Don’t be fooled! Christmas hasn’t started yet. What you’re hearing and seeing in the world is a deception!

In actuality, tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent. This is the season of preparation. And boy, do we need it.

The world (in the sense of the sin in the world and in ourselves of course) tempts you to forsake proper preparation and instead to dive right into the tumultuous stressors of the world with Christ. This way, Christmas will lose its meaning; lose its significance and this way, you will be lulled to sleep and perhaps even lose your way.

It is quite possible that in the last couple of weeks, you’ve already had ample opportunity to compromise and chances are, you’ve once again been reminded of your own sin. This is not an accident. We are in a battle and this is why our text for tomorrow says, “put on the armor of light (Romans 13:12b).”

Tomorrow we will equip you to deal with the distractions which bombard us and you will receive God’s message of how we live in light of what is coming…it is a light so bright that it already leads us — by God’s grace — to know the life of Jesus in our lives here and now.

Come and be fed; come and be blessed. The Lord’s gifts are just that: gifts. He loves you and will prove it once again tomorrow morning. Come and receive His light!

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

“Getting Ready For Christmas”

(Romans 13:11-14)

The First Sunday in Advent, December 1^st, 2013

Pastor Espinosa

 

            Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving, even though it was marred by the invasion of Black Friday when it wasn’t even Friday but still Thanksgiving. While we were in Bakersfield to see family, my wife took my niece to Walmart who had a voucher guaranteeing my niece a purchase of a high-demand item…all she had to do was interrupt her Thanksgiving between the hours of 6 and 7 pm. Traci said that the lines at the Walmart were winding through the regular aisles of the store. It was a complete madhouse. We made it back home to Lake Forest Friday evening, but on Saturday morning as I was writing this sermon, I heard a Walmart television commercial advertising its “Black Friday” sale spilling over this entire weekend. In other words, “Black Friday” extends its tentacles of commercialism both before and after Friday! In the meantime J.C. Penney came up with a jingle that replaces “Fa La La La La, La La La La,” with “Go Go Go Go Go, Shop Shop Shop Shop.” This is beyond nauseating.  Of course we’re just warming up, since tomorrow is “Cyber Monday.”

 

I try to put all of this in perspective. When I was doing my doctorate at the University of Birmingham, the program required a one-month residency for every year I was enrolled over six years, so I ended up spending a lot of time in England. Birmingham is the second largest city in England, so it’s a pretty happening place. I would do my grocery shopping at Sainsbury’s which I believe is the leading grocer in England. It’s a good grocery store with really everything you need, but I noticed a different feel in the store in comparison to our stores here in the U.S. Frankly, the difference is that our stores have an over-flowing abundance that is practically extreme. We are extraordinarily spoiled in our country.

 

My experience, however, is nothing compared to some of us who have spent time in countries suffering in poverty. In comparison to these countries, a U.S. store has more on their shelves in one of our aisles than the entire inventory in the stores of countries struggling to supply basic needs.

 

I can’t shake the image of people in the Philippines currently overjoyed just to have food to survive right now vs. the image of Americans with stuff coming out of their ears.

 

And the particular life distraction that I’ve just described is just one distraction from your walk with God among many. For example on a separate note from the stuff-craze in our materialistic society, we joke about the whole food thing. A report said that the average American will need about 4 ½ hours of cardio exercise to work off the amount of food they ate for Thanksgiving. I told myself that I would take a better approach this year, but that didn’t keep me from a slice of apple pie, a slice of pumpkin pie, and a slice of key lime pie. It is easy to laugh off certain sins, but gluttony is a real problem. So there are two distractions that I’ve now listed, but there are many more.

