abram into the land that he promised him. But there is a new obstacle a famine in the land. And so Abram leads his family and all the entourage south into Egypt. If you remember your ancient history lessons, Egypt is a fertile country because of the Nile River and the annual floods. So Abram heads down to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan.

But Abram is worried. His wife Sarai is very beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that Abram thinks the Egyptians will kill him in order to take his wife from him. So Abram hatches a plan. He says to Sarai,

I know what a beautiful woman you are.12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife. Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you. (Genesis 12:11-13)

Abram wants Sarai to pretend to be his sister. Which is not exactly untrue Sarai is Abrams half-sister they have the same father, different mother. (Genesis 20:12)

Abrams fears are well founded, because on entering Egypt, Sarais beauty is noticed and she is taken into Pharaohs palace as one of his wives. Meanwhile Pharaoh showers Abram with gifts of sheep and cattle and donkeys and camels, as well as servants in return for Sarai.

Do you see the problem, aside from the morally questionable act of Abram giving his wife to another man?

Abrams choice to go to Egypt seems to threaten Gods big promises. Abram is out of the Land. His wife is meant to help him birth a Nation, but she is with another man. And as for all the nations of the world being blessed through Abram? Instead the Egyptians end up being cursed because of the situation. The Lord inflicts diseases upon Pharaoh and his household.

So Pharaoh summons Abram:

What have you done to me? he said. Why didnt you tell me she was your wife?19 Why did you say, She is my sister, so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go! (Genesis 12:18-19)

Pharoah releases Sarai, and sends her and Abram away with all of the gifts that he had given them.

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What do you make of a story like this? Its very unusual, isnt it?

Even more unusual that in chapter 20, almost the exact same thing happens again. Abram says Sarai is his sister, and King Abimelech takes her to be his wife. Its creepy, dont you think?

So what do we make of a story like this?

Well one thing I love about the Bible is it doesnt whitewash the heroes. Whether its the Old Testament or the New, the text rarely covers up the flaws and failures of the heroes of faith. And here we see a very honest picture of Abram. Hes afraid for his life and he does what it takes to save his own skin.

Its a picture of fear, not faith.And thats the first big idea I want to focus on today. The idea of trusting God even when the road

ahead makes you afraid.

Some of you have been on the Christian journey for a long time now, and others are just starting out. What we learn from Abram is that the road isnt always clear of debris. There may be significant obstacles and roadblocks ahead of us in our journey as Christians, but that doesnt mean we should abandon the path or choose a different way. Abram was in the promised land, but he abandoned it because he couldnt imagine how God might feed him in the famine.

You might be facing a famine right now. Or some other obstacle to faith. Wondering how God is going to provide for you in this season. Perhaps its your finances. Or your health. Perhaps your family is in crisis. Perhaps your marriage is on the rocks. Perhaps as a Christian, youre starting to feel like God isnt giving you the answers you wanted. And youre thinking about looking for greener pastures elsewhere?

This passage teaches us that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. Every choice we make has consequences, and sometimes traumatic consequences. I suspect this episode caused a lot of grief and pain and emotional turmoil for Sarai and Abram and their marriage...

Reading between the lines, it seems like it takes Abram and Sarai a long while to get back to the promised land. Chapter 13 starts with an image of Abram and his family bouncing from place to place, restlessly, until they finally make it back to Bethel, to the place where Abram had called on the name of the Lord. Its a symbolic moment, as Abram rededicates himself to God, and he gets his life back on the right track.

You might be here this morning thinking, I want to get my life back on the right track. Im sick of seeking solutions that just dont work. Im sick of the relentless, restless journey that never seems to get anywhere. Im sick of doing this on my own. Lord I need you...

If thats you, I want you to keep listening, and at the end, Im going to make some time to rededicate yourself to God if thats what He is saying to you this morning.

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Choice #2

But before we do that, I want to look at the second big choice that Abram makes in the passage today. This one comes from the reading that we heard earlier, and is there on the back of your handouts, from Genesis 13.

2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

5 Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. 6 But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. (Genesis 13:2,5-6)

Lot was Abrams nephew. He had traveled with Abram when his father died in Haran. Perhaps Abram was a father figure to Lot thats not clear in the story, but they are certainly a close-knit family. But now the problem was that both Abram and Lot had amassed quite significant wealth livestock and herds and servants so many that the land could not support them as they traveled together. Verse 7 reminds us that there were other people living in the land also Canaanites and Perizzites who probably werent happy to share precious grazing land and water with foreigners. Even Abram and Lots shepherds started fighting with one another because of the pressure to keep the flocks fed and watered.

So Abram makes a suggestion (v8):

Lets not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Lets part company. If you go to the left, Ill go to the right; if you go to the right, Ill go to the left. (Genesis 13:8-9)

Its a simple solution, isnt it? Lets split it, and you choose whichever side you like.

Now I grew up with a brother and two sisters and I know how this game works. Lets say theres a leftover steak at the end of dinner, or the last piece of birthday cake, and you both want it. One person cuts it, and the other person chooses the piece that is larger, or looks better. And you dont want to be the one who cuts, do you? Because then you dont get to choose! But if you do cut, you want to get it perfectly in the middle. Sharing! Who thought it would be so difficult!

Not for Abram, apparently. He lets Lot choose whichever part of the land he wants. And Lot chooses the best bit, or so he thinks (v10):

10 Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. 11 So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east.

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The two men parted company: 12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. 13 Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. (Genesis 13:10-13)

Lot picks the land that looks the richest. The most productive. It was also an area with a reputation for partying, and thats where Lot chose to pitch his tents. Really close to Sodom.

Now we said before that every choice has consequences. Lots choice of this particular area to settle, it would have dire consequences for his family. As we read on in Genesis, Sodom is a place where very dark and disturbing things happen, and Lot chooses to move from the outskirts to the very middle of that dark and disturbing culture. Ultimately it would end up destroying his family. And Ill leave you to read that story for yourself.

There are lessons for us to learn from Lot. Lessons about where we choose to live our life.Lot chose to flirt with sin. He made choice after choice that led him further away from the promised

land, and it almost cost him his life.

Where are your choices leading you?

Perhaps youve heard Gods call on your life, but youve been following the path of Lot. Making choices that you know dont lead to godliness, choices that arent good for you, choices that might have serious consequences for you and your family.

The lesson we learn from Lot is that when we flirt with sin, we flirt with destruction. In the book of Proverbs it says you cant walk on coals without burning your feet.2 Our choices have consequences, and its better to learn from Lots poor choices than to learn the lesson the hard way in your own life.

If you have been walking down the path of Lot, the good news of the gospel is that God stands ready to forgive those mistakes. Hes the God of second chances, and third chances, and hundredth chances. But to receive that forgiveness, you need to get back on the right path. You need to come back to Jesus. Back to the cross. Back on the path to the promised land.

Perhaps thats you today you need to get back on the right path. Like I said a few minutes ago, Im going to make time at the end of the sermon to respond to God, and to come back to Jesus. If thats you, hold that thought, and keep listening because there is one more choice in our passage.

2 Proverbs 6:28

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Choice #3

The last choice in our passage was Abrams choice not to choose. Because when Abram allowed Lot to choose which part of the land he wanted, Abram was also choosing to trust that God would make good on his promises, whatever part he was left with.

And theres a lesson for us there. We need to trust that God is at work, even when the land in front of us doesnt look as fertile as we had hoped for.

Were so used to upgrading, and upsizing, and up-careering (is that a word?). Doing whatever we can to have more, be more, experience more, so that sometimes it is hard to be content with what we have. Im sure weve all experienced that at times.

But what if Gods plan for you is not more? What if its less, or less than you expected anyway? What will that do to your trust in God?

When we look to Abram, we find a model of contentment in Gods promises. Abram allows his nephew to take half of what had been promised to him, and he gives it away freely. Without resentment, or jealousy. He trusts that God will give him enough...

And in that moment, unexpectedly, God speaks to Abram again. (v14)

14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you. (Genesis 13:14-17)

I imagine what it must have been like for Abram in that moment. He had heard God speak to him before, but now Gods voice was telling him that the promises were one step closer. You followed my voice from Haran to Canaan, and now here it is the land the land that I will give to you and to your offspring. God points north and south, east and west, he says: Look! See it, walk on it, touch it. Its real, and its one step closer than it was before.

Brothers and sisters, the promised land is one step closer for us too. Every day as we wait for Jesus to return or call us home, every day we are one step closer to the fulfilment of Gods promises to us in Jesus Christ. The eternal promised land, the new heavens and the new earth, a place for the nation that God is building with his people, a place of blessing. One day well look north and south and east and west and God will show it all to us. Well be able to see it and touch it and feel it and enjoy it, and it will never feel like it isnt enough. Well be satisfied, and more.

But for now, we live by faith and not by sight. We teach our hearts to trust that these promises are true by listening to Gods voice, here in the Bible. And when our faith is failing, when we take the wrong

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path, when we get caught up in the things of this world that never satisfy, we look up at the cross. Our north and our south, our east and our west, our compass to guide us home to Jesus, and to eternal life.

I wonder if today, you want to come home to Jesus?

In a moment were going to sing a song: Lord I Need You. Its a song all about coming back to Jesus, confessing our need for forgiveness, our need for guidance, our need for someone to make sense of our messes. Its a song about finding rest, and hope.

So if you want to come home to Jesus today, if you want to rededicate your life to Jesus, if you want to get back on the right path with Jesus today, why dont you make this song your prayer?

