Nathan E. Lewis

November 29
First Sunday of Advent
“The Promised Seed”
Genesis 3:15; 12:7 and Galatians 3:16

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written over a span of 1,600 years by 40 different authors. Its cohesion is what we call redemptive history, the story of God redeeming his people. Everything written in the Bible supports this grand theme. One of the central expressions of this theme is the seed, not the seed of the garden but the seed of conception. The seed refers to the ultimate promised Son, Jesus Christ and then, secondarily to all those who are united to him by faith.
The Westminster Confession of Faith presents God saving us from sin and death through several points of doctrine: Effectual Calling; Justification; Adoption; Sanctification. The one of these points of doctrine that flows from this language of the promised and fruitful seed, this family metaphor, is the doctrine of Adoption. This chapter in our Confession is brief and to the point: Jesus Christ is the only Son of God and the rest of us have been adopted as sons, given full rights and privileges belonging to the children of God. The Confession links our adoption to our justification and calls us “partakers of the grace of adoption.” We are included in the specific number of the children of God. We enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of God. The name of God is placed upon us, we receive the Holy Spirit, we have access to the throne of grace, able to boldly pray and to express our intimate relationship with God, our Father. God pities, protects, provides and disciplines us. But he never abandons or disinherits us. We are sealed until the final day of redemption. We inherit the promises of God and we are heirs of an everlasting salvation.
It is this doctrine of Adoption that I am seeking to highlight this Advent Season 2009. The promise of the seed was first given in the hearing of our first parents, Adam and Eve. In response to the first sin of eating the forbidden fruit, God gathers the serpent, Adam and Eve together and speaks in their collective hearing. Firstly, God cursed the serpent, who tempted and deceived Eve. He then spoke to Eve and to Adam describing the consequences of their fall into sin. God said to the serpent: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head,
 and you shall bruise his heel. One of the consequences of this first sin is this war between the devil and the human race. The serpent, truly the devil, had initiated with Eve what he thought would be a blessed union with the human race. Together, fallen angels and fallen humanity would wage war against God. But the devil didn’t factor in God’s active and loving interest in and interaction with the human race. The serpent successfully influenced the human race towards its fall into sin and death, but this fall would not produce a union but a war.
As Eve hears God speaking to the serpent, she is surprised by the promise of the seed and the promise of victory over her tempter. Though she did not deserve it, God had come to her rescue, preaching the seed of the gospel. She deserved death, but God was declaring to the serpent that she would not only live, but that she would conceive and bear a son. This son will be identified not only by his suffering the bite of the devil but also by his victory over the devil. And so the generational expectation grows among the human race. Eve gives birth to Cain and believes that this champion over her enemy has come. Cain delivers a deathblow to be sure, but he murders his brother rather than the devil. The community of faith is thus established as those who do not lose hope but continue to look for the promised seed generation by generation.
With each new generation, God supplies more information concerning his promise of the seed. This brings us to our second text for the morning: Genesis 12:7, Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your seed I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. The Bible lists 20 generations from Adam to Abraham – a lineage of hopeful children of God anticipating the promised seed. 20 generations after he spoke the promise in Eden, God speaks it again to Abraham with unfolding detail. To this promised seed, he will give the land upon which Abraham pitches his tents and feeds his flocks. With additional information revealed, the promise appears fuller, God blessing all areas of life, not merely some immaterial blessing we enjoy in our minds and hearts but rather the rolling back of the common curse – the land Adam lost in Eden deeded in larger measure to the second Adam. Abraham began to search for this promised seed within his immediate household and for this promised land beneath his feet. But like the generations before him he discovered that God’s promise was unfolding, coming to fruition over a long period of human history, reaching its climax in the fullness of time. How was Abraham informed of this promise being a son other than his son, Isaac and this land other than the real estate of Canaan? God revealed to him on Mount Moriah the future provision of the promised seed who would be the sacrifice for sin, crushing the serpent’s head. As an old man haggling with the Hitties for the cave of Macpelah so that he could bury his beloved wife, Sarah, Abraham’s eyes were cast to the future to a greater realization of the promise. What God revealed to Adam and Eve, and for that matter to the serpent, was a sufficient proclamation of the promised seed. God supplied Abraham and Sarah with even more information, sufficient to supply a lasting faith.
