Unexpected Moments - Part 3

Unexpected Moments

Love - God’s Love Can Reach Everyone

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are in our Unexpected Moments series, week three. First week we talked about Mary and the peace that she experienced in her unexpected moment that she was willing to do, as the Lord had said, and the peace that she experienced. And then Joseph was week two and we talked about the faith that he had and his obedience in that, that it took a lot of faith for him to be obedient in his unexpected moment. But both of those situations were unexpected and then turned into holy moments. And so today we're going to look at the perspective of the shepherds and how they had quite the unexpected moment. But again, God used it and turned it into a holy moment. And you know, isn't it just like God that when you are talking about something or learning about something or really focused on it, you see it everywhere and he just like really hits the point home. You know, like when you're like needing to work on patients, you hit every red light on the way to the place that you're late to, right? Like he just is really good that way, right? He just really hits that point home.

Well, this week we had an unexpected moment ourselves. I've been telling friends and family for weeks that this past week was my doozy of a week. Good stuff, but we just had so much planned. We had something almost every night. It was just a big, full week. Well, then Monday rolls around and I'm like trying to mentally gear up for this week. Hey, we got a lot to do. My five-year-old says his tummy hurts. That is not what you want to hear at the beginning of your busiest week of the month, right? So I'm like, all right, buddy, we're just going to, we're going to, hopefully this is no big deal. We're just going to roll with it. And so he just didn't feel it. It wasn't like himself all day long. And he goes to bed that night seeming to do better. But we'll see. And then at 3.38 a.m., yes, I know exactly what time it was. 3.38 a.m., our second oldest, Ellie, who shares a room with her brother, comes in. Mom, this is sick, come on. So I run into there. Thankfully, we had a bucket already prepared. She had given her brother the bucket and it saved the sheets. Can I get an amen? Okay, so save the sheets. So he's, I'm trying to comfort him and make sure he's okay. And I go, okay, buddy, I'm going to get you a wet washcloth. Hold on. I turn around and his big sister already has a wet washcloth ready for him. I'm like, oh, thanks, babe. Okay. And he's like, Mom, I want something to drink. So I go to the kitchen to get him something to drink. By the time I get back, his older sister has rinsed out the bucket for him and brought it back into him in case he needed it again. And this unexpected moment, this unwelcome moment, turned into this almost sacred moment where I got to see my kid, my older daughter, serving her brother. And in turn, she served me. It was the easiest middle of the night sick kid experience. I think I was awake for five minutes. It was great. We were just all, we all went back to bed. But she was so caring and kind and just, she just had such this heart to serve her brother because she'd been there too. She understood what it was like to be sick in the middle of the night. And so she did all the things that she knew would comfort her. And it was just, it almost, I was so proud of her. It really was this holy moment of getting to experience that and see her love her brother that way. And so we're going to dive into that and see how God can take some of these unexpected moments and often unwelcome and turn them into really holy, sacred things for us.

But before we do that, let's pray. God, we just thank you for today. I pray that you will use your word to speak into hearts today. May you be glorified in all we do and say. Amen. Oh, one more thing I promised to say. He was better. He woke up the next day. The week was not derailed. So thankfully, he was good, but he felt much better the next day. Just want to make sure I clarified that on his behalf.

So the shepherds, we don't know a lot about these shepherds. We don't know their names. We don't know how many there were, but they are a crucial part of this nativity story. So we're going to be in Luke 2. If you would turn there in your Bible or in your phone app, or it'll be on the screens as well, we are going to read verses 8 through 20. It's 12 verses. We're just going to read all the way through today. Starting in verse 8. And it says, “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth. Peace to those on whom his favor rests.’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, ‘Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.' So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherd said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”

So as far as we know, this was a run of the mill night for these guys. They were just out doing their job, taking care of their sheep, and then an angel appeared out of nowhere. I think glowing probably. It was, you know, it said there was light. So there was just this angel. And I think an appropriate response is fear. I would be a little nervous if all of a sudden an angel appeared and was talking to me. And so they were. They were terrified. But the angel told the shepherds, "Do not fear." It was the same message he gave Mary and Joseph when the angel appeared to them as well. "Do not fear." Now, having this creature sitting in front of you suddenly would bring about fear, but he was from God. This angel was a messenger from God. So there really was nothing for them to fear. So while it was unexpected, they did not need to fear because this message that the angel was bringing was from a loving God. And what do we know about love and fear? Well, 1 John 4:18 says, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment." The angel wasn't there to bring punishment. The angel wasn't there to bring a terrifying message or bring bad news. He was there to bring a good message of love. That was his whole goal. And so we can take this truth with us too, that love drives out fear. We don't need to walk in fear when we're serving a loving God. We don't need to be afraid when God speaks to us through His word or through other people or through our time in worship. We don't need to be afraid. Now, maybe we're a little nervous about what He's calling us to do. That can be a little scary sometimes, but we don't have to be afraid of the call He has put on in His life or the messages He gives us. We don't need to be afraid when we get bad news or when we're facing a really tough situation.

Again, those things that are humanist may seem scary, but we don't have to be afraid because we serve a loving God, and love drives out the fear. I imagine the angel just kind of standing there going, "I know, I know. This is kind of unexpected, but don't be afraid. All right? It's good. It's good news." And that's what He said. He immediately told them why they didn't have to be afraid. "I bring you good news. So don't be afraid. It's all good." So what was this good news? Well, there was a new baby in town. That always feels like good news, right? New baby, the long-awaited Messiah. This was the good news the angel wanted to share. It says in John 3:16 through 17, I'm sure many of you are familiar, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." This right here sums up the good news. This is the gospel, that God sent His Son out of His love for us. Now, the Jewish people had been waiting a really, really, really long time for a Messiah. God had been hinting at it since the fall of man. He'd been sending prophets and priests to help them know that He had a plan. But then there was also 400 years of silence. That's a long time to not hear from God. It was really dark times. There was a lot of waiting, a lot of hoping, waiting to see if God was going to come through on His promises. There was actually, in their case, a lot to be afraid of. But the angels told the shepherds not to be afraid because they knew that love can drive out fear.