Let me pray for us now as the musicians come up.

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Genesis 12-251. Promises and the Promise Maker Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor Genesis 12:1-9 13 February 2022

A dying man got his three best friends together at his bedside (his doctor, lawyer, and pastor) and he handed each of them an envelope with $25,000 in cash inside.

He made them each promise that they would place the envelope in his casket because he was determined to take it with him.

A week later, he died.

At the visitation, the doctor, the lawyer, and the pastor each placed an envelope in the mans coffin before it was shut.

By chance, the three men met about a month later. The pastor, feeling guilty, confessed that there was only $10,000 in the envelope that he put in the casket. He told them that rather than waste all of that money, he had sent $15,000 to a mission effort in Africa and asked for their forgiveness.

The doctor then told the other two that the envelope that he left only had $8,000 in it. He had given the rest of the money to cancer research.

The lawyer was outraged. He told the two men how disappointed he was with both of them. He said, Im the only one who kept my promise to our friend. I want you to know that I put the full amount in my envelope in the coffin. I wrote out a personal check for the entire $25,000.

Promises, promises...

As we open the Bible today we are starting our new series, from Genesis 12-25. This is a story all about promises. Gods promises to Abraham, and how those promises play out in his lifetime. But more than that, this section of the Bible is kind of Bible 101 it lays the foundations for understanding Gods plans and promises for his people, for us! Its going to be a great series.

So why dont we pray and ask God to speak to us today...

Dear heavenly Father, as we open this part of the Bible today, will you remind us of all your promises to us. And will you grant us faith to trust in those promises. We pray this in the name your Son Jesus. Amen

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Its so good to be back in the book of Genesis with you. It has been more than a year since we studied the first 11 chapters together. That was way back at the end of 2020. And if youre anything like me, you might be struggling to remember what happened in those 11 chapters.

The good news is that were only on like p15 of your Bible. To read the complete backstory, you could probably sit down with a cup of coffee this week and get through chapters 1-11 chapters in an hour or so.

And if you do that, then you might consider reading Genesis 12-25 as well. Its one way to get more out of the Sunday sermons, because you get a chance to reflect on the ideas more than once, and really apply them to yourself. We also have Bible Study materials based on Genesis 12-25, and I know some of our groups will be using them over the next little while. If you want to be in a group doing those studies, let me know and well try to find a group that works for you. You could also take a copy of the notes and work through them on your own or with a friend. There is such value in the Scriptures, and this is a great chance to dig deeper.

Anyway, there are two themes from the backstory in Genesis 1-11 that will really help us as we open Genesis 12 today.

1. Blessing Curse the back story

The first idea is blessing.

In Genesis chapter 1, God creates the world and everything in it and its all good. On the sixth day he creates man and woman in his own image. And he blesses them. He blesses them and tells them to be fruitful and multiply and to be the rulers over the earth. (Genesis 1:27-28) And God looked at everything he had made and it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

Right from the first chapter of the Bible we see that God wants to bless human beings. Gods plan for people is to bless them. And the world is very good when people are enjoying Gods blessing. Blessing is Gods natural inclination when it comes to his creation, and especially to man and woman who are made in his own image.

Thats really important to remember because the second big theme of Genesis 1-11 is curse.

The goodness of creation was tainted when Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God had told them not to eat. They distrusted God; they disobeyed God; and they disrespected the God whod held out every blessing to them.

And so humanity had its first taste of Gods judgment instead of blessing, Adam and Eve understood the curse of sin, which brought guilt and shame and unhappiness to their perfect world. And with it, death...

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But despite the intrusion of sin, God never gave up on his plan to bless his creation and to restore it to good order... And so even in the midst of judging Adam and Eves sin, we see a hint of mercy, a hint that the curse will give way to blessing. The serpent will be crushed: evil will not ultimately prevail.

And so that pattern continues through Genesis 4-11. Cain and Abel; Noah and the flood; the tower of Babel. Judgment gives way to mercy... Curse gives way to blessing...

Gods character remains faithful to his original purposes for creation, despite every sin of humanity. God will restore blessing to his people...

2. Promise

And that brings us to Chapter 12, and the story of Abraham. Which is really a story about promise.

This is the story of God promising that he will restore blessing to all the people of earth through one man and his family Abraham, or Abram as hes called at this stage of the story.

We meet Abram back in chapter 11.

Abram is descended from the line of Noahs son, Shem. (Genesis 11:10) You might remember Noah had 3 sons, and Shem was the good son.

Well, Abram is a descendent of Shem. In the generations since the Great Flood, the tribes had spread out all over the Middle East. Abrams family is living in Ur of the Chaldeans (Genesis 11:28), somewhere in southern Iraq.

We actually know quite a bit about Ur of the Chaldeans. The ancient city was identified by archaeologist Henry Rawlinson in 1862, then it was excavated by Leonard Woolley in 1927. (A bit Indiana Jones!)

What it revealed was that Ur was a city built around the worship of the moon. And it seems that this was the religion of Abram and his family his father Terah, his niece/sister-in-law Milkah and even his wife Sarai all have names associated with the moon gods of Ur.

So thats Abram. A nomadic moon worshiper from the Middle-East, who has lived all his life within the tribal context of his family, a family small enough that marriage between close relatives is not unusual.

This is the man that God speaks to, calling him to a very different life... (12:1)

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The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people and your fathers household to the land I will show you.

2 I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you,and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earthwill be blessed through you. (Genesis 12:1-3)

They are three huge promises that God makes to Abraham

- He promises to give Abram a land (v1)

- And in that land he will make Abrams family into a great nation. (v2)

- And (v3) God promises to bless Abram, and to use Abrams family to bring blessing to all

the peoples of the earth. Land, nation, blessing.

So these promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, theyre the key to understanding the big story of the Bible. From this moment on, the entire rest of the Bible is the unfolding story of how God keeps these three promises.

How he brings his people (nation) back into a place (land) where he can bless them (blessing), just like in the Garden in the beginning. These promises will reverse the curse and restore creation to a perfect relationship with the Creator...

Three brilliant promises, arent they?

The Trouble with Promises

They are great promises, but do you know what? As humans we have a bit of a problem with promises. We know that promises are easily made but not easily kept.

Even when we have the best intentions to keep our promises, often as humans we just dont have the capacity to keep promises we make. Promises are hard to keep.

And when we look at the promises God made to Abram, they look like difficult promises to keep. God promised Abraham land, nation and blessing.

But a bunch of obstacles stand in the way of God fulfilling the promises. 4

The great nation? Well Abram is 75 years old (12:4). His wife Sarai is 65 (Genesis 17:17) And as a couple theyve been unable to conceive. Sarah is infertile. Yet God promises to make Abrams family into a great nation. Hows that going to happen?

Perhaps Abraham could bring with him all of his fathers family from Harran? But no, God says leave them behind. Go from your country, your people and your fathers household to the land I will show you...

Most of us would count our families as some kind of blessing. And God wants Abram to leave that blessing behind to leave behind his family, his roots, his identity to answer this call. Its hard not to see that as an obstacle to Gods promise being fulfilled.

The land is another obstacle in the way of Gods plan. Abram knows that Canaan is full of Canaanites who wont give up their territory easily.

So many obstacles.

So I keep wondering, how could Abraham trust that God would keep his promises? How could Abraham trust God enough to pack up everything he owned, to follow after a promise that seemed impossible? Would you have done it? I dont know that I would have.

How can anyone trust that God will keep his promises?

3. The Promise Maker

Our problem with promises is that we are used to human promises.

Were used to broken promises, and broken promises lead to broken hearts. We learn not to trust the person who makes promises to us.

But what if the promise maker was not like us? What if the promise maker had the power to do whatever he had promised? And what if the promise maker was not able to not keep his promises? In other words, what if the promise maker had to keep every promise he made, because its not in his character or nature to tell a lie?

Well that is the sort of promise maker that God is.

When God reveals his character to us throughout the Bible, what he shows us is that he is trustworthy and true faithful in everything. Psalm 33 says this about God:

4 For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.

(Ps 33:4-5)

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God is trustworthy and true, and his word is a reflection of his character. The words that come out of God are consistent with his character. They cant be otherwise.

And so Gods word is his promise. Did you notice that even though Ive been talking about promises, the word promise doesnt occur once in Genesis 12?

It doesnt need to. In fact, there is no Hebrew word for promise. There are other words for covenants and contracts. But here, God speaks a word and his word reshapes the world...

And its not the first time. Psalm 33 continues...

6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth[...]9 For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations;he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,the purposes of his heart through all generations. (Psalm 33:9-11)

Gods word is his promise. And so when God promised land, nation and blessing to Abraham, it was impossible for God not to make good on his promise.

Over the next 7 weeks we are going to see these promises of God unfold. To Abraham. But also to us. Because we are included in this story. These promises are not just a nation building story from a far off time, but they help to explain what God has been doing in the world since time began. And they help us to understand where God is taking this world, taking us. Land, nation and blessing is our story, and our promise, our inheritance.

You see, when we come to the New Testament, it says that it is through Jesus that the blessing given to Abraham comes to Gentiles, to non-Jews, which Im guessing is most of us in the room today. Its right there in Galatians 3:13-14 on your handout.

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole. 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Jesus redeemed us from the curse of sin, so we can receive the blessing of becoming part of Gods people. By faith, were part of Abrahams family the family of God, the people God will

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gather around himself not in an earthly city but in a heavenly city, to live with him forever just like it was in the beginning. Before the curse, when everything was good.

