Thursday, December 15, 2005
God With Us
Celebrate Not Just Coming But Presence
Christmas at Midtown, we celebrate not just the event of coming of Jesus, but that Jesus never left. We celebrate the presence of Jesus here.
For us Christmas is not a commemoration of a past event – like what a lot of other holidays are.
It’s like a wedding anniversary. On your anniversary, you don’t just celebrate the day you were married and memories of the day. You celebrate the life that’s been shared – that you’re still together! The relationship is still alive. That’s why you celebrate wedding anniversaries together. It’s about the relationship, not just the commemoration of the wedding day.
Have you ever been to a 50th anniversary? There aren’t just wedding pictures, but also old pictures of life lived together - and the most important thing is that the two are still sitting here together.
So, as a wedding anniversary is much richer when you can celebrate the life that has been shared, and that the relationship continues, Christmas is a more rich experience when we are aware that the relationship continues and that the presence of God is still here.
Incarnation
God coming to earth in the package of an infant is the Incarnation. It’s the crux of Christmas. Incarnation literally means "enfleshment", "in flesh", "becoming flesh" – God with skin on – He took on human flesh, becoming as human as any of us are.
He came to us, becoming one of us, to do for us, what we could not do for ourselves.
Philippians 2:6-8 Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
God didn't just come to us, He became fully human - as human as we are; but at the same time remained as much God as the Father. In that way, He could fulfill the law through his life.
He did the human stuff that we do too...He made friends whom He loved; He showed real joy, anger, thankfulness, empathy, irritation. He had lunch with His friends. He disappointed people and was disappointed himself. He experienced what it’s like to be misunderstood by your closest friends.
And He did real God stuff too…He healed people, He knew people’s motives before they knew them themselves, He preached directly into people’s hearts, He made dead people come back to life. He forgave people of their sins and changed their life course.
He was Present
A key to knowing Jesus is knowing that He was present to people in a personal and physical way. He displayed God’s heart to people using their own lives as the canvass.
People who believed Jesus realized that the heart of God was different than what the religious people taught. Jesus taught differently than the religious people. His solution for people’s sins, disease and pain was different than the religious people. His way of relating to the Father was different than the religious people. His way to salvation was different than the religious people.
He was physically present, and the people who Jesus walked and lived life with knew that they were experiencing God in a way they never had before.
What could be better than living shoulder-to-shoulder, walking sandle-to-sandle with Jesus? How is it possible to be closer to Jesus than to be drinking out of the same cup and sleeping with your mat next to Jesus’ mat at night?
If I Go…
Then Jesus said one of the most difficult remarkable, powerful, controversial, misunderstood things He ever said. “It will be better for you when I go.” He told the disciples that they would actually be better off when He left.
John 16:7"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper(the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
The physical presence of Jesus on earth was actually a lead-up to a greater experience of His presence. I’m sure that the disciples were thinking, “What could possibly be better than having you here?”
Jesus intended that his friends would experience the presence of God in their lives to a greater extent than even having the physical presence of Jesus as best friend, confidant, teacher and healer.
Barrier Of Skin
Jesus was saying there is something even better than me coming and living life right beside you. And that thing is that I’m going to live not beside you, but inside you.
Through the Incarnation and death He removed the barrier of Sin.
But He has also removed the barrier of Skin. When Jesus walked the earth, He wore skin. Now that Jesus was not longer contained in the skin of a man, He was saying to the disciples, “You are going to live out of the power of MY presence in your life”.
Then He Went
After Jesus left, He was no less present. He was more present than He had ever been. The disciples ended up doing the same and greater miracles that Jesus did. It was life beyond the incarnation. The disciples experienced life beyond the incarnation into an even deeper incarnation and a deeper mystery.
Never in Acts do you read about Peter saying… Man if only Jesus were here…He’d know what to do.
And Us Too!
And if that was true for the disciples then it is also true for us. If the disciples were better off after Jesus because His Spirit was living inside of them, then we are also better off in our spiritual lives then the disciples were when Jesus was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them!
The same Jesus that came to live inside of them also lives inside of us. Now that the barrier of skin is gone we can see Jesus in our midst - through a book, song, waterfall, or even in our experiences - like sufferings and joys.
We are now more connected to Jesus then the disciples were when Jesus walked the earth. “God with us”, was not just a reality the Incarnation – Jesus is now even more ‘with us’ and that defines us as a church.
Midtown Recognizes and Lives Out of God Presence
Midtown is a church that lives out of God’s presence. We are aware of God’s presence and we look for and we see it all around us.
What does it mean to live out of the presence of Jesus?
1. It means that we are expectant… it means that we are wide open… It means that we may sometimes feel called to do weird things. It means that we may do goofy stuff. It certainly means that we may end up going in a totally different direction than the rest of the world or other churches seem to be going in.
We will sometimes embody God’s unpredictability. That’s why churches that don’t live out of God’s presence feel dead. What good is a God if all we expect from Him is what will fill our plans and programs?
We point God out to each other when we see Him work.
As a church that lives out of God’s presence, is a ‘conduit between Living Water and the People of God has been opened.’ – Graham Standish
“The breath of the Spirit transformed the church from its dogmatic, legalistic roots into a vital faith that connected people with God, allowing God’s power to flow through their lives.” - Graham Standish.
2. All of the things that Jesus did when He was here He now does through us.
John 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father
Jesus came to us as God with ‘skin on’. We are now Jesus with ‘skin on’. That’s what the overused Body Of Christ term means.
He has made us the incarnation. We now lead each other and those outside of the church into communion with Him. God will do miracles and healing of our relationships, our bodies, our souls.