The apostle Paul wrote our final text, Galatians 3: 16, forty-three generations after Abraham! Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, “And to seeds,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your seed,” who is Christ. Paul writes one generation following the incarnation of the Son of God. With the fullness of revelation concerning God’s promises, Paul is able to clear up a potential misunderstanding in the ancient text. It is not that the text was ambiguous, but rather, some readers skipped over a small but significant detail, namely the singularity of the promised seed. The seed promised to Eve was none other than the Son of God incarnate, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The seed promised to Abraham was none other than the incarnate Son of God, the true Isaac. Paul writes that the promise was not only made to Abraham but to this seed, to Jesus Christ. He is the true promised Son to whom the heavenly Father has promised all things. The rest of us receive the promises of God through adoption. At one time we were strangers and aliens, orphans and beggars. But now, through Jesus Christ representing us as the true Adam we are adopted daughters and sons of our heavenly Father. The author of the book of Hebrews describes Jesus as our elder brother. The apostle John writes, Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the sons of God!” Later in Galatians Three Paul writes If you belong to Christ then you are Abraham’s offspring heirs according to promise!” Believe that Jesus is the Promised Seed and God will lavish upon you more gifts than you can ever imagine, even eternal life. Amen.

Second Sunday of Advent
“Born of God”
Exodus 2:1-10 and I John 3:9

On the First Sunday of Advent we considered the faithful and consistent unfolding revelation of Jesus, the Promised Seed of God. For the final three Sundays of Advent I have chosen three men born into the line of faith, whose birth stories include details pointing us to Jesus, the Promised Seed. I have also chosen for each Sunday an additional text, connecting us to the promises of God calling us to consider our spiritual birth as adopted children of God. This morning we consider Moses, the great Prophet who led Israel out of Egyptian slavery into the wilderness to receive not only the 10 Commandments at Sinai but also the abiding promises of God.
Moses is the author of our text and he first tells us that he was born into the tribe of Levi, that tribe set apart among the 12 to serve Israel in its worship of God. His second sentence delivers some disturbing news, all too common in human experience. Pharaoh had commanded the midwives to kill at birth the Hebrew sons. Somehow Moses survives this infanticide presenting his mother with a most difficult choice. She sees that he is a fine child. Oppression always forces people to make difficult decisions. The lust for power and control latent in humanity on an individual and collective level usually produces the destruction of the newest generation, or the oldest generation, the weakest among us. Jochabed, Moses’ mother makes a desperate choice to preserve life. She and her daughter, Miriam, become instruments of God to preserve the faithful line through which he would produce the Promised Seed. It consumes much of their daily life. God raises up an unlikely instrument to aid them, the princess of Egypt, the very daughter of the Pharaoh who decreed the infanticide.
In this story we meet three women who have what we call “maternal instincts,” nothing less than divinely instilled desires to preserve and culture life. Every human being possesses these God-given desires. It is human selfishness and confusion that suppresses the preservation of life. Jochabed uses her ingenuity to save Moses. Miriam uses her quick mind. The Egyptian princess, moved by pity, uses her royal position. The result is the sparing of Moses’ life and that to a high station as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s royal household. Undoubtedly, as Jochabed witnesses God’s preserving of her son, she believes him to be destined for greatness. Perhaps he is the Promised Seed, the Son who would crush the serpent’s head!
As the story unfolds, we soon discover that Moses is not the perfect Son of God, the Promised Seed, come to save humanity from sin and death. As a prince of Egypt keeping his Hebrew lineage a secret, at 40 years old, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave and so Moses murdered him on the spot. Witnesses spread the word and Pharaoh sought to kill Moses, who fled into the wilderness. He found a community, married a wife and sired children, but Moses viewed himself to be defeated and damaged. The first 40 years of his life were exciting, comfortable, stimulating, and significant by worldly standards. He was the Prince of Egypt, at the center of the universe. But the second 40 years of his life were lost in the solitude of the wilderness. As a common shepherd, he was a nobody, a fugitive, guilt and shame driving his conscience, unresolved anger boiling just beneath the surface. Undoubtedly, during his first 40 years he believed that God had a great and glorious purpose for his life. But for the second 40 years, Moses doubted whether or not God cared for him at all. In his 80th year, Moses tending sheep, saw the burning bush and heard the voice of God. This broken, defeated man heard God tell him that he actually had a most important and central mission for his life.
