Always

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. We are in a series called God With Us. And we are finishing up the series today that God is with us always. God is with us always.

And today, I want to talk about one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith. We call this the Incarnation. If you want to use a big theological word, we use the Incarnation. You know, we'll talk about that a little bit today. And you can use that to impress somebody, you know, later on this week about the Incarnation.

But we're going to talk about that today. But I'm going to do something a little different today. If everybody would stand with me during the reading of the Word, I think we let's honor God in that way as we as we share Scripture today. And if you'll follow along with me, you can follow in your handout or on the screen. In Matthew 1, 18, 23, it says, This is how Jesus the Messiah was born.

His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he decided to break the engagement quietly. As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

Joseph, son of David, the angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet. Look, the virgin will conceive a child.

She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means, everybody together, God with us. Amen. You may be seated. Today I want to talk about the, just for a few minutes, talk about the indwelling, never-ending presence of God. We came through this series talking about the valley, and we talked about the desert places of life, and all those places that we have to walk through.

But today I want you to understand this principle of God with us, the incarnation, that God became man and dwelt among us and lives with us, and we have access to him daily, weekly, forever, every minute, every second of the day. Okay, so let's talk about this term incarnation just for a second. And if I can give you like a heavy theological term for what incarnation is, just follow along with me here. In Christian theology, the doctrine of the incarnation holds that Jesus, the preexistent divine logos, and the second hypostasis of the Trinity. See, this is so hard for me, I can't even get it.

Hypostasis of the Trinity, God the Son, and Son of the Father, taking on human body and human nature, was made flesh, conceived in the womb of Mary, the theotokos, which means God-bearer. The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. Then his two natures joined in union. Now, that the incarnation is very clear to everybody in here. That was meant to be a joke, okay?

We don't expect you to know that. I just wanted to show you, this is a very complicated matter. Like, a complicated subject is a theological doctrine that's just... But if we really bring it back down to really what it is... I mean, I have a master's in theology, and I don't even understand a third of what was going on here in this statement.

But really what it comes down to, the incarnation, the incarnation is God, the Spirit, became flesh, and His Son, Jesus Christ, came down and dwelt among us. God, the Spirit, became human through Jesus Christ and dwelt among us. John 1.1 says this, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the preexistent Son of God, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Emmanuel, God with us.

God is with us. And I'm always looking at a way to kind of share this story of God becoming man and coming to earth, the nativity story and all those things. Every year, us pastors have a challenge because we have to share this same message in different ways. And one way I want to do that this year is, like the kids were up here on stage, we were sharing the Christmas story with them. I want to give you a perspective of the Father having a conversation with the Son before all of this happened.

And Him giving Him this mission that, hey, listen, Jesus, you are going to become flesh. You are going to become man. You are going to go down in the earth so that salvation can be brought, a forgiveness of sins could be brought to His people. So it goes like this. Imagine God the Father had this conversation with Jesus.

And He says, Jesus, this is your mission. Now, should you choose, should you accept this mission, it's going to cost you a lot. It's going to be hard. But here's what I've done. I've selected a woman for you, and her name is Mary, and she's going to be your mom, and she's a really good person.

She's a really good mom. She's devouted. She loves us. She honors us. And she's not like all those other girls out there.

She's a special person. And she is going to be your mother. And then she's going to have, then I'm going to pick you out, a father. And his name is Joseph. Now, Joseph isn't going to have as much recognition as Mary.

I mean, he might be in the nativity scene and have a few stories at Christmas or whatever. But Mary's going to have statues erected to her. She's going to have temples and institutions and all of this. So Mary's a special person. But Joseph is a good guy, too.

He's going to be your stepfather. And just so that we're clear, you are going to have to leave glory. You're going to have to leave all of this that you have, my loved son, my blessed son, my son, the son I love with every fiber of my being. Here's what you are going to have to leave all of this. And you are going to have to spend nine months in the womb of a woman named Mary, your mother.

And I can just imagine Jesus looking back and saying, nine months in a womb? Is there another way to do this? How about a stork? You know, God, Father, let's let's do a stork. Would that work?

Actually, you know, you remember Adam, you know, you like said things and things came into existence. And Adam, you. Actually went in the ground and formed him out of dust. How about we do this? And then the father will look back at him and say, no, you have to be born of a human woman and not only a human woman, you have to be born of a virgin, because if you are born of a woman, you are fully man.

But if you are born of a virgin, the Holy Spirit will conceive you and you will carry my full divine nature. So you will be fully God and you will be fully man. And it has to be like this because you are the perfect sacrifice. Now, most people will think you're going to be born in a palace or or in some type of royalty or in some type of kingdom circumstance. But your kingdom is not of this world, Jesus, as you know, your kingdom is of a heavenly kingdom.

