Advent Sermon - "Just Jesus"

We hear a lot about Good News, especially at Easter, but in the Christmas season as well. Here we are in advent and we have all sorts of messages swarming around about spreading the good news – you know, the “real” meaning of Christmas. You hear people saying, “Put Christ back in Christmas” and things like that. Somehow this is all circulated around the good news. But what really is the “good news?” Is the good news even an answer for all of our questions?

We’re given lots of chances to find the answers to life all over the place. There are ways we can numb ourselves to the things we don’t like, to the darkness of the world, and these are the answers some people choose. But then there are also books like The Purpose Driven Life that set out for you the exact formula for you to follow in order to really understand what your purpose is. That formula and purpose seems to be all about having the “right” answers and the “right” faith. But it’s not only in those types of books that we are taught to have the right answers, even our schools teach us to have the right answers. Doing well in classes means doing well on tests and that means knowing the answers…but how much of those answers do you really know?! You might be able to spit out the word to fill in the blank for a test, but how often do the answers we learn really affect our being so entirely that it then affects the way we live every day?

“For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.”

Did you hear that? In the Lord you are light!
Okay, so in the Lord, we are light. So what? Well, read with me the next words in the verse:
Live as children of light—
It’s one thing to know that in Christ we are light, but another thing to then go out and LIVE in this knowledge.

This advent, we are focusing on light. Last week PD spoke about shining the light of truth. Tonight our focus is shining light as we live. This weekend we will have a fabulous Celebrate the Light worship service and then we will hear from PR as he focuses on shining light on the rapture. Obviously through all of this we are focusing on the light of God breaking through the darkness and coming into the world.

* Pull out message visual on cardboard.*
So here it is, big and obvious for you to remember tonight (cardboard message):
“Now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light—“

So let’s go back and think about these answers we know; specifically, these “Christian” answers we know. I’m going to give you all a test. That’s right, it’s exam time! This is to see how well you all know these answers. I’ve found some bumper stickers that seem to point toward an answer for us. When I point to you, please fill in the blank with the answer. Let’s see if you can figure out the theme...

We’ll start with a bumper sticker focused on this advent season.
1. _______ is the reason for the season. Okay, so fill in the blank, Jesus…
Now here are some common phrases we get all year round:
2. got _______?
3. WWJD? What would _____ do?
4. Shine ____ Shine!
5. _____ loves me
And here are just some fun ones:
6. CAUTION: I’m crazy about _____
7. _____ is coming/look busy
8. ______ because everybody needs a hero.

Hmmm… I think some of those had something in common… Interesting messages these bumper stickers give, don’t you think? I have some other bumper stickers I’ll stick up here as well…

It’s interesting to notice that as I have stuck these bumper stickers up, the original message has disappeared. It’s gotten kind of buried underneath all of these other “answers.” What happened to being in the light and living in the light? It’s so easy to get caught up in these “answers” that we forget to move beyond them.

We have heard the answer (Jesus) and we can say them together, but do we really live like we know the answer? The answer isn’t only the name Jesus, the answer is Jesus is born! Jesus has died. Jesus is risen! Do we know this? Do we really know this in such a way that we reflect it in every aspect of our lives, not just our bumper stickers?

In this advent season, we are hearing and proclaiming the news of Jesus’ birth; God’s becoming fully human while still being fully divine and meeting humanity where we are. But by meeting us where we are, God isn’t just saying, “hey, everything’s fine, just keep on keeping on”… no, Jesus CALLS us to respond in our daily lives.

In this week’s Divine Design for Life, PR draws our attention to three biblical patterns of evangelism. In the third pattern of evangelism, those who hear the news, hear the proclamation that Jesus is born and respond! The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it! We are called to LIVE as children of light. We must reorder our lives in response to this message, we must turn around and change directions, REPENT, like John the Baptist called out, and we must take on a new vocation of living out the light of God to the world. Reorder, change directions, and take it on! This means not just being people with all of the easy answers, it means being people who really know they are children of God. We are people who live the light, people who are the light of the world!

But if we don’t know what it means to really live the light in the world and live as lights of the world, it would be just as empty as if we continued to use Jesus as another easy bumper sticker/Sunday school answer instead of focusing on who Jesus is, what Jesus is about, and what Jesus has done to radically reshape what it means to be alive.

So here are some easy answers for you about what it means to live the light. They’re easy because we’ve been hearing them for the last few months, but that doesn’t diminish what they really mean as ways that we are shining light as we live.

1. WORSHIP
-- Through our acts of worship we may be personally blessed, but as we are blessed through worship we then become a blessing to those around us. We are blessings to others by just being there. By just showing up for worship we are leading, we are reflecting this light of God to each other, even if we might not really be in the mood that day. Meeting in community becomes a way in which God blesses us individually and then through our blessings blesses others. We have fabulous musicians here at Abiding Hope, but though that may be a personal gift they have been blessed with; in worship, God uses it as a blessing for all people. And of course, the more regular we worship together, the more we reorder our lives to be there, the more we direct our lives to worship, and the way it changes our whole outlook on life.

A second way that we shine light as we live is through: RELATIONSHIPS

There is no worship without relationship. We have a life-giving relationship with God and God works through our worship and life to draw us together into life giving relationships. As God shines in our lives, this light of God is lived out through us to others. We live it out to others in how we love one another, in our compassion for one another, in the ways that the Spirit works through our lives to draw us together, in the ways the Spirit works through us to draw us out of darkness and into God’s light.

Whenever we take communion, we are light to each other and the world. We commune with God, we worship God through the gift of this meal, and then also commune with each other as we share it. Imagine as you watch those around you move in a circle toward communion and back to their seats that they really are physical light. There is this great movement, this circle of people responding out of their relationship with God and sharing this relationship, this meal, together. Considering how we are in communion with Jesus who is the light in the darkness; and considering how we are light to each other as we live, tonight we will light a candle on our way back to our seats after taking communion.

One of the other ways that we live out light to the world and is through FIRST FRUITS GIVING

I was speaking with a woman the other day about all of the ways God has blessed our world through nature. We talked about how many beautiful flowers there are and how you can only find some in certain environments. With something as beautifully, delicate and simple as a flower, we are blessed by God’s creation. And God has called us to be caretakers of all of these blessings! What an honor to be surrounded by God’s creativity every day, to be able to consider all of our blessings, to look in the mirror and see that God has given us life that we might live! Every day is a blessing. Our jobs are a blessing. Our families, our relationship to the whole world! This interconnectedness is a BLESSING!

The ways that we give to this world, the ways that we give in worship and in our relationships all say something about how we understand what God has already given us. In this understanding we bless others in the simple act of thanking God and giving back to God by taking care of this world we have been blessed with.

In these three ways, the three beats of a new heart, we shine the light of God as we live. It’s not just a catchy motto to get people to come to church. With these three beats we LIVE as children of light!! Continue to consider that we are the living light of the world as we continue to move closer to Christmas. Maybe it’s time to shine by not cutting short the message of God’s light in the world to make some cute bumper sticker answer, but by living it out every day, in every way, as beacons of God’s light to the world.