Howdy. Well sorry I did not make it last week. I was in the midst of the throws of
various coughing bits. It would not have been enjoyable or pleasant whatsoever.
But it sounds like we had someone who was able to come in and take care of things.
That looked like an epic beard that guy had. So oh my word, I don't know if and
when I could ever pull that off. But really wonderful and glad that other
ministers in the area can have each other's backs at times like that. Today I
wanted to talk a little bit to you about our fourth advent theme. I wanted to talk
to you about love. And as much as we oftentimes take this term and this idea
for granted, is that the idea of love ends up being a lot deeper and more
expansive than what we may realize. See it turns out that love ends up becoming
something that's harder for us to abide in than we sometimes realize. And to try
to get this across a bit, one of the things that I realized was how much I
was not communicating love because of being late. Something that you have to
understand is that there is such a thing as Jason time. Jason time is typically
about a half hour late to any event. It doesn't really matter necessarily what
the event is, but take whatever the time is at half hour and that's usually the
time when Jason would be expected to show up. Now over the years it's become sort
of like recurring joke at various times. At one point even being told one time
that an event was half an hour earlier in order to make sure that I got there on
time. However, joke was on them, I actually felt really good about getting
there on time and it ended up 20 minutes earlier. But with it though is over the
years it started to become something of you know yeah it was funny but also at
the same time it was sort of this underlying idea of yeah but if Jason's
constantly late what does he think of the event he was going to in the first
one. See one of the things is that oftentimes in being late to something
it can communicate to people that you don't think that their event is as
worthy of your time. Whenever a person is late it can oftentimes be seen as you
don't respect the host. And that was something that I struggled with especially
for my sister and my sister's family up in Cyprus. I lived in Baytown for a while
there and if I wanted to go see my sister that was an hour investment each
way no matter what. But with it though is oftentimes it'd be a Friday afternoon and
I'm trying to squeeze in everything that I can before I leave. Did I take care of
all my chores? Was the laundry done? Did I make sure that I had all the things
ready for my next teaching assignment and I had all my lesson plans prepped? Did I
make sure that I had everything in my backpack that I could possibly need for
the entire evening? Even things like well what am I going to do when I get there?
Am I supposed to be helping with dinner? Am I supposed to be playing a game with
my brother-in-law? And then realizing that I was supposed to already be there
and I hadn't even gotten out the door yet. The thing was is that as much as I was
spending so much time in my mind trying to make sure that I had everything
taken care of that needed to be done is that I was missing out on just being
there with my family which was the biggest thing that they had wanted in the
first place. Over time then as much as from time to time I still have my
moments but by and large it's usually five to ten minutes now rather than half
an hour. With it though is that we realize sometimes that the simplest
things are what's actually needed to communicate love and I want to do that
with one of the most obvious figures in scripture that helps us to realize how
to communicate the love of God. King and Cats. Yes that was meant to be a joke y'all
mostly don't even know who that is and so but somehow one of the things that
always stood out to me about this story was that literally he had to do nothing
and it would have been better than what ended up happening. You see what was
going on is that Israel had been split the northern kingdoms were still called
Israel and they were being ruled at the time by King Pekka who had killed the
previous king in order to make sure that he had taken over. With it though is
there was also Syria being ruled by King Rezin and neither one of them wanted to
be dominated by Assyria nearby being run by Tiglath Palaeus who was a third. Now
what they did is they then went to the king in Judah King and Cats and they
said partner with us make alliances and we'll make sure that Assyria can't boss
us around anymore but you see the difficulty is that neither one of those
countries was actually a good country for Judah to ally with. You see they also
had various practices that were very very displeasing to God not just in
regard to sacrifices which may or may not have sometimes involved children but
also in regard to the ways in which that they would practice their rituals
oftentimes abusing sexuality in the life. See essentially even though Israel had
the name Israel it wasn't actually behaving like the children of Israel and
so what did God say? Don't don't ally yourself with them. And then what does he end up focusing on?
He ends up focusing on the birth of a child. What he is communicating is that
before this young child can be born and weaned and come to know what is good and
evil those two countries of Israel and Syria they'll be gone anyway. Don't
bother with them because by time you even get to that point they'll be gone
anyway. But you see he did listen he did avoid partnering with them but what did he
end up doing instead? He partnered with Assyria and Assyria ended up coming and
besieging them later in making their life miserable. All he had to do was nothing.
But you see that was the struggle oftentimes is that instead of just
focusing on what God wanted from the people of Judah instead of just
focusing on what it was that God had to communicate is that instead they wanted
to make sure that they stood out that they were noteworthy among the nations.
