Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Morning, everybody. I'm Ben Fleming. I'm one of the senior pastors here and excited to be with you as we continue through our series through Advent. And, yeah, just hope you're having a reasonably stressful, kind of distressing Christmas like all of us should be having right now, if you're doing it right.
[00:00:27] Just kidding. It actually makes me think of those of you who do Elf on the Shelf. Got some Elf on the Shelfers in here. Come on, don't be ashamed. I'm giving you a compliment. You are the greatest parents I know.
[00:00:39] I've always been pretty reluctant to do Elf on the Shelf, although I may have painted myself in a little bit of a corner with my daughter.
[00:00:47] So the longer story is that this Christmas, right now, my wife and I are. And our family, our dogs, everyone is in our camper, in our driveway in front of our house. Because we're doing some work on our house. It requires our plumbing and our electrical to be turned off.
[00:01:06] Highly recommend. Yeah, we're doing great. Don't talk to my wife about it, but we're doing wonderfully.
[00:01:14] And my kids, we don't have a tree. We don't have a lot of the things. And so my daughter, knowing that I'm a very vulnerable mark right now, said, I think we should do Elf on the Shelf next year. And I was like, oh, you know, that sounds like a lot. You know, sending out the invitations to the elves, interviewing which one you want to have? Come in.
[00:01:35] She said, yeah, yeah, next year we should start it, you know, like, when we can go inside.
[00:01:44] Okay. Elf on the Shelf it is. Yeah, let's do it. That'll be fine.
[00:01:50] It's a beautiful time of year. And understand that it's complicated for all of us in one way, shape or form. Whether you've got water and power, whether this is a reminder sometimes not just of what we get right. That's kind of how it's marketed to us, but sometimes it's a reminder of what we've lost. And that is a difficult thing. And I want you to understand that. You are welcome to wade into the complexities of the Christmas season, whatever way you see fit for your life at this moment. For some, it will feel very sorrowful and others joyful. And I believe that none of us are excluded from interacting with Christmas in a very, very powerful way, because Jesus actually makes a way for all of us in every stage to be able to understand him greater to still find hope, even in the middle of deep sorrow. And I believe that a lot of that starts with understanding how Christ first came to be on this earth. Of course, that's Advent. That's the arrival.
[00:02:48] Now, how God does it is very interesting, and we're going to get into that here today. So In Luke, chapter one, verse 46, this is actually the song of Mary, the mother of Jesus, after she's been given the news from the angel that she will actually be bearing the Lord and Savior and give birth to him. It says Mary responded in song. Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he took notice of his lowly servant girl. And from now on, all generations will call me blessed. For the mighty one is holy. He has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things. And he scattered the proud and haughty ones. And he's brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.
[00:03:36] He has filled the hungry with good things. He sent the rich away with empty hands. He's helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever. Let's pray one more time. Dear Jesus, we just thank you for this season.
[00:03:55] Pray that we would know that you are meeting us here, right in the middle of any good moment or any mess, no matter what, you are meeting us here in this moment. I pray that that would be our takeaway from this season, the hope that your grace has given us. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:04:12] How. How Jesus arrives, which is basically, you know, the. The birthing of a child is not a silent moment by any means, at least in my experience.
[00:04:22] But when we sing Silent Night, it makes some sense to me because in relativity, to other entrances of kings and dignitaries and celebrities, like what happens when a king or a judge enters into a room is that there's a response, right? There's usually a standing. There's some way to show respect. Respect. There's large amounts of pomp and circumstance. And while there is some moments, right, the angels come and they sing, they cry out, glory to God in the highest peace on earth and goodwill toward men, even that is simply reserved for just a small handful of shepherds. And so Jesus's entry into the world goes largely unnoticed. It is silent. It is a quiet way to enter into the world. And for me, who's spent a lot of time in ministry and in church, still, all this Time later, I wonder why God chose this method.
[00:05:13] Why such a humble entrance into the world.
[00:05:17] You could have come with great fire and people would know you would have spoken it directly to them. Right? That's just one of these theological things that I have a hard time wrapping my head around no matter how many times I discuss it. It's kind of like this happens in our teaching team meetings a lot because I spend a lot of time with people that are smarter than me. And it's referenced, I've heard over and over again by pastors in the middle of sermons when they reference the kingdom of God. You know, the kingdom of God and the nature of the kingdom of God. And this is one way we describe it. It's here now and it's not yet.
