And Dwelt Among Us | Manger & Majesty | Pastor Rob Koke | Shoreline Church | Message

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Good morning, everyone. Good morning. It's so great to have you. Welcome. We want to give a very warm welcome to all of you who are watching online from around the community, the state, in some cases, even, you know, around the world. We welcome you to our campuses here in Austin, Texas. Thank you so much for being a part of our Christmas celebration this year. Let's all of us stand to our feet. We do something at the beginning of every single message. We recite a few words. We call it our Shoreline Creed. But while you're standing, I did want to bring a point of clarification about the color that I'm wearing today. I know this is kind of maroon, and it's really in the spirit of Christmas that I'm wearing this. But I also thought, you know, for a moment of solidarity with our fellow Texans who didn't quite make it to the finish line yesterday, I did want to give a shout out to all the Aggies. You had a really, really great season. So come on, give it up for the Aggies. It's awesome.

I will not extend that same grace to the Sooners, however. But anyway, it's good to be in church. It's great to celebrate the greatest event in all of human history. We recite these words called our Creed, just to remind us that Christianity at the end of the day is not just ideas on how to live a better life, not just principles or some words of wisdom. It's about what God did for us that we could never do for ourselves, and that's called grace. And we celebrate it with some enthusiasm and passion. You guys ready? We're ready. Come on, you guys ready? Ready. Okay, here we go. I am loved by God. I cannot earn it. I cannot lose it. I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Come on, let's give God praise for that. All right, you may be seated. Super excited about Christmas Eve. It's gonna be a fantastic service here at church, three o'clock and five o'clock on that Wednesday. And we just wanna encourage you

to invite all your friends and family and neighbors and people that are in your world. We have been celebrating Christmas out of one verse in the Bible. So we started it in the first week of December, John chapter one and verse 14. And we're using this verse as the context for our entire Christmas celebration this year. And here's how the verse goes. Starting here in verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the one only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. So we started out the first week and the word, and then we talked last week became flesh. And this week, we're gonna focus in on the third part of this verse and dwelt among us. Christmas Eve, by the way, we're gonna celebrate the part of the verse that says full of grace and truth. Okay, so that's where we're rolling out the Christmas series this year here at Shoreline. But here we're gonna focus in today and dwelt among us. You may not know it, but there are 198 different names for Jesus. And you know some of them, they're kind of popular, but 198 different names for Jesus like Savior and Redeemer, the Christ, the Messiah, Wonderful, Mighty God, Counselor,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, et cetera. But there is one that stands out, at least to me, in the Christmas season as being perhaps the most significant one of all. And that word to describe Jesus is Emmanuel. In Matthew chapter one. Verse 23, it says this, "'The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, "'and they will call him Emmanuel, "'which means God with us.'" God with us. Three of the most powerful words you're ever going to hear. God with us. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. God with us. If you even think about it for half a second, it is ridiculously mind-blowing. If you were to catch me after the service in the lobby and ask what Laura and I were doing on the Christmas holidays, maybe the week between Christmas and Easter, Christmas and New Year's, and I said, we are going to hang out with Matthew McConaughey and his family. You know what you would probably say? No way. No way. And you'd be right, because I don't trust her. We were at the airport a couple of years back

at an airport lounge, and on the other side of the partition, Matthew McConaughey was on the phone, and I happened to just walk back there and see him, and then I came back to where Laura was, and I said, you won't believe this, but right around the corner is Matthew McConaughey, and he's talking on the phone. She got up as fast as I've ever seen her move. She goes to the other side of the room, and I don't see her again for 30 minutes. I have no idea what happened. But this idea that we get enthralled with perhaps spending time with a celebrity or maybe our favorite person, if you're an athlete or a football fan, you say, well, I would love to spend time with Troy Aikman or Tom Brady, or if you're an actor or an actress lover, you might have your favorite person that you'd like to spend time with, or maybe someone who invented something, maybe some great business person that you'd like to hang out with, and you say, oh, man, it would be so awesome. Listen, Christmas is the celebration that the creator of the universe wants to be with us. Come on, somebody. Come on. When you kind of sum up the entire Bible,