You see even back then they were worried about having cool alters. See any
time they saw the altars in another country they wanted theirs to be just
as cool not just in the way that appeared but also in whatever practices
that they had as they would do their sacrifices on the altar. That can sometimes
be difficult. It is sometimes we can get so caught up in wanting to be attractive
and obvious and noteworthy. I was I had told everybody you know hey come on over
if you feel like coming over on Friday and be able to celebrate Christmas you
know if you have the opportunity if you're free. In the midst of it one of the
things that was noteworthy is that apparently a lot of people wanted to
make sure that they invited people to come over to church and as soon as
somebody said that they were in a sense they were laughing about it. It's like oh
man well one way or another we got invited to your church one way or another
and I'm just kind of sitting there thinking okay yeah but you're laughing
about them I'm actually kind of thrilled that they did but even more though is
that to go from laughing about people inviting you to church but then the
conversation started going to a lot of the other churches that they had visited
and they started talking about this pastor who turned out had actually been
having an affair with his wife a affair with someone else who wasn't his wife
then turned out went to go and plant different church somewhere else in
Houston and then turned out this other one would promise that he would never
get caught up in drama ended up leaving because he wanted a better salary
somewhere else and all these different things and I remember and I'm sitting
there and I'm thinking to myself yes but at the end of the day you're probably
still going to go to their churches because they're fancier they're larger
they had a better marketing campaign on Facebook and I'm sitting there thinking
y'all joked about the people at our church inviting you but at the same
time are we in the midst of all these other issues that are coming up and
that was the thing that threw me is that part of me was all the jealous and then
I had to pause and slow down and say yeah but at the end of the day are we
showing mercy to people are we hearing scripture are we spending the time
knowing who God is but also are we more focused on loving God and our neighbor
or are we more focused on loving whatever trappings are around us and that
was one of the moments that I had right to pause and I had to say you know what
maybe maybe it's okay to just let God do what he's going to do in his time you
see that that son that child that was promised whenever we read the passage
it says Emmanuel God with us you see the original person being spoken of was
actually King Hezekiah you see after King A has King King Hezekiah and he went
and he ended up completely completely redoing the way that they did worship
the whole goal was for him to come in and to make sure that the altars were not
being utilized for pagan worship or for idols that they stopped sacrificing
people to make sure that there was actually going to be the reading of
scripture among the people to constantly look through and figure out how can we
be the people of God Hezekiah ended up being one of the better reformers among
the kings throughout the area but at the very last minute he still slipped up and
when they had managed to resist the king of Assyria and managed to cause him to
go back to his kingdom he just couldn't help but demonstrate how strong they were
to the king of battle who would then end up coming along and taking over them
for the next 70 years see that's oftentimes one of the things that we
end up finding is difficult loving God and loving your neighbor sounds so simple and yet that seems to be the part that we miss the most
when we look at our gospel reading and we're looking at what it is for the
angel to be speaking to Joseph and says do not be afraid to take Mary as your
wife you see the thing is is that we oftentimes lose sight of the fact that
there were many things that actually could have been done wrong you see Joseph
could have run away he could have been like you know what this is a little too
complicated I don't know what's going on here she's saying that she is you know
pregnant by the Holy Spirit that doesn't sound quite right but even if it's
true who would actually believe it how many people in Joseph's family do you
think were like dude your wife is pregnant of the Holy Spirit are you
really gonna buy that he could have just run away or they could have tried to
rush they could have tried to rush the wedding and to be able to say okay
let's say that she is pregnant but maybe we just want to make sure that it's not
so obvious let's just go ahead and go get married now and then that way we
won't have to worry about the way that it looks or maybe even more than that if
they were following Abraham's thinking let's go ahead and get married now and
let's start trying to have kids so that then whichever one is the first one is
the one that the angel must be talking about which is of course how Abraham had
Ishmael before he had Isaac or even more than that what does it mean just to stop
and say God you do what you're going to do and that's a hard part for us right
now in this season there are a lot of things that we want to make perfect and
beautiful at this time it is it is December 24th if your packages have not
arrived by today they're probably not getting here in time I know somebody
needed to let you know that just giving you a heads up if the cake doesn't come
out right you probably not going to go get anything new just gotta leave it me
if there is any pecan pie that is left over in the fridge from Thanksgiving you
may end up having to serve that that may or may not be what is currently sitting
in my refrigerator at this time along with some pumpkin pie but it is what it
is but with this though is that all of these things that are going to be so
difficult and stressful especially these next 24 hours or so is that it's going
to be so easy to try to figure out how to be not just busy but also trying to
make everything perfect when in reality love God and love your neighbor is that
the greatest gift has already been given to us and more than that is that you
have the greatest gift in your life already your family and your friends
and it is so easy to lose sight of that but you see that's the thing about what
we see not just with Mary and Joseph but also with ourselves is that when it says
to abide in God because he abides in us that's harder than we might oftentimes
want to admit right now what is abiding in your heart is it stress is it anxiety
is it frustration is there somebody that made everything difficult at work did
somebody end up getting sick and now you have to take their hours is there
something going on with one of your relatives is one of the kids fighting
with another one is someone up in Kansas having a visit with family and you're
not even sure whether or not they're going to see everybody while they're
there right now what's happening in your heart because one of the hardest parts
right now is that it is oftentimes not love and that's where we find ourselves
today is to be able to pause and slow down and say God my heart doesn't always
have love in it the way it's supposed to it says here in 1st John 4 by this we
know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us of his spirit and
then skips down so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for
us God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him
there are a lot of things that are distracting us from that and a lot of
things that we feel we're going to need to accomplish between now and the new
year and everything that we have to try to figure out as January comes along but
the truth this is that it really just is that simple is that God came to this
earth to be with us and that as much as Mary and Joseph could have tried to figure
it all out is that instead the best thing for them was to sit back and to let
God do what he was going to do right now that's for you too God is currently at
work but do you let him do that are we so busy trying to make sure that
everything is perfect the way we want it to be that we miss out on seeing what it
is that God is doing in our lives this season so wherever you end up finding
yourself the rest of today hopefully tonight at 7 p.m. here at Christmoriel
Lutheran but may today and tomorrow be an opportunity to enjoy the time with God
those who God has placed in our hearts and in our lives not trying to force what
we think everything needs to be for Christmas but instead enjoying the best
part of it that God is in control that God loves us and that he has given of
himself for us and because of what he has done we truly have the love of God
ourselves thanks be to God