WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:01.840 Well, Merry Christmas. 00:00:01.919 --> 00:00:03.919 I hope everyone is decorated for Christmas. 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:05.839 Are you decorated for Christmas? 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:06.879 Did I stress you out? 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:07.839 You want to leave? 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.599 Maybe you have a to-do list. 00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.080 We put up our tree a couple weeks ago. 00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:13.919 Fake pre-lit. 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:16.960 Other fake pre-lit people? 00:00:17.519 --> 00:00:18.960 Live tree people. 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:20.879 What come come on over to the side? 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:22.399 Come to the dark side. 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:25.600 The fake, pre-lit, dark side people. 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:26.960 We will welcome you anytime. 00:00:27.039 --> 00:00:28.719 Maybe you remember this tree from Home Alone. 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.800 Do you remember Kevin goes into the backyard? 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:32.719 He cuts off the top of the tree. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:40.159 This is a little polite, sweet little, you know, controllable tree. 00:00:41.039 --> 00:00:44.479 And it's nothing like the guy we read about in Luke 3. 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:47.439 The sermon, I'm getting to a sermon illustration about Christmas trees. 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:52.399 John the Baptist, if he was a Christmas tree, work with me, he would be more like this tree. 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:53.840 Do you remember where this is from? 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:54.399 Right? 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:58.159 Christmas vacation, the Griswold family tree. 00:00:58.240 --> 00:00:59.920 And here it is in the living room. 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:01.840 It can't be contained. 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:02.960 It's too big. 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:04.159 It's wild. 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:05.439 That's John the Baptist. 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:07.519 John the Baptist is wild. 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:09.120 He's kind of out of control. 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:13.280 He he runs up against established thought. 00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:15.280 He's eating bugs. 00:01:15.359 --> 00:01:15.920 He's wild. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:17.280 He dresses strangely. 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:18.640 He just doesn't fit in. 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:23.040 So we're in our second week of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:29.120 And this is a time of preparation, preparing our hearts to celebrate the coming of Jesus. 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.560 Today in Luke 3 is this John the Baptist, this wild man, he was some sort of cousin to Jesus. 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:37.920 And he has something to say to us. 00:01:38.159 --> 00:01:40.000 Luke 3, 3 through 6. 00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:47.439 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 00:01:47.680 --> 00:02:06.799 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, the voice of the one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:11.120 So Luke quotes these words of Isaiah 40. 00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:19.599 When these words were originally spoken by Isaiah back in the Old Testament, Isaiah 40, these were words spoken to a devastated people. 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.680 These people had been taken out of their land, out of their homeland. 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:25.599 They were in exile in Babylon. 00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:29.759 Life was dark, they were broken, taken from their land. 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:33.919 They were wondering, could this ever get better? 00:02:34.479 --> 00:02:38.719 How can we be an everlasting kingdom if we're slaves? 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:44.240 How can we be a blessing when everything seems like a curse? 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:50.479 Desiring God editor Scott Hubbard, he writes this about this Luke 3 and Isaiah 40 connection. 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:56.960 We can ask similar questions when we remember God's promises from the wreckage of our circumstances. 00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:02.159 We can look back at a devastating failure and ask, how can God forgive me? 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:06.960 We can look up from the crater of some loss and ask, how can God comfort me? 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:11.520 In those moments, we need God to do for us what he did for Israel. 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:19.520 We need him to come alongside us, remind us of his promises, and then say, Behold your God. 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:29.919 So Luke here, when he's talking about John the Baptist writing about it, he's tapping into these people's traditional hopes for Israel's restoration. 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:33.520 These people in Isaiah 40, they would have been desiring their land back. 00:03:33.680 --> 00:03:34.800 I want to go home. 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:36.879 I want to go back to my home. 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:40.719 And so Luke and John the Baptist, they're tapping into that. 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:47.520 But the text says something even more profound, and that is that this is about more than land. 00:03:49.039 --> 00:03:53.280 This is about forgiveness of a heart that is an exile to sin. 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:58.960 The land and the exile is used as a metaphor to teach us about our hearts. 