She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel—which means, God with us.”  Matthew 1:21-23

“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:6-7

Dear Faithful Seed-Sowers,
We are in week two of Advent!  This week we lit the candle of LOVE! My wife came across a great acrostic for love this week:

L— Listen
O — Overlook
V — Value 
E — Encourage

I encourage you to put LOVE into practice this week and listen to those you love, overlook the little things and even some of the big things and forgive, then value your family and friendships, and then encourage others with the LOVE of God in your heart and home!

Home for Jesus was Bethlehem. Bethlehem! What do we know about Bethlehem? Why did God choose Bethlehem?

Bethlehem was a small town six miles southwest of Jerusalem. It is first mentioned in the Bible in relation to Jacob and Rachel. (Abraham, Isaac, then Jacob and Esau) Jacob had twelve sons; this is where we get the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob had several wives but Rachel was the love of his life. Rachel was the mother of Joseph (coat of many colors) and Benjamin. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. “So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.” (Genesis 35:19-20) 

Jacob buried Rachel near Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. This all takes place 2,000 years before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The next time Bethlehem is mentioned in the Bible is in the Book of Ruth. We are told about the famine in the land and how Naomi and her husband left Bethlehem and traveled to Moab. Listen to how it is written in Ruth 1:1-2 — “In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.”

Because of a famine, Naomi and her husband left Bethlehem and headed across the Jordan River to live in a foreign land. Their sons take wives from Moab. Elimelech dies as do his two sons. Naomi is a widow and decides to head back home to Bethlehem. Ruth, a Moabite woman, was married to one of Naomi’s sons and insists on going back the Bethlehem with Naomi. Remember these powerful words in Ruth 1:16-17, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

Ruth is a very short book you can read in one sitting. In Ruth you will also find the story of Ruth and Boaz. Boaz is a relative of Naomi and the kinsman-redeemer who ends up marrying Ruth and providing for Naomi. They have a son and name him Obed. Obed has a son and names him Jesse, and Jesse has a son and names him David—as in the second king of Israel. This makes Ruth, the foreigner and a Moabite woman without Jewish blood, the great-grandmother of King David. This is powerful when you consider that prophecy declares the Messiah will come from the line of David and will be born in Bethlehem! Boaz was not just Ruth’s kinsmen redeemer…his blood made Jesus from the line of David, house of Judah! That is why Bethlehem is called the city of David. All of these people (except Ruth) were born in this little, farming town six miles south of Jerusalem, the town called Bethlehem.

 God is sovereign over time and place!

·         700 B.C. Micah prophesies the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. All this time God has been working.

·         God was preparing a place for the coming of the Messiah. Around 2000 B.C., Rachel is buried near Bethlehem with a pillar set up to make her place.

·         Seven to nine hundred years later (1375-1050 B.C.), God calls a foreigner by the name of Ruth into the story. Ruth, a foreigner, an outcast, and outsider makes her home with Naomi in Bethlehem. Boaz marries Ruth. Obed, Jesse, and King David are born.

·         Three to four hundred years (742-687 B.C) go by and here we are:  God sends the prophet Micah to tell the people that out of Bethlehem–will come the Messiah.

·         It is worth noting that the name Benjamin means “son of my right hand,” and the name David means “beloved.” Both of these names apply to our Lord, for He is the Beloved Son (Luke 3:22) at God’s right hand (Psalm 110:1)

In the Hebrew language Bethlehem means “House of Bread.”  Bethlehem was located in a fertile area in Judah and produced great crops of figs and wheat. Don’t you find it fascinating that here in Bethlehem, the “house of bread,” the Bread of Life was delivered from heaven to earth?

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

The Scriptures record the journey of the Jewish nation–God working out the ultimate purpose of having the Messiah born in Bethlehem, the house of bread, before the beginning of time or place. God is SOVEREIGN over time and place!

So What?
It is my prayer that as we journey through these Advent Sundays, we will come to realize that we are home. It is not a dream! You are home in God’s hope and love. Ever since the beginning of time, we have been planned and placed exactly right here into God’s story. We are home! We are not lost — Immanuel is here, “God is with us.”  God has been with us from the beginning of time to today. God has been working out His plan to bring us home for Christmas since Jacob and Rachael, Ruth and Boaz, David and Bathsheba, Mary, and Joseph—and Jesus! If we are with God this Christmas Season—we are not lost at all.

The “So what?” for us today is that God is sovereign over time and place. God is the Authority with supreme rank and power over all of time. God is working even when we do not see or understand. God is sovereign over where we are right this very second! And the same God who spoke to Micah, who spoke to Ruth and Boaz, who spoke to King David and to Joseph and Mary—this marvelous God has called us here–to this place and time–so we will find our hearts’ home in Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus!

Here is what I heard as I prayed, studied, and sweated over “this message” for this Christmas season: “Dave, tell my people I have a plan. I have had a plan all along—since the beginning of time. Tell them about Micah, Ruth, Boaz, David, Zechariah, Isaiah, Elizabeth, Joseph, and Mary. Tell them the story again—about shepherds and angels and wise men. I want my people home for Christmas—home at the manger…home in Bethlehem…home where my ONE and ONLY Son was born. Home where LOVE is! We do not need all the bells and whistles. Keep it simple. I want my children to be home for Christmas.”