[00:05:46] And I go, wow.
[00:05:49] And then if I'm in a good mood, I go, wow, God is good.
[00:05:53] And if I'm in a little bit of a grumpy mood, I go, this sounds like a timeshare presentation.
[00:06:00] You know, it's yours, but it's not here now and not yet. This is ridiculous. Why are we doing this? And I, again, in a good mood. I understand that the kingdom of God is working in us and through us right now in this moment. But all the world has not been reconciled how we believe that God will come and reconcile it. And it's here now and not yet. And the humility of God speaks to the nature of God, the very core of who God is, which is incredible and valuable. And still I look at this and I say, God, you could have just spoken with more clarity from the get go and maybe things would be simpler.
[00:06:37] Why can't you just say it?
[00:06:39] Just say, this is who you are and tell it to the entire world right now in this moment. But of course, Jesus is inviting us into something that we are then to emulate.
[00:06:49] God has not called us into the world to act like celebrities and insisting that every time we enter into a room, there's a certain level of respect and people stand. Instead, God did not come with celebrity or that popping circumstance. Instead, he came with authority.
[00:07:05] And authority is something that is only actually and truly gained through humility and sacrifice.
[00:07:12] Influence is one thing, but true authority. Now, Jesus didn't come to just be a great teacher or a great rabbi. Instead, he came to take away the sins of the world. And there's a moment where Jesus has this paralytic in a house just brought down from the ceiling down in front of him. And Jesus goes to heal this man. And people had, had gotten used to the idea of maybe Jesus is a healer, and certainly Jesus is a teacher. But when he looks at this paralytic and he says, not only is your body going to be healed, but your sins are forgiven, that is what throws the religious community into anger.
[00:07:45] You can't do that. You don't have authority. You might have some power and some influence, but authority is not yours to give. But of course, Jesus, being God himself, has that authority. And that is what we are called to experience from God. And that is what we are called to walk into, which requires humility and sacrifice, not flames and megaphones.
[00:08:10] I've noticed in myself that I can be, believe it or not, very loud.
[00:08:17] And this comes up a lot in social situations. You get me into a group of about three, 30 people, and we're hanging out and we're having a good time, and I will laugh really, really lo. I will talk really, really loud. I will share stories with punchlines that are really, really loud. And I'm that guy that when I do go to social gatherings, I get in the car and I am immediately hungover. Not from something that I drank, but from wondering about everything that I just said.
[00:08:43] And I go, oh, what did I just do?
[00:08:48] Why didn't somebody stop me? Well, what'd you say? I don't know.
[00:08:53] I'm not totally sure.
[00:08:56] Next time I go to a gathering, I'm going to sit in the corner and be the interesting one that doesn't talk. That never works for me.
[00:09:04] But what I noticed over time is actually there are moments while it is part of my personality, and I do enjoy being loud to an extent. There have certainly been moments in my life where that has been brought out as a result of my deep insecurity that I'm very. I'm very cynical about how you might perceive me.
[00:09:27] And so in order to get over it in the moment, I get louder and louder and louder and bigger and bigger and bigger to try to cover up what I think you might be actually seeing in me.
[00:09:38] Believe it or not, it doesn't work.
[00:09:42] Of course, Jesus doesn't come with great insecurity, but that authority.
[00:09:46] And as a result of that, a humble entrance into the world is what he partook in and what Jesus is calling us into as we are formed in the image of God.
[00:09:58] So now Jesus, of course, is glorified, and we now get this opportunity to begin this journey with Jesus in humility. So what does a humble life look like when it comes to our walk with God? Well, the first thing is this. A humble life Looks like we have a God centered perspective, Mary says in this song. In verse 48, she says, he's looked on the humble estate of his servant, the humble estate of a servant, and yet called me into that.
[00:10:29] She also highlights in verse 55 that this story goes beyond her right. It's a God centered perspective, not a me centered perspective, which we're all prone to.