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:04.240 Last week Pastor Matt said this, and this is our point number one, stealing a point from Pastor Matt. 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:12.719 Those who are most prepared to celebrate Christmas are those who have taken inventory of their own darkness. 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:14.639 Do you remember when he said that last week? 00:04:15.039 --> 00:04:18.160 Just ruined my happy escapist Christmas. 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.000 I was having a great Christmas. 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:21.199 Having a great time. 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:21.759 He said that. 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:22.639 I was like, I wrote that down. 00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:24.879 I was like, that's amazing. 00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:27.519 It's difficult, but it's amazing. 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:30.959 When I say darkness, I do mean sin. 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:33.680 Here's how Pastor Matt Chandler describes sin. 00:04:33.839 --> 00:04:41.759 Every one of us by our birth are born with a sinful iniquity in our hearts that would have us believe that we really are the center of the universe. 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:48.879 And everyone around us and everything around us should serve us and make us happy and do what we want it to do. 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:52.240 We are born with that on in our hearts, right? 00:04:52.399 --> 00:05:00.160 You try to discipline your kids out of it, but even adults still operate by this default that the world really is about us. 00:05:00.319 --> 00:05:02.319 It's why we get frustrated like we do. 00:05:02.399 --> 00:05:07.279 It's why we lose patience like we do, because we believe it really is about us. 00:05:07.439 --> 00:05:11.759 And we wish that our spouse and kids could just get that wish. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.240 Our coworkers would understand that wish. 00:05:14.399 --> 00:05:19.120 That guy driving so slow in front of us could comprehend that wish and on and on I could go. 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:21.839 So that's a default position of the human heart. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:23.839 That's all humans everywhere. 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:25.120 Anybody else? 00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:26.560 You're like, oh, that's what I do. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:27.040 Okay. 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:28.639 That explains me, right? 00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:30.720 Sin explains us. 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:43.120 What John the Baptist is teaching us is we cannot celebrate the light for us if we don't face and feel and name the darkness in us. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.600 That's what Matt presented to us last week in Advent Week One. 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:52.800 The Advent begins in the dark and leads us to the light. 00:05:53.279 --> 00:05:58.720 I connected with Matt last week when he talked about having a day where you just feel overwhelmed. 00:05:58.959 --> 00:06:00.480 Just one of those days. 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:13.759 I was having one of those days, work schedule, people needing stuff, somebody's life fell apart, all that stuff's kind of, you know, my kids' schedule, sermon stress, and then there's just like a gnawing anxiety underneath busyness. 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.480 Like you're getting stuff done, you're productive, checking it off. 00:06:16.959 --> 00:06:20.639 But underneath, there's just like this anxious spirit. 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:26.240 But then I also, like Matt, saw the Marietta Square Christmas lights. 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:28.399 I mean, it's like a Hallmart movie. 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:29.199 It's amazing. 00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:34.079 If you're feeling depressed or sad or stressed, just go drive down to the Marietta Square and walk around. 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:38.720 You feel like you're in a Hallmark movie, and I was like, I will sign on to this also. 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:41.040 I will escape into Christmas. 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:44.800 And I watched a Lindsey Lohan movie on Netflix about Christmas. 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:46.000 I forget what it was called. 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:47.279 I think I watched it twice. 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:49.839 I was that stressed that I needed that. 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.000 I started listening to Mariah Carey. 00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:54.560 Anybody else listen to Mariah Carey's Christmas album? 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:55.439 Started that. 00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:57.120 Watched Christmas Vacation. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:02.800 I watched Die Hard, John McClain, Entering the Mess of Humanity. 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:03.199 Right? 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:05.680 I mean, it's a Christmas illustration. 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:14.959 And then last week comes along, and Matt comes into all my very happily escapism into Christmas. 00:07:15.120 --> 00:07:23.040 And he comes into that and he says that the people most prepared to celebrate Christmas have to do inventory of their darkness. 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:29.279 Which is just a welcoming of us into honesty. 00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:30.160 Right? 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:39.360 I have to know, you have to know that God's grace pursues us in what's actually real about our hearts and our lives. 00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:42.959 And that what we discover there is we won't be destroyed. 00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:47.199 You won't be destroyed when you face your own darkness. 