Series: Celebrate Christmas Week 4: I Doubt God’s Offer.
Everybody deals with doubt, and Christmas is the celebration of God’s declaration that He is with us without a doubt. And yet, many still doubt to the point of even doubting God’s offer.
At the core of Christmas is an offer that has been made by God. And the question is, will you accept or doubt His offer?
Connect the dots… The Bible is divided up in 2 And God did this in great part to remove doubt
The big picture is God’s offer: Join me in what I’m doing. Now it’s like us to reduce it to religion, to be about God joining us in what we’re doing. Sometimes, we believe that God exists to fulfill my wishes and my wants.
But You need to see what’s really happening. Have you ever noticed that something can be right in front of your eyes and you can miss it? … Glasses
You need to See the Dots. Bertrand Russell wrote about 100 years ago: “In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment. Within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck. And of this speck, our planet is microscopic. And on this dot tiny lumps of impure carbon and water of complicated structure that crawl about for a few years until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.”
We’re more than dirt. We’re way too complicated and sophisticated to be explained by an accident. I don’t have that much faith. So, I just take the shorter path of faith. God makes sense to me. What do you believe?
In 1968, Apollo 8 went to the Moon. They didn’t land, but they did circle the moon.
There is no way you can understand meaning and purpose in life, starting with yourself. We’re too small to be the center of the universe.
God created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance and our destiny.
And you got to figure out what are you going to doubt and what are you going to believe, because God has put dots there for us to see and to connect the dots. You Need to Connect the Dots. In the beginning God reveals to us His plan. Jesus left heaven and came to Earth, and that is Merry Christmas. The impact of the dots that God placed along history so we would know that it’s just divine hand.
Jesus comes and several dots are fulfilled along the way, revealing that He is King and that a moment in time Jesus voluntarily gives His life on the cross. Jesus gave His life and became our Savior and He was buried. But then He didn’t stay in the grave. The Savior rose from the grave, and this is Jesus. And Jesus, as that dot returned to His divine glory. And then in the course of time He tells us by prophecy that He’s coming back. And there’s going to be a moment in time when He returns and restores all things to Himself. And God says the chances of any one person fulfilling even 8 of the major prophecies would be like 1 in 1 quintillion so that we would know that there’s reason to remove doubt.
And the mystery of God’s love for us looks something like this: I sin and it leads to death. For the consequences of sin is death and it separates me from God. And Jesus came, lived a perfect life. He was sinless, and because He never sinned, He never would have died. And so Jesus would have always had life but Jesus voluntarily took upon Him death on the cross and because of that He covered my sin debt so that in this equation God might offer me the gift of life. That is a stunning offer by God.
Christmas at the core is God giving us the offer and in Acts 3, the church unfolds with this amazing discovery that the dots actually connect. In Acts 3, Peter is connecting the dots together for you. In Acts 3:17 he says… Meaning you crucified Jesus, who you thought was just human but was really the son of God. He is King, He is Savior. He is resurrected from the dead. God has conquered sin and death for our sake. Acts 3:18–19.
Repent means I’m walking this direction, walking away from God and then repent is literally to do an about face turn, to turn from sin and walked toward God. And because of what Jesus did, your sins will be wiped out. You’ll be forgiven. You’ll be restored to God. That’s a pretty good Christmas present. I accepted the offer. Who wouldn’t? It’s a great offer. We can not only be stupid, but we can be stubborn.
See when Acts 3 speaks to us about “repent,” it’s talking about sin that is stupid and hearts that are stubborn. And it’s us. And you not only have to see the dots, you have to connect the dots. God’s telling a very big story, and He’s telling your story and he’s making an offer to you. Which is why the third statement is there. You need to sign on the dotted line.
In fact, in Acts 4, Peter is once again telling this message of God’s offer in Acts 4:12 he summarizes that at the core of Christmas and Easter…
You must personally repent of your sin. You must personally receive Jesus. You must personally commit to follow Him all the days of your life. And this is good news. Why? Because you don’t get a better offer.
What are you going to do with God’s offer?