-I don’t know where you’re at the Christmas starting time scale, I’ve learned there’s 2 types of people in the world. There are those who would put the Christmas tree up in October, and those who do it the right way and give each holiday it’s proper respect, and wait until after Thanksgiving to start getting set up for Christmas! 

-The difficulty is those 2 people tend to get married to each other, so each Christmas, which is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year is full of this underlying tension about who’s going to win this year. 2 years ago, I decided to cut my losses, wave the white flag, and create a compromise with the other side. Not only was the Christmas tree supposed to go up on Nov. 1, but we also were supposed to go get a REAL tree! If you’ve never done one, it involves wading through the forests at the back lot of Menards, pulling out about 15 different trees, just to go back to the first one you pulled out and buy that one. 

-Then once you’ve finished hiking through Menards, you have to figure out how to get this large shrubbery home, which for us meant trying to tie it to the roof of our van, and hoping it didn’t fall off on the drive home! Then when you get home, you have to figure out how to get it through one of your doors (dropping needles the entire way in), set it up so it’s level and doesn’t tip over, fill the base with water so the tree doesn’t die before Christmas. And it’s only after all that is done that you can start talking about putting lights on it! One person is stuck in the corner of the room, being attacked by the pine needles as you pass the lights back to the person in the front. Oh, and don’t forget the tree sap that is also going to be impossible to wash off your hands for a couple days!

-So my compromise with Cara was: if we can get a pre-lit fake tree, we can put it up the day after Halloween. I know it’s illegal, we try to keep it hidden from public view so we don’t get arrested! 

-Christmas can bring up all sorts of different feelings for people, depending on what’s happened the past year, what’s happened around Christmas previously, or even what your family situation is like. Yet we can’t escape it! It affects all the commercials, you see it on billboards when you drive, every store puts up some sort of holiday decorations (often just as early as Cara wants them put up!)

-And it’s not just at home, I often struggle to figure out what to preach for Christmas! I’m guessing most, if not all of you have heard the story before (I’ve read the story more times than I can count at this point!). There’s only so many different ways you can approach this story! I actually got lunch with another pastor this week and he asked me, “do you ever get tired of preaching for Christmas?” 100%

-But this year feels different to me! I don’t know if my Christmas heart has grown 3x larger, or if it’s because the twins are now at the age where everything Christmas is brand new, so we’re experiencing it through their eyes, but I’ve been legitimately excited for Christmas this year. I even broke the law a second time, and started listening to Christmas music this week, BEFORE Thursday! Don’t let that news get around.

-And I think some of the reason I’m excited for it is because I’ve been meditating on this Messianic prophecy from Isaiah for the past month. This has been a crazy year in our country! Political assassinations on both sides of the aisle, the polarization that we’ve seen for the last 15 years continues getting wider, yet in the midst of that I keep seeing glimmers of hope, like light breaking through the darkest clouds, because the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ continues making advances. Gen Z is showing more interest in church than any other generation, Bible studies are growing at universities, Bible sales are on the rise. Friends, despite being told that Christianity was a dying thing, the hope of Jesus continues persevering, don’t ever count Christianity out!

-I’m not sure if you saw this, but after Charlie Kirk was killed, the governor of Utah in his press release said the best thing you can do is log off social media and go touch grass. Do real physical activities as a real embodied physical human. The internet has rewired our brains, which is affecting how we engage with each other!

-And into this world, where we can have so many conflicting emotions, so many competing proposals on what’s wrong with the world, enters a baby. A baby who had been promised for thousands of years! And not just any baby, a baby from a very specific lineage, chosen from God’s people to be a representative and substitute because God’s people kept failing. But what’s amazing is this baby came in real life. This isn’t some myth, some made up story like Thor or Zeus. The Bible records events that took place in time, in a specific location, and it’s only by living in the light of this promised child that we can live in real life. Let’s read the text, and then I’ll explain what I mean.