theologians will tell you that there is one thread that kind of weaves its way through every chapter and verse from Genesis all the way to Revelation, and they call that the scarlet thread of redemption. We see God sacrificing to redeem mankind. It was the blood of the Lamb. Then ultimately, of course, it was God sending his own son into the world to redeem us. But most theologians will also tell you that not only is that scarlet thread of redemption woven through every chapter and verse, there's a reason behind it. The reason behind the scarlet thread of redemption is that God wants to be with us, and it's the only way that a holy God separated from sinful humanity can spend time together if he paid the price and made us right with him by grace. So you could say that the most significant revelation of the entire Bible is that God wants to be with us. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Let me ask you a question. If God is with us, then why is the number one negative emotion that people experience in life worry, fear, and anxiety? If God is with us, then why do we get upset and get fearful about whatever? You know, maybe it's economic uncertainty, maybe it's racial tension, maybe it's, you know, the lawlessness that people sense, maybe it's the rising tensions,

geopolitical conflicts around the world. And then on top of all of that, you know, we have our own personal world. Maybe there's some drama taking place in your family. Maybe you're worried about a son or a daughter, or maybe your marriage relationship is a little bit, you know, on edge. Maybe there's some economic concerns in your own personal world where you work. Maybe the bills are bigger than the income. Maybe you're worried about the past, or maybe you're worried about the future. Maybe you're worried about little things. Maybe you're worried about big things. Maybe you're even worried because you can't even find something to worry about. The number one negative emotion that people experience in life is worry. But if we have Emmanuel, if we have God with us, Then why do we worry? Why are we afraid? Why do we get fearful? I think it's because we must misunderstand one of these three words, God with us. Maybe we don't understand them, or perhaps we don't believe them as we should. And if we don't understand them and if we don't believe them,

then you will miss out on the peace that God intends for all of us to enjoy at Christmas. I want to take a look at these three words. I'm just going to put them up here on this screen. The first one, God. How many letters in this word? This is not a complicated question. Let me ask it again. How many letters in that word? Okay, the second word. How many letters here? The third word? Three letters, four letters, two letters. These are simple words. These are not complex. They're not long words that nobody can pronounce. They're very simple words. God with us. And understanding the true implication of this particular phrase made up of three words, one with three letters, one with four letters, one with two letters,

makes all the difference in the world. Now, we're going to unpack these three words together here this morning, but I got to tell you right up front that believing one or even two out of the three is not enough. You need to understand and you need to believe all three. So, let's start out with the first one, God. There's some things you need to understand about God. You need to understand that God is big. Why is there so little peace in our own hearts? Perhaps it's because our view of God is too small. We don't have God with a capital G. We have God with a small G. A few weeks ago, I tried to describe just how big our God is. And, of course, just looking at the universe and understanding that He created it is probably one of the easiest

ways for us to shift our perspective from a small-G God to a big-G God. You think about the planet Jupiter that's in our solar system. It's over 300 times larger than the Earth that we inhabit. You think about the 300 billion stars that are in our galaxy, and then you think about the fact that there are trillions and trillions of other galaxies out there that we have never even fully explored. And not just the expanse of God's creation, that He just spoke, let there be light, and light was. Then you think about the microscopic aspects of God's creation, like the miracle of the human body, and we have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mouth that speaks and a brain that works. And when you get down to the cellular level and the subcellular level, things so small that you need supercomputers

and magnifying apparatus, you know, that is massive, just to explore the fact that there are things so small in our human body that God put there. God is big. You almost have to spread out your arms when you say His name. The heavens declare the glory of God. In Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning, God created the world. Those three-letter, that three-letter word, God, doesn't do Him justice. The idea of God has become so common in our everyday language that sometimes we've reduced Him to like a byword. We say, oh my, G-O-D, not as worship, but as a casual surprise. And sometimes when we get upset, we actually use His name as a curse word. We say G-D this or J-C that, and we've lost entirely the perspective of His awesomeness.

