Virgin Birth | 12 Lines | Pastor Derick Amsler

Let me take you through time travel. We're going to rewind and go through the Apostles Creed together. We're going to read it together. Week one, we talked about who God is. Week two, we talked about who Jesus is.

And now week three, we're going to keep talking about Jesus. Elbow the person next to you and say, I'm glad you made it to church today. Come on, let them know. Let them know. Yeah.

Are you ready? It'll be on the screen. Help me out. We're all going to say it together. One, two, three.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. Some people would call it impatience. I just call it common sense. Come on, how many of you that when you decide to do something, you just need to go for it, you know? I mean, just do it.

Just do. There are different kinds of people in the world. There are what I would call parking lot people. These are people who cannot be motivated by anything. You know, I'm talking about.

Anybody know anybody like that? If you're a parent, you know, somebody really close, probably in middle school right now, it doesn't matter the vision you cast or the consequences that you carry with it. They just can't be motivated. How many of you would say of yourself, kind of a parking lot person. Come on, you might as well be honest.

We know who you are because you're late getting in here. But come on, parking lot people. And then there's what I would call break people. These are people who want to process for about 8 to 12 business days, and they just want to think everything over to an annoyance level. They say, just tap on that break.

Tap on that break. And. But then there's people like myself, Come on, you know where I'm going with this. You are all gas, baby. Put the pedal to the metal.

Why wait for next week if we can do something about it this week? Why would we wait for tomorrow if we still have five minutes on the clock today? Why would we put something off if we can do it right now? Where's all my gas pedal people at? Yeah, yeah, I see you squealing out of here, too.

Like, we got to get the Bob Evans and said, no one ever, but shouldn't have said that. Probably have people work there.

So when I read of this creed and when I read of the foundational scripture of which it is derived, I'm a little unsettled because I feel like, don't tell Anybody. But I feel like it's a little bit of a wasted time, you know, Like Jesus, why did you have to come and be born? Like, think about all the different stages that it took for that plan to play out. We gotta wait nine months just to get them here. And then we have the stages of growth and development.

We have infancy, we have, we have toddler, we have child, we have adolescents, adolescents, adolescents. Then we have preteen, then we have teen, then we have a young adult, whatever that means. And then we have adult. By the time Jesus reaches the apex of his mission, he's 33 years of age. 33.

I'm just thinking, why do we need to wait 33 years? God, if you're gonna send your son, send him as full grown man Jesus, you know, I'm talking about full grown Old Spice, wearing white socks, showing New balance shoes, mowing the grass and straigh straight lines. Come on. Like, if you're gonna send the Redeemer, the Savior, the deliverer of all mankind, we've all already waited this long, Just send them. Let's get the show on the road.

And yet he had to come as a baby and he had to be born of a virgin. And what this has to do with our lives is more than just theological inspiration. It is for the embedderment and the transformation of how we live our lives. There's no wasted details in the Bible. The Holy Spirit, when he wrote the scriptures through mankind, is not trying to fulfill a word count.

He's not trying to come up with extra pages of fluff. So every word in the Bible, it matters, every detail, honors the glory of God and is for the benefit of those in pursuit of God. So when the Bible tells us that he was born of a virgin, conceived by the Holy Spirit, that's just not show and tell. That is for the transformation and the application of saints and sinners alike to know something about God and to know themselves. Tell the person next to you know you.

Boo. Come on, let them know. Know you know you. This portion of the creed comes from Luke, chapter 1, verse 26. An angel of the Lord appeared to Mary and said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold. Listen up. Pay attention. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Which by the way, the name Jesus literally means God saves.

And it's in the plural or the active tone. God keeps saving. So God is saving you right now. He's saving your friends and family. Right now, there is a.

There is a saving boom. Once you give your life to Jesus, you are saved from your sins, and then you are sanctified, which is the ongoing purification of our lives. Because God loves you where you are right now, but he loves you too much to leave you there. You shall call his name. God saves.

And Mary said to the angel, an honest question. How will this be? Since I am a virgin, I'm still wearing my promise ring. And the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, in light of that reality, the child to be born will be called holy.