Sometimes fear is our natural first response, fight or flight, right? That's just kind of the natural way our bodies react to certain situations. But what would it look like if we chose to rest in God's love rather than leaning into the fear? How would we live differently? I think we would actually live a lot differently. I think we would be more bold in our faith if we weren't afraid of what other people would say or think. I think we would be more confident in our identity in Christ. We would operate in a surer identity that we are Christ's, that we are His. Ultimately, I think we would just be more effective for the kingdom. We would share the gospel more. We would make different choices. We would respond differently if we weren't afraid. But we can. We can choose to do that because love drives out the fear. Now, although God had been silent for hundreds of years, the Israelites still had the prophecies from the Old Testament to hold onto. And that really is what they held onto as they were waiting for the Messiah. And one of these prophets was Isaiah. And in Isaiah 9, we see just one of the prophecies. Verse 2 and 6 says, "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. For to us, a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

With Jesus' coming, He was fulfilling these prophecies. And the shepherds got to be the first to hear about it. In a literal dark of night on a hillside outside of Bethlehem, light came into the world. The light came to the world. This tiny baby brought light after 400 years of silence. Waiting is really, really hard. Ask my five-year-old. He'll tell you. "Mom, waiting is so hard." I know, bud. But waiting is even harder when you're waiting in the darkness. When you feel like your situation is never-ending. When you feel like you have no idea what the next right step is. When you're just like, "God, I've been praying for this one specific thing for a very long time." And your answer is still no or not yet. That is really hard. But I promise you that even a no or a not yet from God is not Him withholding His love. In fact, in His sovereignty, Him answering in the affirmative might actually be unloving. It might not be what is best for you. And that doesn't feel good, right? But because we serve a loving God and He can't do anything outside of His character, He will only do what is loving. And sometimes loving is no or not yet. So when He feels like He's silent, it's not a lack of love. It's an invitation for us to wait. To wait on Him. To surrender to Him. To be still. Maybe not literally still all the time, but a heart posture. Because when we do that, when we are waiting on Him, when we are still before Him, it's so that we don't miss when the breakthrough does come. When the light does peek through. When the darkness gets pushed back either just a little bit or blown out. We don't want to miss it. So it's an invitation to draw closer to Him. To draw near to Him, even in the darkness. Because He's there. He will never leave us. I don't know what these particular shepherds were going through in this time in their lives. Again, we don't know much about them. But I wonder, you know, did they have a fight with their wife before they went and watched the sheep? Were they having financial troubles? Maybe some health issues that they were dealing with? I don't know. We don't know, but they were human. So we can assume they had something going on. Just like us, we all have some sort of thing we're facing. But despite their struggles, this unexpected moment turned into a holy moment because the light came into the darkness.

Again, back to Isaiah. It says, "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light." Now, this particular idea is meant regarding people who are walking in the darkness of sin without the light of salvation. But it also can apply to those of us who are walking in seasons of darkness. Thankfully, the light came. They didn't have to stay in darkness. The light came and His love dispelled darkness, and it does the same for us, too. Darkness can be different for all of us, and even in different seasons. We might face different seasons of darkness or types. Maybe it looks like relationship problems or financial concerns. Maybe you've received a tough diagnosis or a close one has. Maybe you've lost someone this year like so many in our church have, and you're going through grief. It could be mental health struggles or feelings of loneliness. It could be sin issues. Maybe there's a sin that just has a hold on you that you're struggling to surrender. Or maybe you aren't walking with Jesus yet, and that's your darkness. But whatever it is that you're facing, whatever darkness you're experiencing right now, His light is bright enough for any of it. He can break through any darkness that we face. John 1-9 says, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." That is some good news. So where do you need Jesus's light in your life right now? What darkness do you need Him to come and dispel? Because He's so good to do that. He is the light of the world, and He dispels the darkness. Well, here's the kicker for us. The angel said that they bring good news, which we've already talked about what the good news is, but it wasn't just good news for the shepherds that day. It was good news for all people. Good news of great joy for all the people.

Now, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into this, so I went and looked up the Greek. I wanted to know what the original language meant. So the Greek word here for all is "pas." P-A-S. So "pas." And here's what it means. All. All of it. All against you. Individually, each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything, collectively, some of all types. It literally means everybody. How many people is that? All the people. It is for everyone. If that's not good news, I can't help you. That is some good news. No matter what we're facing, no matter what fears we have, no matter what roadblocks we're up against or feeling like it's never going to get better, he came for all of us. So my next question was, well, if this message is for all people, why did he come to a bunch of shepherds? We don't even know these guys' names, so why would he go to them? Why didn't he go to some king or some political figure that could send out some proclamation and spread the word quicker? Why didn't he go to maybe raise up some new prophets? They already had a history of hearing from prophets, so why didn't he raise up a new prophet to spread the message? Why didn't he do it in a more populated city? Bethlehem was already small, and then they were in the outskirts of Bethlehem in a hillside. Why didn't he go in a more populated city? Or why didn't he go in the daytime when more people were out and they could see this amazing display? Why did he choose to tell some shepherds in a countryside outside of a tiny town in the middle of the night? We don't know specifically, but we can look at the rest of Scripture and make some educated guesses. First of all, shepherds weren't necessarily like the lowest of the low by any means, but their job was real dirty. Like, if you've ever been on a farm and smelled the smells, it was not a glamorous job, right? They were taking care of sheep, they were sleeping outside, they did not have hot showers at the end of the day. It was not a job that people were necessarily envious of, but it was important. And there are some things that we can pick out that I think really speak to this. Shepherds were there to take care of the sheep who also had lambs. And in this time period, lambs were used for sacrifices. They were still doing sacrifices in the temple at the time, and so they needed shepherds so that their supply of lambs would continue. The Jewish is just a really important part of their Jewish culture. So while it was not a glamorous job, it was an important job. And this little hint for us, this little Easter egg that we see in the story is that the shepherds cared for the lambs that would be used as sacrifices so that it would point to Jesus, who was the lamb, who would be our sacrifice. He was the ultimate sacrifice. I think the second reason that God sent angels to shepherds was because Jesus also called himself the shepherd. It's like a hyperlink to another scripture.