Thats the promise for us and for everyone who has their faith in Jesus.

The question as always is, can you trust that promise?

Because you and I are like Abraham. Even though God promises this eternity with him through faith in Jesus, there seem to be so many obstacles standing in the way of that becoming a reality.

Ive never seen God, but Im meant to trust in him, and to trust in Jesus? Ive been praying forever and I just dont feel like God is answering my prayers... My life has been one let down after another. How can I trust that there is a God who is looking out for me? I feel angry. I feel betrayed. I feel the weight of my sin. I dont feel anything.

Is that you?Then God has a word for you this morning. And his word is this it comes from Hebrews 11:8ff

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as hisinheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11 And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise.

Hebrews 11:8-11

God has prepared a city for you, a land of blessing, and he has called you to be a part of his people, through faith in Jesus Christ. The one who made this promise is faithful. So the question is - will you trust in him?

Lets pray.

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The longer Ive been a Christian, the more I realise that plenty of us still ask this question regularly: How can I be sure if Im saved? How can I be sure Im going to heaven?

How can I be sure Im going to heaven? Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor Ephesians 1:3-14, 2:1-10 6 February 2022

How can I be sure Im going to heaven?

That was actually one of the first religious questions I ever thought seriously about. I was 13 years old, in the 7th grade. I was on my way to catch the train home after school, and I was walking down the steps to Town Hall station in the heart of Sydney, when a very old man grabbed onto the stair rail, and leaned over to me, and asked:

If you died tonight, would you be sure youd be going to heaven?(He was pretty old he was more likely to die that night than I was!)

But I remember him asking that question, or something like it. How can you be sure if youre going to heaven?

And I remember thinking, Im a pretty good kid. I dont do bad things. I went to church a few times when I was younger. Surely thats enough. I hope its enough...

I got on my train, I forgot about the old man, I forgot about the question. PAUSE

But not everyone can forget about this question so easily. The longer Ive been a Christian, the more I realise that plenty of us still ask this question regularly: How can I be sure if Im saved? How can I be sure Im going to heaven?

Over the years Ive talked to lots of people about assurance of salvation. Some of the people I talk to have rock solid hope. And others are plagued by doubts.

- Am I really saved?- Is my faith real, or is it somehow just an act? Why dont I feel God, why dont I feel the Holy

Spirit?- Why is it quiet when I pray? Why do I feel nothing when I read the Bible?- And what about the sins in my life? Surely God knows my hypocrisy. Will he really forgive me for

what Ive done? Surely no other Christian falls into sin and temptation as much as I do... Im no better than an unbeliever...

Those are some of the words Ive heard people speak, the agonizing words of doubt that eats away at Christian brothers and sisters...

Some of you wont be able to relate to that kind of doubt.But for many of us in the room these doubts are real and regular and really hard...

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So today I want to remind you of the promises that God makes to us in the Bible promises he makes to us in Jesus that by faith in him, we can be absolutely sure of our salvation.

So Im going to pray that God himself would speak to us today as we open the Bible, and read these words of assurance in Ephesians 1 and 2. So lets pray:

Our heavenly Father, will you speak to us today and give us assurance that you love us, assurance that you will forgive our sins in Jesus, assurance that you will bring us into eternal life... Will you speak to us and comfort our hearts, in Jesus saving name we pray. Amen

So our task today is to answer the question: How can I be sure Im going to heaven? There are two schools of thought about how to answer questions like this.

- One is, to cast the net wide, to look at a hundred Bible verses and show you how all through the Scriptures, we see God promising to save us from the sin of Adam and Eve...

- The second way to do it is to dig deep into one passage that helps us read the rest of the Bible with our eyes open to Gods plan of salvation from beginning to end.

Both are good methods. Were going to do the second one, because I think Ephesians 1 2 tell us 3 things we need to keep remembering about assurance.

Three ideas

Salvation is from God

Salvation is not by works

Assurance comes by hearing the truth

So first: salvation is from God.

i. Salvation is from God

Its tempting to think that Salvation starts with us. That salvation is all about what we choose in life. - If we choose God then were saved, and if we reject him were condemned...

Now those are both true statements, but the Bible tells a much bigger story of salvation. A story of salvation that started before the day we made any decisions about God. In fact, our salvation started before any of us were born, before Jesus was born, even before Adam and Eve were born!

Look at Ephesians 1:4 it tells us there that the story of our salvation begun before the creation of the world!

4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. Imagine that! Right back there in the beginning, or even before the beginning, it was then that God

chose us to be holy and blameless in his sight.2

Thats a pretty crazy idea, right! That even before the world was created, God already had you in his mind, thinking about you and choosing you to be holy and blameless in his sight in the creation that he would soon bring into being... He knew that you wouldnt be born until 20 generations after Jesus, but still he knew you and chose you at that time...

Salvation doesnt begin with us choosing God, it began with God choosing us from before the world was even made!

And it wasnt just that God chose us to be holy and blameless, v5 God predestined us to be adopted as his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ!

Lets just think about the word predestined for a moment.

Destiny is a funny concept for the modern Western mind. Destiny is the idea that an outside force controls our future.

There was a series of really terrible horror movies a few years ago called Final Destination. There were 4 or 5 of them. The franchise was based on the premise that you cant escape destiny, and so when death comes for you, it will get you one way or another. So you spent the movie wondering how the next person will die. Like I said, terrible.

Thats destiny the idea that our fate is decided by some outside force, and you cant change your destiny.

In the Western world, I dont think most of us buy into that idea of destiny, or fate. Were so used to making our own decisions in life, and relying on our own strength and education to choose our way in the world.

But Ephesians 1 verse 5 tells us that destiny is real. And that God has predestined some to be adopted as his sons and daughters through Jesus Christ.

Whats the basis for his choosing us and predestining us?

Second part of v5 says: God chooses and predestines in accordance with his pleasure and will!

God doesnt choose us because of anything weve done, but purely because of his love end of v4.

And he brings us into his family, and gives us the status of children. He pours out gracious gifts on us every spiritual blessing (v3) in Christ, his glorious grace (v6) which he gives us freely.

Salvation starts with God, and it started even before the creation of the world.

But salvation doesnt come just from the Father its also wrapped up in Jesus.

Did you notice in v3, 4, 5 6 how Jesus is mentioned in every verse? Every good gift of the Father is somehow wrapped up in Christ...

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- v3 blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ

- v4 For he chose us in him

- v5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ

- v6 God gives us his glorious grace in the One he loves.

Salvation comes from the Father and the Son. And we see in v7 exactly what role the Son plays.

7 In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, (Ephesians 1:7)

Its in Jesus that Gods plan of salvation was accomplished. Jesus death on the cross was for the forgiveness of sins. His death brings us redemption from the destiny that sin held in store for us.

So Gods choice of us before the creation of the world was secured by Jesus death in our place. Nothing can stand in the way of Gods plan hes made sure of that in Jesus.

And God wants us to know that truth! v9

And he [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfilment

God has told us the meaning of life the mystery of his will, his plan which he is working out according to his will, to bring everything under the lordship of Jesus. And were included in that plan (v11) because of Gods choice and predestination!

Does that blow your mind? It blows my mind...

It seems so implausible as I live my little life, as I go about my little jobs and look after my little family. That somehow God chose me, that Jesus died for me... It seems so distant from my day to day world. A plan formed thousands of years ago, a death died 2000 years ago.

How do we keep the faith when Gods plan takes such a long time to come to fulfilment? How do we keep the faith when life intrudes?

Jo and I own a house back in Australia. Weve had it since before the kids were born, and its been rented out for more than 15 years. Im either the best landlord in the world, or the worst depending on how you look at it. I havent raised the rent in over 5 years. I trust that the property manager is doing a goof job. And so most of the time I dont even think about that house my life here is so busy, and the house there is so far away that I almost forget about it...

But in a drawer in my house is the contract that says Im the owner of the house, with all the benefits and responsibilities. That contract guarantees my ownership of the house.

And God has given us a guarantee of his promises, a contract stamped with the Kings own seal. v13:

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When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are Gods possession (Ephesians 1:13)

The Holy Spirit is the way that God stays close to us until Jesus returns. And the way in which God helps us feel close to him. Because the Holy Spirit is God indwelling us, God remaining with us, the presence of God with us permanently, to change us and shape us and mould us into the likeness of Jesus until the day of our final redemption.

The Holy Spirit begins the process of sanctification in us a work which wont be finished while were in the flesh, but only in the resurrection. Its the Holy Spirit who convicts us of our sin without him we wouldnt care about the sins we do because we wouldnt care about pleasing God. But its his voice that bids us to repent, and do the good works that God has prepared for us to do (2:10).

So were asking the question How can I be sure if Im going to heaven?

And so far Ephesians 1 has taught us that we can be sure were going to heaven because God made a plan before creation to choose and predestine us for salvation, through the death of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.

Its the plan of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to save, thought of by them alone, initiated by them alone, and achieved by them alone...

ii. Salvation is not by works

So our second big idea is that Salvation is not by works.You see if salvation comes through God alone, then we contribute nothing to our salvation. And thats absolutely clear in Eph 2:1-10.

It paints a picture of us how we used to be before we knew God it says we were dead in our sins (v1). Thats the way everyone is when we live apart from God spiritually dead, disobedient (v2), living only to gratify the cravings of the flesh (v3).

That life of sin deserves Gods wrath (v3). But look what it says in v4

4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressionsit is by grace you have been saved.

