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Here Comes Heaven (The Waiting)
John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Christmas is the divine breaking into the mundane.
The ordinary interrupted by the extraordinary.
His kingdom entering into our reality.
“Here Comes Heaven”
You didnʼt have to experience the first Christmas to know that Christmas was coming.
Micah 5:2
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
The challenge is the promise of God with us came with silence.
(From the end of the Old Testament to the birth of Christ was a span of silence lasting 400 years.)
That of waiting that inspired these lyrics:
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel
What are you waiting for?
“HOPE?”
You are surrounded by brokenness and feel defeated
“ANSWERS?”
You canʼt make sense of the circumstances around you
“RELIEF?”
Youʼre not sure how long you can go on like this
“WHATʼS NEXT?”
Godʼs plan seems foggy and Heʼs not showing you the next step
“I DONʼT KNOW?”
You feel stuck, like youʼre going through the motions, or like something is missing.
Youʼre waiting and youʼre not even sure on what.
We canʼt understand a God who doesnʼt speak how we want, or when we want. We believe, in the silence, that God is absent.
The bottom line:
“The presence of silence is not the absence of Presence.”
Luke 1:30-33
But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
This Christmas, the challenge for us in our waiting…
1. STOP
In a world where we default to busy and where our norm is to run from silence, it is critical that we learn to stop.
More than likely, You will not worship this Christmas on accident.
2. WAIT
Yes, we continue to wait. But we donʼt wait on God, wait with Him.
The same God who sent Jesus in the midst of silence is with you in your waiting.
3. TRUST
Even when nothing is happening, something is happening.
“But when the set time had fully come, God sent Jesus” -Galatians 4:4.
The same God who kept his promise then will continue to keep His promise now.
The bottom line:
“The presence of silence is not the absence of Presence.”
Matthew 1:22
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
1 Peter 1:19-20
It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.