Monday Reflections...one more tidbit from the sermon


This is me telling a Christmas story at the Saturday night Christmas concert at the Machias Valley Baptist Church.  A nice lady named Katy was in the entryway and caught this image on her phone.  I thanked her for the thought of capturing me doing what I do on a regular basis.

 34 years of preaching.  Multiple times on a Sunday and usually another time throughout the week.  Adding it up, it could be around the 5000 mark of verbally speaking in front of a group of people.  This doesn't include the many times I communicate through other means.  Saying all of that, I still miss something that I had prepared to say but zoomed past at the actual event.  This Sunday morning was no different.

 The passage was Galatians 4:1-7 and it was the opportunity to look at a Christmas passage away from the traditional Matthew, Luke and Isaiah scriptures.  We looked at the when, what, and why of Christmas.  God set the when; the what was Someone eternal, human, and Jewish; and the why was to redeem and rescue us through a ransom price of His life so that we could receive back what we had lost.  You can listen to the video posted below to catch it all and the telling of the closing story about "Old Betty."  I love to tell that story because it has such a punch line.  

 What was the "tidbit" that I missed?  What had I prepared to say but did come out in my delivery?  In the midst of the redeeming and receiving is this sentence found in verse 6, which reads,
And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba, Father!"

Do you see it?  Not only do we have a mentioning of the first advent of Jesus, the Christmas story, in verse 4 but we have the mention of the Trinity in verse 6.  The redeeming and receiving comes with the full effort of the Trinity.  

God, the Spirit, and the Son are combined so that we can speak to Him as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane, so intimately as our Father.  Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave but God sent Him and the Spirit remains with us who have been redeemed and receiving salvation.  Our salvation is a Trinity effort.  God knocks on the door of your heart and presents what Jesus has done on your behalf and then the Spirit resides to comfort and guide you.  

Just a little bit more that I wish I would have remembered to say.  It was written down but in the moment not everything written down comes out of my mouth.  Probably for a reason larger than what I can know.  

Adam

A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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