We are saved not because of our own good works, but by Gods grace. Even while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Because of Gods great love! The love that he had for us even before creation, love that would take Jesus to the cross, and love that would save us even while we were still enemies of God.

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It tells us again in 2:8 that it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and even our faith is not from ourselves, but it is the gift of God so that no one can boast.

Let me read it again so that we can let it wash over us:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faithand this is not from yourselves, it is the

gift of God 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 1:8-9)

This is such a good verse to remember when your faith is weak... Sometimes your faith might not feel like much, but God has given you enough faith to keep running the race, enough to keep trusting Jesus for your salvation.

Because we need to trust Jesus for our salvation, rather than trusting in our own works.

Trusting in religious works was the problem of the Pharisees in the NT, and its the problem of many world religions. They put all their hope of salvation in the good works that they do. Being a good person, doing the right thing, performing religious ceremonies or attending religious services. Theyre all good things, but theyre not the way were saved.

2:8-9 reminds us: we are saved by faith in Jesus alone, not by works. By trusting in him alone for forgiveness and salvation.

Now we should do good works as Christians. Verse 10 teaches us that we have been created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. But those good works arent the reason why were saved. Theyre the working of the Holy Spirit after were saved, as the Spirit helps us to choose what is right more and more often. And as a Christian, God willing, over time youll see that your life is characterised more and more by good works as you submit yourself to Gods will and deny the cravings of the sinful nature. Then your good works will be a sign pointing to the work God has already done in you by the HS.

But our works are never a reason for God to save us. He chose us and saved us and made us alive while we were dead in transgressions (v5)!

So How can I be sure Im going to heaven? Its God who saves. And he doesnt save because of my good works. Nor has God denied me salvation because I didnt do enough. My salvation is Gods choice through and through.

These are the bedrock facts of Christianity. They are true regardless of how we feel. Nothing we do could make God love us more, and nothing we do could make him love us less.

iii. Faith comes through hearing

Then why is it so hard to find assurance?The reason is that were still very much like our first parents Adam and Eve.

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We still feel the temptation to question Gods word. And the voice of the serpent still whispers in our ear Did God really say?

In the book of Revelation, Satan is called the Deceiver, and he still wants to deceive us just like he did in the garden. Did God really say your sins are forgiven? Did God really include you in his plan? Do you really think God loves you?

PAUSE

We dont need to listen to Satans voice. He knows he has lost the battle for your soul, because Jesus has won you from him. So now the devil is furious, and he tries to inflict as much damage as he can in his dying moments...

I love this quote from Christian author Tim Challies. (On your handouts)

Though Satan can never steal the Christians crown, though he can never snatch him away from the hand of the Father, he is so envious and malicious that he will leave no stone unturned in robbing the Christian of comfort and peace, in making their life miserable, in giving them reason to live in constant sorrow and mourning, doubt and questioning.

Did God really say?

Although its tempting to listen to the voice of doubt in our weakness, I want you to listen to the voice of truth today. Not my voice, but the voice of God.

Because God says Yes! we can trust that our sins are forgiven. We can trust that his plan is true. That he is already changing us and sanctifying us by the work of the Holy Spirit!

He tells us to listen to the truth that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. (1:13)

13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. (Ephesians 1:13)

So sister, brother, have you heard the word of truth? Then you were also included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.

Thats the simple message I have for you today.

Faith comes through listening to God. And he is speaking to you today. Hear his voice and trust in him. Come to Jesus and see what God will do in your life. Listen and believe.

I know for some it wont be enough, and for some it wont silence the voices of doubt. But this is what is true... And thats why we share the hope of Jesus week in week out here at Yountville Community Church. I want you to have assurance.

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Its also why I keep encouraging you to keep taking next steps in faith. Join a small group, join Alpha a course to find out more about the basics of Christianity. You can start that journey today. Fill out a Connect Card and let us know you want to start that journey towards faith and assurance.

Because this is what God wants for your life. You just have to trust him. Will you pray with me?

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Watch at: https://youtu.be/gcay7L3D-tc File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/02/19/19/29/58/8f404440-6e98-44d0-9c46-57a3bb38fd30/02.06.22%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf

Join Pastor Dan Bidwell for the second part in our Wisdom series, exploring wisdom as presented in the New Testament.

New Year Special2. The Wisdom of the Cross Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 1 Corinthians 1:18-30 2 January 2022

Back in the early days of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford had a problem with the electrical generators for his factory. One day the generators ground to a halt, and his repairmen couldnt find the problem.

So Ford called electrical genius Charles Steinmetz. Just for reference, Steinmetz was friends with Albert Einstein, Nikolas Tesla and Thomas Edison. He was one of the great mathematical and scientific minds of the time.

Anyway Steinmetz tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch. The generators whirred to life.

Ford was delighted, until he received the bill from Steinmetz. It was for $10,000. Flabbergasted, the rather tightfisted car maker asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetzs reply: For tinkering with the generators, $10. For knowing where to tinker, $9,990. Henry Ford paid the bill.

Today in church we are thinking about wisdom, and how to be wise. Sometimes the wisest thing you can do is go to the person who knows where to tinker. To go to the expert.

Well find that to be true as we open the New Testament this week to see what it says about wisdom. So why dont we pray and ask God to make us wise as we open the Bible now?

Our heavenly Father, give us wisdom as we open your word today. Help us to know how to live wisely in the world, as we go about our everyday lives, and as we seek to follow Jesus. Grant us wisdom, we pray, in Jesus name. Amen

Well last week we began this little series about Wisdom in the Old Testament, in the book of Proverbs, where it said:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)

The Old Testament taught us that even to begin to be wise in this world, we need to acknowledge that there is a God, and know him. And it is by knowing him that we begin to know about ourselves, and our purpose in this world.

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But the Bible doesnt stop with the Old Testament. And what we know about God doesnt stop with the Old Testament. The New Testament continues the story that the Old begun, and it takes the promises and prophecies and purposes of God and focuses them all onto one person: Jesus.

And so my first big idea is that to understand wisdom from the New Testament, you need to know Jesus.

1. NTwisdomiscenteredonChrist

New Testament wisdom is centered on Christ.

If wisdom comes from knowing God (as Proverbs 9:10 said) then we need to know Jesus. The Christmas season reminds us that Jesus is Gods own Son: Immanuel God with us, God born in human flesh. Jesus himself tells us that if weve seen him, weve seen the Father (John 14:9).

Jesus reveals God to us. And that means that Jesus reveals Gods wisdom to us. Look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:24 (on your handout).It says (at the end of v24):

Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:24)

Well come back and unpack that a bit more in a moment, but first come down to v30 with me, because Paul says the same thing again.

Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from Godthat is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30)

If we want the key to godly wisdom, then we need to look at Jesus.

Now plenty of people would see Jesus as a wise teacher perhaps even one of the greatest teachers and philosophers of all time. And Jesus did teach all kinds of practical wisdom. But is that the heart of who Jesus was, just a good teacher? If so, then what distinguishes him from a thousand other teachers and philosophers and voices of wisdom across the centuries?

To find the answer to that question, I want to look at 1 Corinthians 1, because it shows us that Jesus wisdom and worldly wisdom dont have the same outcome. Jesus wisdom upturns everything that this world would define as wise. But in doing so, he reveals the most important wisdom we could attain. And that wisdom is captured in the message of the cross.

2. NTwisdomiscapturedinthecross

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1 Corinthians 1:18 says:

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

What is the message of the cross? The cross is the heart of Gods plan to bring righteousness, holiness and redemption to the world (1:30).

The story of the Bible in a nutshell is that God lovingly created the world, and everything in it. In his loving wisdom, God created it such that everything was good, and he designed it so that every element of creation would flourish as it existed in perfect harmony with its creator.

But sin shattered that perfection. Adam and Eve thought that God was holding back a blessing from them, and so they ate from the tree that God had forbidden them to eat of. Its a powerful metaphor for the way that we all treat God seeking to define what we think life should be like, shaping the world around us so that we get what we want, with little regard for the larger consequences.

Well Adam and Eves sin had larger consequences. It damaged the relationship between Adam and Eve as husband and wife, and that relational damage has played out in every human relationship since. More significantly, it damaged the relationship between humanity and God. It set us up as suspicious of Gods motives, and it made us wary of listening to his voice of wisdom in our lives. Gods wisdom tells us the best way to live in this world, the way he created us to live, but were like stubborn toddlers who dont listen to reason.

Now toddlers are cute, even when they are misbehaving. But sin is not cute. Its not insignificant. It is much more like the destructive behavior that breaks up relationships permanently, and sin has fundamentally broken our relationship with God. And that broken relationship with our Creator brings spiritual death, as we cut ourselves off from him, in this lifetime and into all eternity. Sin matters, because sin separates us from Gods blessing of life, now and forever.

I know this is an unpopular topic to speak about. But if we seek wisdom, this message cant be avoided. It cant be downplayed. As unpalatable as it is, understanding our sinfulness is the first step to gaining wisdom.

Because when we understand the problem, we can begin to understand why the cross was necessary.

You see God doesnt want us to remain in sin. He doesnt want us to remain separated from him, nor does he want us to face the eternal consequences of our sin. And so God sends Jesus to stand in our place.

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On the cross, Jesus receives that damnation that we deserved. Gods justified anger at human sin was poured out on Jesus, until Gods wrath was satisfied, and Jesus was dead. Jesus bore the penalty for our sin in his body, the righteous for the unrighteous to make us right with God once more.