More specifically, read it with me. The Son of Holy God. We tend to package those few verses as Christmas theology. And so we love them in December and in January, we tend to pack them up with the Christmas tree, the ornaments and the wreaths, and we kind of put them away, only to bring them back out next, next, next year. But this is not Christmas theology.

This is not just good truth for December. This is what theologians throughout centuries have professed to be SAL theology. In other words, it's your story, it's my story, and it's the story of how God intersects with a broken humanity to save us from our sins. This is salvation theology, which means that if you take this pillar of doctrinal truth out of our belief system, the entire architecture of our belief in Jesus as the Son of God, it begins to crumble. It feels like a throwaway text.

Why do you have to come as a baby? And why do we have to know about that? But if he didn't, we are still harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, and we must pay for the sins against God. Let's talk about why this matters and what this theological truth has to do with your twos. And it would look like this.

The Bible says that we were born into a system that has been cursed by sin. It wasn't God's plan. God didn't want it to be this way. In Genesis 1, God created the entire world. And when he was done, he stepped back and he said, mm, mm.

That is Campbell's soup. Good. That is good all by itself. And you know the story. The Bible says the serpent came in and tempted humanity.

And the Bible says that Eve was deceived, but Adam took willfully. He knew what he was doing. He knew it was a sin, and he did it anyway. And the Bible talks about, when Adam committed the sin, he didn't just bring a curse upon himself, he brought a curse upon the entire human race. Adam, meaning mankind.

Humanity, by the way. Our sins always affect more than us. It affects everything around us and the people around us. And so the Bible says that everyone who was born after Adam was born into Adam. Meaning we are descendants of this fallen DNA.

We have a proclivity and a bent to sin, not to pursue God. You want some proof in that? You don't have to teach your kids how to lie. They good at it all by themselves. I know you thought their dad taught them, but he didn't.

He didn't. We are born into sin, which means that we have a proclivity to be selfish. Nobody has to teach us to be selfish. Nobody has to teach us to buck responsibility and to blame, shift our decisions onto other people. It comes naturally.

We have this broken DNA within us, which means that we are not just sinners in need of a Savior. We are in a system that. That constantly draws us back into sin. That's why you'll hear people say, I'm just trying to be a good person. There's intentional effort to be good, intentional effort to pursue God.

Left to our own demise, left to ourself, we will drift from God. We don't automatically draw closer to God. What's that all about? There's something broken on the inside of us. We're born in into Adam.

When we realize that we're not measuring up to the standard of heaven or the standard of God, we start working within the system to try to find a way out of the system. Here's what we do. We will try harder. I need more New Year's resolutions. I need to be more serious.

I need to join every community group in the church. I need to serve my area. I need to pray harder. I need to worship with my more vigor. I need to shift my vocabulary from amen to amen to make me feel more spiritual.

I just gotta try harder. But you know this to be true. Trying hard is a good thing. It's just not good enough. Because the Bible says the wages, the price tag, the consequences of sin is not just a better life.

No, no. It's death. We need something outside of us to get in us, to help us do and to be that which we could never do and be left to ourself. So we try and we try and we try. And yet we find ourselves slipping and tripping on the same struggles and.

And we have a moment of failure where. What is it in me that cannot be? Come and do everything that I desire to. Even the apostle Paul, straight of a man he was. There are things that I want to do, but I can't.

And there's things that I'm trying to stop doing, but I keep doing those things. What's wrong with me? I need something greater than good intentions. And I need something better and more powerful than just white knuckling in my own strength. And I need something far greater than just New Year's resolutions or a new community group or a new job or new relationship.

I need something else. But God, I'm frustrated because why don't you just take away this desire in me to begin with? I keep praying that you'll take it away. It's not going away. I thought it was me, but now maybe it's you.

Maybe I was born this way. Maybe this is who I am. I keep failing. Which leads to the.

Next cycle is shame.

I don't even like me. I'm frustrated with God that he's not helping me get past this. I'm frustrated now. My view of God is skewed. My view of his church is skewed.

