Once and Future Kings - "Jesus and the Incarnation"
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Offering special video: THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY http://youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA
Transforming Truth: The King Comes to Save
The advent season is the celebration of the incarnation, which literally means taking on flesh or embodied in flesh. The apostle John wrote at the beginning of his biography of Jesus that God, the Logos, the reason and meaning behind all existence, became flesh (John 1:14). As we come to the culmination of the advent season, we choose to remember the person of Jesus Christ and what He came to do in that incarnation. In reflecting on the expressed purpose of His coming, we rejoice in the fact that the king came to save, being God with us leading to a saving obedience.
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about : His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. (Matthew 1:18-25 NIV)
One name (Jesus, meaning "the Lord saves") spoke of the Messiah's role as the anointed King and Savior from David's royal line. The other (Immanuel, meaning "God with us") spoke of His identity as the incarnate God who came with humility and power to fulfill that role. Names and nicknames that we were given as children did the same.
The Lord Saves
“The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him.” ―A.W. Tozer
To dismiss these things, ridicule them, or ignore them as non-issues will not make them any less real. Everything else in life is offered to you as escapism, which, unfortunately, only exacerbates the real issues, because they fester through neglect and become worse, not better. Jesus offers salvation, rescue, and the writing of a new script through His intervention and power. The incarnation is about God not merely commenting on the state of humanity or your condition, but invading it to save it.
Jesus is God With Us
“Not only were the Jews expecting the birth of a Great King, a Wise Man and a Saviour, but Plato and Socrates also spoke of the Logos and of the Universal Wise Man 'yet to come'. Confucius spoke of 'the Saint'; the Sibyls, of a 'Universal King'; the Greek dramatist, of a saviour and redeemer to unloose man from the 'primal eldest curse'. All these were on the Gentile side of the expectation. What separates Christ from all men is that first He was expected; even the Gentiles had a longing for a deliverer, or redeemer. This fact alone distinguishes Him from all other religious leaders.” ―Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ
Our lives fall apart because, instead of making relationship with Jesus the Savior the goal of our lives, we make Him merely a means to an end. That means that when we don't get what we were hoping for, we void the contract in our mind and quit God. The incarnation took room for this reasoning out of the equation, because God said He is coming to us as the initiator and the goal of your life's success. He said that He is the prize and contextualization for all things; that if He is with you, your circumstances may change, but your hope, joy, and peace should not. At the culmination of all things, He has won life's battle, and His people taste eternal victory through Him because of His incarnation, His sinless life, His miracles, His vicarious death on the cross, His burial and resurrection from the dead.
You will never be fully and truly happy until you know that God is an end to Himself and not a means to an end. This realization allows you to have inconvenient trust leading to a saving obedience.
Saving Obedience
Ontologically you are made to serve a king. That is why all of the stories and legends of old or modern times gravitate toward this. You will either submit to the true, benevolent king, or substitute kings will try to take their place. The same is true for saviors - what good kings are to be.
What are the real issues causing pain in your life, and by what are they truly caused? The Bible says it is separation from God and sin. But it also says that the Messiah comes to save you from your sins and bring you back to God, that He might be Immanuel, God with you.
Unanswered prayers are a big reason for people leaving God, but it is merely a means to show us what we value more than Him. "Being mad at God" for not coming through shows us where we have missed the importance of the incarnation.
What are you looking to as a savior? Are you putting your hope in some relationship or candidate, your health or sense of financial security, career or measure of success? As long as you are looking to some external agent to make you happy rather than the person of Jesus, you will be dissatisfied, and these things will fail you because they are false gods and were never designed to be the savior. It is only Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, that saves. It is through this realization that circumstances are seen as merely temporary and not determinants of joy, peace, or wholeness. You realize that whether good or bad, circumstances change, but the savior does not; He is the anchor for your soul, always good, always kind, always forgiving, always ready to give life, a meaningful existence, and purpose found only in Him.
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. (Revelation 21:5-7 NIV)
We as human beings hate the idea of anyone commanding us to do anything. But trust in and obedience to this King are the very things that will save you from the false saviors who can neither see, nor help, nor hear (Isaiah 44:6-23).
People don't hate the idea of God; they distrust the biblical God, the One who commands specific things, the One who actually became historically incarnate and can actually save. Trusting and obeying like Joseph, when it is inconvenient, is the key. Anything worth having and doing in life comes with constraints that if you had the choice you would not place on yourself (i.e. - years of schooling for a degree, years of practice for expertise with an instrument). The Savior gives commands, that though they inconvenience you, lead to His glory and your good. You've seen the other options, and they have failed you. They will continue to do so, because no one and nothing else is designed to have the answers, wisdom, or power. God will never make a substitute for Himself. It is time to allow him to be King.
Though you are not to serve Him conditionally, you must also have a radical trust toward Jesus that He will make all things right, beginning now and continuing in eternity. Do not be satisfied to think that all things must remain the same in your life. The radical nature of the incarnation bespeaks a radical faith that God wants you to have that the King comes to save completely. He is the great knight who comes to establish peace in His realm. The once and future king means that He came to bring reconciliation through His advent, sinless life, death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead. As you trust Jesus, you will continue, in increasing measure, to experience His transforming grace in your psyche, your emotional state, your relationships, and, if applicable, your marriage and your parenting until He makes His return to make all things new!
“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Second City Church- Once and Future Kings Sermon Series 2013