1 Corinthians 1:30 says that:

Christ Jesus [...] has become for us wisdom from Godthat is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

On the cross, Jesus righteousness becomes ours. He transfers it to us. Like a loan satisfaction letter, that says we owe nothing more. The debt is paid. Jesus declares us righteous through his death on the cross. His holiness is credited to us. He makes us holy in Gods sight. And he brings redemption, where before there was only condemnation. On the cross, Jesus gives us a second chance with God.

This is the incredible message of the cross, the message of Christianity. That God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). The cross displays Gods love, Gods mercy, Gods forgiveness. The cross captures the essence of Gods wisdom.

PAUSEIs this (the cross) where you find your wisdom for life?Because to many, the cross does not look like wisdom at all. It looks like foolishness.

3. Thefoolishnessofthecross

Come back to 1 Corinthians 1:18 with me. It says:

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Many people look at the cross and all they see is foolishness. Weakness. Defeat. Shame. And they look on Christians the same way foolish, weak, deluded, pitiful.

And I dont think thats anything new. Paul wrote these words to the church in Corinth just 20 years after the death and resurrection of Christ, and we can see that already the wise of this world looked upon Christianity as foolishness.

In Corinth, there were two main streams of wisdom that came up against Christianity: the Jews and the Greeks.

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Of course, Christianity grew out of Judaism, the Jewish religion. Jesus was Jewish, and the 12 apostles were Jewish also, along with many of the first followers of Jesus. But where Christianity and Judaism have remained separate for 2000 years is over the identity of Jesus. Judaism doesnt recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and the fulfilment of the OT. They are still waiting for the Messiah today. In Pauls time, they were looking for signs. They wanted to see proof of who Jesus was. Their reason for rejecting the Christian faith is that it didnt provide enough evidence. We still hear that same objection today, dont we?

The Greek objection to Christianity was more philosophical. Greek culture prided itself on its philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle... The Greeks loved to argue, and the argument itself was perhaps more important even than being right or wrong. We all know people like that too, dont we? With eloquent arguments, they make the Christian message sound weak and powerless.

And thats the point of Pauls argument here. The message of the cross does look like foolishness in the eyes of the world. But God has made it so deliberately. Follow the logic with me from v19:

19 For it is written:[God says:] I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

As wise as the philosophers of this world are, their wisdom cannot lead us to salvation. We cant reason our way to salvation. We cant think our way to salvation, or come up with a mathematical equation that brings salvation. There is no quantum theory or economic theory that leads us into the presence of God. All those philosophies are good, but they cant overcome the fundamental human issue which is sin.

And so instead, God provides an alternative wisdom, one that looks weak and sounds foolish as we speak it into a world that believes we are doing OK without God.

God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. (v21)

Read on with me at v22:

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22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

We preach Christ crucified.

If you want to know Christian wisdom, it will always be rooted in the preaching of Jesus and the cross. Whenever we seek to apply the Bible to our lives, it must always be shaped by Jesus and the cross. Our wisdom, Gods wisdom, is shown supremely in Christ crucified. And thats why we preach Christ crucified, even when that message is touted as foolishness by our neighbors and friends. Because as v21 says, God is pleased through the foolishness of what is preached to save those who believe.

4. Thefoolishnessofthechurch

The foolishness of the cross also means that the church itself will be seen as foolish in the eyes of the world.

I read an article in the NY Times this week entitled: Is the West Becoming Pagan Again?1 It was a reminder of declining church attendance in Western nations, and the way that Christian values no longer shape societal norms and government policy in the way they once did. It also said that the Millennial generation which includes most adult Americans under 40 is the first generation in which Christians are a minority.

We know it all too well in the area where we live the San Francisco Bay Area is the least religious part of the entire United States. We have the highest number of people who are unchurched (never been part of a church) and the highest number of people who are dechurched people who used to go to church but dont go anymore.

The church is not impressive! And again, Paul says that is all part of Gods plan to overturn the wisdom of the world. In the perceived weakness of the church, and in the foolish message of the cross, God displays his power!

Paul writes this about the church in Corinth:

26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose

1 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/opinion/christianity-paganism-woke.html 6

the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised thingsand the things that are notto nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

The Corinthians prided themselves on their social hierarchy. Wealth, position, influence, eloquence, all these were valued by Corinthian society and determined a persons status in the social rankings. The Corinthian church, it seems, was not impressive by Corinthian standards. In a city filled with elaborate temples to the pagan gods, the first Christians met in peoples homes. And those first converts, not many of them occupied the upper strata of Corinthian society.

Actually when you think of the early church, it brought together all kinds of people with no societal status: women who had few or no rights in their society, slaves who were considered property not people, and all kinds of people who would not normally mix socially. In the gospel, God takes those lowly people and makes them his children, his people, his treasured possession, heirs of his kingdom. He tells the worthless things of this world that they are worth the death of his Son, he lifts them out of the dust and honors them.

That is how God shows his wisdom. He says that the trappings of worldly success mean nothing in the kingdom of God.

There is a particular lesson for us to learn from this little passage. As I read verse 26, I realize we are different from the Corinthian church because many of us here are wise by human standards, many are influential, many are of noble birth. God has assembled some very impressive people in this room, and it is quite humbling to stand here as your pastor. And every part of me wants to imagine that God will do impressive things amongst us. And I pray that he will.

But whatever impressive things we achieve together, we need to make sure that we stay rooted in the wisdom of the cross. That is, we need to keep preaching Christ crucified, and we need to keep focused on the message of the cross, no matter how foolish it might sound to the wise of this world. We need to keep rejecting the wisdom of the world that honors some people over others, and we need to follow the wisdom of Jesus who associated with people from every station of society. He honored the weak, he healed the sick, he loved the outcast, he rejected the kind of leadership that lords it over others, he forgave those who had made a mess of their lives, and he made a family out of those who followed him. Thats what the church should look like. If it doesnt, it means we havent followed the wisdom of the cross.

Theres so much more to say about wisdom from the Bible, but this is a great place to start. How do we bring the wisdom of the cross to the front and center of everything we do as a

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church? How do we pursue cross-shaped lives? And how do we follow the path that Jesus has set out for us?

Why dont we pray about that now?

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Watch at: https://youtu.be/UE1V1-6xp9s File Downloads: https://dq5pwpg1q8ru0.cloudfront.net/2022/02/17/05/14/59/bda9590d-3919-4287-9114-c392fd523ee7/01.02.22%20Sermon%20Transcript.pdf

Join Pastor Dan Bidwell for the first part in our Wisdom series, exploring wisdom as presented in the Old Testament.

New Year Special

1. The Beginning of Wisdom

Proverbs 2:1-11

(1) The origin of wisdom (Proverbs 1:1-5; 2:6-8) (2) Obtaining wisdom (Proverbs 2:1-5) (3) The outcome of wisdom (Proverbs 2:9-11)

Intro – Wisdom Literature

Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor 26 December 2021

Well it is that time of year when the New York Times list of best-selling books comes out. It just happens to coincide with the Christmas break when many of us have a little extra time to spend with a good book in front of the fireplace!!

Now there are some interesting books on the list, and quite a number of biographies and autobiographies making up the top 10 for non-fiction. Who are the biography readers? I love a good biography, and if you have any recommendations I’d be glad to take them.

My other go-to on the best-seller list is the books that teach us how we think. The self-help, psychology, philosophy type books – I love them because they help us understand how we ‘tick’ as humans.

There are a couple of old favorites on the list – Atomic Habits by James Clear – 104 weeks on the best-seller list. Atomic Habits is about creating systems that help us achieve success.

The Body Keeps the Score – by Bessel van der Kolk. 165 weeks on the list. I haven’t read this one but it sounds interesting. It’s about how trauma affects the body and mind, and how therapy can help reprogram our unconscious responses. It has great reviews.

And there’s a new book on the list, it’s only just been released and went straight onto the best- sellers. Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart. I’m really interested in this one, because Brown identifies 87 emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. It’s meant to give us an emotional vocabulary to help us connect with ourselves and others, to help us explain what’s going on inside our minds and hearts.

We probably all need a bit of that!

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And I think that’s why these personal development books are so popular. Self-help, advice, practical philosophy, whatever you call them, these books help us understand ourselves, and how to live well in the world. To put it more grandly, these books are about the pursuit of wisdom.

The hard thing about the pursuit of wisdom is that there are so many voices of wisdom out there. Authors and writers. Teachers and philosophers. Media personalities. There is wisdom that is taught in film and music and pop culture. Wisdom found online. How do you pick and choose the voices that you listen to? Because they don’t all espouse the same wisdom. They don’t all agree with one another. So where can wisdom be found?

Over the next two weeks, we are going to be looking at another source of wisdom – the Bible, and what it says about wisdom.

So why don’t we pray, and then we’ll look into what God teaches us in his word.

Dear heavenly Father, in you we find all knowledge and understanding and wisdom. Help us today to be taken captive by your wisdom. Help us to become wise, no matter how old we are, so that we can live every day to the glory of your son Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen

Just so that you know where we’re going, today I’m focusing in on what the OT says about wisdom. Next week we’ll look into the NT. For today I have three big ideas:

(i) The Origin of Wisdom

(ii) The Outcome of Wisdom

(iii) Obtaining Wisdom

So let’s get into it – The Origin of Wisdom.

(i) The Origin of Wisdom

If you ever went to Sunday School you’ll know the answer to this question – where does wisdom come from?