So many of God’s children have lived for years broken and defeated, thinking that God no longer cares for them, believing that they have nothing good to offer. Have you ever met a person resigned to sin truly believing that he/she will never be free of it? “This is the way I am and God has apparently forgotten me and so I am going to live this way for the rest of my life. I’m damaged goods so it doesn’t matter. I made a big mistake 40 years ago and now I have to live suffering the consequences.” The apostle John speaks to such defeated children of God reminding us of our adoption into God the Father’s love for all eternity. In this context of presenting to us the beautiful doctrine of Adoption, John announces freedom from sin. He writes, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning…” God gives to us a new life in Christ. To be born of God means a new start free from our sinful past controlled by harmful habits. Don’t expect some magical and instant change – just add water and stir and voila! Instant new life and freedom from sin! Expect 40 years in the wilderness to root out your misconceptions and pride built up over 40 years in the palace of the sun god. Expect the struggle of the apostle Paul who said, “I have the desire to do the right and good but I end up doing the very thing I hate.” Expect the war between your human nature and your new nature in Christ Jesus, but don’t resign yourself to defeat. Fight the good fight and run the race set before you.
No one born of God makes a practice of sinning. How is it that I will go from resignation to a life free from sin? John supplies the answer and the reason: for God’s seed abides in him. Some have read this assuming that this is our motivation to stop sinning. They think, “Don’t sin because God dwells within you and so, you would not want to offend him by your sinning.” But John has something altogether different in mind. He supplies us the source of our freedom – God’s seed within us. God’s seed is none other than Jesus Christ. How is it that Jesus dwells within us? He does so, having sent his Holy Spirit to powerfully work within us, applying the Word of God to our hearts and to our obedience, supplying us with spiritual strength to do the right and the good. Moses was not God’s Promised Seed. He needed God’s seed within him to do great things for God. Indeed, the Holy Spirit of Christ dwelled within him making him the greatest liberator and leader of Israel. Can there be anyone greater than Moses? In Hebrews 3:5-6 we read, “Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” The good news of the doctrine of Adoption is that we are not made servants in God’s house, but better yet, we are made sons of God. The one true Son, who is greater than Moses has made us all children of God! The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 4, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
As children of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, we are compelled to stop sinning. How can John write so emphatically? As he writes, “He cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God,” does he mean that we can actually live a life free of any and all sin? Does he mean that our sinful past and original sin shared among all members of the human race would be the only marks on our record proving us to be sinners? Does he mean that we could in time reach a level of relative perfection at which we actually cease to sin? No, he does not put forth the doctrine of sinless perfection as some suppose. Rather, he is saying that it makes absolutely no sense for us to keep sinning since we have been born of God. He is assuring us that our spiritual birth and powerful presence of the Holy Spirit will rid our life of sin. He views my life like an onion. By the Holy Spirit’s empowerment, I rid my life of the first and largest layer of sin. Free of it, I rejoice and live with an increased capacity to do the right and good. But soon I discover a second layer of sin. I return to the peeling, nothing less than true repentance, confessing my sin, turning away from it with grief and hatred, and resolving to follow Christ in holy behavior. How long does such peeling take? How many tears are shed with each layer peeled? How many layers remain? “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” Today, I begin my new life in Christ by agreeing with John that as one born of God I cannot keep on sinning. It is not right, it is not good, it is contradictory. But I also remember today that I am an adopted child of God and that this eternal adoption has come to me through my union to Jesus Christ, the Promised Seed, the true and only Son of God. Tomorrow, I pray for the Holy Spirit’s empowerment toward my victory over habitual sin. I remember my adoption and I begin to confess my sin and express my growing desire to be free from it. On Tuesday I remember that I am a beloved child of God and that he has a good and significant purpose for my life and I begin to discover what it is that God would have me to do with my life. It certainly does not include the sinful destruction of self and others. I discover my “self-absorption,” I call it by its old name, “Selfishness,” and repent of it. I remember who I truly am: an heir of the riches in glory, a cherished and valued child of my heavenly Father. On Wednesday I discover my pride. I reflect upon the cross of Jesus and humbly walk before God. On Thursday I face my lust. On Friday I repent my anger. On Saturday I say, I can’t believe I have to repent of selfishness again. On Sunday I pretend to be free of sin. On Monday I repent my dishonesty. In 2011 I realize that I am freer than I was in 1969. In 2020 I am wiser and more content than I was in 1986. In 2030 I can barely see or hear and I can’t walk around the block, but I can’t wait to greet the sunrise praising my heavenly Father for his faithfulness new every morning, his mercy showered upon me and his word and Spirit informing my thoughts, words and deeds.