READ/PRAY (pg. 607)

1. What Do We Need?

-What we’re going to be spending our time studying this Advent is the reality that God has provided everything we need to live a fully embodied human existence, which is exactly what Jesus did when he came to earth! And this gets to what we as humans need. This was a topic that came up regularly in 1 Timothy – contentment. Paul said that godliness with contentment is of great gain to us, so we need to learn to grow in being content with everything God provides us. Friends, all of this is according to God’s good plans! Let’s walk through this text. Each week we’ll be focusing on slightly different aspects of it, along with studying the implications of what each name means, so if I don’t talk about something in Isaiah 9 today, just wait, because we’ll probably look at it in a future week.

-This takes place in the middle of God (through Isaiah) telling the people what God’s future plans for them are. God promises that his grace will come from Isaiah (seeing the throne room in Isa. 6), to the southern kingdom of Judah, then to the northern kingdom of Israel, then proclaimed to the rest of the world. And notice that it begins saying “it won’t be like the previous days.” God is going to be doing something BRAND NEW when all these events come about.

-It begins with a great light. This should make us think back to the very beginning, where Gen. 1 says that darkness covered everything, so God’s first act of creation is speaking light into existence. This tells us that in this future day, there will be a new act of creation that God brings light into existence once again. It also says this will lead to joy for the people because salvation will be coming. Their oppressors will be defeated but then look how it’s going to happen: through a child.

-Now I’m not sure if you know this about kids, but they tend to not be as strong as adults (which I’ve heard is a good thing, because otherwise the adults probably wouldn’t survive some of the tantrums that little kids throw). This is God’s ways of demonstrating (as he has done throughout history) that His way is often the unexpected way. There’s a pattern in Scripture of God choosing the younger child, or choosing the weakest person, or choosing someone too old. It’s the same thing with this future salvation. And notice the language: born FOR us, son GIVEN to us. It’s not something humans can do in their own power or strength, it has to be done FOR us because we keep failing over and over.

-We’ll talk about the government in a little bit, but look at all these incredible descriptions of this child: 4 names, which is what we’re spending our time studying this month: wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace.

-And I think these 4 things offer exactly what we need to flourish in the world God has created. Think about it: we need someone who’s going to give us wise and good council and advice on how to live. We need someone outside of ourselves to provide us with a sense of purpose and identity (honestly, a large part of the mental health crisis in our world is because no human being is capable of creating an entire identity for themselves, we need someone or something bigger than us to give us the guardrails). We need a family to belong to where we know we’ll be loved and cared for no matter what happens in our lives. And we need peace where we live so that we can actually pursue all these other things. Friends, Jesus is who lets us live in real life!

-Last thing from this verse for today, most other translation say something like of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of any government that I want to continually be increasing! In my mind, that just means things would continue getting worse! With all governments except 1: the government where Jesus is King! And friends, that government has already started. Jesus is already sitting on His throne interceding for us, ministering for us, praying for us. Jesus is the one who allows us to have a place to be truly human, and His rule is primarily seen in the institution that we today call “the church.” But we’ll look at that more closely in a few weeks! But let’s look at the first name: wonderful counselor:

• A Counselor Who…

-The first part of this counselor is the adjective wonderful. This refers to being able to perform supernatural signs, or something miraculous. Like when God came to Moses and said that He would perform miracles over the Egyptians He used the same word. So that combined with counselor tells us that this future child will be able to do signs /wonders AND give wisdom through His words. 

-So when Jesus comes, what do we see Him doing? Doesn’t He perform incredible signs and teach about wisdom? Not only does He do it Himself, but when He comes, He talks about another Counselor that He’s going to send.

-It centers on Jesus saying it’s better for Him to go away, which always struck me as odd until I continued reading. If He doesn’t leave, He doesn’t send His Holy Spirit. Friends, Jesus in his humanity was limited by space and time, Jesus in His divinity is not. It’s better that He leaves because after He left, He sent His Holy Spirit who isn’t limited in the same way.

-Jesus talks about this reality in John 14 (pg. 957). But what’s interesting is what Jesus says the purpose of this counselor is, and I think it gives us something to consider when we think about the advice we need in our lives today. 

