Lathem Postell: Well, good morning. Sam Jones Methodist Church. It's so good to be here with you this morning. I was given stage direction as I walked on. I hope I am I standing in the right spot?
No. No? Other side I gotta stand all over here? Well, I do like it on this side of me. I I That didn't make it Okay.
Alright. So this is where I need to stand? Okay. You wanna look at me, I guess? I mean, it's That's fine.
That's fine. I'll try to I was planning to run around this morning. I guess I won't do that today. I'll just I'll stay right here. Good to see you.
As always, good to be in worship. I do wanna share just a couple things before we get started. First, I didn't have Lane share it, but I want you to know, we're going to be, celebrating his ministry, as as you all know by now. His season with us here at Sam Jones is coming to a close at the end of this year, as he accepts the role and position of going to camp Lee in Anniston, Alabama to be their new camp director. I think, realized that the first service, if he had made it to January 1st, would be 12 years here with us.
Hard to believe I said it at our admin council. You know, Lane's been such a big part of our church. He helped raise many of your kids. Some of you in this room, he was your youth director. And so you know the impact that he's made on on not just this church, but this community and the world.
And so we want to celebrate that. We're gonna do that on December 22nd. So after the 11 o'clock service, we'll have a reception for him. We hope that you'll come and and be a part of that to celebrate him. We'll have a basket, so if you want to bring some cards or, some gifts for him to show your appreciation, that would certainly be welcome.
We won't have lunch, so just drop in. We'll have just a few refreshments, but come and and thank him for his time of service here. That does just bring up one thing I want this service to know. You've maybe seen it in the bulletin and in other places. We are when preschool is out, we are going to be doing some renovations on this floor of the building.
So 1st floor of the Family Life Center, starting on 18th, you will not be able to get in here. You're gonna come and do some new flooring, do some painting, do some renovations. We won't have it all done when preschool comes back. We'll have the construction part done. We'll still be doing some decorating and things like that.
But that's the time that we've got, and we got to work with it. So what that means is we will not have service in here on the 22nd. We hope that you'll come and participate in Music Sunday across the street. That also means that Christmas Eve service will not be in here. We're gonna do the 23rd, which is our Christmas Eve eve.
At 7 o'clock, it's going to be in the sanctuary, and it's going to be a modern service. So, Alex will be there. We'll have some guitars. We'll have some singing. It'll be, a really, I think, a cool and beautiful service to do that, in the sanctuary.
And and then potentially on 5th, we may not be in here as well, depending on construction, but we'll we'll let you know that. So just wanted you to have all of that in front of you. That should be in the bulletin. It reflects that in our Christmas Eve worship times. Look at the location, and it'll tell you where it's at.
Everything this year is going to be in the sanctuary. We hope that you'll come and be a part of that. And then after the 1st of the year, we'll get to see all of the wonderful new flooring and paint, that that comes with that. So we're we're looking forward to that. Last thing, and then we'll finally get into it.
I promise. I am so excited about next year. I don't want to look past this, but I'm excited for next year. If you saw on the cover letter, hopefully, you saw my note about our resource for next year. I told you a couple months or a couple weeks ago that I really feel God is calling us as a church to read through the Bible together in 2025.
He's laid that on my heart and I'm excited for that for us. The resource we're going to be using is called the Bible Recap. Some of you are familiar with that. Some of you have used that before. You know how good of a resource it is.
That's going to be, kind of the second part. Right? We're going to talk every week on Sundays about the Bible, and then, you're going to have your own reading plan, and the Bible recap will be our plan. So just wanted you to have that in case you don't have the resource and you want to buy it. If if you don't want to buy it, understand, it's about $30.
So if you don't want to do that, you can still participate. I think I see them in the back on the tables. We went ahead and printed the entire reading plan for you. The resource is great because every day it has a recap and an explanation. Sometimes you read it and you go, what did I just read?
You know, it's got a little bit there to help unpack that for you. So if you want to buy it, I think it's a great investment. But if you just can't or or don't want to, the plans are in the back. You can still follow along every day. That's my way of saying, you have no excuse.
