In our youth service this past Wednesday, we concluded our Christmas series on the topic, “Alone”.
I’m struck by the name Immanuel for Jesus. It means: “God with us.”
I believe each of us has a deep desire to be loved and accepted. We want to belong and matter to someone. Often, we try to fulfill that desire through the wrong means and in the wrong places.
“With” – but God chose to be with us. He didn’t just love us from a distance; He came close. He did this, so we won’t be alone. He did this because He’s the only one that can truly satisfy our desire to belong and be loved.
Unfortunately, this is where many followers of Jesus stop.
We like to be loved and accepted by God. We join a church where other people like us create experiences that help us feel better about God’s love. We separate from unholiness and ungodliness (which is good) but we tend to forget who we were when we experienced God’s love (not so good).
I told our students on Wednesday night that we need more students in our youth group that swear. We need more students who have problems in their life, who steal, who are involved in unhealthy relationships and who do all sorts of horrible, sinful things.
Why? Because we are to accept and love others just as Jesus loved and accepted us. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Not at our best. Not when we had everything under control. Not when we were holy. Not when we stopped doing drugs or quit swearing. But when we were at our worst.
I had three concluding thoughts for our students:
I told our students that we’re great at recognizing and experiencing #1 and #2, but we’ve got a lot of work to do on #3. (Actually, if we do the first two and stop at the third, I’d have to question whether or not the previous points ever occurred.) Sure, we’ve made some progress with our Campus Missionary Training and with inviting friends to some of our events, but for the most part, we’ve missed out on an important part of who we are called to be as followers of Jesus.
I’m just not content with a nice “country club” youth group. I don’t want to create a nice, safe environment for students. I want to challenge them to live dangerously for Christ and to sacrifice everything in their pursuit of Him. I don’t want a place for Christians. I want a place where the broken are mended, the insignificant find meaning and where those who are alone experience love and belonging.
This Christmas I want “with” to signify more than “God with us.” I want us to live it out in such a way that it means “God with others, through us“.
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I posted the other day about our current sermon series. The first message dealt with the theme of Broken.
Last Wednesday, we dealt with Insignificant. I showed the following clip (original can be found at www.crazylovebook.com).
When you think about the hugeness of God and his creation, you begin to realize how small and insignificant we are. Since we’re nearing Christmas, let’s think about the creative process up at the North Pole. Santa has a bunch of magical elves who work in sweatshop-like conditions, toiling over a workbench using raw materials to create wonderful toys for selfish children.
God doesn’t have elves or a workshop. He doesn’t even make use of raw materials.
Instead, he speaks. The very act of speaking brings about huge ginormous creation.
So when this great, huge, amazing God wants to declare the arrival of His Son on a small insignificant planet, who does He tell? What news organizations were given a press release? Which heads of state were invited to the announcement ceremonies? Where did He spend His marketing dollars? Who does He tell?
Some shepherds in a field.
Shepherds. Despised by Roman society and considered lower than other peasants. They were boys and girls, probably around the age of 12. They had little income and their work was unskilled.
Not quite the people I’d be announcing my divine plans to.
But that’s the way God works. He finds significance in the insignificant. He desires to know those who the world would rather ignore. He wants to use inconsequential people (like us) to make a substantial difference in the world.
When I think about Christmas, I can’t help but think about a huge God who humbled Himself and came to earth…for insignificant me.
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When I was in Junior High, I spent hours at the local arcade playing Street Fighter 2. I absolutely love the game. If you’ve been to my house and taken a look in my garage, you’ll find a full arcade version of SF2 Championship Edition. It used to be a standard version of SF2 (Guile’s handcuffs and blackout glitches intact) until the motherboard died and I had to invest in an upgraded board.
I came across this comic the other day. I realize it will probably make sense to 1% of my readers (and that’s only if Mike ever played the game). But I don’t care if it isolates you and is too “insider”. It cracks me up anyway.
(click on the image to enlarge)
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