In John 10:11, the same word for shepherd there is also what is used in our Luke 2 passage. And it says, this is Jesus talking, He says, "I am the good shepherd." The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. So highlighting the shepherds points us to the grown man Jesus, who was going to lead his sheep, his followers, us, and he was going to sacrifice himself and lay down his life for his sheep. There's these little things that we can find that say, oh, maybe that's why God went and told some shepherds. And lastly, I believe that it was because they were ordinary. I think that was important. He could have gone to the elite. He could have gone to a king. But he went to ordinary men very intentionally to show us that God's love is for all people. It wasn't just for the rich and famous. It wasn't just for the ones who had it all together. It wasn't just for the elite or the upper class. It was for everyone. By verse 17, we can see that they were already spreading the word. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about the child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. They were already believing them. They were already getting the message. Because Jesus' love is for all people, the message of love went to the ordinary people so that the other ordinary people would hear it and know that it was for them too. The beautiful thing is that it's also for us. It wasn't just for them at that time. We can know that this message of love, of this Messiah that came to save us, to shine his light in the darkness, it's for us too. Because it's for all people. It's for those of us who have major fears or who are facing darkness. It's good news for all people across space and time. For those who are facing struggles, who think they're too far gone. Or maybe you think someone else is too far gone. It's for them too. It's for the ones that feel like their sin issue is too much. What they've done is too far out of God's realm of forgiveness. It couldn't possibly be them. It is. It's for them too. It is for the ones that don't feel important enough or polished enough or smart enough. It is for all people. The good news that these angels brought to the shepherds was that the light had come. Fear had no place with love. And that the good news was for all the people.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for who you are. We thank you that you came and that you told some ordinary shepherds in a countryside that you were here. In your sovereignty, in your goodness, and in your love, you came to us. And you did it in such a way that tells us that it's for all of us. God, I pray that in this season, whatever we are facing, that you would remind us of your light and of your love. That we have no need to fear. And that your light and your love is big enough to push back the darkness. Be with us as we face those dark seasons. Comfort us as we mourn. Be present as we're unsure of the next step. And remind us that the good news is for us just as much as it is for anybody. We praise you and we thank you for who you are. And then we get to celebrate you this Christmas season in Jesus' name. Amen.

Unexpected Moments - Part 2

Unexpected Moments

Faith - Obedience in Faith

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

The idea in this whole series is focusing in on moments that were completely unexpected with the Christmas story. But when we see them from a heavenly perspective, not necessarily our earthly perspective, we see the purpose in those. And what most people would consider earthly chaos, God actually has ordained and to put into motion for his heavenly purpose. And last week, Pastor Andre talked about Mary who came on scene and we know the whole story of her happening. But today I wanna talk about someone who may not necessarily get the limelight or the spotlight or the sermons or the paintings or the stained glass that Mary does. But first I want us to think about, it's been said that life is not measured in time, but life is measured in moments. Life is not measured in time, life is measured in moments. And this is true in so many ways when you think about it, when you look back maybe this past year or this past month, maybe this past week or even yesterday, we don't remember everything that happens in that time. But what we do remember are the moments, moments in our past, moments in our past year, in the past week, the past day, yesterday. And we really, when you think about it, moments are what we hold onto.

I remember as a kid moments of vacations with my parents. I remember moments of holidays and Christmases, moments with my grandparents who have gone ahead before me to heaven, the special moments with them. I remember the moment when I answered the call to become a full-time vocational pastor. I was at a youth conference in North Carolina. I remember that moment almost like yesterday. I remember moments when I proposed to my wife on the beach in Catalina Island in Southern California. And it was that moment, that special moment. I didn't eat any dinner hours before, I was so nervous. But I remember that moment playing her a song I had written her and getting down on one knee and asking her to be my bride. And then a year later, I remember the moment she walked down the aisle at our wedding just here in Loomis at the flower farm. I remember that moment. I remember the moment when I found out I was gonna be a dad for the very first time. And Lauren telling me and surprising me and we had been trying for a while and we were so excited for that moment I became a dad. I remember the unexpected moment. When I had to put our family dog Ace down, he had brain cancer and it wasn't doing well. I remember that moment holding him as he breathed his last breath. And I remember the other moments of holding my children for the very first time. They were just minutes old and get to hold them in my arms after praying for them for nine months in that moment. Time is measured by moments.

And in our series of unexpected moments, we're looking at specific moments in the story of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. And to look at a very powerful moment this morning, a very unexpected moment. And when you hear about this moment, I think you might find yourself learning from this time. Because you and I have no idea what God can do through one unexpected moment of obedience. We have no idea what God can do. And some of you know that. You've been prompted at times unexpectedly to do something. To do something, to say something, to give something. And you did something, you said something, and you gave something. And you look back and you think, oh wow. Look at what God did through that unexpected moment in my life. I can't believe what he did through what seemed to be a small act of obedience. Other times you felt prompted to do or say or give something. And we didn't know all of the details. And because it was unexpected, we didn't do it. And maybe sometime in the future, we look back and wonder, what did we miss out on? What was God doing in that unexpected moment that he wanted to do through us? And because we chose not to obey, God didn't do it through us. If you wanted to write down the title for this morning for notes, it would be, When It's Hard to Obey, Obedience and Faith. And when we think about the obedience and faith that was needed, even before Jesus was born, it's pretty incredible. Surrounded by unexpected moment after unexpected moment after unexpected moment. And yet, even though it was hard to obey, they had obedience and faith. Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, I pray that our hearts would be open to you, that you would do a work in us through your word. Give us the faith to obey today, God, knowing that you are always good and that your word is always true and that you are always with us every single moment of every single day. We thank you, Jesus, for who you are. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Everybody said, amen, amen.

Well, we're gonna dive into this morning a very special part of the Christmas story. And we're gonna be in Matthew's Gospel, chapter one, starting in verse 18. And I will read a portion of this to you right now. And it says, "This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit." Chances are pretty good here that many of you were very familiar with this part of Scripture. You may have heard the story before and you probably know Mary, right? Mary gets all the sermons, Mary gets all the limelight. Everybody focuses in on Mary. But what I wanna focus in on and talk to you about today is about Joseph. And who is probably one of the most important, least talked about characters in all of the Bible. One of the reasons he's not talked about a lot is we just don't know a whole lot about him. He didn't, what we understand is that he didn't live the normal length of a life in that day. We think that he probably passed away earlier in life than what was normal. But what I want us to focus in on here for a second is what we do know about Joseph, okay? So what we do know about Joseph is he was a carpenter. He says that in Matthew 13:55. It also says that he was a righteous and faithful man. We know that he was a descendant of David through the chronological order of Scripture in there at the beginning of Matthew, as well as in Luke 2:4. We know that Joseph was Mary's husband in Matthew 1:16. And we know that Joseph was Jesus's earthly father. But outside of that, we don't know a whole lot about him.