It wasn't because you couldn't buy the book. You can still participate. And and I even say this out loud, if you don't have a bible, come find me. Don't let that be an excuse either. I'll be happy to get you one.
So I'm excited for 2025, and and hope that you'll join us in that journey. But this Advent season, again, I don't want us to look past this. Christmas is important. We're we're talking about, he shall be called. A great version of that from the band, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, with that tag there at the end.
It was beautiful. Right? We're we're talking about, he shall be called. Names matter. They're important.
And we know this instinctively. Right? I don't have to tell you that. There's a reason we think long and hard about the names that we give our children. It's because the name we give them matters.
It says something about them or about our values. It's why if if we're watching a movie, you know the old trope, right, where you've got the big henchman guy that's a part of the villain's team, and they nickname him tiny. Right? We always laugh at that scene. It chuckles.
It's a common trope in movies. Because because it's funny that the big guy is not tiny, because names tell us something about someone. And so I think in this season of Advent, as we prepare our hearts and we prepare our minds to receive Jesus, we need to pay attention to his names. If we're gonna understand who this child is that we're worshiping, well then we need to understand who he is, and there's no better way to do that than to understand the names he's been given. In Isaiah, it gives us four names.
Four names during the season of Advent. The the promised child will be called. And so I want to read you these. I got another scripture in a moment. But I want you to hear again, and we'll read these every week in Advent.
But I want you to hear the names of Jesus. Here's what the prophet says starting in verse 6. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
If you wanna know Jesus, you gotta know him by these names. Last week, we talked about Jesus as our wonderful counselor. That Jesus is the one in our life who helps us see what is true and what is not. But this week, I want us to think about what does it mean for us to know and understand Jesus as our mighty God. To do that, I want to read our second scripture for us.
So if you still have your Bibles with you, it'll be on the screen behind me. We're gonna go a little bit earlier than where we read. We're gonna go to 1st Chronicles, chapter 29, reading verses 10 through 13. Join me this morning as we hear this Word of God, which tells us this. David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom. You are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you. You are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name. Will you pray with me? Loving and gracious God, Lord, it is from you that all things flow. Lord, you are glorified and majestic.
You are in all splendor. And so, Lord, as we bathe in your presence this morning, as we worship you, we ask that you draw us nearer to your heart. Speak to us your story of life and of grace that we might come to see you, maybe for the first time, as our mighty God. For it's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen.
There are not many more things in life more wonderful or beautiful than holding a newborn child. There's something so innocent. Right? If you've had a chance to do that, whether it was yours, a friend's, a relative's, there's something just innocent and pure about a new child. It's almost as if they've been untainted.
Right? You see them, in them at least, some of the best of who we are as people. They they haven't lived and been jaded by life. They haven't had time to to give into the sinful nature in the world. Right?
They're they're simple. Their their desires, their wants, their needs are are simple. There's something beautiful about that. Right? We we have all these things we worry about.
I'm chief among them. Right? We worry about all of these things that that just really don't matter. They matter to us, but at the end of the day, you know, what's the old phrase, right, if it's not gonna matter 10 years from now, why are you worrying about it? We worry about a lot of those things.
But a baby, you look at them and all they care about is, has ever been fed? Am I sleeping? Has my diaper been changed? Right? All of these important things, that's all they care about.
And and so there's lots of words, I think, if if we had a newborn infant here, or if you've done that recently, a lot of ways that we would describe that child or describe that moment of holding them. Right? We would describe that child as as beautiful, or as sweet, or cuddly. You name it. Right?
There's plenty of other words we could use there. And if we went through the list and and used every word that we could think of to describe a baby, a newborn infant, I think near the bottom of that list would be the word, mighty. Now, we don't look at a newborn infant and think, mighty. But Isaiah tells us, that is the child who has promised that he will come, and he will be the mighty God. Now don't get me wrong, there can be scary parts of holding a newborn child.
Right? It's a little terrifying to hold this little person in your hands and know that their life is in yours. They're they're they're fragile, and it's so it can be nerve wracking. It can be a little scary. But we don't say it's scary because we're afraid of the child.