Even if I was to recite for you today, all 198 names that describe Jesus and go into deep detail and kept you here all afternoon, you still wouldn't understand just how awesome our God is. In the Old Testament, there were the. compound words that you know that kind of unfolded in the story of God's interaction with the children of Israel that revealed a little bit of his nature like Jehovah Jireh the Lord who provides Jehovah Rapha the Lord who heals Jehovah our banner of victory Jehovah the one who sanctifies me Jehovah the Lord who is my peace Jehovah the Lord who is my righteousness Jehovah the Lord who is my shepherd and then there's this compound word Jehovah Shama the Lord who is there maybe the most significant revelation in the Old Testament is that there is a God there a God who wants to be with us the creator of the universe and here's the truth the bigger your view of God or I might say the more accurate your view of God the bigger the peace that you're going to live with in your life the greater your revelation of his greatness then the more calmness of heart the more you understand God big G the more confidence you will walk in every day of your life God is big not only do we need to understand that God is big however we we also have to draw the connection and comparison to ourselves God is not just big he is much bigger than we are and that might seem incredibly obvious to you here today but have you ever really connected the dots on that have you thought about it recently that God is much bigger than you our peace does not depend on how big we are our peace depends on how big he is Isaiah chapter 40 in verse 15 says this and this is a pretty mind-blowing verse if you think about it behold the nation's plural all the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales I've got a I've got a bucket of water here on the stage and what this verse says is that one drop of water

from this bucket sums up all of human history all of humanity all the peoples that ever populated nations and continents all the rulers that ever ruled Pharaohs and and and Kings and Queens and presidents and parliaments all of the inventions that have ever been created in the history of mankind you know the car or the wheel or an iPhone or an airplane everything about human civilization this particular verse says is like one drop in a bucket just one drop now when that drop fell from my finger into the bucket did it add more weight to the bucket did that one drop when I withdrew it from the bucket somehow change the chemical composition of the water no just one pretty insignificant drop in this bucket of water the Bible says that all of humanity is like a drop in the bucket that is how big we are if you want to know how big God is it's like taking this bucket and walking to the ocean and throwing this bucket of water into the ocean God is the ocean and we are a drop in the bucket you gotta know how big your God is so much bigger than who we are if you were to try to imagine the difference between humanity and God and I know that any analogy that I use here this morning is gonna fall so so short to the reality of it but I think you could say it this way at least help illuminate your own understanding we are kind of like a battery and what's unique about a battery is its stored capacity you can store electricity in this battery and every time you plug it into a toy or some kind of electronic device it's gonna draw down the amount of battery that is amount of energy that's in this battery. It's small, it's a storage unit for energy. This is us as human beings. But when you think about God in comparison to us, it would be like God is the sun. There is no stored energy in the sun. It is a forever combusting nuclear fusion reaction that actually creates energy. A battery has stored energy,

but the sun is always creating energy, nonstop. And the sun in one second creates more energy than 25 sextillion batteries. That's 25 times 10 to the 23rd power. In one second, the sun produces more energy than 25 times 10 to the 23rd of these batteries. This battery holds 15,000 joules of energy. You stick it into something and it diminishes immediately until it is dead and you throw it away. We are stored capacity, you know, creation. When we get tired, we need to sleep. We need to restore our energy. When we get hungry, we need to eat to restore our energy. When we get emotionally depleted, we need to take some time to relax so that we can replenish ourselves emotionally. We are definitely finite stored capacity beings. The sun is eternal in its generation of power. And if you think about us being a small little battery and you think about God being the sun, not just our sun, but you add all of the stars, which are suns in the universe, that's what makes up how great our God is. So much bigger than who we are. God is not a bigger battery. He is the generation of all power. He never sleeps, Psalm 121, verse four, because He never expends energy in a way that depletes Him.

