Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Pastor Brian: Well, our Christmas trees are down, all that stuff, and we see the Christmas season in the rear-view mirror. And how many know there is a better view out the windshield than in the rear-view mirror. So we're going to keep looking forward. But there are some things that we can learn from, uh, sometimes looking backwards. One of the things that the Christmas holiday season is known for is called the Incarnation of Christ. It's when Christ came to earth and he took on bodily form and he became an essence, one of us. We want to read this in a couple translations. We find it in John 1:14. We'll read it in the message and then also on the TPT version. But let's read it.
Jacque: In the Message Bible. The word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.
Pastor Brian: I like that. Don't you like that? Jesus isn't just like way out there somewhere. He wants to be in our neighborhoods. Jesus became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.
Jacque: We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like son.
Pastor Brian: Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. If we want to know what our Father in heaven is like, all we have to do is look at Jesus. That was like one of the main reasons he came. To redeem us from our sins, of course, is uh, obviously a very important one to us. But he came to show us what the father was like. If there would've been somebody watching Moses the first time Moses encountered God with the burning bush, most people would've said, what about God? He's a burning bush, right? He's a burning bush. But we know that God is not a burning bush. That's just how he came to Moses. The very first time he spoke to Moses. Jesus came to reveal, to paint a picture of, to show us what our father in heaven was like. The apostle John is saying that here: we saw his glory with our own eyes, a one of a kind glory, like father, like son,
Jacque: Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
Pastor Brian: Now let's do the Passion Translation.
Jacque: In The Passion Translation. And so the living expression--
Pastor Brian: I like that description. Jesus is the living expression of our Father that's good in heaven. So the living expression--
Jacque: And so the living expression became a man and lived among us. We gazed upon his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy and truth.
Pastor Brian: If I could have one desire be fulfilled in my life, it would be for all people who call themselves Christians--- and there is a lot of people in the world that call themselves Christians, but sometimes you scratch your head when you see the things that they do or the attitudes that they might have. But if I could have one desire fulfilled in my life, it would be for all people who call themselves Christians, that they would intentionally follow the model of Jesus Christ, that that would be their passion. It wouldn't be about going to heaven when we die, because if we follow the life and teachings of Jesus when we die, the only place that will fit would be heaven. Wouldn't you agree that if we really follow the ways of Jesus, that would be the only place that we would really fit?
But if we make heaven our aspiration and our goal, then we can find ourselves not actually following the ways of Jesus, because it's just about us and our personal destiny. One of the best descriptions that I've could come up with regarding incarnation as this, it's where you enter another person's world. And isn't that what Jesus did? He entered our world. He entered our world. But not only did he enter our world, he not just kind of came to this sphere, but he became personally involved in people's lives. He personally touched the woman with the issue of blood. Deb has an issue of blood, a blood issue. We're praying that Jesus will personally encounter that, that issue, right? Amen. There were people who were tormented by the demonic realm. Maybe they were suffered terrific abuse when they were young and children and that opened up a door for all sorts of trauma to happen and, and on and on and on the dominos fall.
But Jesus entered those people's lives to bring redemption, bring freedom, to bring deliverance from those things. Historically, if you go back and look at the, the letter that Dr. Martin Luther King wrote--it was called Letters from a Birmingham Jail-- what Dr. King was trying to do--- and I mentioned that because tomorrow we celebrate Martin Luther King. I got a funny story though to tell you about Martin Luther King Day. We had just moved to California. Uh, BJ was five years old and he was in kindergarten. We put him in school in California where we were living there in San Jose. He came home and of course, you know, BJ, he really didn't like school. Can him you relate to that, especially when you were kids.
I think BJ had very much attention deficit. His mind was going a thousand places at one time, and he was told to sit still and be quiet for six hours. Now how are you going to do that for a kid, you know? Anyways, he comes home one day and he says, "We don't have school on Monday, dad." And I said, "Well, you don't have school Monday." He said, "It's some king's birthday."
