Pr Malcolm Dennis
24-12-2017
"Christmas is
built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless
should be celebrated in every home." - G. K. Chesterton
"The very purpose
of Christ’s coming into the world was that He might offer up His life as a
sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of
Christmas." - Rev. Billy Graham
Isaiah 64:1-8New King
James Version (NKJV)
64 Oh, that You would
rend the heavens!
That You would come
down!
That the mountains
might shake at Your presence—
2 As fire burns
brushwood,
As fire causes water
to boil—
To make Your name
known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may
tremble at Your presence!
3 When You did
awesome things for which we did not look,
You came down,
The mountains shook
at Your presence.
4 For since the
beginning of the world
Men have not heard
nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen
any God besides You,
Who acts for the one
who waits for Him.
5 You meet him who
rejoices and does righteousness,
Who remembers You in
Your ways.
You are indeed angry,
for we have sinned—
In these ways we
continue;
And we need to be
saved.
6 But we are all like
an unclean thing,
And all our
righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
We all fade as a
leaf,
And our iniquities,
like the wind,
Have taken us away.
7 And there is no one
who calls on Your name,
Who stirs himself up
to take hold of You;
For You have hidden
Your face from us,
And have consumed us
because of our iniquities.
8 But now, O Lord,
You are our
Father;
We are the clay, and
You our potter;
And all we are the
work of Your hand.
- Recognising the God of
hope;
- Receiving God's
forgiveness;
- Responding to God's
Word.
1) Recognising the God
of hope.
In spite of all the
mess, the failures, the brokenness, there is still hope.
"But now..."
(v.8)
The God that we have
is supremely the God of the now.
The Lord shows us the
kind of God that He is through the prophet's prayer.
"But now, You
are..."
God still is.
This Christmas season,
He is coming to us as the God of the now.
"But now..."
shows us there is hope in the midst of the ashes and the broken pieces and
helplessness and misery.
God steps in as the
indomitable, unconquerable God.
"But now, You are
our father."
This helps us to
understand Luke 15: Parable of the prodigal son.
Paul's prayer:
Romans 15:13New King
James Version (NKJV)
13 Now may the God of
hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Hope comes by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of the
Living God is the God of all hope. The Spirit of the Living God can turn things
around.
We are waiting for God
to lead us.
Hope is preceded by
prayer.
Genesis 22:18New King
James Version (NKJV)
18 In your seed all
the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Our hope in God has
substance. It has the guidance and work of God in it.
Prayer precedes right
choices in our lives.
Prayer turns our heart
of God first and foremost.
Matthew 6:33New King
James Version (NKJV)
33 But seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to
you.
Psalm 69:32New King
James Version (NKJV)
32 The humble shall
see this and be glad;
And you who seek God,
your hearts shall live.
"Christianity has
not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not
tried." - G.K. Chesterton
We don't want him to
speak into our hearts and our lives. But we want His presence.
We love worship more
than His Word.
You will end up with
nothing.
Central to His
presence is His Voice and His Word.
2) Receiving God's
forgiveness.
Forgiveness is found
in the content of this hope that we have found in God.
Matthew 6:11-13New
King James Version (NKJV)
11 Give us this day
our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our
debts,
As we forgive our
debtors.
13 And do not lead us
into temptation,
But deliver us from
the evil one.
For Yours is the
kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
The God of hope wants
to fill us so that hope abounds.
Hope has teaching,
correction, guidance, direction. Hope is rooted in the character of God. God
has this for us in this season of our life.
Sometimes God has to
bring us to the furnace of affliction because He wants to commune with you.
God will use your
failures, stubbornness, and pride as a raw material to draw you closer to Him,
to bend you, to soften your heart like never before. So that He can redirect
your life into the future that He has for you.
He will cleanse our
hearts of our guilt through the blood of Christ.
Psalm 130New
International Version (NIV)
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I
cry to you, Lord;
2
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be
attentive
to my
cry for mercy.
3 If you, Lord, kept
a record of sins,
Lord,
who could stand?
4 But with you there
is forgiveness,
so that
we can, with reverence, serve you.
5 I wait for the
Lord, my whole being waits,
and in
his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the
Lord
more
than watchmen wait for the morning,
more
than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 Israel, put your
hope in the Lord,
for with
the Lord is unfailing love
and
with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will
redeem Israel
from
all their sins.
Lamentations 3:23New
King James Version (NKJV)
23 They are new every
morning;
Great is Your
faithfulness.
The voice of our
failure is a tiny little whimper.
The voice of God's
forgiveness is eternal.
The blood of Jesus
comes to cleanse it all away. The Saviour has come from everlasting goodness,
hope, compassion. His mercies are new every morning. There is no barrier that
prevents you from entering into the holy of holies. There is nothing good in us
but God is full of mercies.
3) Responding to God's
Word.
God is our Potter, not
our porter.
Take the life of
Abraham and Isaac. Abraham did not decide how God would mold his life, shape
him.
Genesis 22:2New King
James Version (NKJV)
2 Then He said, “Take
now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah,
and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I
shall tell you.”
Abraham had to go back
to square one and start all over again.
There are times that
God works like this in our lives.
"Let it go. Walk
away. Leave it."
It is very hard to let
go.
When it doesn't make
sense, God says, "I will make it make sense."
Because He has spoken,
and He is in it.
Sometimes the
promises/directions/spiritual gifts of God is like a durian. You cannot open a
durian prematurely. The promises/directions/spiritual gifts of God
progressively ripen over time.
Genesis 22:12New King
James Version (NKJV)
12 And He said, “Do
not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you
fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
Genesis 22:16-18New
King James Version (NKJV)
16 and said: “By
Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have
not withheld your son, your only son— 17 blessing I will bless you, and
multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as
the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate
of their enemies. 18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”
Genesis 22:20-23New
International Version (NIV)
Nahor’s Sons
20 Some time later
Abraham was told, “Milkah is also a mother; she has borne sons to your brother
Nahor: 21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram), 22
Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of
Rebekah. Milkah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor.
The promises of God
broke open in the next generation.
After we have
surrendered. After we have yielded.
Letting go is God's way
of ripening our purposes and spiritual gifts that He has for us.
The first cut is the
deepest.
"O Cross, that liftest
up my head, I dare not ask to fly from Thee; I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red. Life that shall endless be." - George
Matheson's hymn
Abraham experienced a
kind of dying that day and understood.
2 Corinthians 4:12New
King James Version (NKJV)
12 So then death is
working in us, but life in you.
Philippians 2:13New
King James Version (NKJV)
13 for it is God who
works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
Galatians 6:14New King
James Version (NKJV)
14 But God forbid
that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom[a]
the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
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