His people, myself, my family. I can't see outside of my own lens of who I believe I am. A complete failure and waste of God's property. We try it and it doesn't live up. We wrestle with shame.

And then we.

Here we go again. We repeat, because we are in Adam. We're in Adam.

A modern metaphor for this would be you can't clean a glass of muddy water with the muddy water that is inside the glass. Right. You need something outside the glass itself to get inside the water. Overpower the muddy water, relieve it of its debris to clean the water. Contamination.

Can't clean contamination. Bacteria can't clean bacteria. Sin and the system of sin. Can't clean the system of sin. We need something outside system to penetrate the system, to clean us up, to remove us from the broken DNA that we are living with and we lived into.

You follow me on this. What is the entity outside of the system? Ah, you know it already. You've been waiting to say it. 1, 2, 3.

God. God is outside the system. So if God doesn't come into our broken system, we. We are stuck inside. If God doesn't come in, we're locked in.

We needed something outside of this muddied heart, this glass of depravity and sin to come inside and rescue us. We call this the virgin birth. Let me give you five reasons why this matters. Why God, standing on the outside of our broken system, had to come in to relieve all of us who are stuck on the Inside 5 Reasons why the virgin birth and the whole Christmas story and the details that are inside matter to your Tuesday. It looks like this.

Number one. Number one, God moved first. Come on, write this down. God move first. Move first.

We think that God loved us because somehow we got good enough to break ourself outside of the system. Well, this year I had a really good year and I started being generous and I started serving the community and I started serving the widows and the poor and the orphanages over in Guatemala. Somehow I got good enough to get out of the system and therefore I impressed God. And now God delights in hearing me pray. The virgin birth tells us no, God meant God went first.

So watch this. Watch this. It's going to happen quick. It's like driving through Harper's Ferry. If you blink, you missed it.

You missed the whole town. Watch this. Ready? Boom. God came down.

God moved first. God.

While we were yet sinners, the Bible says, stuck deeply in the system of our own depravity. There. God loved us. He didn't wait till we got outside and cleaned ourselves up. The Bible says he loved us.

When we were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, we had no clue what we were doing. We were stuck deeply in the sand pit of this sin cycle and the shame loop, trying to be better, not working. Trying to be better, not working. But the wages of sin is still death. But God so much had compassion and mercy and grace upon his people.

God came down. He went first. And that's why the Bible says we love God, because God loved us. We don't love God because God loved us after we loved him while we were not loving God in a state of unloving him. God came down to save sinners, of which we are kings and queens.

The Bible says we're really good at sinning. And yet God broke through the system. What does this have to do with you? Well, it has everything to do with us. Because.

Because the pressure you feel sometimes to perform for God or to clean yourself up before you pray or before you start serving. I just got to get a few things worked out in me. Was never your burden to carry. God move first. Your salvation didn't begin with you seeking him.

Your salvation began with God seeking you. We hear things like this, well, I found God and I understand the sentiment of it. But we didn't find God. God found us. We were the one running with fig leaves on, trying to cloak and cover up our shame and our depravity because we don't like what we see.

In the mirror. But God came down to save us while we were at our worst, not when we were pursuing him at our best. Second reason why this matters to our life is this. He is. This is what theologians would call the hypostatic union.

Hypostatic union. And it means that God is 100% man and 100% God. Jesus is right here.

Jesus is 100% man, 100% God. He's not mixed. He's not half and half. He's all man, all God. Here's why this matters.

Because if you take away one side of the either side of that coin, you no longer have Jesus. He's 100% God, 100% man. John 1:14 says the word not. Not poetic language. The word here in this original language was basically the.

The reality of all things, the existence of all being, that God became flesh, all flesh, and made his dwelling among us. So watch this. If he's only human, if Jesus is only human, he's still part of the same broken system that needs saving to begin with. And a drowning man can't save a drowning man. If he was born by natural practices, Mary and Joseph, he was born then into the same system of Adam and therefore he needs saving himself.

But if he's all God and not human, he stands too distant and he's not close enough to feel the infirmities of his people so that he can stand before God on our behalf. Let me give you some Bible for this. Philippians chapter 2. Who being in the very nature God. Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant and being made and human, human likeness, the humanity he took on the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance of a man.