Right? Mighty is not a word we would use to define a baby, but Isaiah does. That this child who was promised that would be born of a virgin will be the mighty God. Remember again, briefly, the context of this story. If you weren't here with us last week, I'll give you the synopsis of of what's leading up to where we get these words of the prophet in in chapter 9.
So quickly, right? King Ahaz and the Israelites are surrounded by 2 armies. They're preparing to go to war, a war that most likely they will lose. And and so Ahaz is afraid. He knows that his people haven't been very faithful to God.
And and he knows that even himself, he hasn't been very faithful to God either. So so he's fearful because he's got the armies, but even more so because he's afraid that God has left them. So God sends Isaiah, He sends the prophet to to give him a good word, to remind him of his presence, to tell him that he's not abandoned his people. And and in doing that, He gives Isaiah, He says, tell him there's going to be a sign that a child will be born, a child will be promised who will be called mighty God. What what does it mean for us then that this infant, this newborn will be the one who will be described as mighty?
Now, to be clear, right, we're talking about Jesus in in the manger in Christmas. There's plenty of stories about Jesus being mighty. We don't have to read far in the Gospels to find those. Mark chapter 4, you're probably familiar with the story. Jesus and the disciples are out on the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus is asleep in the boat, when all of a sudden, the storm swells up. Wind and rain, the disciples are scared, so they go and wake up Jesus. Jesus, help us. Jesus, help us. He's not afraid, and simply rebukes the wind and the waves, and the storm dies down.
Disciples ask, who who can command the wind and the waves? Well, the mighty God can. In Matthew chapter 14, we see another display, another famous story of Jesus. They're gathered, Jesus is is preaching to the people. Thousands of people have gathered there.
5000 men, it tells us, so there's certainly more there. The people are gathered and, as can happen, the preaching gets a little long. Right? Never happens here, of course. But but Jesus is telling a good word.
Right? He's preaching. And it's getting close to getting time to eat. And the disciples come and they're a little worried and they say, Jesus, these folks are getting hungry. We don't have enough food.
We we gotta send them away. They gotta go back in the village so that they can eat. But Jesus doesn't do that. He says, bring me what we have. He gets 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, and what does he do except he feeds everyone there to abundance.
And there's so much food left over that they fill 12 basketfuls of the leftovers. Who does that except the mighty God? But Isaiah tells us that it will be the child who is born of a virgin, Not him when he gets older, but it will be the child in which we see the promise of God as mighty. How is that possible? Well, it seems to me like John anticipates this question.
He anticipates people wondering about this Jesus. Right? How could the mighty God be the 1 born in a manger? I love the Gospel of John for lots of reasons. I've told you that before.
It's probably my favorite book in the Bible. And one of the reasons I love it maybe the biggest reason is how John chooses to start it. We read this every year. I hope you read it every Christmas time. We do here in service.
But I want you to hear how John chooses to start his gospel. Right? Here's the story of Jesus. Here's what he wants you to know first. He says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
There's no coincidence that John starts his gospel with the same words that Genesis starts with. There's no coincidence that that rather than telling the the birth story of Jesus, that's how Mark and Luke start. Right? Luke chapter 2, we know that wonderful story where we get the birth narrative of Jesus. It's kind of the best telling of that.
Right? John doesn't start with that. John starts with, in the beginning. In the beginning, he wants you to remember that Genesis says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And here, he's saying something very similar.
In the beginning was the Word. That's how he's describing Jesus, and he does that throughout the chapter. In the beginning, John is screaming at you with 3 words to say, do not look past this child. Don't just wait till he grows up. This is the one who was promised.
He's not gonna grow into it. No. The very one who was born in a manger Right. I mean, that song, The Labor of Love, just so beautiful. Imagining that moment.
Right? The child that was there, born to Mary. That that this is who we've been waiting for. And this child is the one who was there at the very beginning. As God spoke, this is the word by which light and dark
Lathem Postell: came to exist. He was
Lathem Postell: with God and was God. All of this he's saying, right? He's saying, look. And if this child if Jesus is the word, if he was there at the beginning, well then, really, he's been there the whole time. He doesn't just want you to see Jesus back in Genesis chapter 1.
