The Gift-King

The Gift-King

A king that is for you.

The King that you've been waiting for, you're going to find him here… in a manger?

Transcript:

Welcome to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.

Our sermon soundbite today comes from Luke chapter two beginning at verse eight. "And in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord, and this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.""

But what is the sign that the angels give? That the angel gives to the shepherds? What is the sign by which they will know that this is the King? Verse 12 says, "And this will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths," and that's just normal baby clothing, "And lying in a manger." What?

Imagine me telling you that the richest man in the world was coming to Georgetown. So we went down to the square to meet him there and up pulls a 1985 Toyota Camry that's rusted out, the paint is peeling, and out steps this man. Would you believe me? There's this seemingly contradiction, contra-position, this contrast between what I'm saying and what the arrival of this richest man is like, and so it is here the King that you've been waiting for, you're going to find him here in a manger?

The point that Luke is making, obviously as we read through the gospel, is that the coming of the promised King, the way he came was absolutely unexciting. Unimpressive. No pump. No circumstance. The baby is born, no complications. There isn't room, anywhere. So why? Why this contrast?

Because this is a different type of King. The key is in verse 11 when the angel speaks to the shepherds, he says, "For unto you," notice that, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior. Who is Christ the Lord." Why? Because this King is not like other Kings, people with authority and power in this world. What do they do? They tend to accumulate more power. They tend to accumulate wealth for themselves, especially Caesar Augustus, who we read about in the very first verse of chapter two what is he doing? He's taxing the people so he can conquer and get more power for himself and more money and more riches. But this King is not for himself. This King is for you.

He is a King unto you, a King for you. Who although he is rich, became poor. Although he has all, became nothing for us. A King who takes all that he has and will pour it out for you. He is a Gift-King. A Gift-King.

Isaiah chapter nine verse six the prophet says it beautifully, "For to us a child is born. To us as son is given. He is a gift. He's been given to us." This is the gift of Christmas, freely given, not owed to those who have been nice instead of naughty, but a free gift given to all of us and received by, especially those that know they're sinners. Those like the shepherds that the angels come to at night.

Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the book of Common Prayer. This prayer can be found on page 601.

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

What does it mean to be a man?

What does it mean to be a man.

Joseph reflects God’s fatherly love into the world.

This is what it means to be a man.

Transcript:

Welcome to The Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.org

Today's sermon soundbite will be a bit longer than normal. As we take a closer look at the love of Joseph revealed in Matthew chapter one verses 18 through 25 and how that reflects the divine love into the world.

This is what God created you to be. A symbol of God's love in the world. Here Joseph is an example of this for us. I mean, he's put in an incredibly difficult, unexpected situation, but he chooses to live into this reality of being assigned a sacrament of love. And he courageously chooses love, and as he chooses love, he finds himself in a crucial role in God's story. And in doing this, he serves as an example for all of us.

So let's walk through this story and see God's love as it's expressed through the person of Joseph. And there are four qualities of divine love that we're going to see here. We're going to see that divine love as expressed through Joseph is free, faithful, total and fruitful. Free, faithful, total and fruitful. So let's start at 18. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother, Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. One quick comment here. We don't know really much of anything about the betrothal process of that time, but it was very serious. So they're not married yet, but they had promised themselves to each other in some sort of way that was akin to marriage. They had not consummated it yet, but it was such a strong bond in their culture. This betrothal process, and like I said, anyone who says they know exactly what's going on here is fooling you. They don't know what they're talking about. No one really knows exactly what's happening here but they were so promised to each other that in order for him to get out of the relationship. It was akin to divorce, which is why it uses this term next in verse 19.

And her husband Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to divorce her quietly. Can you imagine what Joseph is going through right now? Yeah, I imagine that he had dreams. That he had a life he wanted to live out with Mary as his wife. He had thought about what it would be like and suddenly he gets news that the one he's betrothed to is pregnant. But what does he do? Does he shame her openly? No. He doesn't want to put her to shame but resolves to divorce her quietly. He realizes this isn't going anywhere. He doesn't know the full story yet, right. But he's saying, "Okay, obviously this isn't going well, Mary's not who I thought she was. This isn't going to work." But he doesn't want to shame her. He wants to do it quietly.

And this shows us what love is. What is love? Love is seeking the good of the other for their own sake. And so already in Joseph we see love. That in this situation he doesn't have all the facts, yet. He is seeking the good of Mary, not wanting to shame her, but wanting to do this in a way that preserves her dignity as much as possible. Love again is seeking the good of the other for their own sake. We see in him a heart of mercy.