-Jesus begins with an if/then statement. If you love Him, then you’ll keep His commandments. But I had just talked about us NOT being able to do that, and Jesus knows that. That’s why He says He’ll send someone else to help us be able to keep His commandments. And notice how He describes this other person: another Counselor. Someone who will be able to give us the advice we need. And unlike Jesus, who is only with us, this Counselor will also be IN us. This is the incredible part of the way God works: where before this time in salvation history, the Holy Spirit didn’t live in those who were following after God. They were reliant on other sinful humans to help them. Now, because of God’s plan from the beginning of time, we are literally God’s temple, the place where God lives! 

-Jumping ahead a few verses, Jesus goes on to tell us more about this Counselor. While Jesus was on earth He was able to speak the truth of God’s plan directly to His followers, but soon He wouldn’t be around anymore. And notice the 2-fold approach to this Counselor’s role: teach you all things and remind of everything Jesus said.

-I had a friend text me last week asking what I think is reasonable to expect someone to know to be saved because he’s been thinking that we’ve added so many addition steps to it, and I think this gets to that reality. The Holy Spirit is how Christians grow, which is why we need to be working to keep in step with the Holy Spirit. A question for us is do we actually trust the Holy Spirit to do this work? It’s unreasonable for us to expect an immature Christian to act like someone who’s been keeping in step with the Spirit for decades! Not only that, but we tend to forget some of our past sins and temptations! I love what Paul says in 1 Cor. 6 “and such were some of you.” None of us are off the hook. And part of the reason the Holy Spirit helps us grow is so that we can in turn look around and help others who are struggling with the same things we used to struggle with.

-The second piece to this is that growth is centered on what Jesus said. What has Jesus said? Lots of things, but we have them preserved for us in this book. What a wonderful gift! We have the Word made flesh in Jesus, and the written Word of Holy Scripture to provide counsel for us.

-And notice the outcome of this: peace. Friends, there’s a reason He’s called the Prince of Peace, He is the only way peace is possible on this side of eternity. He is the only way we can endure through the difficulties of dealing with sin.

-Church, part of what Jesus’s arrival means for us is we have been provided what we need to be counseled: through the Holy Spirit, grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and centered around the people of God (each other). Micah is actually very gifted in counseling and currently pursuing a certificate in it so that we can better come alongside people who need counsel. There’s a tension here because not every mental issue can be resolved through God’s Word, but I do worry that the professionalization of counseling has left us as Christians looking for answer in the wrong places sometimes. The joke when I was in college was everyone in the psychology program was there to try to figure themselves out.

-And many times what we need is just someone who loves us and accepts us as God created us, which is what the church is supposed to be! A place where you can be honest, share you hopes, dreams, and struggles, and receive prayer and counsel from other people who are steeped in the Word of God and who can speak the truth of God’s Word to you, reminding you of everything Jesus said.

-This is the antithesis of someone who just gives bad advice, or speaks nonsense to you: kind of like the whole 6 7 phenomenon that my kids keep talking about.

• A Life That Is…

-All of this leads to something that we studied in 1 Timothy. Friends, Jesus hasn’t left us to figure out life on our own. We’re not created as blank slates who have to try to figure out how to operate in this world, God provides counsel for us which allows us to live a life that is truly life.

-And notice how this comes about: by living out good deeds. Friends, one of the best things we can do as Christians AND for our mental health is to look beyond ourselves, to look for ways to do good to others, to outdo one another in showing honor, to consider others interests above ourselves. That’s what the Lord has provided for us to flourish as people, and the best part is we don’t need to worry about ourselves because other people have been commanded to care about us better than they care about themselves! Be committed to a church!

-Jesus is the one who came as the Wonderful Counselor, and then left another Counselor to meet us where we’re at and help us mature and remember the truths of God, who brings us together as His people, unites us together as a body and allows us to love and care for each other, providing the council we need!

-How do people know you’re a Christian? Is it just because you walk into some building 1 a week? Another way of asking this is does this weekly gathering change anything else about your life, or is this all there is? 

-What we’ve been seeing throughout this book is the reality that there has to be something different about your life, God calls us to live a transformed life that is continually growing more like Jesus. In this text, Paul gives us some markers of what a transformed life is supposed to look like.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1053)

1. Good Leaders (5:17-25)

-This verse connects back to 1Tim. 3 where we learned about leaders in the church. All churches are supposed to set aside a group of qualified men to lead the church under the rule of Jesus Christ. I say that intentionally because I think we tend to miss that the church is a theonomy with a monarch named Jesus! Unlike our representative democracy, the church serves under the oversight of Jesus, not a human. 