[00:10:40] It says in verse 55, for he made the promises to our ancestors, to a group far before me, and then to Abraham and his children forever, and a group far after me. When we approach our lives with humility, we understand with a deeper sense that this is not about just me in this moment, but it's about us. It's about the family of God, those who have come before and those who have gone after. And that makes the world of God and I believe such a comfortable and powerful way for far bigger than each individual decision that you or I have made.
[00:11:10] Instead, it puts the pressure and it puts the focus on everything that God has done and will do.
[00:11:17] Second thing that marks a humble life is being in a state of gratitude. Acknowledging that everything we have gives talents and opportunities, it comes from outside of ourselves. And it also encourages us to acknowledge that even when we're in the difficult things, when we've received things that we don't want, that we can be thankful in those times because God can still work through those things as well. And an interesting way for Mary to respond specifically in this moment, of course, she is entering into a really, really difficult thing. Not just pregnancy and giving birth, but also societally.
[00:11:52] It's not great in our cultural context today for someone to be unmarried and a teenager and have a child and. And it was far more extreme at this cultural moment and without even some great excuse, the question would be, Mary, who's the father? And she would go, oh, it's God.
[00:12:13] Perfectly normal response. Everyone would have understood that immediately.
[00:12:19] No way.
[00:12:21] So she walks into something that is physically demanding, but it's also culturally demanding. It would ostracize her from her people, and yet she responds in gratitude.
[00:12:33] You might be facing something that is similar where you're feeling pushed out, you're feeling like this is awkward, this is difficult, maybe even impossible, and yet we can still respond in gratitude because that is the way of Jesus.
[00:12:45] Finally, the third thing that marks a humble life is other focused servanthood.
[00:12:51] We prioritize the needs and well being of others over simply self promotion. I want to thank Westside Church for doing this so well. During our Giving Tree drive, we had an incredible event about 10 days ago. We've talked about a little bit, but I want to brag on it again, in which we help people that maybe we're not going to have Christmas without this event. And we helped them shop. We spoke multiple languages in order to communicate clearly to everybody. And the gifts that were there were beautiful.
[00:13:20] It was the good stuff, the nice Lego packages, the good headphones.
[00:13:29] I walked past and this is very specific to me. I don't expect anybody else to have an emotional response to this. I am on the verge of weeping over seeing a really nice baseball glove on one of those tables.
[00:13:41] It's one of the good ones. I looked at my wife, I said, this is a good glove.
[00:13:49] A humble expression of Westside Church's love for our community. And that's certainly not the only one. But to give and to prioritize and we will continue to do so in many different ways. The well being of others over self promotion. Philippians 2 says this. Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but rather in humility. Value others above yourselves. That is what we're called to do in this humble walk after Jesus.
[00:14:17] So God of course isn't disappointing as he becomes a human.
[00:14:22] And even in this humility, if that means God is not a disappointment, maybe we should consider that there are other ordinary things in this life that also are not disappointing, but instead full of the divine.
[00:14:34] In a Christian's life, in a faith built or a spiritual life, often with a temptation is to feel like we are experiencing God when the next big moment happens, when we feel like God is speaking to us, when we got the job that we prayed about or we got the healing that we were hoping for. And those are beautiful and poignant moments. But I want to encourage us today that because Jesus showed up in such an ordinary context in such a humble and quiet way, maybe there is something in the humility and the quiet of our world that we experience every single day that is indeed divine as well. That maybe when you make lunches for your kids in the morning, you wonder whether or not they're going to eat 25% of it or 100% of it.
[00:15:17] There's something holy about the peanut butter and jelly that you're making.
[00:15:22] There's something divine about the car rides. There's something divine about walking in nature, being by yourself. There's something divine about your marriage. There's something divine about your singleness. There's something divine about spending time skiing and snowboarding on the mountain. There is something beautiful and perfect and Jesus that exists in all of These things, things. And it is a sad, sad Christian life when we simply wait for highlights instead of embracing the ordinary Jesus.
[00:15:50] Paul says in second Timothy that if we suffer with Christ, that if we walk in this humble way we serve others, we will also reign with Him. We lay down our rights willing to suffer. We will be in glory with Jesus on the other side.
[00:16:06] But one thing this humble approach does is it allows just enough space for human beings to draw our own assumptions.
