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Make No Exceptions

Sermon Series: Preparing for Christmas

During the holiday season retailers are all competing for our money and our business, so they try all kinds of marketing and advertising to try to get us to spend our money on their products. The last few weeks my email inbox has been exploding with special offers from different companies trying to get me to purchase their products. Email marketing has become one of the preferred means of advertising simply because it is so incredibly cost and time efficient. Email doesn’t require printing or postage; one email can be created and it can be sent to tens of thousands of email addresses with the click of a few buttons; and email can directly link individuals to web-sites where further information can be found and where the products themselves can be purchased. But while email marketing is both cost and time efficient, advertisers and marketers still have to get you to open their email instead of sending it straight to the recycle bin. So the subject line of the email has to be “catchy.” With only a very few words it has to grab our interest and make us want to learn more – it has to make us want to open the email up. And what better way to grab our attention than with the greatest of all four-letter words – “FREE!” My email inbox has seen no shortage of subject lines that say “Free Shipping” or something like “Free Samsung Galaxy S III.” I love “free!” In fact I believe most of us probably love free stuff. And while I’m always skeptical, I’m also always hoping that maybe just once the subject line will be true. So I open up the email planning to purchase a gift on-line, where I don’t have to leave the comfort of my own house and spend an hour of my time in traffic and in lines, and I won’t have to pay extra to have it shipped to my house. Or I open the email with the expectation of navigating over to a web-site to get a gift for someone else or something for myself without having to actually pay for the product. But as soon as I open the email and I start reading the details I discover the “EXCEPTIONS.” For example the email may spell out that “free shipping is only good on purchases of $350 or more” or “free phone only after purchase of a Samsung Galaxy S III at regular retail price, new two year contract (with additional data plan required), and mail-in rebate.” I get so frustrated by exceptions! I hate them! And I get so frustrated by the advertisers and marketers who use subject lines that are really only half truths to get me to open up their emails and purchase their products. If all standard shipping isn’t free, then why write “free shipping” in the subject line? You can still have some ambiguity and write “free shipping on some purchases.” And if I can’t really get a Samsung Galaxy S III for free don’t write “Free Samsung Galaxy S III” in the subject line – write “Buy One Get One Free Samsung Galaxy S III.” Don’t bait and switch me! Be up front with me and tell me what’s really in the email – tell me what is really being offered.

I don’t find my email inbox filling up with quite so many advertisements during the rest of the year (though I do get an occasional one here and there throughout the rest of the year). It’s mainly in the weeks leading up to Christmas that my inbox gets so incredibly full of advertisements and special offers. Because of the quantity of those emails and because each of those emails has its own unique list of exceptions, I tend to get more frustrated with all the ways that I can’t fit in, or be a part of all the special Christmas offers. I can’t spend $350 at Oakley.com just to get free shipping. I can’t afford a Samsung Galaxy S III at regular retail price plus add two additional data plans so that I can get one free. I can’t even use the coupon for a free hair cut at Sports Clips that was handed to me at the Hickory Christmas Parade because the free hair cut is only for “new” customers. Every offer I get seems to have exceptions which always prohibit me from taking advantage of the special offer.

Here’s the great news about God’s special Christmas offer though – He offered Jesus without any exceptions. God didn’t send out the angels to herald Jesus birth with fine print attached. He didn’t send the angels to announce, “THE PROMISED MESSIAH HAS COME, but the offer is good only for the Jews.” He didn’t send the angles to announce, “GOD HAS GIVEN HIMSELF, but only to the privileged and the righteous.” In fact several parts of Matthew’s birth narrative and Luke’s birth narrative help us to understand that the gift of the promised Rescuer was a gift that God offered to all people, without any exceptions.

Read Luke 2:6-21

In Luke’s gospel, the actual account of Jesus’ birth takes place in Luke 2:6-7. In those verses we discover that Jesus isn’t born in a palace to rich and royal parents. Jesus wasn’t born into a privileged class of people which would make him less accessible to those who had great financial or physical needs. Jesus was born to poor parents in the lowliest of settings – a birth that communicated that all people (regardless of how privileged they or their family were) would have access to this special offer from God.