Jacque: I said, "We don't celebrate king's birthdays in America."
Pastor Brian: We don't celebrate America king's birthdays in America. We honor presidents, but we don't celebrate king's birthdays.
Jacque: I figured it was a way to get out of school.
Pastor Brian: We just were here trying to get out of school. And then we realized it was the first time that we as a nation actually celebrated Martin Luther King Day. And so it was a king's birthday that we were celebrating, just Martin Luther King. But anyways, Martin Luther King, obviously back in the sixties, wrote this letter called Letters from a Birmingham Jail. What he was trying to do in this letter was he was desperately trying to get Christian leaders from Birmingham to walk in the shoes of an African American. That's what he was trying to do. There is a Native American saying that, I'm sure we've all seen little plaques and slogans of it says something like this to truly understand another human being, you must first walk a mile in their moccasins, right? Their shoes. What does that really mean?
You kind of enter into their life. You don't just observe it from a distance, but you actually walk with them in their lives. And really that's what incarnation is. That's what Jesus did. He walked with us and into our lives. And most of us here, we believe in the incarnation of Jesus, probably all of us who was fully man and yet also fully God. And yet it's really hard for us to conceive and comprehend what it really meant for God to incarnate. We struggle with our human terminology to describe God and he's given us certain words to help portray a picture of what he did. But this aspect of this eternal living expression of the Father who spoke and all the creation came into existence, this being gave up, all of that to come to earth, it says He laid aside all of the, shall we say, rights and privileges of heaven, and he came to earth, became a human being, and he lived among us and suffered pain and sorrow and he bore away our sins, but he came into our lives.
I think we struggle with at times believing in understanding the significance of this incredible, miraculous divine intervention that God really gave to us. Many of us have a huge challenge becoming incarnate with our spouses, nevermind with our neighbors or our friends. We really struggle at times just being candid and open and honest, transparent. How do we become incarnate for people that are just our neighbors?
Jacque: It takes time to stop even with your mate and try to understand their way of thinking. That comes from their life experience, their personality, and it takes some time to stop and to try to walk in somebody else's shoes.
Pastor Brian: Now, let me kind of blow your minds a little bit here, but mankind has always been very self-centered. It wasn't until just a few hundred years ago we realized that the earth actually revolved around the sun. What was at the root of not understanding that? We were everything. Everything revolves around us. We think that the only thing Jesus had to do when he left heaven was to focus on us. We forget that he's the God of a whole universe and that's just our universe. We can't even comprehend some other dimensions that God may have already created and had been eternally a part of. Jesus left all of that to come to us because of that great love for us.
There is a bishop in the fourth century, his name was St. Basil. He was a bishop of Caesarea. He made a very significant statement, I think. And he said this: annunciations are very frequent, but incarnations are very rare. What he was really saying is this, you know, bold announcements on behalf of what God is doing or saying or what he's going to do. They are very common. People are declaring all the time what God's going to do. If you do this, God's going to do that or prophetic declarations that people feel an unction to give and what have you. And all these bold declarations are quite common, but really people who follow the humble way of Jesus are much more difficult to find. That's really what St. Basil was saying. Annunciations are frequent, but incarnations are rare. It's so easy to speak on behalf of God, but it's a much more difficult challenge to live the humble way of Jesus.
And why is this true? Because it's a lot more costly to live like Jesus than simply make a declaration about what God is doing. Isn't it? It's a lot more costly. You can't love like Jesus loves without actually getting connected to another person's life. You can't actually love like Jesus loves without actually putting yourself out for somebody else. It's costly and it's tough. And you know what? It's downright countercultural. It's not what our culture's about, is it? Our culture is about what whatever you want, go for the gusto. Your life isn't going to be fulfilled if you don't have this widget, so you better work hard to get it because your life has no meaning without this widget.
