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It’s time 1st Sunday after Christmas, December 28, 2008
Our message this morning is based on our Epistle reading from Galatians. I invite you to open your Bible with me to the book of Galatians chapter 4, beginning with verse 4. Galatians is the 9th book in the New Testament, so the order goes: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – the Gospels that tell of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Then comes the book of Acts that tells of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church. After Acts comes the Epistles, literally, the letters, that answer the question, “In light of what Jesus taught, and what we now understand through the power of the Holy Spirit, how now shall we live?” The order of the Epistles are Romans, 1st Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians and then Galatians. Again, we are going to chapter 4, and beginning with verse 4: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. When the time had fully come. When the time was right God sent Jesus to put an end to what had once existed, and bring a new beginning; a fresh start. What marked it as the right time? For one, the Roman civilization had brought peace and a road system which facilitated travel. Greek was the common language of the entire empire, and most of the known world, and the Jews were preaching and teaching about the coming messiah and the hope all throughout the synagogues of the known world. Now they got it all wrong, but none-the-less, it was first and foremost on the minds. And the people loved what God did, right? They welcomed Jesus with open arms in complete understanding of what God was doing, right? No! They missed the point! They felt threatened by the new ways, the new understanding of God the Father, and they rebelled. They rebelled so much they ended up murdering Jesus. We’ve mentioned this before: from the human perspective the reason Jesus was put to death was because He was a threat to the status quo – He called Himself God and ushered in a new way of relating to God. The old ways had served their purpose, but a new time had come, and a new way of doing things had arrived. In the margins of your bibles next to these verses you can write the scripture reference Hebrews 9:1-10, and then make a note that says, “The old way of worship.” Then write Hebrews 9:11-15, and then write, “The new way of worship.” The old way was the tabernacle system of offerings and sacrifices and attempts to please God. Verses 1 and 2 of Hebrews 9 say, “Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. A tabernacle was set up…” and then it goes on to talk about the system of sacrifices. Verse 11 starts by saying, “When Christ came as high priest…” and then goes on to talk about what Jesus did and how that changed everything. When the time was right, the old had died, and the new had come. What does all this have to do with us today? When the time had fully come, God sent Jesus to do the work of paying the price for our sins. When the time had fully come, God Himself came and walked among us and gave Himself up for our own sins. When the time had fully come, God made Himself known to us in a way the obliterated all that once was and ushered in a new way of doing things. When the time had come, there was a major change. Change. To many people it’s a four letter word. Many people don’t like change. What do we like? We like what we know and we know what we like… and what we like is what we know, you know? But we can’t stay the same forever. There must be change for growth to happen. There must be a dying to the old order of things, and a birthing to the new order of things in order for us to be all that God intends for us. Now that I’ve got you fully scared to death of what I’m going to say next and scratching your heads, you can write in the margins of your Bibles, 2 Corinthians 6:2 – “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” The time has fully come. It’s time. It’s time, as we head into 2009, to once again let God embrace us in His love that will not let us go. We need to do this as individuals, and as a congregation. It’s time to find ourselves lost once again in the grip of God’s condemning law of our sins, and His forgiving grace through Jesus. It’s time to repent, to turn away from our sins, to flee from them, as the Bible tells us to, and fall to our knees in confession. There can be no growth, no change, no embracing all that God would have for us, without repentance of our sins, and a leaving behind of what has kept us from fully being immersed in the love of God in Christ. It’s time to be washed again with the healing rain from Heaven. VIDEO: Healing Rain - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31D2g7t5Bjs Are you ready? It’s time to be washed and rewashed and rewashed again. Time to soak dry hearts with healing rain. Are you afraid? Don’t be. The time has fully come. This does not mean there won’t be consequences in this life for our sins. Sin always brings consequences, there is no escaping that. That’s not what this video or this message is talking about. This is about embracing the new, and leaving behind the old, and it starts with repentance. It starts with being made right with God in His healing rain. Are you ready? The time has fully come. Today is the day. Now is the time. Don’t miss this, there’s too much at stake. Pray with me: Lord God, we need Your healing rain to come over us and make us right with You again. We need Your Spirit to move in our hearts again and break us of stubbornness, pride and envy. We understand, we know, that our sins have earthly consequences, and we have no one to blame for those consequences other than ourselves. We stand ready to accept the earthly consequences of our own sins, and at the same time pray for You to remove them from Your sight because of our faith in Jesus as our only Savior, so we will never have to face the eternal consequences of our sins. Come, Holy Spirit, come and take over. Take over our lives, take over the Lutheran Church of the Cross. It was always Yours to begin with. We surrender to You. Amen.
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