Immediately after the telling of Jesus’ birth Luke recounts who the good news was announced to. Luke says that an angel of the Lord appeared to a group of shepherds who were out in the field watching over the flock of sheep which they had been given charge over. An angel of the Lord declared to a bunch of lowly shepherds that that the promised Rescuer had been born! The angel hadn’t appeared at Herod’s palace to announce to Herod and his family that the Son of God had been born. The angel hadn’t appeared at the temple to announce to the priests that the Savior had come. Angels hadn’t appeared at the homes of the leading scribes and Pharisees to declare to them that the long awaited Messiah had arrived. An angel appeared to some of the lowliest people that Israelite culture had to offer – shepherds. The good news of the angels and the invitation to come and be a part of the Son of God’s birthday party was made to some of the poorest and lowliest individuals, individuals who were always made the exception. Can you imagine the degree of disappointment for the countless number of people who were not born into royalty, who were not priests serving in the temple, or who were not the spiritual elite if the announcement from God declaring Jesus’ birth had sounded like this, “GOD HAS COME AGAIN TO GIVE HIMSELF, but only to the most privileged 1% of society.” The long awaited and highly anticipated promise of God that so many had hoped in would continue to be out of the reach of 99% of them. Had this been the declaration of the angel then the prophecies of old would have been misleading – the offer would have been no less special, but rather than being available to all, it would only have been available to a select few. But the announcement from God to the shepherds that the Son of God had come and the invitation for them to come and see and worship Him had amazing implications. It meant that there were no exceptions in regards to how privileged one was – the invitation to come and see and worship Jesus was good for all people.

This is great news for us! How many of us were born in a palace to royal parents? How many of us would fall into the category of the spiritual elite? How many of us possess ‘celebrity’ status. At Escalate Church the answer is ‘none’ (though perhaps one of you reading this blog falls into one of these categories). When we read the announcement to the shepherds and the invitation that is extended to them we can have confidence that the invitation to come and see and worship Jesus is extended to each of us too. God’s gift of Himself doesn’t have socio-economic pre-requisites or privilege pre-requites. God didn’t offer the gift of Himself to the top 1% of humanity – He offered Himself to all of humanity without exceptions.

Read Matthew 2:1-12

In Matthew’s gospel very little is said about Jesus’ actual birth (see Matthew 1:25). But after Jesus’ birth Matthew gives an account of a different group that came to see and worship Jesus. Matthew tells us that a group of wise men (or ‘magi’) came from the east with the purpose of worshipping the One who had been born “king of the Jews.” Now the account of the wise men’s visit in Matthew’s gospel also plays an important role in helping point out the fact that the gift of Jesus was offered with no exceptions. The fact that this group of wise men came from the east indicates that these men were probably not of Jewish decent – it is far more likely that they were Gentiles. Many of the Jewish people had lived with the misconception that when God did send the promised Rescuer that He would be sent to rescue the Jewish people out from the hands of their oppressors and the surrounding nations that were potentially threatening. If that was truly the case then there was no need for a group of men outside of the Jewish people to come and worship this child. If God’s Son was only a gift to the Jews then this child was not a gift to them, He was a threat and a danger. And if God’s Son was a threat and a danger to the Gentiles worship wasn’t an appropriate response, they should have sought to destroy the child like Herod would end up trying to do. These wise men from outside the Jewish people had a right understanding of what this gift was and to whom this gift was offered. The wise men understood that this child had come to rescue them just as much as He had come to rescue the Jews because He had come to rescue all men, not from their physical enemies, but from sin and Satan. The wise men understood that they had not been excluded from the gift and that they weren’t an exception, but that the gift had been offered to all mankind and that they had just as much reason to celebrate His coming as anyone else did.

A very quick search on the internet told me that there are currently about 13.5 million Jews worldwide – a number that makes up only 0.2% of the current world population. I’m not sure what percentage of the world’s population was Jewish the year that Jesus was born, but odds are that it was still a small percentage. Can you imagine the disappointment of these wise men who had been awaiting the arrival of the promised rescuer if they had received an email whose subject line read, “God’s Special Offer Has Arrived” only to open the email to discover that the offer was only good for those who were Jewish. That would stink! That would mean that God’s special offer wasn’t for all people, only a very few. That would mean that they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of God’s offer because of the exceptions in the details. And that most certainly would not have been good news worth traveling hundreds (if not thousands) of miles for. Instead the star rose where it could be seen in a Gentile country and among a group of Gentiles who clearly understood what the star represented. God was declaring the special offer of the arrival of His Son to the Gentiles. And when the news came to those who were outside of the Jewish nation they still celebrated because there was no exception clause that would prevent them from sharing in this new King.