[00:16:17] Now you know what happens when we assume an angel gets its wings.
[00:16:26] It's such a lame joke, but it worked twice. So we assume a lot of things about the Christmas story. We often think of Mary riding on a donkey, but there's no mention of a donkey in the text.
[00:16:41] We think about the innkeeper at the inn. There's no innkeeper involved in Scripture. That's an addition.
[00:16:48] There were three magi, right? But really there's just three gifts. We don't know how many came on the journey.
[00:16:55] It's easy to imagine Jesus was born in a stable, but all we know is that he was laid in a manger.
[00:17:01] It was probably even a cave that he was born in.
[00:17:05] We're full of assumptions at Christmas time. And some of these things are helpful or sweet or harmless, and maybe some are not. But the same is true and maybe a little bit more harmful when it comes to our faith and our spirituality.
[00:17:17] We make a lot of assumptions about who God is and about who we are with God.
[00:17:25] We make assumptions about faith and how it should look and who qualifies for a life of love and grace and what results that it should bring. We make some assumptions like this that we need to be more than we currently are for God to be pleased with you. We make the assumption that our weaknesses block us from the plan that God has for our lives. We make the assumption that a lack of spiritual fervor disqualifies us from divine participation. We make the assumption that we're probably getting it wrong.
[00:17:54] We make the assumption that other spiritual people have something that we lack.
[00:18:00] We make the assumption that the mistakes that we've made in relationships will cripple us forever. We make the assumption that the sins of our fathers and mothers will simply come to haunt us. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when.
[00:18:18] Now, the only way to overcome all of these assumptions is to experience again something that happens through the Advent season and through the birth of Jesus.
[00:18:29] It comes actually through the gift of surprise.
[00:18:35] Now, a while ago, on the greatest Christmas of my lifetime, that's a very big, bold statement, but I stand by it.
[00:18:47] I wanted a SEGA Dreamcast.
[00:18:50] Now what is a Sega Dreamcast, you ask? Well, it's a largely failed video game console from game maker sega.
[00:19:00] And I wanted it so bad. And I would go to my mom's work and I would pull up screenshots ofGames on Sega.com and I would leave these screens up for my mom to come back and see, you know, and maybe I was borrowing a little bit from the movie Christmas Story. Have you guys know and like this movie.
[00:19:23] I come to like this movie actually a lot more than ever, the older I get. Because when I was a kid, I thought it was a movie about a kid that wanted a BB gun and then he got one at the end. Spoiler alert. Sorry. It's like a 40 year old movie. Get over it.
[00:19:37] And the older I get, the more I realize, no, this is a story about a child, a human being whose frontal lobe is not quite yet developed. You know, the part of your brain that regulates your emotions and your decision making and kind of your view of the world.
[00:19:50] This is a kid that sometimes sees Santa or mom and dad as really big and much scarier than he ever thought. And he sees school this way and relationships with the teacher this way. And I gotta say, I'm not a. I'm not a violent person. But when Ralphie beats up Scott Farkas, my heart grows three sizes that day.
[00:20:10] Scott Farkas is a bully. All right. It's okay. It's not okay. Don't get in a fight. But Ralphie.
[00:20:20] And so I grew up with this movie that I now understand is just a beautiful way that we're all trying to go through life, right? And it does relate to spirituality that there are moments where we're trying to be formed in the image of God and we just don't quite understand everything yet. And it's a lifelong journey. We get these weird distortions of our understanding of who God is. And that's where these assumptions come in.
[00:20:44] But anyway, I'm talking about this Christmas that I had and I wanted this Dreamcast. And I woke up at one in the morning like I almost always did, me and my siblings. And we go down and we grab our stockings because the stockings were stuffed. By then we begin to open up the gifts. And inside my stocking was a video game for the Sega dreamcast. That was NFL 2K with Randy Moss on the front. There's like three of you that are on the verge of tears right now when I'm talking About this.
[00:21:12] And it said. It had a post it note on it, and it said, ben, we know you really wanted a Sega Dreamcast for Christmas. We couldn't make it happen this year, but after you save your money, this game will be waiting for you.
[00:21:30] But maybe they're lying.