Let me summarize the message for you: God caused Moses to be drawn up from the water so that in the fullness of time the Promised Seed would be born to set his people free. God preserved Moses’ life and did not spare the life of his one and only Son, so that we might have life eternal. In grateful response to so great a salvation we agree with the Apostle John, “As children of God we cannot keep sinning.” Amen.

Third Sunday of Advent
“The Seed Belongs to God”
I Samuel 1: 20-28, Hebrews 1: 1-5 and I Corinthians 6: 19-20

During Advent we are basking in the love of our adoption as children of God. Jesus Christ, God’s one and only true Son has given his life purchasing our redemption, reconciling us to God the Father, who loves us as he loves his Son. With any relationship or contract the issue of ownership arises. This past month the whole world has been discussing who owns Tiger Woods. Do the brands, which have paid him an estimated $900 million own him, giving them a right to access his private life? Do any of us truly own ourselves thus free of any other ownership of our lives? The gospel proclaims freedom from oppressive owners – sin chaining us, death clutching our jugulars, and Satan’s manipulation of us. The gospel also proclaims that we can be free from Self! Conventional wisdom tells us that our freedom arises from the removal of oppressive ownership through each of us owning self. But Self can be one of the most harmful of owners. The gospel frees us from all oppression. One of the many presentations of the gospel tells us that Christ has purchased us and so, we belong to God. He owns us as his cherished children.
A Hebrew woman, Hannah, who lived during the period of the Judges of Israel, came to understand God’s ownership of all his children. She was barren and desired more than any other earthly blessing, a child. She traveled to the tabernacle to pray to God, begging for a son. Why does she beg for a son rather than a daughter? It would be fair to say that in her day, any community, Hebrew, or any Fertile Crescent culture, would have desired a son to be born to carry out the family line through which name, inheritance, and legacy was preserved generation after generation. It would also be fair to say of any Hebrew woman that she desired to give birth to the Messiah, the Promised Seed, who would crush the serpent’s head liberating the children of God from bondage forever. As Hannah weeps and prays in the tabernacle, she promises to give her son to the Lord all the days of his life and that no razor would touch his head. Should God open her womb to conceive a son, she would set him apart unto holy service in the house of the Lord. This hints at her desire for more than a little boy playing in her home, learning the Torah and his father’s trade. Her deeper desire was to give birth to the Promised Seed.
We pause to consider the reasons we may desire children. It is our desire to control? Is it our desire to continue our family line or to preserve our estates? Is it pride? Or is it satisfaction found in familial relationships? Is not the highest prize and deepest desire the satisfaction in seeing our children serve the living God, basking in his adoptive love, controlling them to such a degree that they are wholly set apart for his glory? Do our children know that this is our deepest desire concerning their destinies? The love, time, and money I invest in my children serve this end. The discipline, education, imparting of wisdom and recreations I offer to them encourage their following Jesus.
God answered Hannah’s prayer and she gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, meaning, “I have asked for him from the Lord.” Samuel was God’s gift to Hannah. She kept her promise and returned Samuel to the Lord after he was weaned. The ESV uses the word “to lend,” but equally fine translations are “to give” or “to dedicate.” Hannah returns Samuel to the Lord on a life-long lease. The language of finance and estate is helpful, but somewhat moot when it comes to the issue of ownership. Hannah understood that God owned her son. He gave Samuel to her and she returned him. For the few years she weaned Samuel in her home, he nevertheless belonged to God.
Hannah’s faith extended far beyond herself. Like Abraham, the father of her people, she was searching for the Promised Seed. Like Moses, the great codifier of God’s law, Hannah obeyed God, bringing her sacrifice to the Tabernacle, giving her most prized possession to him. She not only slaughtered a bull, but she placed her son into the hands of her mediating priest, Eli. Samuel would become the great prophet, who would anoint David, King of Judah, upon whose throne the Promised Son would reign forever.
This Promised Son is the focus of the book of Hebrews which begins with this prologue: Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, 
and he shall be to me a son”? We discover the Son of God who is the heir of all things. He is the very Creator, who made all things by the power of his word. In him the glory of God has reached its brightest manifestation. He is very God and he controls the universe in divine power. What has he done with his divine power and authority? He has given his life as the sacrifice for the purification of our sins. He has taken his place at the throne of God to rule the affairs of this world. He has been exalted above the angels in heaven and to him God has given the most excellent name of Lord. He is the true and only Son of the heavenly Father. Jesus Christ, the Lord, is not only the focus of the book of Hebrews, but he is the One, to whom the whole of the Holy Scriptures point. He is Hannah’s hope and the bright and morning star of the heavens. He is the head of the church and the only Mediator between God and us.
