December has come and we are well into celebrating the four words of Advent.  Four Sundays before Christmas we hear the message again and again – rightly so.  We need it.  We need to be washed in the water of the Word to be cleansed and ready for the Feast.  We give the content to our Christmas celebrations; we make contact with others during the Feast and for that we need the critical discernment for the Feast. 

Let us then do some multiplication: 

Three things multiplied by four

Four things multiplied by three

Context, contact and critical discernment multiplied by hope, love, joy and peace.  That is how we will be equipped for our celebrations.

Why do we multiply:  God is in the business of multiplication.  

For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.  (Leviticus 26:9)

Then out of them shall proceed thanksgiving And the voice of those who make merry; I will multiply them, and they shall not diminish; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.  (Jeremiah 30:19)

Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.  (Ezekiel 37:26)

Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness,  (2 Corinthians 9:10)

Go ahead with that little calculation.  The answer is twelve.  The 12 tribes and the 12 apostles come together.  Now, we multiply by two and twelve – 24 elders worshipping and 144 times a thousand.  The tribes and the apostles in God’s thousand – His 10 times 10 times 10.  The perfect cube of everything – the Ark of the Covenant, the Most Holy Place, the New Jerusalem – symbolic of perfection and completeness.  God’s sufficiency is more than enough for us.  His Name is El Shaddai – the God of Almighty Power and abundance for Whom nothing is impossible.

In the context of the festival, we determine the content.  We minister from the Presence of God.  In our thinking, the words of Moses prevail: “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

Our names are written in God’s book of remembrance (Malachi 3:16-18). It is when we speak about Him and do not forget His wonders, that the great Scribe in heaven writes.  What will we talk about in the context of the birth of a baby that shaped the timeline of the ages?  Whose death has become the symbol of a movement that forever changed the history of the world?  What would our world have been without the standard of morality and truth from the Christian worldview?

Remember multiplication – we will unfold hope, love, peace, and joy in the festival and fill our celebration with the timeless Truth that redeems and liberates. 

If we follow God’s work and law (principles), we can expect the miraculous.

How will we be distinguishable – the separation between the faithful and the unbelieving?  How will the nations know that we are different – holy, set apart for a specific purpose?  Certainly not if we complain about the secularization of Christmas by the world; not if we are bogged down by the material demands and family conflicts of our gatherings.

Our distinctiveness determines the essence of the festival.  In our interaction with others, we stand out by uplifting and assisting others.

Your words have upheld him who was stumbling,
And you have strengthened the feeble knees;  (Job 4:4)

Strengthen the weak hands,
And make firm the feeble knees. (Isaiah 35:3)

Enter the festival prepared with a word of wisdom, a word of strength.  Be  prepared for the conflict and strife that can easily arise.  The world is divided and confused.  Global politics are more polarizing than ever.  Think ahead on how to defuse difficult conversations.  Pray the supernatural power of Advent words over every meal, every gathering.  Be the bearer of the Light of Jesus.  We are not the light – only the lampstand that carries the Light of the world – Jesus Christ – out to the world.

With the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can critically discern the festival. How will we know what is important? Love is always the guideline.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 

(Philippians 1:9,10)

The NLT says it like this: to understand what really matters.  

Let us pray the whole of Philippians 1:9-11 from The Message:

So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

It is our motto for Christmas.  Getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

It is possible to do it without words or sentimental, meaningless traditions.  We ARE the Advent-words.  Every word from our mouth speaks the hope and glory of Jesus.

Pray with me the power of the full truth of the Advent-words into Christmas.

Love, God’s love, is something that fills me with wonder and humility.  It is our standard to which we should aspire.

Love (agape) is a word to which Christianity gave new meaning. Outside of the New Testament, it rarely occurs in existing Greek manuscripts of the period.  Agape denotes an undefeatable benevolence and unconquerable goodwill that always seeks the highest good of the other person, no matter what he does.  It is the self-giving love that gives freely without asking anything in return, and does not consider the worth of its object. 

It does not need a chemistry, an affinity, or a feeling.

Agape is more a love by choice than philos, which is love by chance and it refers to the will rather than the emotion.  Agape describes the unconditional love God has for the world.  Agapao will never seek anything but the highest good for fellow mankind.  [John 3:16 and Romans 5:5 in the World Wealth section of the SFLB]

Hope  is a response to the future, which has its foundations in the promises of God. It looks at the future as time for the completion of God’s promise. It refuses to extrapolate either desire or anxiety into the future, but instead believes that God’s promise gives the proper content to it.

