God is Not Silent!

Here is my latest article for our church's newsletter:

I was very tempted to keep this newsletter article blank…for a couple of reasons. The first being that it wouldn’t have held up the newsletter from being sent out and therefore you not receiving it until a few days into December. The other reason would have been to send the message that I hope to accomplish with words!

The idea of a blank newsletter (maybe you can pick up a piece of blank paper and imagine) would make very little sense, right? Why would we send something that has nothing to say. Well, the reason I was considering it was to help us imagine what it would be like if we had nothing to say. More importantly, what would it be like if God had nothing to say to us. Could you imagine if we had no Bible? What if we had absolutely no Word from God to us. Sometimes, of course, we live as if we don’t have any Word from God. Many times going through life with very little if any thought about what God has said and why it matters.

Obviously we do have a word from God. From Genesis to Revelation is God’s inspired Word to us. It is within the pages of Scripture that we learn about the major topics of life:
a. who God is
b. who we are
c. how we are to live
d. why we are here
e. where we are going and how to get there…and of course, much more!

God preserved for us in His Word the things that He wanted us to know, the things that He knows that we cannot live without knowing. While Scripture is God’s gift of revelation to us…Scripture’s main point is to reveal to us who God is and what He is like. The main purpose of Scripture is to point us to God and more specifically to point us to the Savior Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that God has spoken in times past through many prophets…but His greatest message to us is in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. He has spoken fully and finally in Christ. So, when we see Christ we see the fulfillment of all that He has spoken and promised. This is the message of the Bible and may I take this moment to remind you that this is the message of Christmas.

You see most of our Bible (the old testament) was pointing to a time and place when One would come and be the answer to our greatest dilemma. You see the Bible makes it very clear that our greatest dilemma or problem is that we are sinners. Our sin is a problem because our Creator God is holy and perfect. And it is our sin that separates us from our Creator God. The only way we can have a relationship with God now and spend eternity with Him in Heaven forever is if we are like Him, perfect and without sin. Obviously not one of us can claim to have lived a perfect, sinless life. Therefore, we are all in trouble. But God’s plan (which was established even before the world began) has been unfolding down through history and it was leading to the answer to our dilemma. The Scriptures are always pointing to the One (Christ Jesus) who would come and live and give His life in our place.

One of the most amazing aspects of God’s Word is not only that it points to who Christ would be and what He would do, but that it does so hundreds of years before it happened. This is the internal test that proves that the Bible can be nothing less than the Word of God. Listen to some of these prophetic promises:

- 700 yrs before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah promised that Jesus’ mother would be a virgin who would conceive by a miracle.
- 700 yrs before the birth of Jesus, Micah promised that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.
- 400 yrs before the birth of Jesus, Hosea promised that Jesus’ family would flee as refugees to Egypt to save his young life.
- 400 yrs before the birth of Jesus, Malachi promised that Jesus would enter the temple.

These are just a few of God’s prophetic promises in the Old Testament that we see fulfilled in the New. Why would God be so specific about the birth and life and death of Christ? God went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that we did not miss that Jesus is the One who has come as fulfillment of each and everyone of these promises. Remember our dilemma is sin and Christ came as the answer to our problem. Matthew tells us that this is the One who will “save His people from their sins”. He is the Savior that we all need!

This is what Christmas is all about. The great news of Christmas is that God does not expect us to do something to get to God or to attain favor with God. Instead, He came to us by sending His own Son in the form of a baby in manger.

Now aren’t you glad that God is not silent!!

May all the world rejoice for a Savior has been born!!