Community Baptist Church
Sunday, December 28

      • Genesis 1–2HCSB

      • Psalm 8HCSB

      • Psalm 104HCSB

      • John 1:1–3HCSB

      • Genesis 3–5HCSB

      • Genesis 6–7HCSB

      • Isaiah 61:11HCSB

      • Psalm 147:3–5HCSB

  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  • Angels We Have Heard on High
  • O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)

      • Galatians 4:4–7HCSB

  • Shine Jesus Shine
  • Emmanuel soundtrack

      • John 1:1–18HCSB

  • Advent, which officially ended on Christmas Day as the world celebrated the arrival of Jesus Christ, the babe born in Bethlehem, announced by angels, witnessed by shepherds. The season of Advent is a reminder of His first coming and His promised return. There is a third component of Advent that is often overlooked: the in-dwelling of God within us, the announcement made by Jesus that though He was leaving His disciples, He would ask the Father and He would give them the ‘Spirit of truth’ (John 14: 16).
    The celebration of Christ’s birth is not the beginning of the story God is writing in and through our lives. His ultimate return is not the end, but merely a transition to a new way of living in the unhindered presence of God!
    John opens his telling of the story God is writing differently than Matthew, Mark or Luke. John calls his audience to the very beginning of the Advent story:
    John 1:1–3 HCSB
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.
    By recalling the opening words of the beginning account of God’s story from Genesis 1:1 we are reminded :
    a. God pre-exists His creation. Before there was anything, there was God. And the Word, whom we learn is Jesus, was with God - in the beginning. The first word of the Hebrew text of Genesis = beginning. The word has many uses in the OT. In the context of Genesis and John’s use of the phrase we are called to recognize that there is a specific point in time when God started His creative activity.
    b). The Word was ‘with’God and the ‘Word’ was God. The original language is clear. The Word, whom we know as Jesus - the One whose birth culminates our Advent celebrations - was not only present with God, He is God. All that can be said of Jesus can be said of God. All that can be said of God can be said of Jesus.
    c). All that exists is due to the activity of God - the Word - and as we learn in Genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God.
    The story God is writing with our lives begins at a specific point in time.
    The first creative act of God:
    Genesis 1:3 HCSB
    Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
    John points to God’s first act oof creation as being the very source of life. We know that life was we experience it could not exist apart from an external source of light.
    John is pointing to a significant truth easily missed:
    John, 1 John, 2 John, & 3 John The Essence of the Word (1:1–5)

    In the original creation, he gave physical life and light to all beings, but now he has also made spiritual life available to all. The Word breathed the breath of “life” into Adam; now as the last Adam (

    Our life story begins at the moment of physical conception. The real story of our life begins at the moment of conversion. When we place our faith in what God has done for us in and through Jesus we are granted new life.
    Later in John’s gospel Jesus will tell Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin:
    John 3:3–5 HCSB
    Jesus replied, “I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “But how can anyone be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked Him. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus answered, “I assure you: Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
    John 1:6–8 HCSB
    There was a man named John who was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light.
    John points to a brief interlude between the birth of Jesus, recorded in Matthew and Luke, when a man named John, nicknamed ‘the Baptist’ pointed to the advent of Jesus.
    John 1:9–13 HCSB
    The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through Him, yet the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of God.
    Just as in the beginning recorded in Genesis, God’s creative activity is overlooked, forgotten, and often rejected.
    Adam and Eve chose to disobey - causing God to expel them out of His Garden;
    Their first generation of children evidenced the failure of their parents as Cain murders Abel;
    After a succession of generations God pronounces judgment:
    Genesis 6:5–8 HCSB
    When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” Noah, however, found favor in the sight of the Lord.
    Through Noah God’s story does continue -
    Genesis 9:1 HCSB
    God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
    John picks up God’s story after multiple generations when whe notes
    John 1:14 HCSB
    The Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
    The Word, who was with God, who was God, though rejected by those who should have recognized Him came to ‘dwell among us.’
    So the story continues.
    Just as many prefer to skip from Christmas to Easter, and then to the return of Jesus, we need to pause in this phase of the story God is writing.
    This Word who was with God, who is God dwelt, made His home among us.
    The story God is writing is punctuated with remarkable revelations of His appearance. When Moses completed the tabernacle in the wilderness, we read
    Exodus 40:34–38 HCSB
    The cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was unable to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud rested on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. The Israelites set out whenever the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle throughout all the stages of their journey. If the cloud was not taken up, they did not set out until the day it was taken up. For the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and there was a fire inside the cloud by night, visible to the entire house of Israel throughout all the stages of their journey.
    Generations later when God’s people completed the Temple we read:
    2 Chronicles 7:1–3 HCSB
    When Solomon finished praying, fire descended from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests were not able to enter the Lord’s temple because the glory of the Lord filled the temple of the Lord. All the Israelites were watching when the fire descended and the glory of the Lord came on the temple. They bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground. They worshiped and praised the Lord: For He is good, for His faithful love endures forever.
    Now, generations later John describes the event we call Advent in similar terms - God taking up residence among us.

    The Middle Strand of Advent

    As Jesus prepared for His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father He gathered His closest followers and explained to them:
    John 14:15–18 HCSB
    “If you love Me, you will keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive Him because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. But you do know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.
    The story of God continues even as the disciples watched Jesus die. The story continues as those gathered at the cross watch through grief stricken eyes as Jesus’ lifeless body is placed in a borrowed tomb.
    On Sunday, following the Sabbath, some women went to finish preparing the body for a more proper burial, instead of a body they saw and heard angels proclaiming: HE is not here! Why do you seek the living among the dead?

    REFLECT AND RESPOND

    God’s story is not done. There have been long, dark periods where the story seems to have disappeared beneath the weight of sin, the burden of an ever-increasing darkness.
    As we wait for the final Advent - the return of Jesus which He promised His first followers and continues to remind us of - we are participants in the advent of the Holy Spirit!
    As Christmas celebrations give way to acknowledging a new year, we remember:
    GOD’S NOT FINISHED!
    He is still writing His story!
    You are invited to be part of His story!
    By trusting Jesus as Savior and Lord, by receiving His Holy Spirit, God is continuing His story!
    Our circumstances are the tools God is using!
    Will you participate in the unending story God is writing?

      • John 1:1–3HCSB

      • Genesis 1:3HCSB

      • John 3:3–5HCSB

      • John 1:6–8HCSB

      • John 1:9–13HCSB

      • Genesis 6:5–8HCSB

      • Genesis 9:1HCSB

      • John 1:14HCSB

      • Exodus 40:34–38HCSB

      • 2 Chronicles 7:1–3HCSB

      • John 14:15–18HCSB

  • Go Tell It On The Mountain

      • John 14:16–17HCSB

Community Baptist Church
sschenewerk@gmail.com
5416799569
http://www.winstoncommunitybaptist.com
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