He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. This would have been scandalous in the ancient world. This would have caused riots in the open streets in Greece. The Greek mythologies have no problem with a God shape shifting into human form for a time being in order to manipulate them. What, they had a problem with a God that would actually become human in their mind?

Why would an all power, all potent, all wise being who's too good, too perfect, one who intentionally creates distance from humanity in order not to be associated with the weaknesses of humanity. Why would a being like that become one of us? And yet the Bible says, for God so much loved the world, he sent his one and only son, Jesus and Jesus wrapped himself. Watch this. Jesus was not a man who was enlightened to the point where God promoted him to become God.

Nor is it God just shape shifting, wearing a human costume. He is both fully God, fully man. You can't kill a God. But the wages of sin is death. So somebody has to die for our sins.

And so God became man that he might die so that he can stand in the place of all of humanity before God. That's why scripture calls Jesus Christ the second Adam before Christ. We're in Adam when we give our life to Jesus. We're in Adam because Jesus did what the first Adam never could do, live a sinless life. What else was the.

What does the virgin birth teach us for a Tuesday living is this is that God keeps his word, God keeps his promises. You know the Christmas story, this reality here actually was prophesied 700 years before the Christmas story, 700 years before the Christmas story by a guy by the name of Isaiah. You can read it this week. He prophesied that God is going to send the savior of the world and he will be born of a virgin. The virgin will give birth to a son.

He will grow into adulthood. And he would give his life for this salvation of all mankind. 700 years before Christmas, God tells humanity. I know your world looks bleak and dim and blurry right now, but hang on, I'm sending the baby. Hang on, I'm coming to town.

What does this have to do with us? Everything. Because no matter the. The depravity that you are faced with right now, the challenges you're in right now, the darkness that you're in right now, the sleepless nights you're in right now, the hopelessness, the despair, the depression, the sickness, the grief, the loss, the evil, the addiction, the wickedness, the injustice of our world. Hang on, we got a God who keeps his promises.

And the same God who fulfilled this promise seven centuries later is the same God who made another promise that says, one day I'm gonna split the sky, the angels gonna shout with the blast of a trumpet's voice. And I will descend from heaven on a cloud and I will find my saints and I will take them out world out of this broken system. And I will bring them to a place called paradise, Heaven forever to be with Jesus. Even if God doesn't answer all your prayers in this life, there's coming a day where he will respond to his own promise. He's coming to take us home.

He's coming to take us home.

God is a God who keeps his Promise.

Not only is he a promise keeping God and not only is he personal with us.

Number four. The virgin birth would teach us that God is a personal God. He's not a force, he's not an energy. We live in a world that is extremely comfortable with the idea that there's a higher power out there. We even give it different types of nicknames.

The universe, spiritual energy, divine consciousness, the big man upstairs. And you know, earlier this week I had somebody tell me that they were, they were hoping for something. So like Pastor, I don't know how to say this, but I'm just going to put it in the universe, you know, as if the universe checks its email and text messages or something. But, but I understand what they're saying. Here's the problem though.

There's a longing inside every human heart for the supernatural. We wrestle with the concept there's something greater out there. If there's a creation, there has to be a creator. There's a longing inside every heart. And I know that because the Bible says God put it there.

God put something in your spirit to question the afterlife and what else is after. And there's got to be more to life than just growing old, retiring. There's got to be something of divine purpose and meaning in this life. God put it there that we might learn and lean into its answer because in doing so we actually find the creator of our existence. God.

But God is a personal God. He's not a energy, he's not a force, he's not an abstract principle. He is a person that wants to have a relationship with us. So what did Jesus teach us about God? He said, hey, when you pray, you're not praying to the universe, oh mighty wind and nature of the trees that you.

No. He said, when you pray, pray like this. Our Father who is in heaven, awesome and most reverent is your name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. You know what that is?

It's not just family language. It's trust vibes that you can trust God with us. We talked about this in week one when we said that I believe in God the Father Almighty. It comes from Abba, Father, Daddy, God. ABBA speaks to the intimate love of God.