God, Jesus, Bible. It’s pretty simple, right!

Wisdom comes from God. And principally we know this by reading the Bible.

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In the Bible you can find pearls of wisdom all throughout. But there are a few books in the OT and maybe one or two in the NT that we specifically call Wisdom Literature. These Wisdom books mainly teach us about how to live properly in God’s world (wisely!).

In the Old Testament, the three Wisdom books are right in the middle – Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In the NT perhaps James? But we find wisdom language scattered all through the NT. (and 1 Cor 1:24 tells us why – next week’s sermon!).

But if we could boil down the message of all the OT wisdom literature, if we could distil it into just one line, what would the Bible tell us about wisdom?

Here it is captured in a nutshell (on your handout from Proverbs 9:10)

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

First what does it mean to fear the Lord?

I was watching a documentary a while ago, all about people who survived incredible accidents. What they had in common was that all of the accidents were filmed on smart phones.

The film in question was video footage of a zookeeper going into the lion enclosure to feed the lions. From what I understand, the keeper didn’t think the lions were in there at all. So the keeper goes in carrying a big red bucket full of food.

And all of a sudden these two massive male lions, with huge manes, they start coming towards the keeper. The video footage is from a tourist watching through the fence. And these two lions come up towards the keeper, and one lion puts out his big paw to bat the keeper over. And the keeper is going backwards trying to fend off the lions with his bucket. And then one of the lions jumps up towards the keeper and he falls over and that’s when both the lions just jump on the man. One starts to chew on the man’s shoulder and the other grabs hold of his thigh and the tourist with the video camera is screaming, and the man just lies there not moving...

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And the video rolls for another two or three minutes with the lions just mauling this keeper until finally another zookeeper comes and throws a metal garbage bin into the enclosure. And that was enough to scare off the lions long enough for someone to go in and rescue the man. Amazingly the man wasn’t killed – in fact, apart from some deep puncture wounds and bruising he was totally unharmed.

But when he describes what it felt like to have two giant lions biting and chewing on him, it’s the stuff of nightmares. He said, “I just lay there trying not to move. I had my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see what the lions might do to me.”

What does the zookeeper have to do with the fear of the Lord? Well I think lots of people in our world go about life as if God wasn’t in the enclosure. Surprise! Or if there is a God, he’s nothing to be afraid of, like the baby animals in a petting zoo. A fluffy god who grants wishes when you need them.

But that’s not what it’s like when people encounter God in the OT.

- Think of Adam and Eve, hiding from God because they knew they had done the wrong

thing.

- Think of Moses, hiding in the rock when God passed by – because nobody can see God’s

face and live (Ex 33:20)

- And think of Isaiah 6, when Isaiah sees the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.

And above him seraphs were calling out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And Isaiah cries out, “Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips...”

When we understand the holiness of God, it is like standing before a fully grown lion. Especially when we understand how far from holy each of us is.

The idea of the holy living God should fill us with terror, because we stand before him guilty of ignoring him, guilty of doing evil, and of not doing good when we had the opportunity.

There is a right fear of the Lord that comes with understanding who he is, and what we are like.

That’s why we Jesus taught us to confess our sins in the Lord’s Prayer. We can’t just front up to God full of self-confidence. “Thank you God that I’m not like the sinners!”

No we come before the living God with reverence... With godly fear. 4

But fearing God is just the beginning. Because God doesn’t reveal himself to us only as the judge to be feared. If you know the Holy One (Proverbs 9:10), you know that his Holiness is tempered with Mercy. Our God is the God who forgives his people’s wickedness, while ever they turn back to him. That side of God will be our focus for next week, as we consider wisdom in the NT.

So fearing God and knowing God mean we understand who we are in the world, and that is the basis for wise living.

(ii) Obtaining Wisdom

How do we get wisdom? (gray hair?)

In our world we often associate wisdom with age, and youth with foolishness. Plenty of times that’s true! The longer we’re around on this earth, the more we learn about different things. Some lessons we learn the hard way, from our mistakes. But some lessons we never learn, no matter how old we get.

But what we read here in the Bible, is that wisdom is not just for the old. God’s wisdom is available to anybody who listens to God!

Look at Proverbs 2, starting at v1.

My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,

2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,

3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,

4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and

understanding. (Proverbs 2:1-6) Do you hear what Solomon is saying?

We don’t become wise just by living for a long time. No we become wise when God give us wisdom (v6). We become wise when we hear from God’s mouth knowledge about himself, and how to understand this world and this life.

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There’s an old Monty Python movie called The Meaning of Life. It’s really silly, but the whole movie is a set of comedy sketches trying to make sense of life, from birth to death. There was another 80s cult classic called The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the joke in that was that the meaning of life is 42.

People really don’t know what the meaning of life is! People are searching for meaning, searching for understanding. Struggling to know why the world is the way it is, struggling to know why bad things happen, why we get cancer, why people hurt one another. They’re searching for meaning because the world’s wisdom can’t explain that stuff.

But God tells us who we are. He tells us what this world is like. But mostly he tells us what he is like. If we know God we know how to live, because we are made in God’s image.

It’s easy to say we’re made in God’s image, much harder to understand what that means and to live that way.

And so -

- - - - - -

the writer of Proverbs tells us what we must do: look at v2ff again Turn your ear to wisdom;

apply your heart to understanding;

call out for insight

cry aloud for understanding

look for it

search for it

THEN you will understand the fear of the Lord...

There is nothing passive about the getting of wisdom. Wisdom doesn’t just sprout in you like gray hairs. We don’t become wise as Christians just because we have been going to church for a long time.

We need to call out to God in prayer for wisdom! We need to search the scriptures, to know God better and to discern his ways! We need to actively pursue God’s thoughts and God’s heart and God’s commands and God’s wisdom to live properly as those made in his image!

Are you doing that? What is the place of Bible reading and prayer in your life? Whether you are young or old, you can be wise in the Lord if you seek his wisdom. God will give it to you. By faith in Jesus God pours out his Holy Spirit into us who teaches us, if we’ll listen.

A word for the older ones among us: and I say this carefully, as if I were exhorting my father. The older we get, the more worldly wisdom we acquire. Worldly experience, business acumen,

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parenting and grand-parenting achievements, financial stability... Is this the wisdom you have put your trust in? Because I know it is all too easy to find the meaning of life in these things. And it’s all too easy to communicate those things as the meaning of life, as you pass it down to your children and grandchildren.

But remember again what the wisest man that ever lived said: The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

The most important wisdom we can learn in this lifetime, is what it means to live a life where we acknowledge God, and live according to his ways. So keep working at obtaining the right kind of wisdom, and encourage your family to do the same.

(iii) The Outcome of Wisdom

Final point - the outcome of wisdom.

We’ve learnt that wisdom comes from God, and that God gives wisdom to all who seek it actively. So what will godly wisdom look like in our day to day lives? If we have wisdom through God, what will change?

Come to Proverbs 2: 7-11.

7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.

9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path.

10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.

What are the outcomes for living wisely?

I want to focus on v9 – when we have God’s wisdom we will understand what is right and just

and fair.

Can you imagine that? In every decision of life, you think of those three words – what would be right and just and fair in this situation?

The word ‘right’ in Hebrew is the word for ‘righteous’. Now we know that righteousness comes from God, and God defines righteousness. So when we decide to act in accordance with godly

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wisdom, we need to ask: is what I’m doing righteous? Is it in line with the character of God can do no evil?

Am I upholding justice? Am I living with integrity?

God’s wisdom changes us. It changes how we live.

Right, just and fair. BTW I haven’t just pulled these three words out of nowhere. Solomon tells us that all his Proverbs are designed for doing what is right and just and fair (Proverbs 1:3).

If we keep reading Proverbs, we see what a disciplined and prudent life looks like – in ch3 alone we learn about

- humility (v7-8)

- wealth (v9-10)

- discipline (v11-12)

- hope and assurance (v21-26)

- compassion (v27-28)

- revenge (v29-30)

- envy (v31-32)

Proverbs has a lot to tell us about doing what is right and just and fair. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs – you could read a chapter a day and get through Proverbs every month, and that might be a way of continually seeking God’s wisdom...

Conclusion

But I want to finish by way of a warning... And the warning is this. Come back to Prov 2:7-8 and look at the last word in each couplet:

7 [God] holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,

8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. Did you catch the words at the end of each couplet? Upright, blameless, just, faithful...

In a worldly sense, none of us will ever live completely upright lives. None of us will live blamelessly no matter how much wisdom we gain from God. And none of us will act with

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justice in every situation. We’re made to live that way, but sin makes it impossible for us. These words should make us cry out like Isaiah – “Woe is me!”

But that’s where the last word comes in. Faithful.

The Wisdom of the Old Testament will point us to the one man in history who did live an

upright life, whose walk was blameless, who came to bring justice into this world. Jesus. And it’s only by faith in him that we truly know victory, as Jesus shields us and guards us and

protects us from the effects of our sinful decisions, so that we can be counted blameless in him. Let’s pray...

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Christmas Eve - Join us for our special Christmas Eve message.

Songs of Christmas4. O Holy Night Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor

John 1:1-5 24 December 2021

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

I dont know about you, but does it seem like Christmas comes around sooner every single year?

One minute its August, and it feels like summer is never going to end. Then its Halloween, and then Thanksgiving, and then December arrives like a freight train going full steam ahead. The stores are full of people buying up turkeys, buying up hams, buying up gifts for the kids. I know because I was in Target yesterday looking for gifts.