What we do know about him is that he had one unexpected moment of obedience that helped bring about a change that impacts each and every one of us even today. When we look at Joseph and we see him in Scripture, we see him very early on in the life of Jesus from this part of Scripture in Matthew through his younger years. And the last time that we actually hear about Joseph is when Jesus is about 12 years old, and then he seems to kind of disappear. And what scholars tend to believe is that he most likely died sometime after when Jesus was a teenager. And we believe this and understand this is because Joseph and Mary would have divorced, it would have been something very important to the story that would have been included in Scripture and it's not there. But what is mentioned is the fact that Jesus lived at home until about 30 years old. Now, they didn't have video games back then, so Jesus just wasn't living in Joseph and Mary's basement, like a bum, okay? But it was actually culturally seen as a way that if your mom was widowed, you lived at home to help her until you're about 30 years old. And so when we see this, we hear about Jesus, then at the end of his life on the cross, we see that Jesus asked the beloved disciple, John, to actually take care of Mary. And this would have been culturally accepted to pass off that caretaker of Mary to someone else because she was a widow. So in the context of our story, back to Matthew chapter one, the Scripture here says that he, Joseph, was engaged to Mary. Now, in our modern thought, we may think that being engaged happens, what, 22, 23, 25, 26 years old? But actually in this way, Mary was probably 14, 15, maybe even 13 years old. You may think, wow, that's pretty young, but that's kinda how they did it back then. And Mary was a virgin, and she comes to Joseph and says, "I'm pregnant." Joseph hears this news knowing that he had not been with her intimately yet, that Joseph would have been devastated beyond all measure. And the more that we think about this, probably because in the understanding, the context of the first century, engagement culture is when you got engaged. But it wasn't just the proposal, right? It wasn't just the proposal with the whole moment and the outdoors with the photographers, like that capture that moment for the gram, right? That moment for Instagram, you have that picture and that moment of hashtag ring before spring, hashtag I'm married, you're not, like hashtag check out the ring. Like that wasn't how the proposal thing was in the first century. It was a little bit different. A proposal meant a legal agreement when they got engaged, and they were technically, as we understand today, in our context, they were married, but they weren't allowed to consummate the marriage. And when they were engaged, until they had the official ceremony. And so Joseph and Mary would have not participated in any gift of lovemaking at that point. They would have been waiting until after the ceremony.

So when Mary comes to Joseph and says, I'm pregnant, she has gone off and slept with some guy. And for Joseph, I can only imagine the emotions and what he was feeling, and that the reality was that this was going to be a life ruining scandal for both of them. Because in that context, Mary, who he loved with all of his heart, who was gonna be the future mother of their children, who his best friend, everything that Mary was in that moment was broken. She had disobeyed God. She had dishonored her family. She had put Joseph in a place that he was going to be disgraced publicly. He'd been laughed at. He would have been mocked. He would have been shunned from his own friends and family and community. And it was considered such a horrible sin in that culture that in Deuteronomy 22, Joseph could have legally had her stoned. Now that wasn't common practice. What was more common practice was that to avoid all of the shame and all the scandal for Joseph's side, he would go before the city council and he would have basically his name cleared, showing that he had no part in participation with this, that he would have his name good. But for Mary, she would have probably ended up living by herself, raising her only child, giving herself away to make income, which most likely ended in prostitution that day. So for Joseph, he's in this horrible place. The woman of his dreams has apparently betrayed him. And how his next actions and how he chose to walk forward could potentially ruin her life even more. But what do we know about him? You remember we had just talked about him? We know that he was a righteous man, and he didn't want to disgrace her or to shame her. And so that's why when reading the scripture, he was thinking about basically separating from her or divorcing her quietly. But what Joseph didn't realize is that at this lowest unexpected moment, it was about to become one of his holiest moments. In his life. Moving from what was earthly chaos into heavenly purpose.

Scripture tells us continuing on in verse 20, “As he considered all of this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. ‘Joseph, son of David,' the angel said, 'Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.’” Before we look at what Joseph did, I want you to notice what Joseph did not do, okay? The angel of the Lord said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. But what didn't he do? He didn't explain away the dream. He didn't wake up and go, man, I should not have had that pizza that late. That was weird. Right? He didn't argue with God. He didn't say, hey, hold on, wait a minute. You're asking me to put my name on a line and trust some random dream? I'm not gonna do that. Joseph didn't negotiate with God. Go, okay, God, if this is really you, next time I take a nap, I need a dream with 12 angels. And I need each of them wearing a T-shirt that says this is your sign. Okay? No, he didn't negotiate. He didn't fight back. He didn't ask for details. Ooh. Okay, God, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna need to know how all of this is gonna play out before I make one decision going forward. He didn't do any of that. As the angel said before, did you guys catch that? Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. Verse 24, when Joseph woke up from the dream, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. I think if there was one statement for us, when we were to come to the end of our life, we would want to be known as we did what God commanded us to do, that we were obedient. Without understanding all the details. And Joseph proves this thought to us, is you don't have to understand completely to obey immediately. We don't. We don't have to understand completely to obey immediately. We don't have to know every single detail. We don't have to have every single thing ironed out. We don't need to have all of the information before us, before we make that decision. All we need to know is that if God is in it in the beginning, God will be in it through the end. 'Cause when you think about it, what Joseph didn't know he didn't have hardly any information at all, right? Think about the details that Joseph didn't know. Joseph didn't know that when Mary was gonna be nine months pregnant, there was gonna be a decree issued and they were gonna have to travel a hundred miles by donkey or horseback or walking to Bethlehem. They didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that on that journey, his wife was gonna be very, very, very, very, very, very pregnant. Probably wasn't the most joyful trip in life. They were gonna be traveling a long distance at winter time with low freezing temperatures at night. They were gonna go through areas of wild animals, of people known for robbing others along the journey. It was gonna be a dangerous trip. Joseph didn't know that when they arrived in Bethlehem, that there weren't gonna be any hotel rooms. Everything was gonna be sold out 'cause everybody was there for the census. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that his wife was going to give birth in basically a farmstead in a barn next to animals. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know then that at some point, all this information was gonna get out that Herod, the king, was gonna issue decree that all boys under the age of two were to be killed and they were gonna have to go on the run. Joseph didn't know that. Joseph didn't know that he was gonna have to deal with the weight as they escaped with baby Jesus, knowing that their friends, their families, people that they loved that had children, boys under two, those kids were gonna be killed. They didn't know the weight that they were gonna have to hold and the guilt, knowing that their baby was safe and others were being killed. Joseph did not have any idea of the weight it would have been to raise the son of God. And yet, without knowing any details, he obeyed immediately.