And son, you deserve everything. You deserve everything I give. You deserve the best. But you are going to be born in a common place called Bethlehem, in a cave in the side of a mountain with animals and manure. And you are going to be born this way.

And Jesus looks back to him and says, I like that, father, because because everyone will know that I came for them. I didn't just come for the rich and I didn't just come for the powerful. I didn't come for royalty. I came for everyone. I came for the common and I came for the ordinary.

I like that, father. I love that, father. Yes, my son, this is what we're going to do. And when you are born, it's going to be very complicated from the very beginning. In fact, before you are even taking your first steps, you are going to have to endure some hardship.

In fact, Satan and his demons are going to be after you. All hell is going to be against you and they will threaten you. They are going to try to kill you. In fact, this evil King Herod is going to sentence or put out a decree and command that all young baby boys be killed in hopes that he can knock you out, that he can take you out. Your whole family will be in danger.

They will have to flee. You will have to run for your life. You and your mother and your father will have to run. And I can imagine Jesus kind of penciling all this down and says, okay, very fast donkey. Maybe 10 donkey power.

Remember, we need something here. You will have all power, Jesus. All the power that I have, I will give to you. And as a kid, you will be able to do a lot of things. When Mary tells you to eat your broccoli and eat your carrots, you will have the power to turn your broccoli and carrots into chocolate.

But you will not do it. You will have the power to win races against the other kids like Dash and the Incredibles. You'll pass right by them. A little shout out to my Pixar people here today. But you will not do it.

You will be in school. You will have perfect attendance. You will have straight A's. You will honor your teacher. You will honor your mother and father.

And the kids are going to be so jealous of you. And your job is going to be a common job. Your occupation will be a carpenter. And you're going to make these objects out of wood. And it's not going to be a big job or extravagant job.

But you're going to find satisfaction in serving the people around you. And you're creative because we are creative. And you're good at it. But they won't respect you, especially the people in your hometown. They will not respect you.

And the very wood that you create these tables and these objects will be the very same wood that they will create an instrument of destruction called the cross. And that one day you will die. You have the power to perform miracles. All kinds of miracles. And your first miracle will be turning the water into wine.

And Jesus kind of looks back and says, Father, that's interesting. Why water into wine? Why the first miracle? Why is that so significant? And the father looks back at him and winks and says, there's nothing significant about it.

It's just a mess with the Baptists. Because for years they're going to debate whether it was grapefruit juice or fruit juice or grape juice or whether it was alcohol. And we're going to mess with them a little bit. You'll heal the blind. You'll open deaf ears.

You'll raise the dead. And they're still going to hate you. They will call you a hypocrite. They will call you a drunk. They will call you a lunatic.

They will say that you're dangerous. And they will say that you are my enemy. But you will show them love. You will touch the lepers. You will befriend the prostitutes.

You will receive the tax collectors. You will love all those that religion rejects. And the more you love them, the more they will hate you. But just love them. Just love them, son.

Because love isn't just what we do. Love is who we are. We are. You are the personification of love. And the devil will tempt you.

He will attack you. And what you'll do, Jesus, is you'll fight back with my word. With my words. Jesus, let me just test you here for a second. He's going to say, will you turn these stones into bread?

How will you answer? And Jesus sits back and thinks for a minute and says, Men shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the Father's mouth. What if the devil takes you up on a pinnacle and tells you to throw yourself off and uses scripture against you, saying the angels will take charge over you? How will you answer to that? And Jesus looks back and says, I'll do this, Father.

I'll answer. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And then Jesus, when he takes you up to the top of the mountain and shows you all the riches of the world and says, all of this can be yours if you just bow down and worship me, how will you respond? And he will answer, Thou shalt worship the Lord your God alone. Not today, Satan.

Not today. And the Father looks at his son and says, Well done, my perfect son. The Father says, Good friends will reject you. You have these disciples. They will walk with you.

But all of them will leave you. They will betray you. One of your closest friends, Peter, even said, I will go all the way with you. I will die with you. I will not leave you.

I will not forsake you, Jesus. But what will he do on that day when you're before the court? He will deny you three times. Your best. One of your best friends.

Even one of your guys will betray you with a kiss and send you to a cross to die. There will be pain in your experience. In fact, so much pain as you're praying the night before you were arrested, that night that you were arrested, you're praying when everybody else has left you alone. You will begin to cry and sweat tears of blood. Jesus, look at me.

The cross is worse than you can imagine. They will beat you until you no longer look human. They will take a cat of nine tails and slash your back to pieces until there's no skin left on it. But remember Jesus, I will be with you. I will be with you until you become sin.