As we consider what the author of Hebrews has written concerning this Son of God, we realize that our lives are inseparably connected to him. He has not only made us, but he has redeemed us. How does such knowledge inform our lives? The apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. The first lesson is that we do not own ourselves but rather God owns us. This means that God rules us according to his will. His purpose for us controls our lives. The second lesson is that the Holy Spirit dwells within us. Just as the tabernacle in Hannah’s day housed the glorious presence of the Holy Spirit, so our bodies house the glorious presence of God. Perhaps you have thought of Paul’s words as a sort of divine shaming of us, manipulating us to refrain from certain harmful habits. It may be that you think of your body as a messy home, littered with your sin and lack of discipline and so, motivated by guilt you clean it up occasionally to make yourself presentable, feeling guilty for your lifestyle in light of what Christ has done for you. Along with me this morning, let us begin to think in a more positive vein concerning these beautiful words. God has come to dwell in us. His love and keen interest in us has brought him near to us. He is not a distant landowner who has hired managers to care for his property. Instead he has chosen to live in the house he owns. His desire is to build a relationship with us by remodeling, repairing and renewing us. The third lesson is that God has purchased many sons for glory. The price God has paid for our renewal is the life of his one and only perfect Son. Our response to so great a salvation, is to glorify God in what we think, say, and do. The positive application flows in every aspect of life. Our bodies are amazingly equipped to productively and creatively do the work of God in this world. It is not only a matter of refraining from harmful habits but it is even more so a matter of doing what is pleasing unto God. Most profoundly, it changes our view of others and of self. The doctrine of Adoption floods our self-realization. God values us. He has attached our past, present, and future to his Son, the Promised Seed who has come to make all things new.

Fourth Sunday of Advent
“God Knows Us!”
Jeremiah 1: 1-8 and John 10: 14-15

Who you know is of importance. I know the President. Actually, I almost shook his hand but I was five rows removed and security was so thick, I barely saw the back of his head. We want to know important and influential people. We care little to know a nobody. Many of us have landed jobs through personal contacts. For us, to know a person usually means more than we know something about them. We usually mean that we have some kind of a relationship. Our texts this fourth Sunday of Advent tells us about whom God knows. Most often in biblical literature, the verb, “to know,” when connected to God, means a covenant relationship. God knowing someone means more than his awareness of that person’s existence. We have been considering the doctrine of Adoption this Advent, the beautiful doctrine of God’s love embracing us through the Promised Son, Jesus Christ. God knowing us is a biblical description of his adoption of us, of his never-ending love and his viewing us to be righteous and precious, just like Jesus is.
God says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” How can God have a relationship with a person before the person is born? God’s knowledge is the source of his creation. Our births into existence flow from his purposeful knowledge. In other words, God’s knowledge of us initiates the relationship as well as maintains the relationship. These beautiful words of God teach us that God loves us to the extent that he gives to us a righteous position in his kingdom and appoints us to a special purpose and mission. These words describe God’s love of Jeremiah. At times we wonder who loves us most. Does she love me more than she loves her child? Am I his best friend? No one can love us more than God loves us. As the Creator, God gets a head start on loving us. Prior to our births, God, musing over his infinite and definite plans, was satisfied and pleased with the thought of us. Existing outside of time and space, God is able to consider the whole of our life: inception, past, present, and future. He is able to hold the entirety of our existence, experience and identity in his mind and in his heart and say, “I love my precious children.” It is true that God knows us in the sense that he is infinitely aware of every detail of our being and experience. But this knowledge of God actually means that God loves us in spite of his detailed knowledge of our past, present and future.