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:55.680 You actually discover that God's light, his one-way love to you in Jesus, is there and is sufficient. 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:02.160 And verses one through three of Luke 3, we didn't read those, but Luke gives us a list of rulers. 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:15.600 A little bit of a historical context, which biblical writers do, but as well, what it does for us is it sets up a contrast of verses one through three, these rulers, and then verses four through six, John the Baptist, and what he's saying. 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:17.839 So at the time Tiberius was emperor. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:22.959 Tiberius was cruel, he was perverse, he was self-indulgent. 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:29.600 Tiberius' rule was in stark contrast to the rule of Jesus that was coming. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:35.200 Jesus' rule being truthful, loving, kind, good. 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:45.840 So these rulers represent our desire, our sinful desire for power and influence and greed and lust, and you can fill in the blank. 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:55.840 Every way that we think we need something to be whole or fulfilled or justified or forgiven outside of Jesus. 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:05.679 And John says to that darkness, you need to turn your allegiance from your worldly desires and turn to the Lord. 00:09:06.799 --> 00:09:08.559 John says, repent. 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:16.559 The questions that helped me this week to face my own darkness, we could call these growth and grace questions. 00:09:16.799 --> 00:09:22.720 Where am I finding validation more than Jesus is enough for my weary heart? 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:29.120 Where am I not as free, whole, and joyful as Jesus intends for me? 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:33.679 Now the answer to that will be your darkness. 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:41.759 Your sin, the ways in which you're relying on something other than Jesus for your forgiveness, wholeness, justification, validation. 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:46.480 And that's not to say condemnation on you or guilt on you, that's to say grace on you. 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:54.399 In that darkness, Jesus' love meets you, forgives you, and wants to heal and grow you. 00:09:54.559 --> 00:10:02.559 In verse 3, the word repentance is the word metanoia, meaning a change of mind, entering a better course of life. 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:07.360 Two weeks ago, our family went to the Georgia, Georgia Tech game. 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:09.440 Last night went to a game as well. 00:10:09.679 --> 00:10:10.399 Go Dogs. 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:10.960 Anybody else? 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:11.759 Go Dogs? 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:14.879 I even see some of y'all wore Georgia Red. 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:17.120 I saw Auburn Famer in Georgia Red. 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:18.639 It might be Christmas. 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:19.519 I don't think it's Christmas. 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:22.080 I think it's celebration of Georgia last night. 00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:33.519 Which is, by the way, congratulations to all of you for living in the state of Georgia because my Georgia Dogs brought the SEC championship back to the state of Georgia for all of us to celebrate. 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:35.679 It doesn't just have to be Georgia fans. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.440 Anyways, two weeks ago, we went to the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, which is an incredible game. 00:10:39.519 --> 00:10:40.399 Georgia Tech's legit. 00:10:40.559 --> 00:10:41.919 Georgia Tech's on the rise, by the way. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:43.039 They're eventually gonna beat us. 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:44.799 It's coming, it will come. 00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:45.600 They're good. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:47.120 Brent Keys is amazing. 00:10:47.279 --> 00:10:48.240 Eight overtimes. 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:52.799 Anyways, the most heart attacks occurred than any football game ever. 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:54.000 I made that up. 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:55.360 I have no idea. 00:10:56.559 --> 00:10:58.559 It felt like it could be it could be true. 00:10:58.639 --> 00:10:58.960 I don't know. 00:10:59.200 --> 00:10:59.679 Could be. 00:10:59.919 --> 00:11:08.320 We left the stadium, hoofed it to the car, opened up Waze, hit home, and we turn out of this neighborhood in Waze. 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:12.320 She says to turn left on Lumpkin, which was back toward the stadium. 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:14.000 But I'm an obedient child. 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:15.759 And it's like, yes, ma'am. 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:27.759 I turn left back toward the stadium against traffic, and I'm driving freely, which feels amazing, but apparently I'm also kind of mentally going, like, this doesn't feel right. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:32.639 Like, oh, she wants me to take a right on the road that runs by the Coliseum, but that road's blocked off. 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:34.159 And then I'm like, oh, she doesn't know. 00:11:34.320 --> 00:11:36.639 She does not know that there's a game. 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:38.799 She does not know what's going on. 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:42.399 The next road's closed, and I'm like, it's getting worse. 00:11:42.480 --> 00:11:46.960 And like I can see the minutes stacking up because I'm like, I'm gonna have to get in that line. 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:51.039 And eventually the moment has that comes, the moment has to come. 00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:53.120 We're going the wrong way. 