“Home” means a shelter, a house, a residence, or birthplace. This Christmas I believe with all of my heart that God wants our lives, our hearts, and our homes to be the shelter and residence for the Christ Child—and THAT is the real “so what?” for us this Sunday of Advent! As long as God is the ONE who is writing HIS STORY, we are not lost! We are HOME in His LOVE!

No matter where we travel to for the holidays, let’s be HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!
Count on God’s HOPE and LOVE to abide with us this Advent Season. We’re halfway through Advent! JOY is on deck…then PEACE!

REVIEW OF THOSE PASTOR DAVE acronyms for Advent:
HOPE:  Holy One Prepares Everyone….Heaven’s One Promise: Emmanuel
LOVE: Listen…Overlook…Value…Encourage!

God loves you and so do I,
Pastor Dave
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Isaiah 7:14

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.” Isaiah 9:6-7

Dear Faithful and Fearless Seed Sowers,

It’s here: the first week of Advent. It is time to get all our Christmas tree, our Christmas decorations and set up our home.  Guess what pastors love about the 4-week Advent season? It is time for us to prepare our hearts for Christ!

Wait!
 
Waiting!

What comes to your mind when you hear these two words?

Who or what is it that you are waiting on?

I remember when I had a mysterious, intriguing, and strange rash of oozing blisters on my legs and shoulders and chest. The year was 2013! I waited for 33 months as I saw fourteen different doctors. Each doctor told me they had no idea what was wrong with me. The Infectious Disease Doctor called in two other disease specialists into my room. Their diagnosis: no clue but you are intriguing. Listen, I didn’t want to be intriguing.  I was waiting to get rid of my 33-month-old rash!

How about you? What are you waiting for?

We have all been struggling with a world-wide pandemic that has caused many to quarantine, lock-down and even shutdown. It has been almost 2 years — 20 months of waiting, watching, worrying, and wondering — How Long, Lord?! How long do we have to wait?

“Wait” is a verb! Did you know that? I will say it again, “WAIT” is a verb. Waiting is an action that we do. Isn’t that kind of funny? Waiting is an action that we do…we wait. How exactly do we wait? One of my Bible Dictionaries defined “wait” this way: “to remain in readiness or expectation.” [i] In Scripture, the word “wait” normally suggests the anxious, yet confident, expectation by God’s people that the Lord will intervene on their behalf. Waiting, therefore, is the working out of hope. Did you hear that? When we wait—we are to remain in readiness and expectation. Think about what it is (or who it is) that you are waiting for. Now—remain confident that God will intervene. What we are doing when we wait? We are working out HOPE.

I love that thought, “Waiting is the working out of hope.”  “The expectation that the Lord will intervene on my behalf.”

We have been waiting for 20 months to hear some good news concerning Covid. As we wait, we hear that there is a new variant.(I find it interesting that they are using the Greek alphabet to name the variants.)

As I have work on this message, I have been reflecting on some of the people who had to wait in the Bible:

Abraham was given a promise that he would be the father of many nations yet it was not until he was 100 years old that his wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Can you imagine waiting until you are almost one hundred to see the birth of your son!? WAIT ... Remain in readiness. Remain in Expectation!

Then there is Jacob. Jacob worked for 7 years to marry Rachel only to find out that his father-in-law switched daughters on him, and he ended up marrying Leah. When Jacob found out what Laban had done, he then promised to work another 7 years for him in order to marry Rachel. Can you imagine waiting and working for 14 years for the right to marry the one you love? WAIT: Remain in readiness. Remain in expectation.

How about Moses? Moses is orphaned as a 3-month-old baby and grows up in Pharaoh’s palace for the next 40 years, then the following 40 years he lives in the wilderness taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep. After that, Moses spends 40 years wandering in the wilderness caring for the people of Israel. That is a lifetime of waiting. Can you imagine waiting 40 years to enter the Promised Land? Can you imagine seeing it from across the river but not ever being able to enter it? WAIT: Remain in readiness. Remain in expectation.

What about David? David grows up taking care of his father’s sheep. He writes psalms (songs) and plays the harp. David is anointed king by Samuel, and slays a giant named Goliath. Did you know it took 15 years after he was anointed king to actually become the king of Judah? Can you imagine waiting 15 years for the promise of a promotion or a raise? WAIT: Remain in readiness. Remain in expectation.

When you turn to the New Testament, we read about an old priest by the name of Zechariah.

Zechariah, an old high priest, waited to have the opportunity to bring the incense into the Holy of Holy’s. It was finally his turn and in he went into the Holy of Holies—by himself, with a rope tied to his foot—in case of emergency—they could drag him out.