There are two kinds of Christmas shoppers, according to statistics. There are those who start early. 28.8% of Americans start their Christmas shopping in November. And then there are those of us who leave our Christmas shopping until the week before Christmas. Can you guess how many Americans leave their shopping until the last minute? 62% of us!1 And then there are the brave souls who wait until Christmas Eve. 7%... Thats cutting it a little too fine, even for me. Plus I dont know if the 1 day shipping guarantee applies on Christmas Eve...

Christmas. It can be exhausting. Exhilarating, but exhausting.

And thats if you come into the holiday season at full strength. Many of us enter the holidays already tired from the different challenges that weve faced throughout the year.

All of us have lived through almost 2 years of pandemic. And just when it felt like we might be out of the woods, were facing yet another COVID variant this Christmas, with all the uncertainty that it brings.

A survey out of Monmouth University found that 60% of us are worn out by the way that COVID has impacted our daily lives.2 This has been a challenging season.

And many of us have faced personal challenges on top of everything else that is going on in the world. The loss of loved ones, declining health, financial instability, family breakdown. Those burdens dont just disappear for the month of December. We bring those burdens with us into

1 https://fortunly.com/statistics/christmas-spending-statistics/#gref2 https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_121521/

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the holiday season. And so for many, Christmas might not look merry. The holidays might not be happy.

Christmas can be a mixed time for us.

But it wont always be like that. And the Christmas story is the key to seeing beyond our present troubles.

So why dont we pray, then well open the Bible together to find out what it says?

Our heavenly Father, you know what is in each of our hearts. You know what we have been through this year. You know what we need. So we pray that you would speak to each of us now as we think about the Christmas story, and the difference Jesus makes. In his mighty name we pray, Amen.

All through December at Yountville Community Church, we have been thinking about Christmas through the lens of Christmas carols. For many of us, Christmas carols have been part of our Christmas tradition, and weve sung these words since our childhood, we know them. But when we look closely, the carols also capture profound truths about Jesus and the Christian faith.

So thats what I want to do for the next 10 minutes or so. Look closely at my favorite Christmas carol to see what deep truth it reveals.

Now in case you didnt guess, my favorite carol ever is the carol we just sung. O Holy Night. Its printed there on p4 of your handout so you can follow along. Im going to tell you why I love it in just a moment, but a tiny bit of trivia before we do that.

O Holy Night was originally written in French, as a poem in 1843, and the tune we have now was written for it just a few months later by composer Adolphe Adam. The English version was written in 1855, and it became popular in the US, especially in the North, because of its abolitionist message:

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother And in His name all oppression shall cease

But thats not what makes it my favorite hymn ever. Apart from the musicality and the spine- tingling chorus, there is something about the end of the first verse that just gets me every time.

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

As I said before, our world knows what its like to be weary. We live in a world where everything is not perfect, where stresses and strains take a heavy toll on us.

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But this song reminds us that even in the midst of the weariness, there is a beacon of hope. A light that shines in the darkness. A new and glorious morn is breaking, where the sun will rise over all our troubles and theyll melt away like bad dreams.

The Light Shines in the Darkness

The light in the darkness is one of the great promises of the Bible.Right from the opening verses of the Bible, we see God bring light into the world. God speaks

over the darkness, and he says: let there be light, and there was. (Genesis 1:3)3And from that moment of creation, light becomes a powerful symbol for who God is: his

holiness, his purity and his goodness. 1 John 1:5 says:

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.The Psalmist speaks about God as his light and salvation (Psalm 27:1).Then the prophet Isaiah uses the same metaphor to predict Gods salvation of his people:

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. (Isaiah 9:2)

There is something powerful about the idea of the light dawning at the end of a long night...

We watched a new film on Amazon Prime last week, its called Brotherhood. Its a true story about a group of teenage boys who go to summer camp back in 1926. The story is interesting because it delves into the way that a whole generation dealt with the losses of WWI, and teenage boys growing up without fathers. But that character development is played out against a tragic accident.

9 boys, along with 2 teachers, are caught in a storm paddling their canoe across one of the Great Lakes, the canoe capsizes and it is night time. Theyre unable to turn the canoe back over, and so all through the night, they have to hold onto the boat and wait, because they cant see the land.

3 Theres no suggestion at creation that the darkness represented evil. Other ancient religions asserted a dualism of good and evil, light and darkness representing deities that were in constant struggle paralleling the endless cycle of night and day.

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Life is like that sometimes, isnt it? We cant see our way through the darkness. We cant see the other side. We dont know how long the darkness will last, and were not sure if we can hold on.

The tragedy in the film was that some of the characters didnt make it through the night. They lost hope, and they let go of the boat.

But for those who held on, for those who waited, with the first light of dawn they saw that they were only a few hundred yards from shore. With the light, they were able to see what they couldnt see in the darkness. And they were saved.

Johns gospel account of the birth of Jesus describes him like this: (on your handout)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word wasGod. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)

John describes Jesus as the light. The light that shines in the darkness, the light that can never be overcome by the darkness.

And the reason that Jesus shines light and life into the world is because he was right there with the one who spoke light and life on the day of creation. Do you see it there in v1?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

You see, Jesus is not just a part of a Christmas tradition. Jesus is God born in human flesh, Gods Son from the beginning, born to deal with the darkness, born to banish everything that is broken about this world.

And we saw Jesus begin to do that when he walked on the earth. Just like God, he spoke and creation listened. In the storm on Lake Galilee, Jesus spoke and the wind and the waves disappeared. To the man born with the shriveled hand, Jesus spoke, and his hand was restored in front of a crowd of amazed onlookers. And when his friend Lazarus lay dead in a tomb, Jesus spoke once more: Lazarus, come out of the tomb... And the dead man walked out of the tomb.

You see, Jesus has the power to change the darkness. He only needs to speak, and light shines in where there was only darkness. The Word of God brings light, and life, to all who call on him.

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And that means Jesus has the power to change our darkness. To change our circumstances. Jesus brings healing. Jesus brings hope. Jesus brings forgiveness. Jesus brings restoration. Jesus brings the dawn of a new day into our life, the hope of something better.

And thats the final image of light that I want to leave you with. Right at the end of the Bible, theres a picture of heaven described as a city. The streets are paved with gold. Everything is shining and bright and clean and, well, perfect. And the light that shines on that city doesnt come from the sun. It doesnt come from the moon or chandeliers or any other source. The light that shines on the eternal city of God comes from God himself.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. (Revelation 21:23)

Pastor Tim Keller says: Jesus is a light for us when all the other lights go out.

Jesus, the light of the world, will never let us down. Not today, and not into eternity.

PAUSE

I said before that this carol is my favorite of all time. And it comes back to those lines I shared earlier:

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

You might have come to church today weary. You might have come to church today anxious. You might have come to church today completely happy with where youre at in life.

Whoever you are, the Christmas story shines a light into your life that is unavoidable. Its irresistible. Jesus is speaking to you today, just like he spoke to the storm, and to the man with the shriveled hand, and to Lazarus in the tomb. Jesus is offering to bring light into your life, in a way that only the Creator of the universe can do.

Thats the thrilling message of Christmas. Will you pray with me?

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Songs of Christmas3. Hark The Herald Angels Sing Dan Bidwell, Senior Pastor

Luke 2:8-14; Luke 15:3-7 19 December 2021

See the heavenly celebration at Jesus birth and the heavenly celebration that accompanies our own second birth.

It was 1993. I was in the 12th grade, and it was the night before the prom. But that didnt matter because there was an even bigger party planned. A group of friends and I headed into Sydney. We went straight to the Sydney Harbor foreshore, where you have the Opera House on one side of you, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge on the other. There were giant TV screens set up, and a crowd gathered shoulder to shoulder all the way around the iconic Sydney harbor. Music was pumping and the atmosphere electric as we waited for the biggest announcement of our lives.

We waited. We danced to the live DJs. We yelled over the noise of the crowds to strangers who were holding up signs that said Istanbul and Manchester. And then finally the wait was over.

At 4:17am, the President of the International Olympic Committee said these words: The winner is Sydney.

Of course, Im talking about the announcement that Sydney had won the 2000 Olympic Games.

The crowd erupted. There was something about that moment Ill never forget. The elation, the jubilation, the cheers of a hundred thousand voices that all seemed to be cheering as one. It was pure joy expressed, and shared.

By the time the cheering stopped, the sun was rising behind the Opera House, illuminating the harbor. It was almost 6am we had been cheering for an hour and a half. It felt like only a minute had passed.

I wonder if youve ever experienced a moment of jubilation like that? A moment of pure joy and celebration so potent that it still touches you years later?

As humans, we love to celebrate. Its a universal impulse. All over the world right now, people are hanging decorations, preparing feasts, selecting gifts that they know will spark joy in those who receive them, those they love. There is something about

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celebration that breaks the rhythm of the every day. Celebrations give us something to look forward to. Celebrations create memories that we look back on fondly.

Its almost like we are made to celebrate... And thats because celebration is built into the fabric of the universe that God has created.

So as we open the Bible today, why dont we pray that God will show us what a life of celebration looks like?

Our heavenly Father, will you bring the spirit of celebration into our hearts today as we look at the next part of the Christmas story. Fill us with joy, we pray. In Jesus name. Amen

Well, all through December we are thinking about Christmas through the lens of Christmas carols. With their timeless words, and tunes that transport us back to our childhood, Christmas carols are part of our Christmas ritual. They are part of our celebration.