Because you will become sin on the behalf of mankind. I will not be able for a moment to look upon you. I will have to turn away from you because I'm holy. And I'm purely holy and this has to be done and you're going to hurt my son. And you're going to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And you will die. With the last breath you will say, I commend my spirit to you. But you won't die forever. Because in three days, when they go to the tomb, the stone will not be there and neither will you. And you will have accomplished your mission.

You will have risen from the dead and you would have conquered death and the grave. And then the Holy Spirit is in the background and says, what about me? And the father will turn around and say, oh, I didn't see you there, spirit. Because you're a spirit. But I need a drum back here, right?

And then the father looks like, oh, no, we will tell them about you. You were you were just as important as any process in this. We will tell you that you will dwell in them and that you will be with them. And Jesus said, yeah, I will tell them this as well. In fact, this is how I will say it.

If you love me, I will tell the people, if you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. The spirit of truth. And the world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.

And I will not leave you an orphan. I will come to you before long. The world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live. You will also live. And then Jesus says, can I say this, father?

Can I say this before I leave the earth and I ascend back to you? I will remind them. I will remind them of this. And the father's like, of course, you will remind them of that. He says, I'll remind them that therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I am with you always. I am Emmanuel.

I am God with you. And then the father will look down at his son. And say, Jesus. Are you up to this? And Jesus will look up to the father and say, yes, father, I'm all in.

I'm all in. And the father will ask, why do you want to do this? Why do you want to do it? Father, because we love them, they need us because we need to show them who we are. We are love.

And what is your mission, Jesus? What are you to do? He says, I will bring them life and life to the full. I will go and seek and save the lost. I will not condemn the world, but that the world through me will live.

And who are you going for? I'm not going for the righteous father, but for the sinners. I'm not going for the healthy, but I'm going for the sick. And why are you going? Because they are lost sheep without a shepherd.

And I am the good shepherd. And I will lay down my life for my sheep. I must show them your love because we could have just stayed up here in heaven and shouted out love from heaven. But I will show them on earth by coming down in the incarnation in human flesh and showing them love. It will show it.

It will show it. I will show it to them by becoming one of them, walking among them, experiencing everything that they experience. And I will save them. Matthew 1, 21, 23. And she will have a son.

And you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And all of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message to the prophets. Look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son. And they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

God is with us today. Amen. God is with us. God is with us through it all. Now, maybe you're here.

You're alone today. God is with you. He is your champion. Maybe you're lost. Guess what?

He's your guide. Maybe you're under attack. God is your defender. Maybe you're sick today. God is your healer.

Maybe you're hurting and you need comfort. Well, he is your comforter. Maybe you're afraid. He is your peace. Maybe you're weak.

He is your strength. Maybe you're in sin today. Well, let me tell you today. He is your savior. He shed it all for you.

He did it all for you. The reason he came here was to show you love so that you could know him. Amen. Hallelujah. All heads bowed and all eyes closed today.

We can experience God in every. It is available to us. He is available to us at any time. But just for a second, I just want to ask a general question to everybody. There are some of you here today that just want to experience.

How many of you want to experience the presence of God every day of your life? You need his presence. We are hungry for his presence. Let me ask you this. There are some of you that maybe life is doing well for you.

Maybe you need to. You're hungry, though, for the presence of God. We need the presence of God. God, yes, hands going up. Amen.

We need the presence of God. God, we ask today that your presence be with us. God, with us. God, as we submit our lives and our hearts to you. As we stop in this Christmas season.

And just think. The greatest gift that you gave us. And that was yourself. We desire your presence today, God. You are with us always.

God, I pray for the people here that are hungry for you. Because you say when we draw near to you. You draw near to us. Fill us with your presence. Fill us with your very being.

Lord. As the new year comes. And as we're faced with challenges. As we're faced with new opportunities. God, that you would guide us every step of the way.

And for some here today, maybe they haven't yet come to know you, Lord. And today is the day. As you were up on that cross. And you humbled yourself. And you could have called legions of angels.

He feels to come down at any moment and take you off that cross you didn't. You humbled yourself to save us. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed, maybe you're that person. Maybe you've tried it your way for a long time, and maybe today's the opportunity, I'm going to tell you. The greatest decision you can make, there's a lot of great decisions you can make in your life, but the greatest decision to start, he doesn't care about your past.

Some of you are here today, I'm just so bad, Pastor. I'm so far from God. There's no way he can save me. Can I tell you today, you are not far from his arm. You are not far from his heart.

He died for you. None of that stuff matters. All he wants is a relationship with you today. He wants to be with you. He wants to walk with you.