Then in verse 20, but as he considered these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." Here we see the quality of love is being free. Love is freely given and it's freely received. Love is a gift, right? Love cannot be owed, love cannot be earned. Love is never coerced. It's never forced. But what does Joseph do? Joseph trusts God. He trusts God and we will see that he freely chooses to obey and he will love and he will care for Mary and the child. I mean taking a tremendous responsibility upon him and not only a responsibility for a child that's not biologically his, but he has just found out who is this child, the son of God. The Messiah of the world, the King of Israel.

And so we see here through Joseph that love is free. Let's skip down to verse 24. Let me read down to 24 and then I'll comment. Twenty-one, she will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus and he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, he took his wife. Here we see that love is faithful. Love is faithful. It's till death. Joseph faithfully follows through on God's instructions. He follows God's on every single point.

Verse 24 he says, "He took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus." So he follows God's directions, exactly. And we see he's faithful in that he marries Mary, dedicating himself and his entire self to her and to the needs of her and this child. And for all of those that are married here, we understand that marriage is a life altering event, is it not? But he takes this responsibility faithfully. Not only that, but he knew her not. Notice that. He knew her, not this means that he did not have sexual relations with her.

So Mary is not some means whereby he fulfills his sexual lusts. Mary is a person that he's loving and cherishing. Notice that. In order for us to love actually we have to develop, especially as men, we have to learn self control. We have to be before God, constantly confessing to him so that our desires can be turned towards God. So that our desires are unified and harmonized with love, which means to seek the good of the other for their own sake. People misread this and they think that scripture is against sexuality and against pleasure. Well read Song of Solomon. That's not the case, right? That's not the case. What it's against though is using another person as an object for my pleasure. What the Bible envisions as love is that I ... In seeking the good of the other for their own sake, God will then bless that with pleasure. You see the difference. Here, Joseph is seeing Mary as a person to be loved and cherished, not an object to be used.

And so we see that he is faithful in this and then he does something incredible as well. It continues getting more incredible. He calls his name Jesus. We can kind of glance over this, okay, calls his name Jesus, but this has incredible import for that time. In taking that baby into his hands and calling him Jesus. What Joseph is doing is adopting that child as his own. The moment he names that child, it doesn't matter where that child came from, the child is now legally his. Using his faculty of speech. Remember where images from the tip of our head to the bottom of our toes. Using his faculty of speech, he is faithful. Taking this child as his.

So Joseph's love is free. It's faithful. His love is total. By taking Mary as his wife and naming Jesus, he is legally becoming his father. I mean, he's jumping into the deep end of the pool. There's no going back from this. And this is a total commitment that we see in Joseph again and again and again. We're going to see in a little bit that he will literally leave his land, his family, uproot himself from Bethlehem. And where will he go as a refugee? To Egypt. In order to protect Mary and this child from the murderous intentions of Herod. He is all in totally giving himself for the other.

And then finally, love is fruitful. Love is always open to receiving and nurturing new life. And Joseph's love for Mary brings life into the world, not biologically, but through the miracle of adoption. And one of the miracles of adoption, that I've talked to many people who have adopted. And they all tell me the same thing. They say, there is no difference in my love for my adopted children and for my biological children. It's the same.

Love is always fruitful. It always creates life. And because Joseph is obedient to the Lord and he is offering this love of God to Mary. He's not only bringing a little life into the world through adoption, but he's bringing the life of the world into the world. The father of life itself, the adoptive father. Can you imagine? The responsibility and the gift. And so we see here in Joseph, God's love. Free, faithful, total, and fruitful.

And so he's an example for us and he's especially an example for fathers. It's kind of a weird time to have a Father's Day sermon, but this is kind of what it's turned out to be. Joseph is a sign of God's fatherly love. Brothers, men, whether you're married or you're not, whether you're called to have biological children or whether you're called to have spiritual children. This is what your hands are for. This is what your feet are for. This is what the top of your head to the bottom of your toes is for. This is what it means to be a man. It means to love. It means to be a sign of God's love. To give a love that's free, that's faithful, that's total, that's fruitful. To look out for the good of the other for their own sake. That's what it means to be a man.

Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the book of Common Prayer. You can find this prayer on page 627.