The fact that God’s gift of His Son was made available to the Gentiles (to all the nations) is also incredible news for us. How many of you are Jewish by decent? At Escalate Church the answer is ‘none’ – we are all Gentiles. All of us were born outside of God’s chosen people, the Israelites. But each and every one of us has the opportunity to rejoice in and celebrate the birth of Jesus in the same way that the wise men from the east rejoiced in and celebrated Him. God didn’t exclude us from sharing in the most extraordinary of gifts. God extended the invitation to come to His Son and to worship His Son to those who are not by birth Jewish. God saw that our need was no different than the need of the Jews and God sent His Son to rescue us in the same way that He sent Jesus to rescue those who were by birth part of God’s chosen people.

When God gave the gift of Jesus, Jesus was the fulfillment of the most incredible promise ever made to mankind; He was the greatest gift every given; He was God’s means for salvation; and when God extended that gift to us He did so without making any exceptions. Jesus was a gift for every person of every socio-economic bracket (from the most wealthy of individuals to the individual who has nothing), He was a gift for every person of every political ranking (from the most powerful of kings to the most lowly and humble of servants), and He was a gift for every tribe, nation, and tongue (from those who are of Jewish decent to all those who are not). God did not make any exceptions when offering the gift of Jesus to humanity. While it seems like every email that we get during the holiday season announcing a special offer has some kind of fine print, some kind of exception, the birth narratives of Jesus tell us that no one was excluded from having the opportunity to have a relationship with Jesus. The angels announced the good news of Jesus birth to the shepherds in the fields. God caused the star to rise over a Gentile people announcing the birth of Jesus and leading the Gentiles to Him so that they might celebrate and worship Him. And God has made the good news of the birth of His Son known to each of us through His word. God has extended the offer of Jesus to you and to me. But some may still have questions about what God was offering when He offered His Son. Let me briefly share with you why the gift of Jesus is such an amazing offer.

 The Bible tells us that when God created the world He made it perfect. Every aspect of His creation was good. But the crowning jewel of His creation was His creation of mankind. The Bible tells us that we were set apart from the rest of creation because we were made in His image. At first, in their perfect state, the first individuals that God created (Adam and Eve) had unbroken fellowship and friendship with God. But Adam and Eve lost that fellowship and friendship with God one day when they chose to act in disobedience and ate the fruit of a tree that God had commanded them not to eat from and which they believed would make them like God. The Bible called their disobedience sin and that sin ruined and marred all of God’s creation. Adam and Eve lost their innocence and their perfection, they were separated from God for all eternity, and all of creation became cursed along with them. The Bible also teaches that one of the results of Adam and Eve’s sin was death – a punishment that each and every one of us would have to endure because of the sin that each and every one of us commit. With sin in our hearts there was no way for us to get back what we had lost. Our sin prevents us from having fellowship with a perfect and righteous God and the Bible teaches that it actually makes us His enemies. There is no amount of good works that we can do to earn God’s forgiveness or to deserve His favor, and there is no way for us to go back in time and undo what we have already done. Our sin stains our heart, condemns us as guilty, and demands the punishment of death and eternal separation from God. The Bible teaches that because of our sin we were both helpless and hopeless and that we desperately needed someone to rescue us – to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. And this is what God did for us in the gift of His Son, Jesus. God came to sinful humanity when we could not get back to Him. And by taking on flesh and living as a man Jesus did what none of us could do – He lived a perfect life without any hint of sin. His perfect life was an accomplishment that no one else has ever achieved. But then a shocking thing happened. The Bible tells us that even though Jesus had never committed any sin nor done anything wrong that He was put to death, being hung on a Roman cross. This is the hard part for many to believe. Why would the perfect Son of God be put to death? Why would God allow that? Wasn’t there something that He (or Jesus) could have done to stop it from happening or to avoid it altogether? Those are great questions, but Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t an accident or an oversight – it was part of God’s plan. You see God sent Jesus to rescue humanity from their sin. But because God is just He couldn’t just forgive the sins of humanity and pretend that they never happened, He had to see that the penalty for those sins was paid in full. So God sent His Son to become our substitute. Jesus was sent to die in our place. He lived a perfect life without any sin (so He did not deserve to die) but by going to the cross Jesus took the full measure of God’s punishment for the sins of humanity upon Himself. By shedding His blood on our behalf Jesus made cleansing for our sins possible, and by dying in our place He fulfilled what God required of us. Then Jesus rose from death and the grave three days later proving that He was victorious and that He would ultimately have the last word (not sin or death). This is what made the birth of Jesus so unique and special. There is only One who fulfilled the promise of God to send a Rescuer. There is only One who came to us as God, Himself. There is only One who is God’s means of salvation for all of humanity. And there is only One who is offered to all, without any exceptions. He is Jesus! And we celebrate His birth because His coming changed the course of all human history. He is our hope, our joy, our Savior, our High Priest, and our King! This is why we celebrate Him!

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