God knowing Jeremiah prior to his birth means that he loved Jeremiah to the extent that he carefully planned his consecration. God does not go with the flow responding in any given moment to our decisions. Prior to our births he has planned a noble purpose for our lives. This consecration is God setting Jeremiah apart as a righteous citizen of his kingdom. This holy identity is a gift flowing from God’s infinite love. God gives this holy identity to each of us who are united to Jesus Christ, the Promised Seed, through whom we have become children of God. Our adoption inseparably unites us to the Promised Seed. Jesus Christ not only took upon himself our sins, thus becoming a target for God’s wrath poured out upon him on the cross, but he also gave to us his righteousness. This is what theologians refer to as the doctrine of double imputation. Our sins have been imputed, that is, actually applied to Christ, and his righteousness has been imputed, that is, actually applied to us! Thus, God has consecrated us. He has given to us a new and holy identity. Not only does God love us more than we love ourselves, or more than anyone else can love us, but he also has a higher view of us than we hold or for that matter, anyone else holds of us. I can genuinely say that I admire you and hold you in high esteem. But God admires you even more than I do for he admires you perfectly and completely, just as he admires his Son, Jesus.
God’s love moves him to not only consecrate us but to also appoint us. God appointed Jeremiah a prophet to the nations. God gives to each of his children a special purpose and mission. None of us are inconsequential. None of us are benchwarmers. You may think so low of yourself only because you have yet to discover God’s purpose and mission for your life. Or perhaps you underestimate the importance of what you presently do. One of the chief tasks of the organized church is to help its members find their place in the mission of Christ. Nobody is a nobody in the church. God has appointed each of us to a station vital to his kingdom.
Jeremiah hears these beautiful words of God and reacts just as Moses who heard God speak to him from the burning bush. God told Moses of his special purpose and mission in life and Moses said, “I can’t do it; I stutter.” God tells Jeremiah of his special purpose and mission in life and Jeremiah says, “I can’t do it; I’m young.” How do you react to God’s call upon your life? “Sorry, I can’t do it.” What would be your excuse? We not only excuse ourselves, but we cut down others. “You can’t do this particular work for God; you’re too young!” The apostle Paul told Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth.” “But, I’m not qualified; I don’t have time; It isn’t the right time; I’m afraid; I’m a moral failure.” Jeremiah says, “I do not know how to speak for I am only a youth.” God says, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth.’” God tells Jeremiah that appointment to a station does not mean going it alone. God is going to direct him to the right audience. God is going to give him the actual message to speak. God is going to cast out his fear. God will be powerfully present to deliver him from trouble. No matter how small our task, no matter what position we occupy, God is powerfully present to supply our every need.
God’s appointment and consecration of us flow from his knowledge of us, that is, his great love for us. Our second text found in John’s Gospel powerfully presents this divine knowledge, this intimate relationship between God and us. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,” A shepherd feeds and protects his sheep. He does so because it is his livelihood. The analogy is between the feeding and caring the shepherd provides and the feeding and caring Jesus provides. Jesus does not feed and care for us because it is merely his job to do so. Rather, he feeds and cares for us because he loves us. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Once again, “to know” is the stuff of intimate relationships. Jesus has loved us and so, we have returned his love to him. Have you returned his love? When you have a desire to know Christ, is it merely a desire to understand more about him, to unlock the mysteries of Christ? Or is your holy curiosity inseparably connected to love? A young woman desires to know as much as she can about her beau because she is madly in love with him. He has displayed to her such honorable affections so as to win her love. He has listened to her story with genuine interest, drinking in every episode of her childhood, every dream for the future, every favorite color, flavor, style, and genre. And so she reciprocates: “Tell me everything about yourself. I love you.”
Jesus says that his loving relationship with his sheep is correlative to his loving relationship with his heavenly Father. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” The lesson we take from this amazing verse is this: Our loving relationship with Jesus is perfectly secure and abiding. The Father and the Son are infinitely united, inseparable for all eternity. The horror of the cross of Christ is that in that brief and ultimate suffering as Jesus died upon the cross, the Father and the Son were severed: The Father robed in infinite holiness and the Son not only robed in human sin, but actually becoming human sin. But once the wrath of God for sin was satisfied, God did not abandon his Son to the grave, but raised him to new and eternal life. In doing so, God the Father returned his Son to the loving union they enjoyed from eternity past. In the resurrection, ascension and exaltation of the Son to the throne of God, this loving union can never be broken again. At the cross it was broken only by the will of God for our salvation and the voluntary obedience of Christ. As Jesus says in our text, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” But never again! Christ has died “once for all.” For the Son of God, there will be no more humility, no more suffering, no more death.