So how does this apply to you? Well, at some point, God is gonna ask you and prompt you through his word, through his Holy Spirit to do something. And he's gonna ask you to do this without knowing any of the details. And you're going to find yourself maybe in a relationship, maybe dating, looking at the younger people in the room, and you're gonna think, I can't be with the right person if I'm currently dating the wrong person. And you're gonna have to have that conversation of thinking, I need to end this. But you're gonna think, well, God, I put so much time into this relationship. I've been with this person for so long. Like, I just can't cut it off. I'm gonna be all alone. But God's gonna prompt you to do something, and it's gonna be our moment then to see, do we obey or do we not? God's gonna stir in your hearts to use your gifts in the church. Because we know that we don't go to church, but that we are the church. And we all have gifts, and we all are important, and we're all valuable, and we all have our part to play in the body of Christ. We don't just watch what happens in the kingdom of God. We are partners in the kingdom of God. And you're gonna say, but God, I'm just so busy. I've got so much going on. And yet God's gonna prompt you to go, maybe some of that going on isn't what I want you to be going on doing. You need to change your priorities. God may prompt you to give something, to bless somebody. But God, money is just so tight. Have you seen the cost of a banana lately? Gas is expensive, life is expensive, inflation is through the roof. Interest is crazy. Stock markets are up and down, left and right, upside downwards, upside overs. But God, he's gonna prompt you to give something to be a blessing. Or maybe somebody betrays you, and God's word is gonna pierce your heart. And he's gonna say, you have to forgive others in the same way that I have forgiven you. And we have a choice to make. And it may be hard, and it may not know all the details. It may cost us something. God is prompting you, but you don't know how it's all gonna play out.

I want to encourage you in these moments, these unexpected moments, to remember that obedience is our responsibility, but the outcome is God's. Obedience is our responsibility, and the outcome is God. And he's gonna lead us to these moments of prompting, and all we can do is make the right choice and to trust him with the details. That's all we can do. That's all that he's asking us to do. And I think when I, the more I have conversations with people in the church, and I meet more Christians in my life, some of these things keep coming up. And what I would consider, or what I would call maybe more cultural Christians, the problem is that there are so many Christians that I would say are way educated beyond their level of obedience. In other words, we have all this head knowledge of who God is, and the Bible, and how church works, and how salvation works, and all this stuff, but our lives do not reflect a life of application of what we already know. People will say, "Feed me, pastor. "Feed me, pastor. "Feed me, pastor. "Teach me, pastor. "Give me more information. "Grow me, pastor. "Grow me. "Give me more. "Give me more. "Give me more. "Feed me, feed me, feed me." And I think what we need is to be obedient to what God has already told us. We need to be obedient to what his scripture has already said to our hearts, but we just want more information. We live in an information hungry world, right? We have to know what the details are. We have to know how things work. We caught ourselves this week Googling different things in our household of questions about Christmas that we didn't know because we couldn't just sit with the unknown, right? We have to know more, but this is not the life that God has called us to. We have to be obedient. We know his word and we should apply it. And we should also walk in obedience without knowing all the details and to trust him with the results. This is called faith. Joseph didn't have all the details. And yet he did what the angel of the Lord told him to do.

And the angel said this, verse 20, "For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and she will have a son and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." This is why Jesus came. This is why God sent Jesus to us. The child within Mary was a miraculous, holy birth conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Why does this matter? Chris, why are you telling us this? Well, I'm telling you this because what is happening here is that if Jesus was conceived by human seed, then what would have followed would have been sin nature because sin nature is tied with the human seed. But instead, the spiritual nature of God, he was born into Jesus without sin so he could live without sin in order to be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world. I don't know about you, but I know that I need grace. I, every single day, I need God's forgiveness. So let me ask you, what is your sin? Where are you heavy? Where are you feeling the weight of that on your heart today because I wanna tell you, you battling greed? God's got grace for your greed. Are you battling jealousy? There's forgiveness for your jealousy. Are you, have you been angry? His grace covers your sins. There is no sin too great that cannot be covered by the grace of God. Jesus was born of a virgin without sin so that he could die and we could have the forgiveness of our sins.

And the angel says, "Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife." And Joseph obeys. Knowing that there will be significant cost, knowing that he's gonna face serious opposition, he's gonna face ridicule. But time and time again in my life, see, I'm in this interesting place. Realize this this week. That I'm too old to be considered young but then I'm too young to be considered old. I'm in this no man's land, right? Right, I'm too old, right? Yeah, I'm too young, right? Right, yeah, I'm too, yeah. I'm too old and I'm too young at the exact same time. But I will tell you the life that I've lived, the short life that I have lived, of these almost 40 something years on earth, that every time that I have said yes to God and stepped out in obedience to where he has called me, there has been opposition. And there will be opposition. Your obedience will cost you something at some point. You'll have to say no to friends or others about being around them 'cause they're pulling you away from God. Maybe it's social drinking, maybe it's participating in activities you're not supposed to be doing. You know God's word and you know you're not supposed to do that. And yet you're gonna have to say no and step away in obedience, but you'll face opposition. Your friends will judge you. Those who call your closest in your decision to choose God will ridicule you. You'll have to step away from sexual proximity. You'll have to say no to those things. Why? Because you know that should be done only within the context of marriage. For those who are younger, the scripture tells us there's a better way to live and that's to wait for sex until you're married. And then you make up for lost time. Okay? It's not no forever. But we know that because God has a better life for us to live. There's gonna be times where God's gonna call you to be generous. And the world is gonna say, you're giving away your money. You're gonna give 10%, 11%, 12%, 15%. And if you're real crazy, I know people who will give away 50% of their profits to God for His glory, for His church and His kingdom. But the world's gonna look at you and go, you're nuts. Know what you could do with that money? You could have a vacation house. You could have a brand new car. You could have the vacations of dreams. The world's gonna ridicule you. You're gonna have to step out and trust God. And obedience is going to be difficult. But you have no idea what God can do through unexpected moments of obedience, just as He did with Joseph. And the angel said to him, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. And Joseph did as the angel commanded, a moment. Life isn't measured by time. It's measured by moments.