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:55.279 Like we have to turn around. 00:11:55.440 --> 00:11:58.000 It's only gonna get worse. 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:04.240 There's just sometimes the only way forward is just to humble yourself and say, I'm going the wrong way. 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:14.480 This thing that I'm doing, this action, this behavior, this addiction, this thought, this practice, this will only lead to more destruction. 00:12:14.639 --> 00:12:16.960 It's time for me to turn around. 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:19.519 And that's a great image of repentance. 00:12:19.679 --> 00:12:24.559 You hit the end of yourself, you have your breakdown, and you repent. 00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:29.759 Point number two is repenting is a turning into Jesus' sufficiency. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:35.440 Pastor Jack Miller always said it's a collapsing into Jesus' love for you. 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:41.120 So you're going backward, you're turning, but it's not a turning into nothing. 00:12:41.360 --> 00:12:42.879 Jesus' love waits for us. 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:47.759 The text says that we need a baptism of repentance, which is loaded language at the time. 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:55.039 At the time in the Jewish religion, you had to cleanse yourself before you went to the Temple Mount to worship. 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:59.039 So before you went to the presence of God, you had to cleanse yourself. 00:12:59.279 --> 00:13:00.799 You needed to do something. 00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:05.120 And so all around the Temple Mount were mikvas, baptism pools. 00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:06.240 Here's a picture of one. 00:13:06.399 --> 00:13:13.919 And the people before they went to worship, they would walk down those steps and they would dump themselves under the water and they would have a baptism. 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:18.399 They would purify themselves by the ritual act. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:24.399 And if you do that, then you're clean and you can enter the presence of God. 00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:32.559 So that's the context when John says, you need a baptism of repentance. 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:35.279 That's what they would be thinking about. 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.480 Like, oh, to enter the presence of God, to be one with God. 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:44.559 Like it's not about me continually doing some religious ritual act. 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:52.080 It's about me facing my own darkness and naming it and surrendering to God. 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:57.840 It's an immersion of repentance. 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:01.039 We need a breakdown, we need an end of ourselves. 00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:07.919 Now, your conversion moment of becoming Christian, that is a one-and-done moment of repentance. 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:17.279 But then what we realize in a gospel of grace, in the secure relationship we have with God, that our relationship with Him is not based on our work, but His work. 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:25.200 What we realize is that repentance is not this bad word we avoid, and Christian growth is not repenting less and less. 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:32.799 Christian growth actually becomes repenting more and more and quicker and quicker. 00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:37.360 Listen to how Paul presents repentance. 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:38.399 Listen to this insight. 00:14:38.480 --> 00:14:42.960 It's at the end of verse 4, but I'll read verses uh Romans 2, 3, and 4. 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:51.120 Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? 00:14:51.679 --> 00:15:01.600 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:03.519 What a truth. 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:16.399 We get the image of like the guy outside the football game holding the repent sign, and he's yelling, like fiery, condemning, like the tone, and you're like, I want nothing to do with that. 00:15:17.120 --> 00:15:19.919 That tone, I want nothing to do with that. 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:26.080 But Paul has a different tone with repentance. 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:33.759 And it's gonna be filled with conviction and sorrow, but it's God's kindness wooing us. 00:15:34.879 --> 00:15:36.879 It's not void of God's kindness. 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:40.639 Point number three is this religious repentance begins in fear. 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:43.279 Gospel repentance begins in love. 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:44.480 I didn't make that up. 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:46.480 That's Tim Keller's distinguishment. 00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:47.200 Very good. 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:51.360 Religious repentance out of fear says, you better or else. 00:15:52.879 --> 00:16:10.639 You aren't loved until gospel repentance says you are so loved by the Heavenly Father through Jesus' work for you that he loves you in your sin, in your brokenness, in your messed upness, and your turning around is God's kindness to you. 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:13.759 And you can fall into him and you can start anew. 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:18.960 Christmas tells us that God is with us in our darkest of places. 00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:24.240 Do you remember the dark place that the prodigal son was in in Luke 15? 00:16:24.639 --> 00:16:26.960 This family, two sons, you remember the story. 00:16:27.039 --> 00:16:34.960 The younger one asks for his inheritance early, which was embarrassing to the father, would have been offensive, crushing. 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:39.519 The younger son takes his inheritance, runs off to the foreign country. 