2022-12-06 Ghetto God Sermon

The speaker explains that the purpose of the messages is to encourage and uplift people towards the Lord. They then dive into a Christmas sermon about Jesus and his followers. They emphasize that Jesus came from lowly circumstances and that God uses people who have nothing to offer him except themselves. They discuss how Jesus was born in a manger, which was essentially a doggy dish, and grew up in a ghetto. Despite these circumstances, God's message of hope thrived. The speaker concludes by saying that God can use anyone, regardless of their past or current situation, and that everyone has a purpose and plan in God's eyes. Well, we're about to enter into the message time tonight, and just for those of you who may be new to this kind of setting, the reason that we do messages is to encourage you towards the Lord. It's for those who are unfamiliar with Christianity to become acquainted with what we believe as Christians, and for those who are acquainted with Christianity to just be encouraged and uplifted and even challenged a little in their faith. So we're about to jump in tonight. Well, tonight we're starting our first Christmas sermon of the season, and it's a bit different of a type of Christmas message, so don't go to sleep thinking you've heard the Christmas story a million times and there's nothing in this for you. There absolutely is. But tonight we're going to be jumping into John chapter 1, verses 43 to 46, which says, The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Come, follow me. Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter's hometown. Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about. His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nazareth, exclaimed Nathanael. Can anything good come from Nazareth? Come and see for yourself, Philip replied. A big idea for you tonight is that God uses people who have nothing to offer him except themselves. Maybe you think God can't use you, but even Jesus came from lowly circumstances. God uses us to do amazing things because of who he is, rather than because of who we are. Which brings you to my first point for tonight, which is that Jesus came from lowly circumstances. In the passage we read, Jesus was gathering to himself his first followers. And one of those followers, Philip, did an amazing thing. He shared with others about Jesus. Specifically, he wanted his good buddy Nathanael to get in on this good thing of following Jesus. But Nathanael had a skeptical response. He didn't know how anything good could come from Nazareth, where Jesus' earthly family was from. Wherever you grew up, or I grew up, there's generally a place that is considered on the wrong side of the tracks. You know, maybe a place that's just a bit of a rougher neighborhood, people are a little rougher there, it has a bad reputation. And maybe you are the one who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Where I grew up, there was a city nearby called Oshawa, we called it the Schwa. And in Oshawa, on the south side, South Oshawa, as it was called, there was a more rougher kind of ghetto kind of neighborhood, had lots more crime. This would have been the wrong side of the tracks in my area. Now Nazareth wasn't known as prime real estate, it seems, based on Nathanael's response to Philip. How could anything good come from Nazareth, from South Oshawa, from Victoria, from Esquimalt, from Langford? It may feel like we have nothing good to offer God, because we come from lowly circumstances, but our God uses people who have nothing to offer him except themselves, because all of us really have, no matter how much we have, have nothing but ourselves to offer God. We could have all the money in the world, but have nothing of value to offer God except the person that he created. Jesus was born in the ghetto. He was born in a place of less than no reputation, but of a bad reputation. But God used this for his plan. So do you still think God can't use you? Well, that brings me to my second point tonight, which is God worked in lowly circumstances to bring his message of hope. Jesus not only came from the wrong side of the tracks, but in fact, it gets worse. Not only was Jesus born into an earthly family without much to their name, he was essentially born in a doggy dish. That's right. We sing away in a manger, and we imagine an adorable, holy little scene, but do any of us know, outside of the context of these Christmas carols and this Christmas story, what a manger is? Well, a manger is a feeding trough for animals, essentially a doggy dish. So imagine, instead of your cute little nativity scene that maybe you have at home, or that you see in the malls, or on the Christmas cards, instead I want you to imagine a baby in a dog food bowl. So here's an image to help you imagine that. That's the dirty indignity that Jesus was born into. Worse, in fact, because dog dishes are often indoors, in a nice, warm kitchen, whereas this was out in a smelly barn. Some sources even indicate that it wasn't necessarily a barn or a stable in the way you and I think of, but actually a rock or a cave in a hill. A big old, dingy, dirty rock in a hill. Anyone ever say, have you been living under a rock? Well, Jesus was born under a rock in a dog dish. If you think you had it bad, Jesus had it worse. Surrounded by the smell of cow poop in a musty cave, he came into this world. God's message of hope and deliverance was delivered in a food bowl surrounded by cow poop. Do you still think God can't use you? My third and final point for you is that God's message thrived in lowly circumstances. Jesus, though born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, the little ghetto. Then he walked around with twelve dudes, his disciples, talking about God's message of hope. Now, I don't know if you've ever traveled with twelve guys, but even if you get just a couple guys together for travel, it's not the prettiest sight or smell. If you've ever seen a traveling sports team, they're all sweaty and stinky and there's too much macho machismo going around about who's the best. Worse yet, the Bible tells us that Jesus had no home of his own. Luke 9, 58 says, but Jesus replied, foxes have dens to live in and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head. So basically, this ghetto guy and his twelve friends were walking around more or less homeless. But God used his circumstance. He used this circumstance, not in spite of it, but by its design. Think about it. Do you think any of us would be pumped to follow Jesus if he came as a rich guy who had everything in life handed to him? We would have been so put off by him. He came in a way that he could relate to all of us. More as dirt but the literal Son of God, a prince and a pauper at the same time. The Bible says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4, 15-16. Jesus can empathize with you and with me. He was tempted in every way. He went through hardships like you and me. He knew what it was like to be without. He was once in the desert for 40 days without food, but God sustained him. But God used these circumstances to show us that even during our lowest, darkest times, he is with us and able to relate to us. He knows what you and I have been through, so that when he went to the cross to take the punishment for our sins, to die on that cross as a sacrifice, as the one who took our punishment in our place, he wasn't making a token, meaningless gesture as some out-of-touch king, but a man of the people, the son of man, as the Bible says, as well as the son of God. So, if you, like me, in frustration, have ever yelled up to God that he doesn't know what it's like to go through what we're going through, then you and I are wrong. He does know what it's like. Does it feel like this world is killing you? It killed him, too. He lived it, he died in it, and he's risen again. God worked not in spite, but through lowly circumstances. That's why we, like the Apostle Paul, can say, that's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong, 2 Corinthians 12, 10. Do you still think God can't use you? Maybe your answer to that question is, Chris, I don't feel like God can use me. Or maybe that's how you felt before the sermon, but after hearing this, you feel like God can use you, but you're really not sure how. God has a purpose and a plan for your life. Ephesians 2, 9, and 10 says, salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it, for we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the things he planned for us long ago. Let him guide you into what he has planned for you. I once saw a t-shirt in a Christian bookstore that I really think illustrates what I'm talking about, so I want to read it to you. It's coming up on the slide here, but it says, do you seriously think God can't use you? Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. These are all people from the Bible that God used. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar. Leah was ugly. Joseph was abused. Moses had a stuttering problem. Gideon was afraid. Samson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy were too young. David had an affair and was a murderer. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah preached naked. Jonah ran from God. Naomi was a widow. Job went bankrupt. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying. Martha worried about everything. The Samaritan woman was divorced. Zacchaeus was too small. Paul was too religious. Timothy had an ulcer. Lazarus was dead. Do you seriously think God can't use you? God chose you, and He chose to use the situations you've gone through or are going through to bring change in this world. And that doesn't mean He wanted all those bad things to happen to you, but it does mean He's going to work through them for His message of hope to thrive.