Father speaks to the divine responsibility and power of God. He's intimately personal, powerful enough to rescue us. He doesn't just love you from a distance. He says, bring all your stuff to me and I will give, give you rest. Rest from what?

The system that doesn't work. Number five. This is my Favorite one, what does all this have to do with us? The story of a new creation is echoed throughout the entire Bible. Matter of fact, it's a big deal.

Everybody say new, say creation. And the new creation didn't start on each other Easter morning. It actually started in a young girl's womb in Nazareth. What God was announcing in this passage when the angel came and spoke to Mary with this birth announcement, he was announcing something new has entered the world. Something is breaking the limitations of the old rules.

Something greater than the confines of earth's rules and science limitations has come breaking in and it's changing everything. If you think about it, think about it this way. The entire life of Jesus is marked by two bookends. Emptiness that is filled with the miraculous.

His story begins.

With an empty remember womb and it ends with the empty tomb. And God says, I know it blows logic and science out of the water, but that's why they call me the God of the miraculous. For nothing is impossible for me. I can fulfill what is bare and I can redeem that which died. I am a God of new creation.

We have a God who's not limited by what limits us. We have a God who's not held hostage by our own strength. We have a God who can do exceedingly, abundantly, above all our. Our mind has ever fathomed or our education has ever taught us. God is greater, God is stronger.

God is more powerful. No wonder in week one we spent time talking about he's the Almighty God. Not just a mighty God, but the Almighty, the mountain one, the unmovable one, the unshakable one. Whatever is too big for you, it's not too big for God. Says who?

The Christmas story.

But would he do it for me? He lowered himself and became human. The second Adam. So that we can get out from under the curse that Adam put us in. How then shall we live?

This week we're asking this question. We want to look at it this way. Where are you still trying to save yourself from inside the system?

Where are you trying to find redemption and peace and joy inside this. If I just tried harder, if I just did more, if I could just get them back for what they did for. No, no, it's not. Where are you still trying to save yourself? And then here's how you would unpack that question even further.

You're trying to break a cycle in your own power. You feel shame and you try to outperform it. Maybe you want to take a picture of this. This is great study for this week. You feel distant and you try to earn your way back into God's good graces.

But remember, the virgin birth teaches us our ultimate hope and healing and freedom and joy and peace and purpose in life is never from within the system. It's from without the system. No wonder the Bible says, turn your eyes onto him, the author and perfecter of your faith. After this, let's do one more. It looks like this.

When you fail, don't run from God. Run to Him. When shame shows up, don't silence it with effort. Answer it with truth. The capital T is not a misprint.

No, the truth has a name. He is the way, the truth and the life. And his name is Jesus. When shame shouts, whispered the words of Jesus back, Shame must bow a knee. When you feel the need to prove yourself, just remember, God moved first.

He's moving towards you right now. He's already in your Monday looking back on a Sunday, waiting for you to catch up to him. God is on the move and. And yet he'll never take his eye off you. He's moving for you.

He's moving towards you. And he wants to bring you to where he is. All in all, last thing, you're taking a photo over so we can apply this to our life deeply this week. Come on. This is spiritual formation.

The reason God moved first. Why does that matter? So you don't earn your way in. Spend your life trying to be good enough when you'll never be. It's all on God.

Jesus was fully God and fully man. He's close enough to understand our exhaustion, our disappointment, our betrayal. And yet he's powerful enough to save you. God keeps his word.

He promised he'll deliver. Don't lose heart. Keep your faith. Keep your hope. Keep your prayers up.

Keep your praise up. Keep your worship up. You keep coming back. You work the plan. The plan is going to work for you.

God is personal and he's not some mystical force. No, you're not praying into the universe. You're praying to a loving father who sent his son to die for you so that you can live for him. And lastly, you are a new creation. You're not a renovation.

He didn't come to improve your life. You're not an eye for upgrade. He came to transform and make new your life. From the empty womb to the empty tomb. God breaks natural laws and limitations to bust into our world, to redeem you.

You're just getting started.