The Christmas Experience – Week One
Experiencing God’s Faithfulness
Galatians 4:4-7 - Victory Fellowship
December 3, 2023 – First Sunday of Advent
Dominant Thought: God always keeps His promises.
Introduction
• From the Fall in Genesis 3 to the promises to David that his reign would last forever, from the prophets to the 400 years of “silence” in between Malachi and Matthew, Israel was waiting on God.
• Even though they believed God, and even though they put their hope in His promise of deliverance, when God’s people wait for Him, they begin to ask the question of faithfulness: Will God keep His promise?
• That question is the hinge on which Christianity turns. If God doesn’t keep His promises, then what are we waiting for? But if He does, that changes everything.
• As God’s people waited for that first Christmas, they were undoubtedly asking the question of faithfulness. And as we wait for God to keep His promises to us, we often ask the same question.
• Since most of our lives are spent waiting on God to keep many different promises, but especially His ultimate promise to return, what can we learn from the Christmas story about waiting on God?
Waiting on God is Never Easy
• While Israel waited for God to keep His promise, they faced slavery in Egypt, seemingly endless battles to enter the Promised Land, they were conquered by Assyria and by Babylon and taken into Exile, and, at the time Jesus was born, they were under Roman oppression. Waiting on God was anything but easy. Any one of those steps along the way would have seemed like a perfect opportunity for God to step into the picture and save His people. But that’s not how it happened.
• It’s really no different while we wait on God. We’re waiting for God to deliver us, but it seems like any time now would be a good time. But God never promised that it would be easy. Just like people waited on God for the first Christmas, we wait on God through every difficulty.
• We may be waiting for healing, we may be waiting on a pregnancy, we may be waiting for financial situations to improve, we may be waiting for an adoption to happen…
• Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean God isn’t keeping His promise.
Waiting on God is Always Worth It
• A baby in a manger didn’t seem like a great start to the life of the savior of the world, but God’s plan was better than the world’s ideas of greatness. Even when it didn’t seem like the solution they were looking for, Jesus was far better than anything God’s people could have imagined.
• When God doesn’t meet our expectations of timing, it’s easy to get discouraged or frustrated—thinking He won’t keep His promises at all. But, in reality, God’s timing, His plans, and His methods are always better than ours.
• Think of a time in your life when you were waiting so long, and then the answer, the relief, the good phone call, the restored relationship, the healing…it came! God was faithful!
Conclusion
• Galatians 4:4 says, “When the time had fully come, God sent His son.” It wasn’t easy to wait, and it seemed like way too long, but God kept His promise—at just the right time.
• Waiting for God to keep His promises is never easy. It always takes longer than we’d hoped. But one thing we experience in the Christmas story is that God keeps His promises. The timing isn’t always what we want, and God’s answer sometimes doesn’t seem like a perfect fit—like a manger. But waiting on God is always worth it.
• Will God keep His promise? That’s the question of faithfulness, the question of Christianity. And the Christmas story answers with a resounding, Yes!
(Sermon Bumper clip)
PRAYER
SONG: Manger Throne (Mac Powell)
Galatians 4:4-7 NLT
4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. 5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. 6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