 

The one I mention now comes from your pastor who is a huge sports enthusiast: I was reminded that Thanksgiving was an amazing opportunity to foster precious relationships. You know, regardless of how you feel about your extended family, these are people that God has put into your life. He has done so for a reason. We can choose how we will treat these relationships. In many cases, you are God’s chosen instrument for sharing the Gospel with the members of your family. But – while we have these golden opportunities set before us – what so often happens is that our huge, loud, and impressive “entertainment” systems can completely swallow up the atmosphere. On Thursday, the Oakland vs. Dallas NFL game was a game of interest for me, on Friday, the Lakers-Pistons NBA game was a game of interest for me, and yesterday, the UCLA-USC NCAA football game was a game of interest for me, but what are these in comparison to the relationships? Last Thursday, I spoke to one dear family member about what is important and what lasts in life, a conversation that led us to the one thing needful: the Lord; last Friday, I reminded a dear family member that Jesus is her key to heaven…these moments were worth more than the sum total of sports I could ever watch in my entire life.

 

But these are just three distractions, just three. This is also the season for drink. Even those of us who do not drink much at all, it is so easy to find ourselves at parties where social drinking is as easy as chips and dip. But alcohol quickly takes on a life of its own. At one of the conversations last Thursday, I shared with family members gathered that the wine we shared at that table was complementary to the four uses either described or prescribed in Holy Scripture: the Word of God either permits or directs the use of alcohol for 1) medicinal purposes; 2) to help the bereaved; 3) to celebrate; and 4) the Lord’s Supper. As we drank wine, both my brother Larry and sister Susan added the good addendum: “but in moderation,” to which I replied, “Amen.”

 

But how easy is it for us to slip and go too far? Even the strongest Christian never matures past the possibility of falling on account of drinking too much. The strongest Christian has the ability to get carried away, drink too much, and then do or say something they will later regret. It has happened among Christians in the body of Christ and it can easily happen again.

 

Why I am taking this real-life inventory? Because the combined distractions are formidable in threatening to completely erase from our view what is really important: living in faith, hope and love. And what is perhaps the most serious distraction is one I haven’t even mentioned yet: the holiday’s are a time of stress. In my 22 years in pastoral ministry, I know this seasonal dynamic like the back of my hand: family conflicts are heightened, financial burdens are magnified, personal struggles with depression are easily aggravated, time-management is tested to the limits. That is – unfortunately – the season of “peace on earth” through our Savior Christ is often morphed into the season of anxiety and stress. This is the season for blow-ups and blow-outs and I’m no longer talking about big sales in the stores.

 

Put all of these distractions together and now we know why Saint Paul addresses the Christians in Rome this way (of course we have to make adjustments for cultural evolutions), but the words are quite applicable to us as well:

 

Romans 13:11a: “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.”

 

This is not an admonition for unbelievers to come to faith. No, again, Saint Paul is writing to Christians. These people are already converted, these people know that their sins are forgiven and they know that they have eternal life in Christ. At the same time, they are encumbered by serious worldly distractions. Our distractions are capable of lulling us to sleep. Obviously, this sleep is metaphorical and Saint Paul does not mean actual sleep. This is the symbolic “sleep” of getting so distracted by the world that your faith seems to get lost in a maze. In the face of the world’s distractions, your faith can seem to disappear as if it were sleeping. The priorities of the faith can easily take a back-seat to the priorities of the world. And if our faith falls asleep on account of these, then we become “lukewarm” Christians who are in danger of losing our relationship with the Lord!

 

This is the sin being revealed in today’s epistle. Take it to heart Christian. Think about it: how does materialism, food, entertainment, drink, and stress impact your faith? How often do these things — and the many other distractions of this world described as “the night” in verse 12 — make you so tired, so busy, so encumbered that frankly, it’s easy to feel like you’ve run out of time and energy for prayer, for worship, for serving others who are less fortunate, for taking the time necessary to apply forgiveness to that relationship, and/or for taking the time necessary to share the Gospel? From the perspective of sin, the evil influences in the world, and the devil, these distractions are designed to make you ineffective in your faith so that you will sink into despair and not only be of no good to others, but even be an instrument of pain and further distraction to others. These are the things of “the night” that Saint Paul is warning us about and it’s as real as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but unfortunately these things of “the night” pervade all seven days of the week, all year round; and these things wind up and down souls far worse than the winding lines in Walmart.

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor Espinosa