Hope. Zechariah had prayed and prayed for years and years for his wife Elizabeth to have a child. Now he was an old man and his wife was beyond childbearing age. Scholars believe that Zechariah and Elizabeth had been married for about 50 years. We do not know how old Zechariah is but that we do know that he had been waiting for a long time to hear from God. The Jewish people had been waiting four hundred years to hear from God. They were waiting for a Messiah. My guess is that Zechariah had been waiting and hoping for a child for 80 years. Zechariah was going through the motions, putting in his time, punching his high priest’s “to do” list: “Fill the candles, clean the pulpit, mop the entry, dust the altar…” And then, lightning struck: Zechariah’s name was drawn from the hat! More like his straw was picked, his lot was chosen; and Zechariah was chosen to enter the holy of holies and offer the yearly sacrifice! Zechariah’s been at this for an exceptionally long time. Five times every year Zechariah made the five-mile hike to Jerusalem to go serve in the temple for the feasts. Now from the lot of the 18,000 priests, Zechariah’s name is chosen. Look at those odds … 1 in 18,0000. Is now the time for God to speak? WAIT WITH CONFIDENCE, and EXPECTATION…work out HOPE as you wait.

Zechariah means — “The Lord Remembers.”

I wonder if there were times when Zechariah thought that the Lord did not remember him. I bet there were times when Zechariah was willing to give up, give in and stop believing. “I’m too old. Elizabeth is too old. I have been praying this same prayer for way too long. Maybe God has forgotten me.”

SO WHAT?
How many times do you and I want to give up, give in and not believe?

What are the odds that some of us reading this today are ready to give up, give in and throw in the towel?
Don’t do it. Be like Abraham. Be like Jacob. Be like Moses. Be like David. Be like Zechariah. WAIT IN HOPE!

In our Scripture reading from Isaiah 7, we hear the Prophet Isaiah challenge King Ahaz to ask God for a sign. Ahaz says that he will not put God to the test of a sign because he has secretly made an alliance with the Assyrians to protect him. In essence, King Ahaz was not waiting on God to help him. King Ahaz had taken matters into his own human hands. Instead of waiting on God, he forced a deal with the enemy.

How often do we act like King Ahaz?

How often do we take matters into our own hands?

How hard is it to WAIT on God?

I can tell you that it is pretty darn hard to wait.

Even though King Ahaz would not ask for a sign, God gave him, and the people of Israel, a sign. That sign is proclaimed in Isaiah 7:14 — Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Do you remember what “Immanuel” means? “Immanuel” means “God is with us.” Here in Isaiah, the promise of the sign given by God is that of IMMANUEL–God is with us. God is with us! God is working on our behalf even when we cannot see or feel Him working! God is working in our lives while we wait.

Write that down on the table of your heart: God is working while you wait!

Dr. Arthur Pierson once told of being alone in the study of the great man of faith and achievement, George Mueller. Thinking it would be a good time to look at the great man’s Bible, he opened it and was thumbing through its pages when he came to a verse in Psalms where it reads, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord” (Ps. 37:23).

Opposite it, on the margin, Mueller had made this notation: “And the stops, too.”

THE STEPS AND THE STOPS OF A GOOD MAN OR WOMAN ARE ORDERED BY THE LORD.

Has God put some stops in your life?

Then WAIT.

What if we turned WAIT into an acronym?

WALKING
ALWAYS
INTO
TRUST

WAIT!

Remember:

1.  While we are waiting, God is working.
2.  We can wait with hope. We can remain in readiness. Remain in expectation. We can wait and trust that God will intervene.

I still have two times the lethal limit of lead in my body, I am down from 5 times! I have been waiting to detox this lead since September of 2017, 4 years. The pandemic has but a halt on my chelation, so I’m waiting. But NOW I wait with confidence that God is with me.

IMMANUEL. I wait knowing that the day is coming when I will be lead free. Like Abraham, Moses, Zechariah—and all of us who wait…it is my prayer that we will learn to wait in hope … “remain in readiness or expectation…having the anxious, yet confident, expectation that the Lord will intervene on our behalf.”

As you may know, my wife is very creative. The other day she walked into my study area and announced she’s changing my acronym for the Advent season. My trustworthy and true acronym for HOPE is HOPE…. Heaven’s One Promise: Emmanuel. God with us.
Jac wanted something new for this Advent season. She loved that Advent means PREPARATION! We really are to prepare our hearts for the Christ Child this Advent. Here is her acronym: HOPE…Holy One Prepares EVERYONE! “Get it,” she said. “This way while I wait, I can trust that God is busy preparing everyone for Christmas!”

Let’s wait with readiness and expectation that GOD IS WITH US. God is with us as we get our decorations out. God is with us as we prepare our homes. God is with us as we make our lists but most importantly, GOD IS WITH US AS WE WAIT.

What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for? Your homework is to go ahead and start preparing your home for Christmas. But…when you get a momentary setback of time, just remember–God is with you while you wait so wait in readiness for God to intervene. I’m waiting to be free of lead poisoning; 33 months is nothing for God. I’m praying for you, too, as you wait in hope and prepare your heart for the reason for the season.

Let’s prepare our hearts for Christmas.

See You SUNDAY!

God loves you and so do I,
Pastor Dave
www.theseedchristianfellowship.com