-But of those elders who are chosen by God and affirmed by the congregation, some of those who serve as elders are worthy of a double honor. What does it require to receive a double honor, and what does it mean to receive a double honor? 

-Notice what Paul says: the focus is on those who work hard at preaching and teaching. Some people argue that this means there are 2 different kinds of elders: ruling elders and teaching elders. I don’t think that’s what Paul is saying, I think he’s saying that of the elders, there are some who work hard at preaching and teaching, who should thus receive a double honor. But what is that double honor?

-Double honor: some say it means they should receive a double salary, most believe (and I agree) that it’s referring to respect and finances. See 2 Thess. 3. Here Paul talks about his practice – he could have expected payment from them, after all he had labored among them! But he decided to be bi-vocational to set an example to the rest of the church.

-Some churches continue this practice today, that’s a fine thing if someone is able and willing to do that, the difficulty is as a church grows it can be hard to have the time required to invest in the congregation God has brought together. That’s why it’s common for churches to have at least 1 pastor who labors in preaching and teaching for the church. Micah and I are, in essence, freed up to invest our time in preparing for the various events and activities in our church body. If we had to work somewhere else to provide for our families, we wouldn’t be as freed to spend time with and for you! We’re literally able to meet with you any time of day!

-And Paul bases this thought on a couple previous passages of Scripture (which is a good practice! If you can’t base your argument on the Bible, it may not be a great argument). But they’re very interesting, the first is from Deut. 25:4 and refers to way an ox would be used to separate out the wheat while it was laying in the field. In order to make the most profit, some people would put a muzzle on it to prevent it from stooping its’ head down to eat some of it. Paul’s using this analogy to say that someone who works in preaching and teaching should be expected to be paid from his preaching and teaching, otherwise it would be like muzzling him.

-What’s fascinating is the second quote! It’s not unique to quote the OT as he did, that happens all the time, what’s unique is Paul is quoting Jesus (which also isn’t that unique) but he specifically quotes the Gospel of Luke and explicitly calls it Scripture! Friends, this is a BIG deal! This means Paul had access to Luke’s Gospel, which he considered on par with the rest of the Old Testament. This contradicts basically every other liberal proposal to the writing of God’s Word. If you ever read The da Vinci Code (fascinating thriller that was terrible at history), they argued that the Bible came about because of a power play that was settled at the Council of Nicea. WRONG! The Bible was settled by God, humans just affirmed what God had already done as people were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

-The place Paul quotes from is when Jesus appoints and sends his 72 disciples out in pairs, they’re supposed to look for people who will be willing to take them in, because the worker is worthy of receiving wages from his work. Paul picks that idea up and continues it for elder/pastors. This is a helpful picture of how we’re supposed to interpret and apply Scripture today. Jesus wasn’t specifically focusing on pastors and elders with His words, but Paul was able to take those principles and apply it to the church. Similarly for us, we carefully study what the Bible says and what it means in its own context before jumping to how we should apply it to our lives today.

-Continuing on what elders should look like, they must be men of good character who have proven it over a long period of time, and because of that the church is supposed to not allow someone’s accusation against an elder to stand unless they are following Jesus’s commands in Matt. 18. 

-Most of the time, we don’t hear about church discipline because it stops at the second step. Notice as well the power Jesus gives to the church, which goes completely contradictory to our individualistic culture: the church is given the keys to the kingdom! Do you realize how significant this is? The church determines who is a part of the church and who is not, this is one of the reasons I emphasize membership so much, Jesus has told us that we (as the church) are supposed to help people understand who is “in” and who is “out”. This reality really hit me over the past year: part of the reason I have assurance in my faith is because of you all! I’ll be honest, if it was just up to me to white knuckle it and push through on my own, I wouldn’t make it, I’m not strong enough and my faith is too weak. But put me together with a group of people (a church) who are working towards the same goal, and we have a much better chance of making it.