So where does this leave us? Here's a question for us to ponder. Where do I need to be obedient to the prompting of God? It may be as big as Joseph in this moment to stay with Mary. It may be as simple as I need to delete an app off my phone. But where do I, ask yourself this question, where do I need to be obedient to the prompting of God? God's gonna prompt you by His word, I promise you. I hope you're reading His word. You should be reading His word. I'll tell you that today. He's gonna prompt you by the leading of His Holy Spirit in your life. He might ask you to confess a sin. He might ask you to confess an addiction that you need help. You might need to apologize to someone for something you did wrong. He might lead you to forgive someone in the same way that Christ has forgiven you. He might prompt you to pray for somebody, not just pray for them, but to let them know that you're praying for them. He might prompt you to be a witness to someone. Probably not on the street corner with a bullhorn shaking a sign, but probably in the small moments of life in the way that you love others, the way that God has loved us. He might prompt you to invite somebody with the Christmas card this season. But maybe even beyond that, to have a relationship with someone who doesn't know Jesus yet and live a life in a way that is attractive to them, that is different from the world and to the place that they want to come to church with you because they want to know more about this Jesus and this God and this love and this peace that you have in your life that the world cannot understand. You have no idea what God might do in you through one simple, unexpected moment of obedience.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, stir within us today. God, I pray that you would give us the faith and the courage to obey. And as we're reflecting today, God, I wonder how many of us would say that I want to hear from you, God. And not only, God, do I want to hear from you, I want to be even more obedient. God, I see the courage and the incredible obedience that Joseph had in that situation with Mary. God, I want that for my life. If that is you right now, I would do something different. I want you to just raise your hand and say, I want to be obedient to God. I want to be obedient to Jesus. I want to say yes to God. Raise your hand right now if that's you. You want to say, I want to be obedient. And God, I pray that you would give us the faith, Jesus, you would give us the faith to be obedient as Joseph was obedient. God, speak to us, God, convict us, God. Wherever we are sinful, God, I pray that you would lead us in the right direction. God, search our heart. Lead us in your way that's everlasting. God, speak to us. I pray that there would be people, God, that couldn't even walk out of the church building today without reaching out to someone with a word of encouragement. A word of blessing, a moment of prayer, God, that you would help us to be available to you in every moment, in any moment, God, and especially in unexpected moments. That God, when you speak, you would give us the faith to obey just as the angel said and just like Joseph did. That when you speak, God, we will obey.

And as you keep praying this morning, there might be some here today that would say that you're hurting spiritually. And today, Jesus wants to bring you spiritual healing. I told you earlier that I need grace every single day. I need grace for my sins. I need grace for my mistakes. And I'd be curious if we were to sit down and have an honest conversation about spiritual things. And I said, where do you stand with God? Like chances that some of us would say that yeah, we messed up. I've done things wrong. And I want to know this love. See, we've all sinned. Bible tells us that, that every single one of us, and we actually inherit this sin nature. We were born into sin. Sin is passed down from generation to generation. And that is why Jesus was different because he didn't inherit the sin nature of man, but the spiritual nature of the heavenly father. See, this is the good news is that Jesus was without sin. He was the perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. So if you're under condemnation, you have the weight, you have the burden of sin in your heart, I want you today to know that you can confess that and you can receive forgiveness. That we turn away from our sins. We call on the name of Jesus, our hearts and our prayers. He forgives us of our sins that you're not here in this moment right now by happenstance. It's not an accident that today you are here and Jesus wants to give you that forgiveness today. So today you would say to Jesus, I surrender my life to you. Those who would say that I'm ready. Today I leave my old life, I give my life to Jesus. Take a moment, show me, look at me today, raise your hand, say yes today, I want to receive that love of Jesus. I wanna receive that forgiveness. For those of you who said yes, this is my prayer for you. Jesus, I need your grace, I need your mercy, I need your salvation. Know that when you are in the presence of a good God who loves you so much, I want us all to pray this together. I think this is a great reminder. Even if it's your first time praying this prayer, maybe you've prayed this prayer before, you received Jesus before. I don't want anybody to pray alone this morning, I want all of us to pray together. I want all of us to pray and to have a reminder about this moment in our life when we say yes to Jesus. So repeat this after me out loud. Heavenly Father, forgive my sins. Jesus, I trust you to save me, to make me new, to fill me with your Spirit so that I could know you and serve you and obey you and show your love in all that I do. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for your new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Can we just give God praise?

Unexpected Moments - Part 1

Unexpected Moments

Peace - Trusting that God is in Control

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Like Pastor Chris just said, I'm so thankful to have a season focusing on gratitude and now we're gonna turn our attention to Christmas. It's the first Sunday of Advent. You may hear the word "Advent" a lot in church and maybe you know, but in case you don't, I just want to remind us that Advent is the four-week season in the church calendar dedicated to anticipating the arrival or the advent of Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah and King. Simply, it's a time of waiting for Jesus. One pastor says the good news of Advent is not that we are faithful in our waiting, we often aren't faithful in our waiting, but that God is faithful in His arrival. And it's that arrival that we celebrate every year. And I just want to take a moment for all of us to think and back up a bit to recognize and appreciate that Christians all over the world from many different backgrounds celebrate this time with reflections of peace and hope and love and joy and we are joining with them in anticipating the arrival of Christ. This Advent, we're gonna take some time to reflect on some of those moments of hope, peace, love, and joy, but through a unique lens. In our Advent series, we're gonna take a look at four specific moments in the birth story of Jesus, what we are calling unexpected moments. Moments from the human perspective that look like they may be full of chaos and crisis, but actually turn into divine moments, holy moments filled with heavenly purpose. We'll look at various angles of the birth of Jesus starting today from Mary finding peace in the midst of life-altering news, to the obedience that Joseph needed when being asked by God to partner with him in the birth of his son, to the news of Jesus' birth being brought to the shepherds of all people. Our theme throughout this series is what we see as unexpected may actually be God-ordained and might be a holy moment for us too. And as we look back on these unexpected holy moments in Scripture, we'll also look to our own lives and await how God might move in unexpected ways, producing something holy in and through us for his glory. So I'm really looking forward to seeing each one of these stories in an unexpected moment being used for God's divine purpose.

Today we're going to be in Luke chapter 1. If you want to turn there, it'll be on the screen. Luke chapter 1:26-38, which again holds this unexpected moment where Mary learns that her life will never be the same. Changed forever with the news from the angel that she would become the mother of the long-awaited Savior. I just want to quickly provide some context for where we're at in the story of the Bible. We're at the beginning of the New Testament where the Israelites have been waiting for the Messiah for a very long time. I'm gonna do--this is gonna be super brief--overview of the entire Bible, okay? Well, kind of. We're starting in the Exodus. But after the Israelites, God's people, escaped Egypt. They went to the Promised Land, but they were not satisfied with that fulfillment of God's promise. They wanted more, and they wanted a king. And so God sent judges and then kings, and then the kings led to Israel's downfall. And it was a sad downfall for the nation of Israel, and they were in captivity for a long time. And we just had a series earlier this year in Nehemiah talking about the end of captivity and Israel coming back to their land, but never reaching their former status of glory like they were in the days of King David and King Solomon. It was still a struggle, but God continued to reach out to them, hoping that they would follow him, specifically through prophets who brought truth and tried to, again, bring them back to what they were supposed to do, a life of obedience to God's Word. And these prophets always pointed them forward to a coming Savior, the Messiah, who would save them. And ever since captivity, ever since those glory days of Israel, other foreign powers had been the superpower of the world. And at this time, Rome is the world's superpower. And so Israel is hearing these prophecies and is thinking, "Man, we have a Savior coming at some point. We hope that our Savior, our King, is going to overthrow this superpower, Rome, and that we will be back on top in the world." But it's been 200 years since the last prophet. It's a time of silence, and the people are just waiting for God to move. It's a long, long season of Advent. And it's in that time of waiting that we come to our series and our sermon today.