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the husband of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Disappointed in God

Disappointed in God

What are your expectations of how God works in this world?

“Are you an optimist or pessimist?” He responds, "Neither. Jesus has risen from the dead."

Transcript:

Welcome to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas, at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.

Today's sermon soundbite is based on Matthew chapter 11, where John and his disciples seem to be disappointed in Jesus. Have you ever been disappointed in God? What are your expectations regarding how God works in this world?

Someone once asked Leslie Newbigin, he's a 20th century missiologist, asked him, "Are you an optimist or pessimist?", he responds, "Neither. Jesus has risen from the dead". I'm not an optimist or a pessimist. Jesus has risen from the dead. See, this touches upon that expectation part. What should the Messiah be? What should God do in this world?

If we should expect anything of God, we should expect the unexpected.

Jesus rose from the dead. God did not send a Messiah that followed the traditional career path for King of Israel, or any king. If someone wants to be president, there's a career path that you take. You get elected in local government and then maybe you become a mayor and then what do you do next, become Governor, Governor is probably a quick way, or a Senator, and then President. So there's a career path, an upward career path.

Messiah Jesus, King Jesus, didn't take this career path, and in those days it was brutal. To become King required acquisition of power, selfishness, brutality. Yet Jesus, the all powerful Son of God, what does He do, He chooses instead a cross and a crown that's a crown of thorns.

See the “highway of holiness” that Isaiah talks about in verse 8 is through the desert. It's through the desert. See true healing must come through the desert. True healing must come through the cross. And we desperately want to skip that part. We want a King who will feed our lusts, our lust for power, our lust for pleasure, our lust for stuff.

Do you remember the phrase, "It's the economy stupid"? I think that packages that quite nicely. That's what we want out of a king. But instead of the king we want, Jesus is the King we need. He does not feed our lusts, but He heals us, He restores us so we can love. And that something, sin, that lust, is deep in our heart and it's not something that policy or war or rules can ultimately address. It's a heart surgery. It takes time. And it requires the cross. It requires traveling through the arid desert.

That's why in Christianity we have these practices like fasting, almsgiving that we do, we should be doing all year, but we really intend to do during Lent and Advent. These are ways of emptying ourselves, putting ourselves in the desert place so that we can discover the fullness that God has for us.

Actually our expectations of God are too low and too American. Why do we only expect God to work in this world according to the way that makes sense to us? Why isn't God just pragmatic about everything like we are? Why doesn't He do things according to statistics, power, and human glory?

Is God limited by our understanding of how the world works? Are His ways, our ways, brothers and sisters? No, they're not. The resurrection changes everything about what we believe is possible and how we believe it's possible.

Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the book of common prayer. Our prayer today comes from page 23, A Collect for Endurance.

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

Time to Turn

Time to Turn

Are we working for or against the agenda of the coming King?

What would happen if you were driving the wrong direction on I35?

Transcript:

Welcome to the Light of Christ Weekly Podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.

Today's sermon soundbite comes from Matthew 3:2, where John the Baptist preaches, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Advent is a time to repent, a time now to turn to the King who is coming soon. First, we need to define repentance because it's a church word and it's always good to define church words that we're not using every day. What does it mean to repent? Well, what happens when you're going down I35 and you miss an exit? You repent, don't you? Repentance. When I was at beginning of our dating relationship, I would get so angry if we missed an exit. I think I've improved. But I would just hate it, because it takes forever, right? You've got to get off and you've got to turn around. That's what repentance means. Repentance is when you're going one direction to turn around and go the other. It's a 180 degree turn.

This is the message of John the Baptist in our gospel. The King is coming, the King that we've been waiting for, the Messiah, is coming, and he has an agenda, and we want to be working with that agenda and not against it. John is using shocking imagery here because it's important. It's important that the people he's talking to and we get on the same page as the coming King. To go back to I35 for example, what would happen if you were driving the wrong direction on I35?

People do it every once in a while. Sometimes it's complicated, those on ramps and off ramps. Sometimes in Texas, it's weird. The feeder road, sometimes it goes two directions, and so you can get really get confused and go up the wrong way. Well, it's dangerous, right? You're going against the flow of traffic. Well, it's dangerous for us to be going against the flow of the almighty God, to go against the flow of all that's good, and lovely, and beautiful, and wonderful in this world leads to tragic consequences, and so John's being very real. We need to turn and get with God's agenda. Because he's coming. He says in verse two, "Repent, turn, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The King is coming, he's saying. He's coming right now. For this as he was spoken of the prophet Isaiah when he said, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." So we must turn, turn to King Jesus and be ready for him.

