Sermon Central
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Question Mark: Why Is Jesus Coming
Contributed by Rick Gillespie- Mobley on Jan 25, 2016 (message contributor)
Summary: This is the first sermon in our series Question Mark. The Message deals with why it is that Jesus Christ is coming into the world. This is a Christmas season message.
Why Is He Coming Question Mark ?
We are beginning a new series entitled “Question Mark—Christmas Season? We have a lot of people who want to celebrate Christmas, but really do not understand what is at the root of Christmas. Some only know of Santa Clause, some only know of the spirit of Christmas, and some only of happy holidays. But in the church, we know that at the center of Christmas is Jesus. However even in the church we are somewhat confused over the role of Jesus, beyond him being a baby in a manger.
In our series we are going to look in more detail, so that we can understand what is actually going on with Jesus and should be going on with us. We are going to look at Why is He Coming, What Is He Doing and Where Is He now. One of the reasons it is difficult for many people to even begin to understand the Trinity, the belief that God is One who reveals Himself in three persons is that we think Jesus began, when Mary got pregnant and that his first glimpse of this world was in Bethlehem where he was born. As a result we always think of Jesus as a man and we limit Jesus, because we give him the attributes of a human being today. We try to limit what Jesus can do by putting him in a human form.
The reality is, Jesus existed not only before Mary and Joseph, but even before Adam and Eve who were the very first human beings to exists. So if Jesus existed before Adam and Eve, He was in some other form. He was a Spirit as God is Spirit. The Gospel of John has very little to say about the Christmas story compared to Matthew and Luke, but John takes us back further in history to help us understand who Jesus is, and why it is He is coming.
John tells us, that in the beginning Was the Word, and the Word was With God, and the Word was God. John makes it clear, that the Word is Jesus. Everything that has been created has been created through Jesus. That includes everything in heaven and everything in earth. Before God created human beings, God created the angels. There are angels and there are archangels. The big three among the angels appear to be Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer (also called Satan).
Whereas Michael and Gabriel joyfully served God, Lucifer because of his pride thought like we sometimes think, “why should I obey God, I’m just as smart as God is.” Lucifer somehow managed a rebellion and gathered a third of the angels to rally with him and they fought a battle in the heavens. God cast them out of heaven and they fell upon the earth and became the demonic spirits that exists in our world today.
As a place for final punishment for them, Jesus tells us that the lake of fire was created for the devil and his angels. You may recall, when Jesus was casting out demons, they would often plead with him, please do not send us to the place of torment. So before there was humanity, there was this lake of fire that the devil and all his followers would eventually be thrown into. Only God knows why there is a delay in the judgment.
God creates humanity with the desire of their being a type of unity and harmony between God and His creation. God creates the garden of Eden with a perfect paradise. There is no sickness, no disease, no pain, no and suffering. Everything is in perfect harmony with the will of God. God puts Adam and Eve in charge of all the earth and gives them two commands. The first command is, “I have blessed you with many wonderful things, enjoy them and have a great time with it. There are thousands of trees with fruit. East as much as you want.” The second command was,” there is one tree in the garden, that I want you to leave alone. If you eat its fruit, you will die.”
Oh by the way, I forgot to mention that Session voted last week, that nobody is allowed to go in the first room off the hallway upstairs from the nursery. But the door is not locked and we don’t want anybody getting sick from what’s in the room.
Now back to Adam and Eve, they had everything going for them. The one thing God asked in return was that they would put their trust in Him, and worship Him freely as the rest of creation. God wanted them to love Him, because they wanted to, not because they had to. God even warned them, that if they rejected His commandments, they would surely die. So God gave them everything they needed to know. He let them make their own choics.