When you're praying to God for some answer to the needs that you have, when you pray to God and He heals you, when you pray to God and He works a miracle in your life, when you pray to God and He answers that prayer, He's not diminished in any way by answering your prayer because He is renewed every single day in His power, in His energy, in His ability. Nothing you ask from God will ever diminish Him in any way. Somebody, come on, give God praise. God is big. God is bigger than you. But this God who is big and this God who is bigger than you also knows your name. Isaiah 43, in verse one says, "'I have summoned you by name, you are mine.'" He knows your name. Do you know they say that the sweetest sound that anybody ever hears is to hear their name called? And how do you feel when somebody you just do not expect calls out your name? It kind of warms your heart. The creator of the universe knows your name. But even better than that, because the truth is, just because someone knows your name doesn't necessarily mean that they will treat you the way you would love to be treated. Even somebody who loves you, I know people, I know their name and I love them. I mean, I really care for them,

but I don't treat them like I treat my own kids. I might know your name, but that doesn't mean I'm buying you Christmas presents. And you're probably not a permanent member on my prayer list. I might pray for you from time to time. And I'm probably not gonna invite you on my personal vacation like I do my own kids. It's one thing to know someone's name, but it's another thing entirely if that person adopts you into his family. And this particular verse just blows me away. 1 John 3 1, see what great love the father has lavished on us. Everyone shout out us. That we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are. God doesn't just know your name. He has made you his sons and his daughters with all of the benefits of that. So just think for a moment. When you hear that word Immanuel, God, God, God is big. God is bigger than you are. God knows your name. And God calls you his son and his daughter. It's that God that we're talking

about. Second word, four letters. With. The reality is, is that you can know that God is big. But if you don't know that he's with, there's a challenge. There's a problem. What does that word with mean? I think it means exactly what most of you think it probably means, close proximity. His presence is right there with us. But it means more than that. When you say to a friend, I am with you, it's not just a close proximity of presence. It's also a close proximity of When you say, I'm with you, you might also be saying, I'm supporting you, I'm on your side, I'm not gonna leave you. I've got your back. If Laura asks me and says, hey, will you go to the grocery store with me? And I say, sure, I'll go with you. And I push the cart, and she puts

stuff in it. I'm in close proximity with her. I'm physically present with her, and it's an enjoyable experience. But if she's going into the birthing center or to the hospital to deliver our baby, and I go with you, and I say, I am with you, Laura, I am with you, what I'm telling you is, what I'm telling her is that I am supporting you. I am on your side. I am with you. I've got your back. Whatever you need, I am here for you. And that word with means both of the things that I just expressed. Close proximity of presence and close proximity of support and heart and purpose. But even as seasoned believers, we can sometimes trip over this word with. Even if we know what it means, sometimes we can lose sight of the with. You can substitute the with, the present tense with, with a God

will be with me, some future tense with-ness. And sometimes we slip into that mindset. We think to ourselves, when I get to heaven, then I will be with him, and you will. But don't substitute your future with for your present with. Believers who do that are living in this moment, in this circumstance, in this season, at this Christmas time, without the peace that God wants you to have. You live unaware that he is with you. Or maybe, for some of us, it's not the future with-ness that we substitute. It's the past with-ness that we substitute. For some of us, God has become the God who was with us. And sometimes we get to thinking that our best years are behind us. I remember when God was with me. I remember when I was blessed. I remember when things were happening.

I remember when times were good. I remember when I was happy and healthy. Maybe you're even thinking about past Christmases, memories of a different time and place when you thought that God was with you in that moment, but then maybe you got sick or you lost a loved one or you moved or you changed jobs and you don't feel it like you used to. And maybe you're tempted today to think that God was with me, but he's not presently with me. The last thing that Jesus wanted you to know from the book of Matthew, chapter 28, he said, He said, I am present tense. He doesn't say, I was with you or I will be with you. He says, I am with you right now. right now, and then he says always, which means all of the future moments in your life, he will be with you. The I am will be with you, not just today, but in every future day. And do you know what always? In the Greek means. Anybody venture a guess. In the good times, he is with you and you can rejoice and thank him with gratitude and