He wants you to see Jesus and everyone along the way. In the beginning, well, if he was there, well, then he was there with Moses. Moses is a great guy, a great person to read about in scripture. But do you really think he had power to part the Red Sea? No.
Jesus was there. The Word was there. Remember the story of Daniel in the lion's den? You think he just fought off the lions? No.
Jesus was there. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, right? Were they lucky? No. Jesus was there.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. John is screaming at you. Don't let the child fool you. Don't get lost in the wrapping paper. This is the mighty God.
You don't have to wait to praise Him. No. He is worthy of praise this very moment. And I think King David even recognized this if we go back to that passage of scripture from first Chronicles. He knew that the Lord, the God Almighty, he was the one truly, the one that we would come to know as Jesus was the one worthy of praise.
Here in chapter 29, you might have noticed if you had your bible, it's towards the end of this. And so, of that book, David's preparing for life after him. He's preparing his son, Solomon, to take over the kingdom. He's he's helping the people come to get to the place where they can survive without him as king. And so what are they doing?
They've got this great plan to glorify God to the building of a temple. And and so David does everything he can to get that ready. He he's done his offering, which means he's paid a lot of money. He's brought in the finest metals. He's brought in the world's best stone.
The Israelites have joined them in that. It says, they've been faithful to give as well. The people are are here. And this moment is almost a pinnacle for David. Who among the Israelites could boast like he could have?
Or think about their history. Never have they been united. They are under his reign. They're preparing to build the temple. They have probably more wealth in Jerusalem than at any other time in their history.
He's been king for decades. Would we have faulted him if he had taken just a minute to reflect on how good things are going? How good he's been, to heap some praise on himself. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he does the opposite.
Do you notice what he said in verse 11? It it just, blows my mind that a king would say this. Right? Nobody's above a king. He has full authority, full power over his people.
This is what he says in verse 11, simple words. Yours, God, Yours is the kingdom. Just before that, he says, yours is the greatness and the power. You are the mighty God. 1000 years later, we see that Jesus is the mighty God.
And what if I told you that it's in fact, in that very manger, that God's power is on full display. Power, but what if I told you that that that it was there in that little town being born to to marry that labor of love, right? What if it was there that God showed us his power most clearly? Think about it this way. A prized fighter who needs to fight people that are weak really doesn't have any power.
I wrote this before yesterday, so I'm just gonna read it. It's not me advocating for any team. Says, a football team that has to beat up on teams below their station is not a champion. Right? That's not me advocating for anybody being in the college football playoff.
That's just I just wrote that down. But the list goes on. Right? The the image still applies. If you think you're strong, well then you'll fight strong people.
So look to the manger. Who is the mightiest except the one who's able to take on the vulnerable form of an infant? Take it a step further. Who is the mightiest except the one who is able and willing to go to the cross? That's what our mighty God did.
That's what Jesus did. He took on our form. He became a child, an infant, the world's most vulnerable thing. He allowed himself to be crucified. All of these things he did, and yet death still could not beat him.
That's the mighty God. 3 days later, after going to the cross, right, he was raised from the dead. 40 days later, he ascended into heaven, a sign and a strength of his. Yes. You see, Jesus was so mighty that he could be born as a lowly infant.
Jesus was so mighty that he could die and yet still win. You see, it's in these sacrificial acts that Jesus truly shows his might. Now, don't confuse things this Christmas. Right? It's so easiest for us to look at humility and sacrifice and to see it as weakness.
No. No. No. Jesus redefines those for us. No.
You see, it's through humility and through sacrifice that might is on display. For it wasn't a great warrior that was born. It wasn't a mighty general. No. It was an infant, who we would come to know as the mighty God.
And so my prayer for you this Christmas is twofold. As we come to prepare for Jesus, as we, hopefully, come to know him, here are my two prayers for you. First, my prayer for you is that you begin to adopt the mindset of Jesus. That's Paul's prayer for the church in Philippians chapter 2, that we would adopt the mind of Christ. Humbled himself by becoming one of us so that we might be saved, that just as Jesus sacrificed, we might become people of sacrifice.
