Names of God- Jesus: saviour. Carols by Candlelight.
Sun 18th Dec 2005 pm WBC
Matt 1:18-25
We’ve been looking at the names of God…. and tonight we come to the point where the baby in the manger is named: Jesus
- or Yeshua to his mom and adopted dad- as that’s the Hebrew pronunciation
o basically it’s the equivalent of the OT name Joshua
- Yahweh is salvation, or ’the Lord saves’
- Our version, Jesus, comes via the Greek (that this story was written in) as it transliterates the Hebrew name to Iesous
Basically- a common name of the day. Given by the angel for its distinctiveness…. not originality or flamboyance
- but then again you find that, don’t you!: when God, the King, visits earth He does so without regal robes and earthly fanfare
o just a normal looking baby, with a normal name, born in extreme times and humbling circumstances
o Is 53 says there was noting unique about His appearances (nor were there any records of them… and it’s just as well or the whole world would have got caught up on what He looked like and made ’graven images’ and all that!)
There are stacks of graves/bone boxes with the name Yeshua on from early 1st C. Not this Yeshua, though, as the story ends with an empty tomb…..
- and a complete change in the use of the name. By the end of the 1st C no one uses the name
o it was seen as unique, revered (or avoided if the parents wanted nothing to do with this phenomena, people of ’the way’, Christianity, that was sweeping the globe)
Basically- only find the name occasionally used by Spaniards ("Jesus") …. Or by those suffering from delusions of grandeur!
The Lord, Yahweh, saves
SAVING FROM?
But from what?
As a boy remember seeing the graffiti "Jesus saves", and written underneath it "But Best scores on the rebound!" (or was it Keegan?)
- shows my age/era
Maybe you want saving from some things!
- from having to go back to work after Christmas! (can’t help you there I’m afraid!)
- from Christmas! I dunno: I love bits of it (the carols, the family time, the meaning)… but I hate what I see it do to people
o I mean, why did Jesus have to come at Christmas?!
Here’s a taster from this year’s range of surveys and polls (2005)…
· According to official research there are five yuletide personalities: Scrooge, Recycler, Yule Perfectionist, Christmas Kiddie or Unprepared. 15% of Britons are Scrooges, but 38% admit to being Christmas kiddies!
· 94% of the population intended to celebrate Christmas regardless of their faith and nearly two-thirds, 59%, said that celebrating the birth of Christ would be a central part of their family’s Christmas.
· Although 26% said, "there is bound to be some kind of argument in my household at Christmas", 74% expected peace and harmony over the holidays.
· The extra consumption in the 12 days of festivities increases domestic waste by 3m tonnes - enough to fill 120m wheeled bins.
· The UK will consume 5.5m jars of mincemeat, 12m jars of pickles, and 6.5m jars of cranberries. Recycling them would save enough energy to boil water for 60m cups of tea. People will throw away 83sq km of wrapping paper - enough to cover Hyde Park 33 times.
· Church attendance rises by up to 200% in some rural areas over Christmas, in contrast to attendance in cities where the proportion is similar or only slightly higher than the rest of the year.
- Maybe it’s the Christmas shopping you want saving from, yeah?!
o Fellas?!! Well, here’s some advice I found
1. Don’t buy clothing that involves sizes. The chances are one in seven thousand that you will get her size right, and your wife will be offended the other 6999 times.
2. Avoid all things useful. The new silver polish advertised to save hundreds of hours is not going to win you any brownie points.
3. Don’t buy jewellery. The jewellery your wife wants, you can’t afford. And the jewellery you can afford, she doesn’t want.
4. Finally, don’t spend too much. "How do you think we’re going to afford that?" she’ll ask. But don’t spend too little. She won’t say anything, but she’ll think, "Is that all I’m worth?"
SOURCE: Herb Forst in Cross River, NY, Patent Trader, in Reader’s Digest, Page 69.
Contributed by: Dana Chau on www.sermoncentral.com
- I’ve found the solution. Go shopping WITH your wife!