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:50.799 Remember, he spends it, he parties, he's lavishly partying, wasting the money away, and then the money's gone, and then the friends are gone, he's by himself, he's starving, he has nothing left. 00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:52.480 He's at the end of himself. 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:54.320 He's broken. 00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:58.320 And there in that darkness, he remembers his father. 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.159 He remembers his home. 00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:02.480 He belongs somewhere else. 00:17:02.799 --> 00:17:05.599 And what's needed is a turnaround, a repentance. 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:09.200 So he thinks, perhaps, just maybe my father will take me back. 00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:10.400 He forms a little speech. 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:12.799 He's going to say to his father, I've sinned against you in heaven. 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:14.480 See, there's that repentant turn. 00:17:14.640 --> 00:17:17.839 Not worthy as your son, just make me a hired man on your land. 00:17:17.920 --> 00:17:19.440 Like, just will you take me back? 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:23.440 So the boy runs home, he starts his speech. 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.519 And here's what the boys met with Luke 15, verse 22. 00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:32.720 But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.759 Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. 00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:39.279 And bring the fat and calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate. 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:41.680 For this my son was dead and is alive again. 00:17:41.759 --> 00:17:45.119 He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate. 00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:52.799 Now his older son was in the field, and as he came near and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:57.519 The New Living Translation says, and the party began. 00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:03.440 Is that what your Christian faith feels like? 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:05.119 A party began. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:09.920 Like a party of joy and freedom and forgiveness and wholeness. 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.759 Not that all of life's gonna work out perfectly, not that there won't be suffering or sorrow. 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:24.559 But that you and your darkness and in the darkness you will face in the future, that God is loving you and for you. 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:30.799 Our repentance, our coming home is a party of welcome and grace. 00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:36.400 Years ago I showed you this Rembrandt painting, Return of the Prodigal. 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:39.039 We just moved it from my office out to this back lobby. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:41.279 If you notice it's in the back lobby now. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:47.599 The boy's so exhausted and beaten down. 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:51.759 I noticed this week he only had one shoe on. 00:18:51.920 --> 00:18:52.240 I don't know. 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:54.319 I missed that somewhere. 00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:57.359 Lost a shoe somewhere along the way. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:18:59.359 You ever feel like that? 00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:02.960 You ever like, I can't even keep up with my shoes, right? 00:19:03.599 --> 00:19:05.680 You just can't keep it all together. 00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:08.000 We've all been this child. 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:11.440 Or we are, or we will be again. 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:17.200 And Luke 15, the visual of this painting, gives us the gospel. 00:19:17.279 --> 00:19:23.839 It's where John the Baptist is driving us, that the Father is greater than the child's condition. 00:19:24.960 --> 00:19:28.400 That the light's greater than the darkness, grace is greater than sin. 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:34.319 This woo of the Father forgives and it begins to reorient our lives. 00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.200 This brings us back to our first point. 00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:44.720 Those who are most prepared to celebrate Christmas are those who have taken inventory of their own darkness. 00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:55.200 And what you find there is not your destruction, but when you face and name and feel your own sin and confess it to God, you don't find destruction, you actually find healing. 00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:59.200 Because God's one-way love to you in Jesus is enough. 00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:04.640 Perhaps you're here, you have a question about some of that. 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:06.400 Or you have another spiritual question. 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.160 And I'll be down front afterwards, and I would love to speak with you. 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:11.599 Let's pray together. 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:29.519 Heavenly Father, we thank you that Jesus is enough for our sin, that we celebrate this morning your incarnation, that you come into the mess of humanity, and that you meet us in our own sin and mistakes and suffering. 00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:38.240 Heavenly Father, we thank you that it is your kindness that leads us to repentance, that your regard toward us is welcome. 00:20:39.119 --> 00:20:50.559 And that there is a party of grace, there is a party of forgiveness and a party of joy awaiting us as we turn and look to you. 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:59.440 Would you help us all the more to not trust in the things of this world, but to look to you that our lives might honor you. 00:20:59.599 --> 00:21:00.799 In Christ's name we pray. 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:01.359 Amen.