But Christmas carols also capture deep truths about Jesus and the Christian faith. And thats what I want to dig into as we look at our carol for today, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

BTW is this anybodys favorite Christmas carol? Towards the end of the sermon Im going to tell you why this is almost my favorite carol and how you could possibly make it my all time number 1 Christmas carol. But Ill keep you in suspense for now ;-)

First a little bit of trivia about the hymn itself.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing was originally written in 1739 by Charles Wesley. Wesley was one of the leaders of the great Christian revival that occurred in the 1700s across Britain and North America. Wesley himself wrote approximately 6,000 hymns, although many of them arent in existence anymore.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing didnt always sound like this either. For its original tune, Wesley had asked for slow and solemn music. The tune we have today wasnt added until more than 100 years later, adapted from a piece by Mendelssohn. The original first line is also a bit different:

Hark how all the Welkin rings. (on your handout)

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Welkin is a Middle English word of Germanic origin. Our Dutch and German speakers might recognize it as similar to the word for clouds. Welkin meant clouds or heavens. So: Hark, how all the heavens ring...

This is a carol about the moment that angels filled the skies when Jesus was born, and the heavens rang out with joyous celebration.

A Heavenly Celebration

So what exactly were the angels celebrating?

First, the angels were celebrating the birth of the newborn king.

The angels are called heralds in our Christmas carol. A herald was an official messenger, someone who brought news. Heralds are often pictured in the movies blowing a trumpet, announcing official news on behalf of the king. Thats what these angels were doing. They were announcing official news on behalf of God that a new king had been born.

But not just any king. Israel had had other kings, and none of their births was accompanied by angelic hosts. This king was special. This was the long-awaited Christ, the Messiah.

This is how gospel-writer Luke records it: (from handout)

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:8-11)

Verse 2 of the carol puts it more poetically:

Christ by highest heav'n adored Christ the everlasting Lord

Christ is adored. You know when you go to a concert, and the performance is incredible, and the audience doesnt want to stop clapping and cheering? Thats because we adore

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the perfomer. We pour out our appreciation and adoration and praise upon them because they are worthy of it.

All of heaven adores Jesus. In the book of Revelation in chapter 5, there is an image of this multitude of angels, thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand angels. And they surround the throne of Jesus and in a loud voice they are saying:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! (Revelation 5:12)

This is the heavenly equivalent of an encore, where Jesus is the star. Because Christ is the everlasting Lord. The king who will rule forever. Not like an earthly king, born as the offspring of a husband and wife. Jesus birth is different. Verse 2 of the carol reminds us that Jesus is the:

Offspring of the Virgin's womb Veiled in flesh the Godhead see Hail th'incarnate Deity

Jesus is born to the virgin Mary, with no human father. Jesus is the son of God himself, God made flesh, deity incarnate. Jesus our Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When we see Jesus, we see God in human form. Jesus himself said in John 14:9:

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (John 14:9)

Now, do you remember what happened in the OT any time someone saw God? What was it like when God showed up?

Think about Moses, when God passed in front of him in all his glory. Moses had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock because, as God said, you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. (Exodus 33:20). And when Isaiah found himself standing before the throne of God, he fell on his face in terror. (Isaiah 6)

Whenever God shows up, he is accompanied by his glory. The manifestation of his presence, the representation of Gods holiness and power displayed in a way that we can see and understand, and appreciate with awe and wonder.

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When the Israelites were escaping Egypt and the Egyptian chariots were chasing after them, Gods glory appeared like a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. His glory separated Gods people from certain death.

And then on Mount Sinai, Gods glory appeared on the mountain top, thundering and rumbling like fire. And Gods glorious presence was with his people in the tent of meeting, then in the temple, reminding his people that he was with them wherever they went.

And then on that dark Christmas night, Gods glory appeared again. When that first angel appeared to the shepherds, we read that the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the glory of the Lord is not meant to invoke fear in us. Instead its meant to bring great joy. This glorious appearance of Gods own Son is good news for all people, the angel says in Luke 2:10, because he is a Savior, born for us.

And that brings us to the second reason for celebration at Christmas.

Peace on Earth

Im sure you can picture in your mind that iconic photograph that marked the celebration of the end of WWII the kiss between a young sailor and a nurse in Times Square on August 14, 1945. He is wearing his sailors uniform with the round hat, and she is dressed in a full white nurses uniform. Around them everyone is smiling. The end of 6 years of war is something worth celebrating!

And celebrate they did. Something like 2 million people packed the streets of New York, partying for 2 days without stopping.

Peace on earth is something we all desire. Sadly the war to end all wars did not end all wars. I read somewhere that since 1776, America has only experienced 15 years without war.1 And many other countries around the world are currently involved in conflict, or experiencing the residual effects of war. But we dont just need the peace that comes from the end of war. Just last week the news was filled with reports of yet another deadly shooting in a school. Our society struggles with violence every day. And each one of us experiences the pain of conflict in our personal relationships.

1 https://medium.com/traveling-through-history/only-15-years-of-peace-in-the-history-of-the-united-states-of-america-c479193df79f 5

We long for peace.

And the promise of the Christmas story is that Jesus brings the peace that we so desperately desire.

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace Hail the Sun of RighteousnessLight and life to all He bringsRis'n with healing in His wings

(BTW I mentioned earlier that Hark The Herald Angels Sing could be my favorite carol of all time. These lines are the reason why it could take out the #1 spot. Im going to explain what I love about them in just a moment. But musicality is the real reason I love this hymn! There is a version of Hark The Herald Angels where these lines have an incredible harmony sung alongside the original melody, a high harmony called a descant. Look it up on Youtube search for Kings College Cambridge. The way they sing it, with the organ, it is like you can hear the angels singing for Jesus I love it!)

Back to my train of thought...

The promise of the Christmas story is that Jesus brings the peace that we so desperately desire. Because the heaven-born Prince of Peace shines the light of righteousness into a dark world. God is good, and loving, and that means that he cannot stand by and watch injustice go unpunished. And so he sends his own Son into our world to bring justice. To bring righteousness. To mend the brokenness in our world. And to mend what is broken about us.

That line risen with healing in his wings it comes from the last book of the Bible where God promises that a day of judgment is coming. A date has been set when justice will be fully and finally executed on every evildoer. But for those who revere Gods name, Malachi 4:2 says,

2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. (Malachi 4:2)

The birth of Jesus is the promise of healing, and of peace.

For some of us, healing is what we desperately need this Christmas. The holidays can be hard.

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Ive included a little quote from C.S Lewis at the bottom of your notes. Its from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In the story, the land of Narnia has been cursed by the White Witch.

It is winter in Narnia, said Mr. Tumnus, and has been for ever so long.... always winter, but never Christmas.

Sometimes life can feel like a never-ending winter, with no Christmas on the horizon. Nothing to look forward to but darkness...

Jesus birth changes that forever. Light and life he brings, Risn with healing in his wings. At the heart of the Christian message is a message of hope. Of light. Of restoration. Of

healing.As one writer put it:

Cursed as we are, cursed as this life so often seems, it will not always be winter. Christmas has come, and is coming... and I am longing for its blessings to flow far as the curse is found.2 (Dr Steven Garber)

You see, Jesus came to undo the curse of sin, to see God and sinners reconciled.

Bringing peace on earth begins with bringing peace between God and ourselves. Now thats the Easter story of the cross and the empty tomb, but it all begins with Jesus birth. And it ends with new birth for us...

The Other Heavenly Celebration

That brings me to the last big idea, which is the other heavenly celebration. Hark The Herald Angels Sing finishes with these words:

Mild He lays His glory byBorn that man no more may die Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give them second birth

2 https://washingtoninst.org/always-winter-never-christmas/7

At the heart of the Christmas story is the promise of new life for everyone who puts their trust in Jesus.

Jesus life, death and resurrection set out a pattern of life, death and resurrection for us. And so even though we will face death one day, our death is the beginning of a life that will never again be tarnished by mourning or crying or pain. The sons and daughters of earth will be raised to life, just like Jesus was. Like a second birth, a new beginning, another chance at life. Isnt that something to look forward to when the world seems wintery?

But that second birth is not just a future promise. Its something that we can experience in this lifetime, today even. Because Jesus came to bring light, and life. He came so that we can experience life to the full (John 10:10). The enjoyment of a life lived knowing Gods blessings, and Gods forgiveness, and Gods peace. A life where we bring blessing and peace and forgiveness wherever we go. A life where we are born again, a life lived in the footsteps of Jesus.

Thats what Jesus wants us to enjoy today. Its the secret to happiness, and fulfilment. Its better than any Christmas gift you could receive, and its the best Christmas gift you can give.

Now heres the surprise that accompanies our second birth. Its something that happens when we become a Christian, when we choose to live our life for Jesus kingdom. At the moment that someone turns to Jesus for the first time, did you know that heaven erupts with the sound of angels celebrating the birth of a new child of God?

Its there in the Luke 15 passage on your handout. Jesus tells the story of a shepherd who lost one of his sheep. And so he goes out to search for the lost sheep, and when he finds it, he carries it home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together to celebrate, because his lost sheep is found. Jesus says that there is rejoicing in heaven just like that every time Jesus brings one of us home, every time that someone like you or me turns their life back to Jesus. The angels celebrate, just like they did on the day of Jesus birth.

You see the Christmas story starts with the birth of Jesus, but it ends with new birth for you and for me, and a heavenly celebration that outshines any other.

Thats worth thanking God for, isnt it?

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