Jesus says, your life has all sorts of meaning when you love, like I love, and when you become like me. We do talk about being a disciple of Christ, yet oftentimes we forget what that means. It easily alludes us. I was reading this chapter of John, and I just want to read the first 18 verses in this chapter here. I'm not going to make a comment on every sentence here, otherwise we would be here till three o'clock this afternoon. But I just want to read the whole thing together. John 1 through 18.
Jacque: And you chose The Passion Translation. In the beginning, the living expression was already there, and the living expression was with God yet fully God. They were together face to face in the very beginning. And through his creative inspiration, this living expression made all things for nothing has existence apart from him. A fountain of life was in him for his life is light for all humanity. This light never fails to shine through darkness, light that darkness could not overcome.
Pastor Brian: And you could just kind of ponder that for a couple hours. Couldn't you just meditate on that and just see the wonderful things that this living expression slash Jesus is and did.
Jacque: He's the light, the darkness cannot overcome. Suddenly a man appeared who was sent from God, a messenger named John.
Pastor Brian: This is John the Baptist now.
Jacque: For he came as a witness to point the way to the light of life, Jesus, and to help everyone believe. John was not that light, but he came to show who is for he was merely a messenger to speak the truth about the light.
Pastor Brian: Remember when John said, "There is one coming after me that I'm not worthy to untie his shoes." That was John the Baptist. And this is a reference to John the Baptist. And he came to show or point the way to the light.
Jacque: To Jesus. For the perfect light of truth was coming into the world and shine upon everyone He entered into the world He created, yet the world was unaware.
Pastor Brian: He entered into the world that he created, yet like most of the world today is unaware of the fact that Jesus is still here, alive and well.
Jacque: He came to the people he created to those who should have received him, but they did not recognize him. But those who embraced him and took hold of his name, he gave authority to become the children of God.
Pastor Brian: What a promise.
Jacque: He was not born by the joining of human parents or from natural means or by a man's desire, but he was born of God. And so the living expression became a man and lived among us. We gazed upon his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, overflowing with tender mercy and truth. John announced the truth about him when he taught the people, he's the one; he's the one I've been telling you would come after me even though he ranks far above me because he existed before I was ever even born. And from the overflow of his fullness. And we received grace heaped upon more grace, grace with more grace heaped upon it.
Moses gave us the law. But Jesus, the anointed one unveils truth wrapped in tender mercy. I want to say that one again. The anointed one, unveils truth wrapped in tender mercy. No one ever before gazed upon the full splendor of God except his uniquely beloved son who is cherished by the Father and held close to his heart. Now that he has come to us, he has unfolded the full explanation of who God truly is.
Pastor Brian: I really like that line: grace, heaped upon grace. There is a song rather that I believe it was Gordon Jensen wrote number of years ago, and there is a line that says something like this: grace upon grace, like the waves on the shore always enough yet always more. Especially when you are at the ocean, you see these waves crashing in. They never stop. They are always coming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. That's what the mercy of God is like, grace upon grace, like the waves on the shore, always enough yet always more.
God invaded our planet and he forever changed our planet. He took on human flesh in a way that is concrete and physically tangible. God knew that there wasn't a better way to show his love and his compassion than by fully entering into our world.
And that's how he shows you and I love by entering into our worlds as well. He did it both physically and emotionally. Remember the leper that had questions on an emotional level, he said to Jesus, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." But he wasn't sure how Jesus felt about him. He knew that Jesus had the power to do it, but he wasn't sure if Jesus had the emotional disposition to do it. The first thing Jesus said to him, I am willing, I do want to do this because I care for you. I love you. He entered into not just our physical world, but in essence he entered into the emotional world of every human being because of his great love and compassion for us.
I may have told you this story before, but there was a little girl who was afraid at night to be alone in her. Her mom came in and was assuring her that she was not alone, but that, that God was in the room with her. How many of you ever assured your children, "Jesus will be with you"? "Jesus is here. God is with you." And of course, this little girl replied, well, I know that God's here, but I need someone in this room who has skin on, right? I need someone in this room who has some skin on.