- Maybe it’s the post-Christmas flab:
Dawson and his wife, Jennifer, had been debating buying a vehicle for weeks. He wanted a truck. She wanted a fast little sports-like car so she could zip through traffic
around town. He would probably have settled on any beat up old truck, but everything she seemed to like was way out of their price range.
- "Look!" she said. "I want something that goes from 0 to 200 in just a few seconds. Nothing else will do. Christmas is coming up so surprise me!"
- Dawson did just that. For her birthday, he bought her a brand new bathroom scale.
- Nobody has seen or heard from him since.
- Maybe it’s debt you need saving from. & Christmas doesn’t help!
As one department store advertised in December of 1983 "Make this Christmas one you will not soon forget - charge everything!" (ie to your card!)
Contributed by: Jeff Strite on www.sermoncentral.com
- Or the kids, in one sense
Tony May (from Winchester) was talking to his little girl Rohan (age 4) and, in a moment of dispute with her said "I know EVERYTHING". To which she replied in a very serious voice (Implying ’don’t be so silly Daddy!’) "Daddy- you don’t know EVERYTHING! You’re not Father Christmas!"
o I love Christmas and the kids. We’ve got a PS2 (for the 3 kids!)
Or other things…. more serious
- the drudgery of life. Purposelessness
- illness. Physical or mental, emotional. An addiction. Gosh.
- A person… bad relationship
These are such real things. And maybe you’ve been asking God for them, this Christmas
The Jews had expectations of ’the Saviour’. They had been waiting a long time for Him! 2000 years since Abraham’s day.
- and I reckon the Angel clarifies the terms and conditions right from the start, here, coz it’s going to be so hard convincing folks that the Creator knows better…best… what His creatures need saving from. Better than they do
They were expecting Him to save them from:
- the Romans. Occupation. Puppet rule through the Herod’s
o "they tried to make Him king by force" Jn 6:15
- poverty. Someone who can give them bread (temptations & Jn6)
"You will call Him Yeshua"… and He won’t be your typical liberator. National or political
So- what does God think our major need is? Our major need to be saved from? That He came across all eternity to do?
SAVED FROM…. (PPT)
Listen. People are incredible. I can’t paint a high enough picture of the incredible things humanity can achieve- and how remarkable individuals are
- incredible creativity. My flabber is ghasted when I see what beauty can be achieved. In art. Architecture. Each time Pam forms a sculpture.
- In music. I love it! I’ve loved X factor! Andy- a dustman, but gifted by God and made in the image of God. Worthy of respect. Showing something of the true nature of man, and reflecting something of God. /// (and I believe all have these gifts).
- Ability to do REALLY good things. Altruistic. Help people
But I want to paint a realistic picture as well. Journey with me on this:
I do just wonder (with me) if even when I give something to charity it still has a lot to do with ME… rather than THEM. Ie it makes me FEEL good
- In fact, this year (the year of the volunteer) has been mainly sold on how it makes YOU feel good
- "What have you do lately to make you feel proud?"
in fact I’ve observed that the best marketing ploys are the ones that make people FEEL they are doing a bit of good, while they REALLY serve themselves. A token bit of philanthropy
- the selfish gene is stronger than the servant one (that’s my conclusion)
- and films and video games allow us our bit of violence, killing- but it’s okay because it’s the really bad guys we’re killing, Bill
Strange, eh? But I wonder if you agree with me if you dig deep?
Now, we all immediately think that we’re not as bad as those involved in the holocaust. And I’m sure you’re not-
- but New Orleans showed us that any modern social grouping is only 3 meals away from anarchy and ’each person for himself… and "off my food!" BANG!’
- and Yugoslavia. They were modern people like us! I was there!
And communism is great illustration. The whole concept isn’t evil, you know. Fairness for ALL. Shared resources. But I wonder (and I know nothing of politics or sociology!) if it failed mainly because it
- did away with God?