Communion
Body Time
How have you been blessed over the past year through the Presence of God through Midtown? ¶ 7:32 AM
Christmas at Midtown, we celebrate not just the event of coming of Jesus, but that Jesus never left. We celebrate the presence of Jesus here.
For us Christmas is not a commemoration of a past event – like what a lot of other holidays are.
It’s like a wedding anniversary. On your anniversary, you don’t just celebrate the day you were married and memories of the day. You celebrate the life that’s been shared – that you’re still together! The relationship is still alive. That’s why you celebrate wedding anniversaries together. It’s about the relationship, not just the commemoration of the wedding day.
Have you ever been to a 50th anniversary? There aren’t just wedding pictures, but also old pictures of life lived together - and the most important thing is that the two are still sitting here together.
So, as a wedding anniversary is much richer when you can celebrate the life that has been shared, and that the relationship continues, Christmas is a more rich experience when we are aware that the relationship continues and that the presence of God is still here.
Incarnation
God coming to earth in the package of an infant is the Incarnation. It’s the crux of Christmas. Incarnation literally means "enfleshment", "in flesh", "becoming flesh" – God with skin on – He took on human flesh, becoming as human as any of us are.
He came to us, becoming one of us, to do for us, what we could not do for ourselves.
Philippians 2:6-8 Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
God didn't just come to us, He became fully human - as human as we are; but at the same time remained as much God as the Father. In that way, He could fulfill the law through his life.
He did the human stuff that we do too...He made friends whom He loved; He showed real joy, anger, thankfulness, empathy, irritation. He had lunch with His friends. He disappointed people and was disappointed himself. He experienced what it’s like to be misunderstood by your closest friends.
And He did real God stuff too…He healed people, He knew people’s motives before they knew them themselves, He preached directly into people’s hearts, He made dead people come back to life. He forgave people of their sins and changed their life course.
He was Present
A key to knowing Jesus is knowing that He was present to people in a personal and physical way. He displayed God’s heart to people using their own lives as the canvass.
People who believed Jesus realized that the heart of God was different than what the religious people taught. Jesus taught differently than the religious people. His solution for people’s sins, disease and pain was different than the religious people. His way of relating to the Father was different than the religious people. His way to salvation was different than the religious people.
He was physically present, and the people who Jesus walked and lived life with knew that they were experiencing God in a way they never had before.
What could be better than living shoulder-to-shoulder, walking sandle-to-sandle with Jesus? How is it possible to be closer to Jesus than to be drinking out of the same cup and sleeping with your mat next to Jesus’ mat at night?
If I Go…
Then Jesus said one of the most difficult remarkable, powerful, controversial, misunderstood things He ever said. “It will be better for you when I go.” He told the disciples that they would actually be better off when He left.
John 16:7"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper(the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
The physical presence of Jesus on earth was actually a lead-up to a greater experience of His presence. I’m sure that the disciples were thinking, “What could possibly be better than having you here?”
Jesus intended that his friends would experience the presence of God in their lives to a greater extent than even having the physical presence of Jesus as best friend, confidant, teacher and healer.
Barrier Of Skin
Jesus was saying there is something even better than me coming and living life right beside you. And that thing is that I’m going to live not beside you, but inside you.
Through the Incarnation and death He removed the barrier of Sin.
But He has also removed the barrier of Skin. When Jesus walked the earth, He wore skin. Now that Jesus was not longer contained in the skin of a man, He was saying to the disciples, “You are going to live out of the power of MY presence in your life”.
Then He Went
After Jesus left, He was no less present. He was more present than He had ever been. The disciples ended up doing the same and greater miracles that Jesus did. It was life beyond the incarnation. The disciples experienced life beyond the incarnation into an even deeper incarnation and a deeper mystery.
Never in Acts do you read about Peter saying… Man if only Jesus were here…He’d know what to do.
And Us Too!
And if that was true for the disciples then it is also true for us. If the disciples were better off after Jesus because His Spirit was living inside of them, then we are also better off in our spiritual lives then the disciples were when Jesus was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them!
The same Jesus that came to live inside of them also lives inside of us. Now that the barrier of skin is gone we can see Jesus in our midst - through a book, song, waterfall, or even in our experiences - like sufferings and joys.
We are now more connected to Jesus then the disciples were when Jesus walked the earth. “God with us”, was not just a reality the Incarnation – Jesus is now even more ‘with us’ and that defines us as a church.
Midtown Recognizes and Lives Out of God Presence
Midtown is a church that lives out of God’s presence. We are aware of God’s presence and we look for and we see it all around us.
What does it mean to live out of the presence of Jesus?
1. It means that we are expectant… it means that we are wide open… It means that we may sometimes feel called to do weird things. It means that we may do goofy stuff. It certainly means that we may end up going in a totally different direction than the rest of the world or other churches seem to be going in.
We will sometimes embody God’s unpredictability. That’s why churches that don’t live out of God’s presence feel dead. What good is a God if all we expect from Him is what will fill our plans and programs?
We point God out to each other when we see Him work.
As a church that lives out of God’s presence, is a ‘conduit between Living Water and the People of God has been opened.’ – Graham Standish
“The breath of the Spirit transformed the church from its dogmatic, legalistic roots into a vital faith that connected people with God, allowing God’s power to flow through their lives.” - Graham Standish.
2. All of the things that Jesus did when He was here He now does through us.
John 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father
Jesus came to us as God with ‘skin on’. We are now Jesus with ‘skin on’. That’s what the overused Body Of Christ term means.
He has made us the incarnation. We now lead each other and those outside of the church into communion with Him. God will do miracles and healing of our relationships, our bodies, our souls.
Communion
Body Time
How have you been blessed over the past year through the Presence of God through Midtown? ¶ 7:32 AM