And you know what? There are many people today who are just like this little girl. They need someone in their life that has skin on. And that's how Jesus comes to people, through people with skin on someone tangible to demonstrate the eternal love and nature of God. And the question that needs to be asked is this: will we be that person with skin on? Are we willing to be the skin of the person who needs a touch from Jesus? Because I really do believe that people today are desperate for skin. They are desperate to be loved. They are desperate for someone to incarnate with them.
You could have been a Christian your whole life and maybe possibly you lost a spouse and you desperately need someone with skin on in your life right now. And I'm not necessarily talking about getting married again, but you are saying someone who can walk with you and understand what you are going through. Today, 2000 years after the birth of Christ, God still has skin, but he has that skin in your life, in my life. He still has skin. God still has skin, and he can be seen and he can be touched, and he can be heard through you and I. We call ourselves the body of Christ. There is a great verse in Romans chapter 8, verse 10, just the first half of this verse. And it says this:
Jacque: Now, Christ lives his life in you.
Pastor Brian: Christ lives his life in you. When Jesus wants to bring peace and comfort and solace and maybe even provision to a person, you know what he does? He brings someone like you into their lives, someone like me into their lives, and we become Christ to these people. We're not Christ, but we become Christ with skin on to these people. We are called to be skin for people all around us. I am by nature a fixer. I'm a problem solver. That's my personality. I'm a, I think they call that a type A, I'm not sure, but--
Jacque: It's called a lot of things.
Pastor Brian: It's called a lot of things not always good either.
Jacque: No, I mean you could be a type A; you could be a perfectionist.
Pastor Brian: Okay. Is that what you meant?
Jacque: You could be Enneagram one. I mean that's what I mean. You could be all kinds of things.
Pastor Brian: Is that what you meant?
Jacque: That's what I meant.
Pastor Brian: Oh, okay. Throughout the years, many people would make appointments to meet with me, the more some of these people talked with me, the more I was able to see the jagged broken parts of their world and even at times feel the depth of their agony and their struggles. And sometimes in listening to these people, I thought to myself, I have no clue how to fix this. I don't have the answers that I felt these people were looking for. I can't solve their problems. But often when I reflect back on some of those encounters, I came to realize something very interesting. And it was this: often, many of these people actually weren't asking for advice. They were simply wanting me to join them and see what it's like to walk in their shoes. They were simply wanting to me to see how hard and challenging their world looks when I put their shoes on.
For people like me who are problem solvers, we think we have to fix all the problems in the world. And there is a part of my personality that is never at rest because the problems of our world become, are becoming more and more and more obvious, aren't they? And, and bigger and more challenging. It's a struggle to be a problem solver or a fixer and not be able to fix it all. But there is a way of Jesus that we can enter into, and that is simply to walk with people through the challenges of their life. The world can look very overwhelming and often what people want from us is simply to listen and to be available to them.
Jacque: It makes me think of sometimes when we have in the past, uh, as Christians given somebody some advice and say, this is what you need to do. This is how you need to be. And then they don't do that. And then religion would say, well, bye. Because you have not performed the way I wanted you to. But that's not incarnation. It's walking with somebody no matter what.
Pastor Brian: For most of my Christian life, I actually don't really recall ever being held up as the defining model of what it means to be a Christian. I don't ever remember incarnation being held up as that model. Incarnation was something we celebrated at Christmas. But it wasn't really held up as the model for me to validate that I'm actually a follower of Jesus, that I need to incarnate his life or be his life to other people. It's interesting, I serve on a few boards of, I guess you might call them religious organizations or spiritual entities. It's really interesting to go to some of these board meetings for me, sometimes more frustrating than interesting actually, because the first question that almost everybody ever asks me when they find out that I'm a pastor of a church, what is that question? How many people attend your church?
