Point of Grace Online Worship - December 17, 2023

Point of Grace Worship 12.17.23 – Sermon Notes – Advent 3 “The God Who Comes!”

Advent means “to come” – it is a season of anticipation, preparation and expectancy and … waiting!

The coming of Jesus the first Christmas has a deep back story about “The God Who Comes”! The back story reveals that before Jesus was Jesus - He was God at work doing Jesus-y things. In the earliest stories of the bible the “pre-incarnate Christ” (Jesus before Jesus) comes, He shows up sometimes in the form of a human… and sometimes as The Angel of the Lord.

When Jesus (before He was Jesus) comes, His Presence Brings Compassion and Rescue!

Exodus 3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Presence?... Compassion?... Rescue?

God sees, God hears and He comes to Rescue. Jesus not only rescues us “from” something but “for” something better. Jesus calls people to play a part in His Rescue plan.

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”

Presence?... Compassion?... Rescue?

Jesus gently reveals that the rescue plan is not dependent on Moses but on who is with Moses. The Presence of Jesus is everything.

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 5 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

The name, “I AM who I AM” drips with presence. There are only two kinds of Gods … the ONE who “is”…. the many who “are not”.

When Jesus show up as “I AM” in the flesh … His Presence brought Compassion and Rescue!

Jesus is Present with compassion and rescue … will we notice Him?

Tell them, “Turn to me, I am right here!”

Perhaps, this Christmas season Jesus is at work closing the gap between you and Him?

Point of Grace Online Worship - December 10, 2023

Jacob Wrestles with God                    A God Who Comes                 12.10.23

 Christophany: An appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ

 Jesus is the God-Man, fully God and fully human. 

When God walks in flesh on the earth 

His name is Jesus.

John 1:1-5 & 14a

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. 

Genesis 25:23-24

[Isaac’s] wife Rebekah conceived. But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why am I in this condition?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 

And the Lord said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people will be stronger than the other;
And the older will serve the younger.” 

When her days leading to the delivery were at an end, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came out red, all over like a hairy garment; and they named him Esau. Afterward his brother came out with his hand holding on to Esau’s heel, so he was named Jacob; and Isaac was sixty years old when she gave birth to them. 

Jacob: Trickster or Supplanter Literally to “grab the heel”  

Genesis 25:27-34

27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

31 Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.”

32 “Look, I am about to die,” Esau said. “What good is the birthright to me?”

33 But Jacob said, “Swear to me first.” So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

So Esau despised his birthright.

Genesis 27:15-25

15 Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. …

18 He went to his father and said, “My father.”

“Yes, my son,” he answered. “Who is it?”

19 Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”

20 Isaac asked his son, “How did you find it so quickly, my son?”

“The Lord your God gave me success,” he replied. 

21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not.”

22 Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 23 He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he proceeded to bless him. 24 “Are you really my son Esau?” he asked.

“I am,” he replied.

25 Then he said, “My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing.” 

Genesis 27:15-25

Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 

So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have contended with God and with men, and have prevailed.” And Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”  

Jacob went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.

Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”

Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.

Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”

“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.

But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”

Bible Project:

“The Jacob story is all about a guy who doesn’t believe he’s going to get God’s blessing, so he spends his life hurting everyone around him. 

He tries to scheme and steal the blessing and abundance for himself, instead of trusting that God is going to give it to him.” 

What is God going to do with the guy who won't believe that God wants him to receive? 

The Wrestling

The Wounding 

The Name 

Jacob spends his entire life wrestling people to seize blessing

Are we seizing or receiving blessing? 

The Wounding  

“Nobody ever learns who they really are by being told. They have to be shown. You have to wrestle. You have to experience weakness. And then finally you see where the blessing should really be coming from.” - Tim Keller 

Theology of the Cross 

2 Corinthians 12:7-12

I was given a thorn in my flesh, … 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Nobody ever learns who they really are by being told. They have to be shown. You have to wrestle. You have to experience weakness. And then finally you see where the blessing should really be coming from.

“Nobody ever learns who they really are by being told. They have to be shown. You have to wrestle. You have to experience weakness. And then finally you see where the blessing should really be coming from.”

 The Name “Wrestles with God” is a Reminder & an Invitation

“I will not let you go until you bless me!”

Point of Grace Online Worship - December 3, 2023

Point of Grace Worship 12.3.23 – Sermon Notes – Advent 1 “The God Who Comes!”

Advent means “to come” – it is a season of anticipation, preparation and expectancy and … waiting!

The coming of Jesus the first Christmas has a deep back story about “The God Who Comes”! The back story reveals that before Jesus was Jesus - He was God at work doing Jesus-y things. In the earliest stories of the bible the “pre-incarnate Christ” (Jesus before Jesus) comes, He shows up sometimes in the form of a human… and sometimes as The Angel of the Lord.

Genesis 1-11 God creates and it is good! Humans rebel inviting evil to reign! God promises the through their human descendants a rescuer would come … as the pages unfold but it seems evil is what gets passed down.

Genesis 12 God “comes” to Abraham, renewing and focusing the promise, so that through his descendants (which God promised would become a nation) rescue and blessing would come to all humanity! God calls Abraham to trust Him! Abraham and his wife Sarah struggle!

Genesis 16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.” 6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

7 The Angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered. 9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” 10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

11 The angel of the Lord also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, (God Hears) for the Lord has heard of your misery. 12 He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered. 15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

The Angel of the Lord comes … He sees … He hears !

He comes to the most unlikely … He sees her in all her reality … He hears from her misery.

This looks a lot like Jesus!

Luke 1310 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

That’s not all… the Angel of the Lord keeps showing up!

Genesis 22:1-14 Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” 3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” 6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the Angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.

12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” 13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The Angel of the Lord comes…. The ONE who Sees, The ONE who Hears ….. is also The ONE who Provides.

Romans 8 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

How do I respond to Jesus – the One who “sees” me, the One who “hears” me, the One who “provides”?

Hebrews 4 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[f] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.