I love this quote by John Stott. He says, "In essence, Christianity is Christ." “Christianity is Christ. Who Christ is and what he has done is the foundation upon which the Christian religion is built.” Christianity is all about Jesus, King Jesus. I'd like to add it's not only about who he is and what he's done, but it's also about what he is doing and what he will do. Bring a little advent, hope into that. This is all about the coming King and we need to trust him with our future and reorient our lives for his coming.

The King who is coming is not only our goal, we not only want to be like him and on his agenda, but he's also the source of our repentance. Think about the plant. There's amazing time lapse films out there that follow the growth of a plant where they move the light around. The plant is following the light source. But for the plant, it's not just pointing at the light, but it's pointing at the light because the light is the source of its very energy in life.

That's how it is in our life. In order for us to repent, it's not just changing to God's agenda through sheer force of will or trying really hard. There are times in the Christian life where we need to try hard and we need to make decisions on our will, but to make decisions like that over and over again doesn't work. We need a deeper interior change. Our desires are all tangled and they're all crooked, and what we need is to see Jesus.

When we see the beautiful person that he is, when we see his actions and what his vision is for our life, that untangles our hearts. Like that plant, our desires begin to realign towards his desires for our life. We can't do it without him. He is both the direction that we're pointing, but he's also the source of the life that's necessary for us to make that change at all.

Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ Weekly Podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the book of common prayer. You can find this collect for the second Sunday in Advent on page 598.

Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Advent of Grief

Advent of Grief

Advent prepares our heart in hope.

Hope is to trust in God for your future.

Welcome to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican Church is located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.org.

Our morning meditation today is about the nature of hope in a broken world. What is Advent about, and how does it prepare us for the coming of the King on Christmas day?

As we enter the holiday season, I'm going to make a comment about the holidays and grief. For many people, for many of us, when the holidays come around, we remember in a really deep and vivid way the loss that we've experienced. When we get around the Christmas tree or go to the candlelight service, the hole left by the loved one that's died or the ugly divorce, is felt and experienced in a profound way. This is something we need to recognize.

It's very unfortunate that in our culture, here in Texas at least, we run right into Christmas and into celebration mode and we can barely wait for Thanksgiving to be done before we're talking about Christmas and running around frenzied, buying things and all of that. I think there needs to be a recovery of Advent so that we can really properly understand Christmas.

Advent began December 1st, it begins the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent means coming, and the theme of Advent is hope. It's preparation for the coming of the King and hope is important. The reason we hope is because we haven't seen everything that God is doing and will do. What hope is, is not, "I hope I will get a certain Christmas present", or, "I hope that next year will be better than this year." That's not what we're talking about. The biblical definition of hope is to trust in God for your future. Hope is to trust in God for your future, and the reason we trust in God is because this world is broken.

We're torn away from the ones we love by death, by divorce, by distance. There's something about this world that is just not right. Advent teaches us that in the midst of this brokenness, we can still have hope. That in the midst of this brokenness, we can trust, and must trust God for our future, because that's the only way forward. We are hoping and trusting God for his Messiah, King Jesus, who will come and make all things right, who will heal this world, who will wipe away the tears from our eyes.

We need this time of Advent to prepare for what Christmas is and to even understand Christmas, because Christmas is about a Messiah who came as a baby in a feed trough, about a King whose throne was a Roman cross. It's about a Messiah, a God, a King of the entire universe who entered into the darkness, into those places of suffering and grief. So he knows and he cares and he can shepherd us through those valleys into the green pastures of eternal life. That is what Advent's about.

So if you are grieving this Advent, I encourage you to grieve, to cry, yet to grieve with hope, grieve knowing God's love for you. And as you grieve in hope, I pray that the Holy Spirit would allow you, even in your grief, even in the feeling of loss, to celebrate the fact that the King is coming, that he has come and he will come and make all things right.

Thank you for listening to the Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. This collect for strength to await Christ's return can be found on page 22.

Oh God, our King, by the resurrection of your son Jesus Christ on the first day of the week you conquered sin, put death to flight and gave us the hope of everlasting life. Redeem all our days by this victory. Forgive our sins, banish our fears, make us bold to praise you, and to do your will and steel us to wait for the consummation of your kingdom on the last great day, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.