How many people are part of your church? Because it seems that we become more preoccupied with numbers or what we might even define as results than being preoccupied with loving and being what God wants us to be. I can tell you this: I don't ever run out of people to love. The stores, their shelves can be empty when you go into the store. But I tell you, there is something that you will not ever run out of. And that is somebody to love. Somebody to incarnate Jesus to somebody to be skin on with of Christ. Incarnation does call us out of our physical and our emotional comfort to meet people right where they are at. Aren't you glad that Jesus said this? "While they were yet sinners, I will die for them," rather than when you clean up your life. Give me a call.
Jesus not only came and gave his life and did all of that governmental things that reconciled justice and mercy, how he could show mercy to a law breaker with at the same time being just to his law. He did all of those things with his death. But he also did something even probably in my mind, greater and that he validated my worth to him by doing that while I was not worthy. He gave me a place where I realized somebody cared about me regardless of what I had done. And so incarnation calls us out of our physical and our emotional comfort to meet people right where they are at.
This is how Jesus incarnated. This is how Jesus lived. One of those, um, kind of troubling sayings of Jesus in the last chapter of Mark before his ascension, the King James translates this: go into all the world and make disciples. But the original Aramaic actually says it a little bit differently. It says it this way: as you are going throughout the world, make disciples. It's not so much a command to go somewhere. It's more of a command to be something wherever we are at.
Wherever we are at, whether you are in Corcoran, Minnesota like we are, or whether you move to another community, you move to another state or like Jim and Brenda, it's very possible their daughter someday might move to Nepal because her husband is from Nepal. By the way, pray for Nepal. They just had a terrible plane crash in Nepal this morning. So we pray that none of your family is affected by that at least. It doesn't matter where you would live in the world, where you find yourself, it could be Bill in Uganda, doesn't matter where you go, but wherever you go throughout the world as you are going there, make disciples.
The challenge for us is what that actually means. Because our vision of being a disciple is just telling somebody what to do and hopefully they'll do it and then they are my disciple. But in reality, the making of disciples, it actually begins with how we live in this world, what kind of love we show, what kind of compassion we show, how much willingness we are to meet somebody right where they are at. Are we willing to be Jesus with skin on? Are we willing to do that? And if we are, that's the first step in making disciples. That's the first step. So wherever we go, just remember, you are Jesus in the flesh. You are the body of Christ. You are this incarnation of Christ who now sits at the right hand of the Father. He's the head. We are the body. And this body has to have skin on to touch people.
Unfortunately, throughout history, the church has been very, and I'm just speaking in general terms, but the church has done a very poor job at actually being Jesus with skin. We've been really good at telling people what they need to do and what rules they need to follow in order to go to heaven when they die. But we've been very lack in our ability to actually be the compassion of Jesus. And it doesn't come naturally. It doesn't to me. Like I said, I'm a fixer. I'm a problem solver. I look at people, I see the problems in their life and the first things I want to do is tell them what to do to change. And then when they don't want to listen to me, well come back when you are ready to listen.
Jacque: This week I was telling you something and you started telling me how to fix it and I said, "that's not helping."
Pastor Brian: And I thought, well why did you tell me it was broken? Don't you want it to get fixed? I don't know.
Jacque: But you do give me a lot of advice that I really appreciate.
Pastor Brian: Well, good. Good. I do know that when people will in people will open up their hearts to a relationship with the God they can't see when they experience love from you whom they can see. Let me say that one more time. People will open up their hearts to have a relationship with the God that they can't see with their natural eyes when they experience the love from you with their eyes that they can see.
So Father, I just pray that this whole idea of incarnation wouldn't just be limited to a baby in a manger. It wouldn't just be something we remember what you did 2000 years ago at your birth. But that what you actually modeled for us in that incredible event when you entered this world, that we would take on the very nature of incarnation in our lives when it comes to being your hands extended, being your feet to go, to bring the good news, to bring comfort, to bring blessing, to bring provision, to bring shelter, to bring encouragement, whatever it might be, all the things that you are, Father, that is in Jesus, that we can be those things. Help us to incarnate in the same way you did, so that we can truly bring you to someone's life because Jesus, you are living in us. Pastor Robert.