He wants to transform you and change you. If that's you today, if you're ready to make that decision, I want to pray with you. I want to pray with you. Today is your day. And all the angels in heaven will be celebrating today for one life that comes to Jesus.

If you want to take that opportunity today, I'd ask you, just lift your hand and say, Pastor, I'm in. I'm ready, Pastor, I'm ready. And the reason he came, God said that we can know him. If you would pray this with me. And even if you didn't, raise your hand today.

Just say this with me. Just just it's not a prayer, a magical prayer or anything. It's just a confession. Just say, God, I know that you are the son of God, that you died on the cross, that you came as a babe into this world as a human being. Fully God, fully man, divine, lived among us, faced all the pains that I face, all the hurts that that I went through, Lord.

And you gave your life today as my sin before you. I give it to you. You bore it all on the cross. Today I make a decision for you. Come into my life.

Hallelujah. Can y'all give a hand clap of praise to Jesus? Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. We're getting ready to take up our Christmas offering.

Just to let you guys know, it's getting closer to the end of the year. If you want your giving to reflect on your tax returns for this year, you need to have those in. And by the 31st, but we'll be sending those those buckets around. And I just want to tell you, this is an act of worship, guys. If you're new with us, if you're visiting, we do not expect you to give.

Please don't feel obligated. But what we do this for is it's a part of the Christmas season. And what more could we do but offer our lives and offer our giving and offer our generosity so that more people can come to know Jesus today. So our team is going to sing a few songs with us. The bucket is going to come around.

And then we'll be preparing for our candlelight service here in a second. Feel free to sing along with these carols. The little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by. Yet in the dark streets shall last delight.

The hopes and fears of all these are met in thee tonight. We're going to take a moment. And if I could ask the tech team to just lower all the lights here in just a second. Because what this represents, the candles, is symbolic of this very thing that we talked about today. That big word incarnation where God became flesh and came down to a dark, dark world, a dark earth.

And he was that light. And it's amazing when the word became flesh and dwelt among us that it was just one little light. It was one little light in the darkness. It was one little light. If I could have the stage lights just cut down just for a second.

Young kids. And the profile, can I have that down too? I really want it dead in here. I want it dark in here. I want it dark in here.

One little light. One little light in a dark world. And it's amazing that when Jesus came down, He shared that light. And how quickly the light can spread. Take it into your community.

Take it to your family. Take it to the places that you'll be going. This Christmas. And let His light shine. And let it be contagious.

And just like it lit up this room in just a matter of seconds, as you shared your candle with others, let your candle go out and be a testimony of the goodness of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. You can put out your candles now.

Just place them kind of under your seats and we'll go and gather them afterwards. I got a few more things I want to say right before we leave and I'll dismiss you. We will not be having service next Sunday. We're excited to do this for our church, for all of our volunteers who are out traveling and things like that. They do a really, really bang up job having this church, making this church happen with me.

Can y'all celebrate our volunteers? Please do. Do they, I mean, they're, you just don't know how much they give to this church. So we're not going to have service next week. It's going to be, but we are going to have something online.

If you go to our Facebook account, Salt Church, we're going to have a live service there online for all of you who want to chime in, click in. And I'll share a word with you from there. But I just hope that you have a blessed year. I want us to come back on January 6th, fired up guys. Amen.

Fired up for a new year. All we're going to, we're going to begin a new series called uphill habits, uphill habits. We're going to talk about some of the habits that take us uphill rather than downhill. And it's going to be an exciting time for us. And I'm believing God for really awesome things this year.

So we're just excited to have you back. And I would like to say this, church, those of you that are guests, this is not just something we do on Christmas. This is our worship service every week, every week. We do things with excellence and to the best of what we're capable of doing because we believe it's for the kingdom of God. So we invite you back on January 6th to worship with us.

Come again. So everybody stand and I'll just say one more prayer. Just bless you for this holiday and then you're free to go. And I hope you have a great holiday. Lord Jesus, we just thank you for the fact that God is with us.

That you are with us today because of your incarnation. And we just ask that you go with us. That you bless everyone here in this Christmas Eve. And that they would have safe travels if they're going far and beyond. If they're right here at home, Lord.

That you would be at their supper tables just ministering to them and their families, Lord Jesus. We are so thankful. I'm thankful, Lord, that you've given me the privilege to pastor these wonderful people. So, God, just be with them. God with us.

And we celebrate Christmas for you, God. I know it's cliche, Lord, but you're the reason for the season. You are the reason for this season. So, we give you the praise. We give you the glory.

In Jesus' name. And one more celebration. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.

Just keep playing. Keep playing. Thank you. Thank you.