This permanence of loving union is as sure for Jesus and us as it is for the Father and the Son. Jesus is eternally our good shepherd. Even our persecuted sisters and brothers will testify that in their deepest distress, the love of Christ has presently and powerfully sustained them. Our sisters and brothers who have suffered tragic deaths of loved ones, financial ruin, and the destruction of loving relationships will testify that through it all the good shepherd has fed them and cared for them in the midst of their troubles. Some will tell us that it has been in the midst of fiery trials that they have actually experienced and felt the love of God more than they ever have in times of tranquility and ease. “Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
It is vital that we understand the source of our inseparable union to Christ to be the same source of the inseparable union between the Persons of God. Clearly, the source of the inseparable union between the Father and the Son is the will of God. This source correlates to the source of the inseparable union between Jesus and us. The source is nothing less than the will of God. Let no one say, having read our text, that I must do something to assure this inseparable union between Jesus and me. How can anyone say that God has done his work to make this union possible but for it to become a reality I must exercise my will? When we talk of the will of God and the will of Man, some get feisty. What if I were to say, “The love of God and the love of Man.” The love of God is most certainly the source of our inseparable union to Christ. Our love is a response to God’s love. Our love did not and has not initiated the relationship. It has not secured and maintained the relationship. Our inseparable union to Christ has its source in God’s love for us: For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John did not write, “For we so loved God, that he gave his one and only Son…” Rather, John writes that the source of our salvation is God’s love: “For God so loved the world.” This is the best news imaginable. Not only have we been found in God’s love, but also his love, as infinite as he is, shall keep us in his favor and pleasure for all eternity.

Christmas Sunday
“Children of the Promise”
Romans 9: 6-8

This Advent season we have been considering the doctrine of Adoption by tracing the unfolding promises of God to cast his love upon all who are united to his Promised Seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Jewish community in Paul’s day was perplexed. God had promised to make Abraham’s seed as numerous as the stars in the heavens and as many as the grains of sand on the seashore. The assumption of much of the Jewish community from Abraham to Paul was that God would make good his promise through the natural propagation of Abraham’s family generation by generation. If you were in the bloodline of Abraham then you were one of the promised stars. But the history of the Jews from Abraham to Paul was one of decline and dispersion. Few other people groups have been as persecuted as the Jews. God entered into a covenant with Israel promising to be her God while she would be his people. He gave his law promising reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience.
The Holy Scriptures of Judaism preserve the disappointing history of Israel’s covenant breaking. In the Five Books of Moses, the Torah, we discover that Israel not only complained in the wilderness forgetting ever so quickly God’s liberating of them from slavery, but they also made the golden calf to worship in place of God. Moses even writes of his own disobedience in striking the rock preventing his entrance into the Promised Land. The following books, Joshua and Judges, tell us of Israel entering the Promised Land, enjoying the blessings of God. In the land, God renewed his covenant with Israel emphasizing the laws concerning Israel’s sole worship of God. They were to be a holy nation. They were to purge the land of the tribes who committed infanticide in their worship and excused their orgies as acts of worship. God commanded Israel not to intermarry with these vile cultures but instead, offer to them a better way. The next book, Ruth, tells us of one Moabite woman, who received such a blessing, trading the morally corrupt and destructive culture of Moab for the merciful and loving culture of Israel. Sadly, the story of Ruth is a glaring exception to the larger practices of Israel. She lived in days when everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The history of the kings of Israel comes next in the chronology. Most of Israel’s kings broke covenant with God to build kingdoms to their own glory, moved by pride and greed. The books of the Prophets preserve God’s sending of his prophets to deliver warnings to Israel, reminding them of God’s covenant promises to reward obedience and to punish disobedience. Israel did not heed the prophets and so they were carted away by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The prophets, speaking for God, said to Israel, “You are not my people.” A remnant returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and the temple. But Judaism slipped into four centuries of building a rich human culture, including many beautiful rituals, customs, and traditions, some as useful as the synagogue system, providing the teaching of the Scriptures in every community. But in these four centuries God did not speak to Israel. His glory did not descend upon the temple but instead it was desecrated, sacked and destroyed a second time. Israel was dispersed throughout the world time and time again. Those who remained in the land were conquered by the Greeks and then by the Romans. The third temple being built in Jesus’ day was a political public works project brokered by the puppet king, Herod, the Hasmonean. The party of the Sadducees had departed far from the covenant of God and the party of the Pharisees had become lost in the details of it missing the forest for the trees. The apostle Paul agrees with Jesus: national Israel is the branch severed from the vine. And so, not a few were wondering: Has God’s promises failed?