But hope is not a doctrine about the future: it is a grace cultivated in the present; it is a stance in the present, which deals with the future. As such it is misunderstood if it is valued only for the comfort it brings; as if it should say, everything is going to be all right in the future because God is in control of it, therefore relax and be comforted.

Hope operates differently. Christian hope alerts us to the possibilities of the future as a field of action, and as a consequence fills the present with energy. [Eugene Peterson – Living the Message]

Joy  is a shout of rejoicing, loud cheering in triumph or singing.  Rinnah describes the kind of joyful shouting at the time of a great victory.  In Proverbs 11:10, rinnah describes the jubilation of the righteous when the wicked are eliminated. 

Zephaniah 3:17 says that God will dance over His beloved people with singing or a shout of joy.  Rinnah may best be illustrated by the testimony of the redeemed, returning to Zion from captivity.  Rinnah is the word for both singing and joy.

Joy in Greek is gil – to joy, rejoice, be glad, be joyful. Gil contains the suggestion of dancing for joy, or leaping for joy, since the verb originally meant to spin around with intense motion. This lays to rest the notion that the biblical concept of joy is only a quiet, inner sense of well-being.  God dances for joy over Jerusalem and because of His people. (Isaiah 65:19; Zephaniah 3:17)  [SFLB – Word Wealth]

The righteous Messiah shall rejoice in God’s salvation with an intensity that the psalmist cannot find words to describe: 

The king shall have joy in Your strength, O Lord;
And in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! (Psalms 21:1) 

In turn, His redeemed citizens are joyful in their King.  They praise Him with dances, with instruments, and with singing (Psalms 149:2, 3).  

Although everything is wrong in Habakkuk’s external world, he is leaping for joy over his fellowship with Yahweh.  (Habakkuk 3:18 – YET, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.)

Peace:

Peace, shalom is completeness, wholeness, peace, health, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquility, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony and the absence of agitation or discord.  Shalom comes from the root verb shalam, meaning to be complete, perfect, and full.  Thus shalom is much more than the absence of war and conflict.  It is the wholeness that the entire human race seeks. 

The word shalom occurs about 250 times in the Old Testament. (Psalms 4:8; Isaiah 48:18; Jeremiah 29:11).  In Psalms 35:27, God takes delight in the shalom (the wholeness, the total well-being) of His servant.  In Isaiah 53:5, the chastisement necessary to bring us shalomwas upon the suffering Messiah.

The angels understood at His birth that Jesus was to be the great peace-bringer, as they called out, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men! (Luke 2:14–17; Isaiah 9:7).

Peace in Greek is Eirene – a state of rest, quietness, and calmness, an absence of strife.  It generally denotes a perfect well-being.  Eirene includes harmonious relationships between God and men, men and men, nations, and families.  Jesus as Prince of Peace gives peace to those who call upon Him for personal salvation.

Completeness is what Jesus is all about.  Nothing is full and satisfying without him (katartisis).  It is an improving, equipping, training, disciplining.  It includes making the necessary adjustments and repairs. The related verb, katartizo, is used for the disciples’ mending their nets (Matthew 4:21).  We are fishers of men.  Let us mend our “nets” (readiness to forgive and a robust indifference for offence) for the souls around us.

Our ministry this Christmas will be how we “serve” these principles to our loved ones in humility and heartfelt selflessness.  We serve the Bread of Life at our Christmas table. 

None of this is possible without… PRAYER: for the world, the wars, the lost, the terror, the hatred – us and our families.  Lean hard on the Holy Spirit.

Christmas Prayer:

Our Father in the unseen

We honour your Name above all

We are in that place again where we stand in awe of your coming as a man.  With the celestial chorus of angels and the few shepherds who were awake when everyone was sleeping, we are alert to the majesty and glory of God on earth.

We yield to your Ways and your Thoughts that are so much higher than ours.  Who could have thought that a baby born in a village in the Middle East would grow up to show us the heart of God, Grace so amazing that the world would never stop singing about it, to stand on the timeline of our centuries divided, whose death would become the familiar symbol of a movement that forever changed the world?

You came to show us the Love of God, how you feel sorry for us for the mess we are making because we think we can do it without You as the Source of goodness and truth.

You came to heal our bodies, bind up our broken hearts and set us free from the bondage of unbelief.

We bring You our lives to be transformed.  We bring you our world to be redeemed.  We bring you our confusion and bewilderment of the times we live in under the confession of the true message of Christmas, in the words of the ancient prophet:

How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings the good news: Our God reignsand to our God nothing is impossible.  

Thank you for the abundance that we can share today. We deem it a token of your provision.  We pray in the beautiful Name of Jesus.