You see, by being born there in Bethlehem, Jesus redefined for us what it looks like to be people of might. He describes it for us. He says, people of might, who are are people who make the first last and the last first. People of might are are those who, when someone asks you for the coat on your back, you give them your shirt as well. If you want to be a person of Jesus, if you want to adopt the mindset of Christ, well then you have to put others first.
That's how we see the mighty God. That's what he's called you to do. The world will try to convince us that that power and might look like one thing, that you gotta be the strongest person in the room, you gotta have the most resources, You're gonna be the biggest and the baddest. Right? Jesus says, no.
The mighty God was the infant in the manger. That's my first prayer for you is that you'll adopt the mindset of Jesus. And my second one is this, it's simple, that you'll actually truly come to know that baby as your mighty God. David had it right. He knew the truth long before Jesus arrived on the scene.
He knew that that little child in Bethlehem would have it all. And he did. Glory, majesty, splendor, power, all of these things that David describes. He was exalted above all. There are not enough words to describe the glory and majesty of our God, but he gave it all up.
He gave up his throne for a manger, His royal robes for cloth. He gave up his palace for a trough. He did all of that for you. There's a lot of ways that we can see Jesus is mighty. Right.
Go read the gospels story after story. But the thing that makes Jesus the most mighty, if that's grammatically correct, the thing that makes Jesus the mighty God is His desire to save you, to save you from yourself, to save you from Satan, from sin, from evil. Whatever it is in your life that's binding you today, that's what makes Him mighty. That's what makes him the mighty God. That's what makes him worthy of our worship.
Friends, he left it all. So look no further this Christmas than the manger. He's mighty because he came. We should follow because he can't because he came to us first. The beauty is, you didn't have to go looking.
He came looking for you. He took the risk. The one who created time entered into it. I love the wording in in that song we sang, Labor of Love. Right?
The one who was in the womb created the moon. And can you imagine that? That is the mighty God. The one who created the moon took on the the fragile form of an infant for you. That's what makes him mighty.
Let us be people this Christmas who serve the mighty God, who who change our mindset of what that even means, and begin to live like him. Let us pray. Loving and gracious God, Lord, your scripture tells us that you are the mighty god. It's not a tile that that you became, Lord. It's a title you've always had.
Lord, in the beginning, you were the mighty God. On the banks of the Red Sea, you were the mighty God. In the lion's den, you were the mighty God. In the fiery furnace, you were the mighty God, and there in Bethlehem, you were our mighty God. Through your birth, you redefined for us what it means to have power.
You showed us that those who are truly ston strong are those who are humble, who sacrifice themselves, who are willing to give of themselves for others. You did it best when you stepped down from your throne and came to be born in a manger. Lord, we thank you. We thank you that you are a mighty God. We thank you that you have come to save us, And so, Lord, our our prayer is, as I said earlier, we ask, oh, Lord, that you change our hearts and our minds.
As Paul prayed in Philippians chapter 2, give us the mindset of Jesus. It's not easy, Lord. If it was, we wouldn't have to preach about it. It's not easy to give of ourselves, to to sacrifice, to place others, ahead of us, but Lord, we're called to it because you did it first. Help us, oh God, to to be people who follow you, and Lord, for some of us, it may be the first time we've ever heard of you as mighty God.
Lord, some of us, we we we've never proclaimed you as Lord of our life. You came to be born in the form of an infant. That you
Lathem Postell: died on the cross, and yet, despite all
Lathem Postell: of that death, could not defeat you. Lord, and so our prayer this morning brother, we've prayed it before and never prayed it. Lord, we pray that you become our mighty God. That you enter our hearts and our lives. That you change us from the inside out.
That you save us, Lord. Lord, save us. Save us, God. From all that binds us, all that harms us. Lord, from the evil one, save us.
From our sins, save us. From ourselves, save us. We need you, God. And you are certainly mighty to save. Lord, we thank you.
Pray all this in the name of your son, Jesus, our mighty God. Amen. Amen. As we close our time of worship, I'll remind you that the altar is open. If you want to come and and pray with the mighty God, ask Him to be your savior, please come and do that.
But let us all stand together and worship, and be reminded that He is mighty to save.