Paul writes in our text: But it is not as though the word of God has failed. The lesson for us this Christmas Sunday is clearly: God has not failed to make good on any of his promises. Some of God’s promises are conditional, for example, his promise to give Israel land. This promise is part of the conditional language of the covenant: “If you obey my law, then I will give to you the land.” But the greatest promise, overarching and under-girding the entirety of the covenant is an unconditional promise: The Promised Seed would in the fullness of time be born and he would keep the covenant and win the promised rewards. There is nothing Israel or any other people group or individual could do to muck up this one. As Paul writes elsewhere, “All of God’s promises are ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ in Christ Jesus.” On Christmas Sunday we celebrate the faithfulness of God, who did not leave us in our sins, but rather made a way for us to be free through Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
Perhaps you are among those who find it difficult to read Paul, Stephen, and Jesus, who agree with the Old Covenant prophets on the status of national Israel cut off from the promises of God. It is helpful for me to remember that all three of these were Jews themselves and loved Israel. Paul writes in the sentence just prior to our text these sentiments concerning national Israel: I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
It is in this loving context that Paul writes: for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.” Not only Israel, but all people groups in all epochs can take a lesson from these words of God: None of us receive the promises because of our family ties, our memberships, or for that matter any human amassing of status and reputation. The covenant of God complete with its conditional and unconditional promises founded upon divine law for every aspect of human experience has always been a tool to teach us about a spiritual transformation of our hearts, a gracious gifting from God, a redemptive enterprise and a divinely ruled kingdom.
Paul continues to write, “but ‘through Isaac shall your offspring be named.’ If we were to stop right here, short of the next clause, then we might think that Paul is contradicting himself. Was not Isaac a natural born son of Abraham and Sara? Paul writes to the church at Galatia, For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the Son of the free woman was born through promise…Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise… Isaac, the son of promise, was a gift from God to Abraham and Sara, old and barren. Paul describes them as good as dead but God miraculously and graciously gave to them a son. Similarly, God has made us sons of the promise, working new life into us while we were as good as dead. But there is an even stronger connection between Isaac and us: The Promised Seed, the true Isaac, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Through Isaac’s bloodline God has faithfully brought forth the Promised Seed, Jesus, born to set God’s people free. And so, Paul is able to write: This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.”
This is good news for all of us, even those of Jewish descent. The good news announces that the promises of the covenant are for all of us who have put our faith in the Promised Seed. He has not come to merely free one ethnic group, but has come to gather some from every tongue, tribe, and nation. Paul contrasts the children of the flesh with the children of promise. This contrast is quite instructive, as we understand it correctly. The children of the flesh are not carnal people, that is people controlled by their own lusts. The children of the flesh are those who can trace their lineage to Abraham, those who have Jewish blood. “Children of the flesh” is not a derogatory description. The children of promise are not a group of people whose behavior is so morally upright that they have won the rewards of the covenant through their own merit. Rather, “children of promise,” refers to those who have received the covenant promises through their faith in Jesus the only covenant keeper. The children of promise are indeed the children of God. After all, they have been spiritually born of God. One night, a Pharisee named Nicodemus kept an appointment with Jesus confessing in the secrecy of the night that he believed Jesus to be a teacher come from God. To this man, Jesus said, “You must be born again.” Nicodemus had never heard such language and became confused: “Must I climb back into my mother’s womb and be born a second time?” Jesus explained to him that he was speaking not of a second natural birth but a new spiritual birth. John does not record how Nicodemus immediately responded to Jesus that night who said to him: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. However, John does record at the conclusion of his Gospel, in his telling of the death of Jesus in John 19: 38-41, Nicodemus active response:
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
I take this as a strong indication of Nicodemus putting his faith in Christ and following him.
Nicodemus was not the only ruler of the Jews who put his faith in Jesus. After the ascension of Jesus, the apostles began to preach the gospel boldly. As people put their faith in Jesus, they joined the community of faith resulting in radical care for one another and for many others in need. In on of his summary statements, Luke writes in Acts 6: 7, And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Let us end with this lesson: All of us receive the promises of God through Jesus Christ. Just like these many Jewish leaders and people, put your faith in Jesus and the deeper joy of Christmas will replace the mere platitude of “let’s be nice and exchange gifts from Dollar Tree.” The deeper joy of Christmas, after all, is Christ giving to us new and eternal life.