So I want to go ahead and read our passage together, starting in verse 26. You guys can follow along. It says, "In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. You will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end.' 'How will this be?' Mary asked the angel, 'Since I am a virgin.' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month, for no word from God will ever fail.' 'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May your word to me be fulfilled.' And then the angel left her.”

Let's pray one more time. God, thank you again for your word, for your truth, and for the arrival of your Son Jesus, the Incarnation, that bring about the redemption plan that you have had since sin, since before, since the creation of the world. And we are just so thankful to take time in our lives and in our calendar to celebrate. God, I pray that you would be with us this morning as we read about how you take unexpected moments that aren't unexpected to you at all, and reveal to us the plan that you are working, making things holy in our lives. Speak to us this morning, God, we pray this in your name, amen.

So I just want to point out a few things in our lens of unexpected moments. Really we're gonna see two sides of this unexpected moment. One that is earthly chaos, and the other side which is heavenly purpose, represented in these two parties. Mary being the one who embodies potential chaos and crisis, and the angel as one who carries this future heavenly purpose, this message of a divine purpose. So let's take a look at this situation through the lens of Mary. In verse 27 we find out that she's a virgin pledged to be married. This news is a source of possible chaos initially, disrupting her plans, what she thought her life was going and what her life was going to look like. Just like we do today, I'm sure Mary had dreams and expectations and a life forming in her mind of, "I'm pledged to be married, these are the relationships and the family, this is what life is gonna look like, this is what our home is gonna look like." Wondering how they're gonna fit in to the community and their family. I'm sure you guys have done something similar, maybe moving to a new area, getting a new job, and you just start thinking about, "Oh, am I gonna become friends with co-workers or my neighbors or what's it gonna look like in this dynamic and what is life gonna be?" And you start wondering but also hoping and expecting, "This is what it is gonna be, I'm gonna make effort for it to be like this." And then what if at some point in that, you just get news that it's gonna be totally different. That is a moment for me at least, for someone who likes control and wants to know what's happening, that is major stress, major anxiety, it's a lot. And so that's where Mary is in this moment. And then in verses 28 through 29, the angel spoke and Mary was terrified. This is another chaotic moment. Angels who were, you know, they're not the precious moment angels that we think of. They're not very cute and cherubs and baby halos and wings, they're terrifying. Every encounter in the Bible with an angel, the person is terrified and the angel has to say, "Hold on, it's okay. I'm from God, I'm good and God's got something good for you." And so this is, even not just mentally for Mary, in the moment, this is chaos, this is crisis. And then in verses 30 through 35, there's this future possible chaos, having a child out of wedlock, the unknowns of her relationship with Joseph. How would he take the news? The message that the angel brings is good news and we'll get to that in a second, but at first glance, when hearing these words, the situation is just boiling over with anxiety, confusion, doubt, and stress. What would people think? How is this gonna happen? What would become of, again, the relationship? Would she have to raise this child alone? What would this child be like? It was certainly unexpected and it could have meant a lot of chaos and led to a crisis. But instead, we know that the message is of good news and there's this presence of peace that the angel brings. So this other perspective of divine purpose, heavenly purpose, verses 30 through 33, the angel delivers the good news of the coming Messiah. And now we're getting to that divine meaning and that heavenly purpose. This is the Messiah that Israel has been waiting for, the one who would bring about God's kingdom. And as the prophet said, this would be the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, Emmanuel, God with us. And this is the holy news. Mary is being called by God to partner with him in his ultimate plan of redemption for humanity, a most holy calling.

And then in verses 35 through 37, the angel brings reassurance and heavenly support. Again, the angel is countering this chaotic mind that Mary is having with good news, the truth of Jesus and his incarnation, the arrival of the Messiah. And the angel encourages Mary with the truth, and I love this verse, "For no word from God will ever fail." I don't know where Mary's emotions were while the angel was talking, but I bet that this verse, when he said this, it gave her peace. Because that response in verse 38, "I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled." I read that and I think that the chaos and anxiety running through Mary's mind dissipated so she could rest in the assurance of God and his word and his character, and it gives peace to her soul. So are we seeing this passage now through the lens of unexpected moments, potential chaos, future divine purpose? Let me just run through it one more time, summarizing everything. So in this conversation, verses 28, the angel greets and it's unexpected, very unexpected, but in verse 29 we have Mary trying to figure out some things.

And then in 30 through 33, the angel announcement brings the heavenly purpose to the forefront. But then in 34, we're back to unexpected and chaos, because she says, "How will this be? I don't understand. This doesn't make any sense." And then in 35 through 38, we see heavenly purpose again, heavenly support, this divine plan that Mary has been invited into. And the passage ends with Mary having peace in her heart. While we may not be able to personally relate to Mary's exact birth story, I know we can't, what I think we all can relate to is having an unexpected moment in our lives. That has the potential to lead us to chaos and crisis, or to heavenly purpose. It could be the news of a new job, means you have to move, maybe a diagnosis of health that could go either way, you're not sure. Maybe it's a relationship that you have that's on the rocks, and it could work out, but it takes work and it's gonna take a lot of intentional focus on healing and restoration. What I know is this, unexpected news, often at the onset, looks like chaos. It seems impossible, and it can easily turn into a crisis. And if we don't or can't see the heavenly purpose in the unexpected, it will turn to chaos, and it will become a crisis. But seeing and understanding that God has a plan, that He is present with us in that moment, changes it all. It doesn't mean that the outcome is now perfect and amazing, it just means that God is with us, and we can have peace as we go through that unexpected situation. I think it'd be nice, I mean think of Mary, if we could all have a Mary situation, not be terrified by angels, I think in the modern age maybe it was like a text or an alert from God, just being like, "By the way, unexpected moment coming up, I'll be with you," but just like a little ding from the phone and be like, "Hey, the next 24 hours, expect something unexpected." I would love that. It doesn't work like that, but what we do have, fortunately and even better, is the Holy Spirit in us, direct access to God in our hearts, dwelling in us. The Holy Spirit brings and assures us of God's plan, reminds us of the truth of God's character, and brings us the peace of God. Let me say that again, the Holy Spirit assures us of God's plan, reminds us of the truth of God's character, and brings us the peace of God within us. And here's what I hope speaks to you today, when we experience the unexpected moments that push us towards chaos, but we understand that there is a heavenly purpose, that God is at work, God gives us peace in that moment.