- failed to acknowledge the true nature of humans. Our fallenness?
o (and that’s a major theme of the Bible)
Oh no. We need saving alright. From ourselves
SELF (PPT)
We are our own worst enemies. Or are potentially those things- if our circumstances changed.
- and sometimes you see our worst nature in the youngest child or the family gathering of the oldest… at Christmas
We DO need saving. Deep inside we KNOW it- If we know ourselves.
- some FEEL it, and can’t put it into words- they are just hanging on, holding out, crying for ’someone’ to save them… from something
o it’s their soul crying out that they need saving from something bigger than they yet fully understand
A family was out vacationing at the lake one summer. Dad had been puttering out by the boat house. Two of his sons, a 12-year old and a 3-year old were down playing along the dock. The 12 year old was supposed to be watching his little brother, but he got distracted. The 3 year old, little Billy, thought that would be a good time to check out the shiny aluminium fishing boat tied up at the end of the dock. So he went to the dock and put one foot on the boat, and one foot on the dock. He lost his balance and fell into the water, which was about 5 or 6 ft deep.
The splash alerted the 12-yr old who let out a piercing scream. Dad came running from the boat house, jumped into the water, swam down, but unable to see anything, came up for air. Sick with panic, he went right back down into this murky water, and began to feel everywhere around the bottom. He couldn’t feel anything. Finally, on his way up, he felt little Billy’s arms locked in a death grip on one of the posts of the dock, about 4 ft under water. Prying the boy’s fingers loose, they burst up together thru the surface to fill their lungs with life giving air.
Finally when the adrenaline had stopped surging, and nerves had calmed down a little bit, the Father asked his son, "What on earth were you doing down there hanging onto the post so far under the water? And little Billy’s answer was a classic, laced with the wisdom only a toddler could give. He said, "I was just waiting for you dad. Just waiting for you."
2000 yrs ago, the God of the universe left the glory and the splendour of heaven, a place where there was no pain and no sickness, no accidents, no hurt, and no death.
And he plunged into this dark, murky world on a rescue mission, a
rescue mission for all of us who are drowning, a rescue mission for all of us who are barely hanging on, a rescue mission for all of us who are lost in the darkness.
SOURCE: Story told by Gene Appel, Willow Creek Community Church.
Contributed by: Dennis Murphy on www.sermoncentral.com
Are you waiting? To be rescued? Or know that you need to be?. Every thing else is just a symptom- here’s what God plunged to earth to rescue us from.
SIN (PPT)
not a popular concept. OR word!
But even our reaction to it shows us up…our true nature. Our fatal flaw
"Don’t you tell me I’m not good! Who is GOD to tell ME! Insult my self-image and tell me that I’m not perfect!"
He knows you’re not! He knows I’m not. YOU know you’re not!
- you know you can’t stand before the pure, perfect and holy God on judgement day and give an account for your life that is really going to make Him go "Wow! You got me there! Come on, take my throne… command the universe and every neutron star and neutrino"
No- we fall short of God’s perfection… and our greatest need is to be saved from our wrongdoing which separates us from God.
- take God’s word for it!
If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent and educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent a scientist. If our greatest need had been for money, God would have sent an economist. But since our greatest need was for forgiveness, God sent us a Saviour. Roy Lessin
And this is what the angel means when he says "for He will save His people from their sins"
- Rom 6:23 "for sin pays a wage! Death! But the FREE gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord"
"save His people!"
- Are you His person? Not everyone is. It’s available to all, but not all take it
o Most would rather try and justify themselves before God on their own terms
o Rather than let Him justify you and say ’I’ve paid for this one’. Accept His FREE gift of eternal life.
////
You can become ’His person’ His child.
- ’ by believing and receiving Him into your life-
And then you KNOW ’God with you’
- Immanuel, as a name for Jesus, not only describes His NATURE (that He is God with us)….
- It also describes His WORK
That Jesus enables us to know God with us… now and in eternity. Saved from
SEPARATION (PPT)
…..
Maybe you can take a step this night, this Christmas. Maybe you can take the first step and decide to find out more- Alpha.