-Notice that there’s 2 sides to this reality: binding and loosing, accepting and rejecting, this gets us to the situations where people are sinning:

-(20) The flip side of not accepting an accusation is finding someone who is sinning, and that needs to be dealt with.

-The whole #ChurchToo movement falls under this, where people were trying to cover up and hide what was going on. Friends, I hate to share this, but the church unfortunately isn’t immune from abuse, and that breaks my heart, and much more importantly breaks the heart of God. The church must never try to cover over or hide sin. The church is supposed to be the 1 human institution where we expose sin to the light and deal with it in the ways God commands.

-Last week I shared my issues with the Billy Graham rule, but this is where we also need to live a life of complete purity where an accusation couldn’t even be made! What levels of accountability to do you have in your life to prevent any level of accusation? Are you living properly with all the people you come into contact with? 

-Letter from the 2^nd century description of the church. Notice particularly: “they have a common table, but not a common bed.” Meaning they lived with all purity toward each other.

-(21) This next part is brought about with as much power and influence as Paul can muster! God, and Christ, and the “elect angels” (vs. demons): serve faithfully, love faithfully, shepherd faithfully for EVERYONE. Favoritism isn’t the way of the Lord. That being said, there will be people you’re closer to! Jesus had the crowds, the 72, the 12, and the 3, increasing levels of closeness with each of them. Just acknowledge that we are ALL the body of Christ, we ALL need to be committed to each other.

-If you look down at the footnote for 22 it says the literal translation is “do not be too quick to lay hands on” or as the ESV says “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands.” Which, as you know, means we have to mention LOTR!

-Laying hands on is the way the Bible talks about setting someone apart, that’s why we’ll do it as people move away, or if they go on a mission trip.

-One of the things that an elder is involved in is entering into broken and sinful situations, and there’s a pattern where those sins can suddenly become temptations for you. Don’t give in! Pray against them! It’s the same thing in preaching, whenever something about marriage comes up, I can guarantee Cara and I are going to have a conflict that week!

-Some debate about the pure, is it in relation to the sins, or the next part? Apparently Timothy tried to live such a holy life that he abstained from any wine. Yet wine has medicinal purposes, and Paul was encouraging Timothy to take his medicine (remember, Paul has previous prohibitions against drunkenness but not drinking).

-Just a couple verses ago, Paul had talked about the need to publicly rebuke sin (rebuke as far as the knowledge and impact of it go), but for others it doesn’t surface until you dig a little deeper. This is part of the reason Paul says to not be quick in appointing elders, you need to get to know them (even if they were elders at a previous church!)

-But the same thing can be said about good works, which means we should continue doing good works regardless of how many people see them. This connects to Paul’s command that Timothy keep himself pure. The question is will he continue being faithful in the good works, even if no one is aware of his faithfulness? And for us today: will we continue in good works even if no one else sees them?

• Faithful Slaves (6:1-2)

-One of the major accusations toward the Bible today is on the issue of slavery. Some people will take verses like these as supportive of slavery (and unfortunately it was used as justification for slavery in the past). But this is where we need to look a little broader than just our country/culture, and need to understand some historical context a little better. This is intentionally going to be brief, I’ve talked about this before, and if you have more questions about slavery in the Bible, please reach out to me! I have a number of resources I can send your way.

-First: Jesus didn’t set about to start a revolution; he worked to bring salvation. A revolution was an outworking of the gospel message, but it wasn’t the focus. The primary problem in the world isn’t human slavery (although that is problem!), the primary problem is that people are slaves to sin, which leads to spiritual death!

-Second, slavery is just as alive today as it was in the 1^st century (if not more so!) According to one survey, there are almost 50 million people who live in slavery today, and today’s slavery is far more severe than what people faced in the 1^st century. Part of our issue is we judge this culture based on our culture’s morality (which has been profoundly influenced by Christianity), without taking the time to understand what was taking place back then. Some slaves were educated, some willingly sold themselves into slavery as a way to provide for their family. Yes, some were mistreated and abused, but as we’ve seen in our culture it doesn’t take slavery to see mistreatment and abuse. 