Pastor Robert: Thank you. Praise the Lord. Good teaching today. It's been a common theme. I believe the Lord is speaking today, starting with our exhortation to be. As I'm preparing for next week's message, the theme of, in theological terms, we call it the Amago Dei. We know it as the image of God, man being made in the image of God. I have a background of um, let's say spiritual warfare and you know, we, we've taught people all these combative things to do to wage war against our enemies. I remember 15/20, I was so zealous about it and fired people up, but then I got a little more mature to understand what our true weapon is. You know what that is? It's how you live your life.
If you struggle with bitterness in your heart towards people, just learn how to forgive. I'm not saying just, like it's something simple to do, but you learning to forgive is more effective than you trying to cast out a demon of unforgiveness.
I'm just teaching truth. You live your life every day in the image of God. It's the greatest weapon that we have. Who can touch you if you walk in the image of God. If you do the things of Jesus, if you walk like Jesus, what can touch you? Nothing. There is no room.
When we be who we are, then our being is our way of that living expression. I like that. The living expression that was modeled through Jesus. That's our greatest weapon against any enemy, is to walk in the image of God. I've been preaching for a long time, but I've been more effective in witnessing to people and being a vessel of conviction to them. Not by my preaching is how they watch me live my life. No, I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means. I got a long way to go, but they could see the love of Christ through the way I interacted with them. One of the things that a common thread is you didn't judge me. I hear that a lot. You didn't judge me. What does that mean? I didn't necessarily approve of everyone's behavior, but I didn't come all, thus sayth the Lord, you need to do this, you need to-- No, I showed them the way and love them. came alongside them trying to understand why do you do what you do?
There are reasons why we do what we do. That's why I'm trying to teach my children, the younger children, especially now, why did you give me the answer you gave me? That's frustrating for them because I want them to start processing. Because motivation is important for God because motivation stems from our heart. Why do we do what we do? The only way to do that is to be relational. Religious system is transactional. God's way is relational. To enter into someone's life, walk in their foots. Because you walk in someone's life doesn't mean that you approve. What it means is that you are not intimidated by the way they are the way you live because you walk in the image of God and so you are going to shadow them. That's discipleship. You shadow them to show them the way. That's what Jesus did. He said, "If you've me, you've seen the Father.
So I'm modeling the father's behavior to you. So as you walk with me, Jesus said, what? Follow me, shadow me, follow me. I'll show you the Father. And that's what we do with people. So my prayer for us today is for us to get to a place of confidence of who we are in Christ that we're not intimidated to walk alongside people, to show them the way. Lord, I thank you that you made me, that you made us in your image. And that through your son Jesus Christ, you showed me the way to you. And as I am an ambassador, as we are ambassadors here on this earth, use me. Use us to show others the way.
As we love in Christ, as we respond in Christ, as we speak in Christ, as we correct in Christ, as we comfort in Christ, let others discern the heart of the Father that comes through Jesus to mold us, that moves us from point A to point B, to not just cast something out, but to transform our hearts so that we are motivated to be like him. So Lord, we just ask for your presence to do is work in us and as you and we allow you to do your work in us. We will be able to engage, to relate, to be with others. And the end result is that you are glorified in your work in us and through us and to us in Jesus' name. Amen.
Pastor Brian: Amen. Amen. You know it's never a lost cause to love. It's never an exercise in futility to love. Because every time we love, we sow seeds that will someday, maybe we may not see it, but someday those seeds will produce fruit.
You received us today? Let's raise our hands together now. May the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. And may the Lord make his faces shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may your heart be full of love so that you will be skinned to those in need. Least we pray the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Pastor Robert and TaQuaris will be serving communion today. For those of you who want communion will also have people to pray for you at the altar if you have any prayer needs. God bless you. Thank you for you who are tuning in online. God bless you. I love you. Thanks so much for being a part of our faith community. Have a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-15-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.