[00:21:35] And so the morning comes, and we're going through all the gifts. I do it what every good kid does, right? And I begin to examine based on the packaging, okay, this one could be this, and this one could be this. These four have no shot of being a Sega Dreamcast. So they'll go first, and then these next ones will go over here. And so I'm opening them up, and I get to the one that I think is the Sega Dreamcast. And I open it up, and of course, it's bedsheets.
[00:22:03] I talked to my mom. She was in the first service. She said, what they were like. They were like sports ones. I said, mom, they were gray.
[00:22:10] They were gray bed sheets.
[00:22:14] So I pick up the bed sheets, walk back to my room, throw the bed sheets on the bed, and then I just kind of collapse onto the bed. Really dramatic stuff.
[00:22:28] And I'm sitting there, and my mom comes and she knocks on the door and she says, hey, I need you to do some laundry.
[00:22:38] I said, cool. How could this Christmas get any better?
[00:22:43] Thanks, Mom.
[00:22:46] You got some detergent that I can just hold onto for a year before I can go out and buy my own washer and dryer?
[00:22:53] Son of a gun.
[00:22:57] I walk through, like a funeral procession, through the living room and through the kitchen and then out. Our washer dryer was in the garage, so outside, and then into the garage. And of course, there's a package on the dryer.
[00:23:10] And I scream and shout and yell and all these assumptions for young Ben, and some of them are serious, right? You know, we don't. My parents don't make a lot of money. I know what the. My dad's a pastor in a tiny town and my mom's a teacher. Of course, I make assumptions about. I didn't hint early enough or well enough about it. You know, there's all kinds of things. And then the surprise of the gift at the end, which helped me understand that I didn't know what was going on all along.
[00:23:43] And this is the true joy of Christmas.
[00:23:47] It's not that when we try hard enough, we get the greatest gift at the end of it.
[00:23:52] It's that when we're connected to people and to things that we love. And ultimately, in this scenario, we're connected to Jesus that we can make all these assumptions. You can make an assumption about the divorce that you're going through right now and how it will be the complete end of you and your children will treat you like this. This is how relationships will go with you from now on.
[00:24:14] You can make an assumption about your financial situation. You can make an assumption about the job that you just lost. You can make an assumption about all kinds of things that you're going through right now. And I have to tell you that in comparison of the context of understanding exactly what God is up to in this world, you have no idea that right now you're walking these rags into the laundry room, assuming that this will be the end. And this is the finishing point. And I want you to know that there is something far greater for you in this season, and that is the love of Jesus.
[00:24:48] So the only antidote for all these assumptions that we make is this surprise, this unbelievable turn of events that of course, that God loves us. It's the surprise that in Mary's time as well as in ours, God works through our inadequacies, our crowded lives in our humble settings.
[00:25:05] It's a surprise that life shows up in desert and barren places.
[00:25:10] It's a surprise that ordinary people are part of extraordinary things.
[00:25:16] It's a surprise that messengers appear along the way to remind us that we're not alone. The surprise that we're always given what we need to fulfill God's purpose. And the surprise, and the greatest of them at all of all, is nothing. Absolutely nothing. No matter hard you try or what you assume, or how cynical and dark you get, nothing can separate you from the love of God.
[00:25:40] An artist named Scott Erickson describes this idea of assumptions in comparison to surprise in his book called Honest Advent, which I would highly recommend.
[00:25:52] And he says this toward the end of this chapter. He says our assumptions will tell us otherwise. They insist that their mind must be something that can block the divine love of God. But surprise there isn't.
[00:26:04] May you find joy in recognizing how often your assumptions are proven wrong. And may we give thanks to God for the unexpected wonders of his love.
[00:26:14] The humility of Jesus is not an exposing of a lack of power or authority. Instead is a confirmation of all those things.
[00:26:24] Your darkest moments that you might be re experiencing or experiencing for the first time during this holiday season are not a disqualifier and a reason for you to be left out and unloved. Instead, they go right alongside together.
[00:26:39] So I hope with all my heart that you can celebrate not the perfect life that you have lived, but the perfect love of Jesus that comes for you today.
[00:26:52] I hope that you can have hope and that despite your assumptions, you're still willing to be surprised.