-So how are Christian slaves to act? Faithfully (have you heard that anywhere else as we’ve gone through this book?)

-Friends, even ungodly authority is supposed to be respected. Even ungodly authority! We know that someday they will stand before God and give an account for their actions on earth, and so will we. The difference is if we’re claiming to follow God, we’re supposed to represent Him to others! 

-Additionally, Paul says that if the master is a believer, that doesn’t get you off the hook. You still need to respect and honor them, and even more than you would an unbelieving master because your work furthers God’s aims to build and establish His church, His kingdom, on earth.

-Another component to this that I think is worth mentioning is the fact the slaves are both mentioned in this letter and given a sacred job to do! Most 1^st century letters would have been exclusively focused on those with power and influence; slaves wouldn’t have even been “worthy” of receiving a mention.

-What this is pointing out is even the lowly can join in God’s mission to seek and save the lost! You don’t need influence, you don’t need money, you don’t need power, in fact in God’s kingdom, those things tend to get in the way! Which is what Paul talks about next:

• Follow The Teaching (6:3-10)

-Paul begins this section reminding Timothy that he is supposed to train the church to implement everything Paul’s been saying! This isn’t an optional add on

-We just talked today in our Strands of Unity class about how we ensure what we’re teaching and thinking aligns with “the sound teaching,” if you missed it, it’s not too late to join us next week!

-Warning against someone teaching false doctrine, which is anything that is opposed to the teaching of Jesus, or godliness. Friends, one of the markers of true Christianity (as opposed to heresy) is what it leads to! If godliness is the outcome, it’s correct!

-In contradiction to this, the false teacher is conceited, knows nothing, and instead only wants to fight and argue with others. There are some things that are worth fighting over, but false teachers want to fight about pointless things. And in contrast to true teaching, what’s the outworking of this teaching? 

-Envy, quarreling, slander, evil suspicions, and constant disagreement. These people use Christianese to benefit themselves instead of looking to serve others. Paul picks up this same idea in 2 Tim. 3, people who want to keep up appearances but refuse to admit that the Holy Spirit is the only way you can have life change. They hold everyone else to a certain standard of living without asking anyone to change their hearts. 

-And friends, this is the biggest difference between a true Christian and a fake Christian. A true Christian is someone who knows and trusts that your growth only happens because of God working in you. You can’t force it or manipulate it or fake it! It takes you daily dying to yourself and completely trusting yourself to the Lord to follow after Jesus. There are practices you can do: read the Bible, pray, but you don’t have to be a Christian to do those things. We can plant and water, but apart from the Holy Spirit there will be no growth.

-Back to godliness in 6, one of the characteristics of a Christian is contentment! Paul talks about that idea in Philippians, where he says I can do all things through a verse taken out of context! Just kidding, it’s through Christ, and it’s because he’s learned the secret to being content, it’s trusting God to provide everything you need, because God has provided for you up to this point. And He’ll continue to provide for you, which means we should be content with what God provides. And the bar Paul places is fairly low, isn’t it? Food and clothing, maybe add shelter in there and what else do you really need?

-Notice who falls into temptations: those who want to be rich, not those who are rich. If your desire is to be rich, you’ll give anything else to pursue that one thing, nothing else matters. Which is the plot of more books and movies than I can keep track of! And even someone who is poor can have an improper desire to be rich!

-Money isn’t the problem, it’s what we do with money. And money does have a unique pull on the human heart, doesn’t it? We all end up playing the comparison game instead of the contented game (which is what Paul is calling out). He’s saying if we love money, it leads to all sorts of destruction in our lives.

-Church, whatever your state in life, this text is calling us to be faithful and content. Instead of comparing ourselves to others, God wants us to be content with whatever He gives us. Additionally, everything God gives us is meant to be a blessing to those around us, especially to those who are fellow believers. Money is a tool that can be used to help or hurt your walk with Jesus, it’s a tool that can be used to help or hurt those around you. How do you use the money God has given to you? 

-When John D. Rockafeller died (richest man in the world at the time) someone asked his aide how much he left behind, he answered “He left it all behind.”

-There are some things we can take with us: friends, love, God’s Word, but money isn’t one of them.