hearts filled with joy. But even in the tough times, he is with you. You know, when people get married, husbands and wives, they make this covenant vow to each other that I, I will be faithful to you. I will be with you in good times and in struggling times, in sickness and in health and riches and poverty. You just say, I declare that I'm going to be with you no matter what life brings. I'm going to be with you. Why do we expect less from the God who gave us that covenant than what we do from our own marriage partners? God is with you in the good times and the challenging times in the healthy times and the sick times in the blessing times and the times when it's a challenge. You know, when you read about the story of Jesus interacting with his disciples, he was always in their midst in the midst of a storm. He was right there in the boat. And I just want you to know that Jesus is in your boat. If you came to church today and you're worried about something, you're, you're concerned about something. There's something in your life that's taking place right now that has captured your emotions. I want you to know that Jesus is with you in the storm. And sometimes he will get to the bow of the boat and calm the storm. And sometimes he'll take the storm out of you. But I do want you to know he is with you. And I know it's kind of hard to even comprehend, but he's with you even when you're not at your best. When you sin, this is the message of Christmas, Matthew chapter one in verse 21, and she will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus because it is he will save his people from their sins. There's one thing that every single one of us have in common. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And Jesus didn't just come into our world because we earned it or we were good enough to deserve it. None of us are. We've all made mistakes. Christmas is about God doing for us what we could never do for ourselves and forgiveness is everywhere. He forgave a woman caught in adultery. He forgives the prodigals who go astray, the disciples who deny the champion who messed up like Samson and even the thief hanging upon the cross in the very last moments of his life. Jesus turns to him and says, today you will be what with me in paradise with. Never changes. With you even at the end of life. With you in death. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my 65th birthday. I only mentioned that because you guys honored me so well and celebrated me so well. I felt so blessed. I can't even put into words how wonderful that celebration was for me. And I mentioned it because 65 is not 30 and it's not 20 and it's not 10. I'm a little bit further along and I'm not, I'm not retiring. I'm refiring. I mean, I'm ready to go. I think this next season is going to be the best season ever, but I am closer to heaven than I once was. And you know, I just think about my mom who celebrated her 90th birthday. She's not leaving earth anytime soon, but she's closer to heaven from an age journey than I am. I just want you to know that no matter where you find yourself on the age continuum, God is with you. You have nothing to fear, nothing to be anxious about.

So the first word is God. And the second word is with, and the last one is us. Maybe you hear me talking today about his love and his grace and his forgiveness and his withness. but you're not hearing that at all. It's not that you don't wanna hear it, and it's not that you don't mean to hear it, but in your heart, you don't hear us, you hear them. Maybe your whole life, it seems like God is with others, someone else, not you. And maybe you think, I've made too many mistakes, too many failures in my past. I've exhausted God's grace. Christmas is for others, it's not for me. Maybe when you scroll through Facebook or Instagram, you see so many happy people, and you look at them, and they give some kind of scripture and hashtag blessed, and you look at your own life, and you say, I'm not feeling very blessed. I'm not feeling like God is with me, I think God is with them. And then you can even come to church on a Sunday morning, and you look up and down the rows, and you see what you think, there's a perfect marriage couple, and you see kids, and they're all happy and respectful, and you see just people who feel like they got it all together. And you think, you know what, God is with them, not with me.

Can I tell you something I've learned over time? The only perfect people are the people you don't know. Sometimes the people who look like they got it all together are facing crisis and drama, that if you compared your world, you go, oh my gosh. And sometimes the devil will lie to us over and over and over again, saying that God is with others, but he's left you behind. When the angel spoke in Luke chapter two, he said, and I think he chose his words very carefully, he said, today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you, he's born to you, he is the Messiah, Christ the Lord. And here's the phrase that I really want you to understand and digest here this morning, born to you, not born to them, born to you. Come on, turn to your neighbor right now and just tell him, to you, to you. Come on, tell him, to you. To you, there is a savior. It's like the Holy Spirit knew that we would feel the challenge of this particular point, that we'd be tempted to leave ourselves out. He's the savior to all, to the kings and the shepherds, the good, the not so good, and even the downright bad. He is with us. This verse says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Emmanuel is the celebration of God with us.

