Audio: iTunes | Spotify | Download

“When they had finished everything according to the Law of the LORD, they returned to Galilee, to their city, Nazareth.”

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: There are many demands placed on us from without and within!)

What sort of expectations, demands, and pressures are you under? So, many we can’t avoid! There’s everything we’ve got to do on the farm or at work or for school. Family also demands our time and attention. Then there’s our personal expectations and standards for ourselves. Can’t seem to avoid any of those things…

Then there’s everything we could avoid but choose not to. So much we add to our plates! Sports and hobbies and all the things we suddenly “have to do.” But why?

There’s the pressure of performance, of “doing something.” Our daily lives are driven by a world that dumps its demands upon us. Our culture and society and even how we view the world is based upon what’s practical or pragmatic. Our value system is driven by productivity and performance. Decisions are made not by asking “is this good” but “will it work?”

Because of this, our world is all about pleasure, driven by the desire for another dopamine hit! Doped up on our phones or sports or shows or sex or food or drinking, our flesh rides high! The demands of our hearts know no bounds! Driven by our desires, the tail wags the dog! What we buy, eat, drink, or watch controls our pocket books, warps our expectations, and even rewires our brains! Not to mention we’re also driven by what others have and do. Other people, other kids have it, do it… We subject ourselves and our children to the downward spiral…

(4. Ugh!: There are the demands God has for us, too!)

That’s some “fundamental principles of the world” (στοιχεῖα κόσμου), as Paul puts it. Worldly principles driven by worldly pressures brought about by our own desires or the desires the devil and world want you to have. Childish! “Sin and death” making their demands in our flesh and heart, waging war against the Spirit and God’s actual Law!

God has demands for us, too! Religious traditions aren’t God’s demands. Sadly, those “commandments of men” often have more weight in what many think being Christian is all about… No, I’m talking about God’s actual Law. “God’s Law that’s written on our hearts.” (Rom 2) But that’s just more “fundamental principles of the world” (στοιχεῖα κόσμου). The good principles are just shadows of what God writes down at Sinai.

God’s actual Commandments and His Word get ignored and avoided. Christians-in-name-only take more pride in Commandments on courthouses rather than in their daily lives. Many govern their lives only by cracked reflections of just Commandments 4–7, ignoring the Commandments for the sins we like… Commandments 1–3 don’t matter much at all?! Sadly, for many Christians, most church life is just “what we’ve ‘always’ done” or—worse!—“what the pastor, previous or otherwise, has said.” Is it even Christian when faith and life aren’t governed only by God’s Word?

And as far as His Law’s concerned, the Lord doesn’t demand 110%! He demands 100%. We can’t give 110% let alone 100%. In fact, the 10 Commandments are just the bare minimum, and we can’t even do that! 

Every time we say “yeah I know” to God’s Word without following through, every time our opinion holds sway and final say instead of God’s Word changing our opinion to His Truth, it shows how much our own hearts are often full of rocks and are half-dead—or worse! “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2) What works does faith do? See ALL 10 Commandments.

How great your need for God to continually answer our payer (“Create in me a clean heart,” Ps 51), To “give you a new heart, and a new spirit [to] put within you…[to] remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh!” (Ezek 36) God’s Word will actually do it! For it’s like a hammer that breaks rocks (Jer 23). It also gives life, like seed to fields (Is 55). God’s Word, Preaching, and Christ’s Body and Blood are more important to actually being a Christian than chemo to a cancer survivor… The very reason for the 3rd Commandment, which is supposedly optional for many…

(3. Aha!: For this reason Jesus is born—both of woman and under the Law.)

No, we can’t actually satisfy any of God’s demands. He doesn’t chuck the Law or give up on us to “being good people,” “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son” (Rom 8:3) “born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who are under the law.” “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. (Gal 3:13)”

Since we are flesh and blood, **“He also partook of the same things, to destroy, through death, the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Heb 2:14–15)**

(2. Whee!: JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.)

Jesus is delivering and redeeming today! Jesus born, Jesus brought to temple is Jesus doing that FOR YOU! For,

JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

Today, Jesus “finished everything according to the Law of the Lord.” He was circumcised according to the Law, shedding His first drops of blood for you. Everything written in the Law of Moses, Jesus did. Everything custom, every religious rubric, every just decree, moral commandment, righteous judgment, He did. All for your benefit!

JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

The Law demands completion or death, and so Jesus actively obeyed the Law and passively suffered the punishment of the Law. “He bore our own sins in His body on the tree, by His wounds you have been healed, (1 Pet 2)” forgiven, redeemed. With the death of God’s Son placed in the balance, you are redeemed!

JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

He redeemed you from the demands that come from the desires of your flesh. His sinless flesh kept “the law of sin and death” at bay. He endured every temptation, being tempted just like you, yet without sin (Heb 4). Sinless in His flesh, but never sinning Himself, He claimed your sinfulness. “For our sake, God made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so the you would become God’s righteousness in Him!” (2 Cor 5)

JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

That’s why He’s named Jesus! Because “He will save His people from their sins.” (Mt 2) Jesus is your Salvation, your Peace, your Light, your Resurrection, your Redemption, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:31) For He HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

(1. Yeah!: Baptized in and into His name, you’re truly a free son and heir.)

Jesus purchased your redemption, and He also delivers it to you. For, baptized in and into Jesus’ name, you’re truly a free son and heir! You’re a co-heir with Christ! (Rom 8:17) To His baptized fellow sons and co-heirs, Jesus bequeaths His Last Will and Testament—the Supper of His body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins. None of this is without faith. Faith receives the benefits, and no one with true and living faith would ever absent himself from Christ and His gifts on purpose! (Heb 10:25)

You’re baptized into His saving name, as well as His Father’s and the Sprit’s! (Mt 28) “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal 3) “And because you’re sons, God’s sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, [who cries], “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4) “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Tit 3:5–7 NIV)

Baptized into Christ, believing in Christ, bolstered by His body and blood, you’re “no longer under the Law” or living within “the Law of Sin and Death,” but within “the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus,” (Rom 8:3) that is, “the Law of Christ.” (Gal 6) No longer under any demands, for JESUS HAS REDEEMED YOU FROM EVERY DEMAND.

Now, you live and love as sons and heirs. God’s demands are discipline and death to your flesh, so by faith in Jesus we delight and die under them, for you died and rose with Christ in Baptism! Now, you “bear one another burdens,” (Gal 6) “forgiving them as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph 4) Our gifts and abilities are no longer for selfish gain, or any gain for that matter, who cares about performance or productivity, when it’s just freely “serving one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace?” (1 Pet 4)

Such life and love are impossible without faith, faith filled and full with God’s faithfulness in Christ Jesus. Faith is impossible without the Spirit, who’s yours only through Christ’s Word and Body and Blood, for therein JESUS REDEEMS YOU anew FROM EVERY DEMAND in the forgiveness of all your sins.

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