Three simple, small words, God, three letters, with four letters, us, two letters, God with us. But you have to believe all three. You can't leave one of them out. If we get any one of the three wrong, we will not live with the peace, joy, and hope that God wants us to live with. There are some things in life that getting a majority is a good thing. I mean, honestly, if you take baseball, if you hit the ball three times out of 10, you're gonna be in the hall of fame. So there are some things in life that, you know, that percentage will get you in. You win elections if you get a majority, just over 50%. So that's a good thing if you're a politician. But in this particular case, one out of three is not gonna cut it, two out of three is not gonna cut it. Because there are some things in life that even 99.9% is not good enough. If hospitals and doctors gave the correct baby to the correct parents 99.9% of the time, then 42 babies would be given to the wrong parent every single day. If 99.9% was good enough for flight controllers landing planes on airports around the world. If that was good enough, then two planes would crash every single day. If 99.9% was good enough in terms of the faithfulness of your marriage, if Laura came up to me and

said, 99.9% is going to be good enough, I don't think she would know what she was saying because that would mean I could be unfaithful once every three years. And I guarantee you, she would not go for that. She would not only kill me, she would torture me first, then kill me. 99.9% in some cases is not enough. And in this case, we need to go all in. We need 100%. You gotta believe, you gotta trust in all three, God with us. You leave out even one of them and it falls apart. You can have with and us, but if your God is a small g God, then you'll have no power. You can have God and us, but if you don't believe he's with you, if you believe he's far away from you, you will have no comfort. You can have God and with, but if it's not us, it's them, then you have no hope. There's only one way for us to live this Christmas. If you want to have the power and the comfort and the hope that this day is meant to give to each and every one of us, we've got to believe all three, God with us. And if you do believe that, if that's your takeaway here today, then really there's only one question left. What are you worried about? Why are you afraid? Why are you so anxious? God is with us. That's it. Let's pray. Father, we just thank you so much for the opportunity to be together here today and Lord let these three very simple, but incredibly impactful, powerful words, Lord, let that radiate in our hearts this Christmas in Jesus' name. If you don't mind, would you just remain in an attitude of prayer, every head bowed, every eye closed. If you came to church today and you're not where you need to be with God, maybe you made

that decision at one point in time, but you slipped away. And today you need to rededicate your life to serving him, or maybe you've never invited Jesus into your heart. If you want to meet him for the first time or rededicate your life to serving him, would you please raise your hand quickly and boldly wherever you are. Wonderful. God bless you. Thank you, Lord. You're going to light up all over. It's so beautiful to see. Every one of you with your hands raised, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer. I'm going to pray and I want you to pray this prayer out loud after me and I'm going to ask everyone else in the spirit of being with them, not just in close proximity in this building, but be with them, supporting them, getting their back, being for them, I want you to join me in this prayer, all of us together as a reaffirmation of your faith or you're praying for the first time. Let's all of us pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus. Jesus, I ask you to come into my heart. Forgive me of all my sins. I put my trust in you and I will live for you from this day forward by your power, for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen. Would you give them all a great big hand clap? All of you who just prayed to receive the Lord, whether to meet him for the first time or rededicate your life to serving him, after we're dismissed, I want you to go over to Pastor Oscar. He's holding up a sign that says, Made Brand New, and that's just a place for you to go. We want to give you a Bible, some information that'll really help you to live this Christian

life that you prayed to receive, so please do that. And then I want to encourage you that if you have a prayer request here today, after we're dismissed, just come forward, our prayer partner's going to be here for you and just grab hands with you, wonderful men and women who love God and love you, just believe God for whatever it is that you're going through. Don't forget to text and invite your friends. Listen, Shoreline.net slash Christmas, and it will pop up a whole invite to all of your friends. Do that this week and invite them to church on Wednesday, three o'clock and five o'clock here at our North Campus and five o'clock at our South Campus. And then also, we haven't done this for a couple of years so we would just take the last Sunday off and and we would just kind of have a Sabbath Sunday but I just felt really led this year that we would add a service back on December the 28th so we would close out the year worshiping together and there's gonna be a great word to share with you on the 28th and that service is gonna be at 1130 we could have chosen 930 but we chose 1130 because we love you more and it's gonna be a great time together it's gonna be awesome so let's all of us stand to our feet and we want to wish you a very very Merry Christmas join us on Wednesday night God bless you have a fantastic rest of your Sunday and we'll see you here on Christmas Eve God bless