And if we look back on our passage again, Mary moved forward after this moment, her last words are, "May your word to me be fulfilled. I am the Lord's servant." I don't think she says that without the peace of God within her. She had peace to endure pregnancy unlike any other. She has peace to endure all the ramifications of what that means socially, facing friends and family and the neighborhood of judging her possibly for a situation that they don't understand. She has peace that surpasses all understanding of how this will work out, how is this going to happen. Even after the angel tells her, I don't think she's like, "Oh, that makes perfect sense. Thank you, angel. I get it now." But she has peace that allows her to keep going, peace that brought her into God's will, and peace that would give her the confidence to partner with God in his plan. And so from the emotional response we see in verse 29, Mary is greatly troubled to seeing her measured response in verse 38. It's because she understood that there was clearly a heavenly purpose for what she would endure, for what she was called to, and God gave her peace. That peace from God kept her from getting too hyper fixated on what was ahead and also kept her from being taken over by fear and a desire for control that would have kept her from being present. With the peace of God, she was able to face any confusion and uncertainty and be present in her new reality. I think that's true for us. The sooner that we turn to Jesus and accept our limitations, our limits in understanding, the fact that we are dependent on him, the sooner that we can be content and calm. And with the peace that God gives us, we can be more present with God, with others, and with ourselves. This unexpected moment for Mary changed her life. It had the potential to be a source of chaos and crisis, but as she surrenders to God, she accepts the heavenly purpose, and this unexpected moment is transformed into a holy moment for her, one that I'm sure she comes back to over and over again. In her pregnancy, raising Jesus as a child, I'm sure she remembers the moment she was visited by an angel, was told the plan of God, saying, "I'm calling you to something, and I will be with you as you endure." I want to spend the rest of our time thinking of our lives and our unexpected moments, hoping and praying that they might turn into something holy.

So let me ask a few questions as we reflect on our current situations. First is this, have you ever had an unexpected holy moment? Just think back in your life. Could be recent, could be a long time ago. Have you ever had an unexpected moment turn into a holy moment? In the moment, it was very chaotic, it was a potential crisis, but as you look back now, you see, you know what, God was working, God was moving, and there's something holy was produced from that. I'll share with you one of my biggest unexpected moments turned holy. It's got a happy ending, don't worry. But years ago, well, like four years--time is weird--four years ago maybe, I was working at a church for a long time, church I grew up in, had a similar history to here at Spring Valley Church, and at this moment in time, the pastor resigned. It was a good thing, but it was hard. And then soon after COVID hit, and we had an interim pastor, and that was actually great, and at that moment I think I started to see a divine purpose, but losing the pastor that was a mentor to me, like an older brother, that was hard. That was the first moment of potential crisis, and then COVID hit, and that was a crisis for the entire world, and then the church wasn't sure if it was going to continue. And so I just was kept being--the future was just unknown, and I just kept going to God, like, "What is happening right now? Lost my boss, my friend, my brother, and now the church that I'm working at that I thought I could work here forever is facing closure, and the world, the world is just chaos right now. What is happening?" In the midst of all this, too, my wife had a job change, and so because of the situation, we decided to live with my parents, just for temporary. And so that first year living with them, we were always looking at houses. We were putting bids, we were just going, visiting, having conversations, sending letters, just trying to advertise yourself, like, "Hey, pick us! Look at us! We're a wonderful family! Don't you want us to grow up in your home? And aren't we awesome? And we'll take care of it. We won't change a thing. It's amazing." You know, those conversations that, if you know, you know. And it was hard. That's taxing after a while. And then, through COVID, the housing market, just, we couldn't afford anything. And again, just coming to this moment of, "God, what is happening? We're here. We trust you. It's hard to trust you because I don't, I want to know the future. I want to know the plan. I want to know where we're gonna be." Many difficult conversations, hard nights, facing rejection from these people with housings and with the houses, and unexpected moment after unexpected moment. And for me, it was leaning more and more towards chaos and crisis. I was not yet seeing the divine plan, the divine purpose. And then, we found out that my dad had MCI, which is mild cognitive impairment, with a high likelihood for dementia. And that changed everything. And again, that was another moment where we, I think, God was cluing us into, "I have a plan. I'm doing something. You need to trust me." And I was actually interviewing at, not this church, a different church. And at that same weekend, that Sunday, went out and interviewed. And the Friday before that Sunday, I just found out about my dad's health. And on the way back, my wife and I were talking in the car, and we just felt like, "I don't think we're supposed to go anywhere. I don't think we're supposed to leave my dad." So I look back now, and I see the divine purpose. And what God was calling my wife, Becky, and I to do. And it was twofold. And it happened simultaneously, because at the same time, I had a great coffee with Pastor Chris, and this church was here and hiring. And so the plan, thankfully, and now I see clearly, was to come here and be a pastor on staff, and to stay home and take care of my dad, help take care of him.

But we had to trust God. And as soon as that became clear, that chaotic noise and the doubts and the fears within me were stilled. Being clued into what God was doing, saying, "I wanted you to be at this house. I don't know if on my own plan I would have chose to live with..." I can tell you, I would not have chosen to live with my parents. They're wonderful, and it works out. They're here, by the way, which was not expecting. Unexpected moment, live. I don't remember what I was saying. But yes, the chaos and the fears were stilled, because once you know that you are a part where you are exactly where God wants you, when you are partnered with Him and His plan, He does give you peace. And it's a peace that doesn't matter what anyone else is saying, the judgment the world is giving you, the confusion that other people, they don't get what you're doing. They're like, "Why? Just hire some help. Just do that." And it's like, God has a different plan for us. And I was able to be more free to be present with God, to be present with myself, and present with others. And it's not to say that now that it's all done and it's been going great that I never struggle with that. It's still things that come up after a little bit. But I come back to this moment, where God wants you. When you are partnered with Him and His plan, He does give you peace. And it's a peace that doesn't matter what anyone else is saying, the judgment the world is giving you, the confusion that other people, they don't get what you're doing. They're like, "Why? Just hire some help. Just do that." And it's like, God has a different plan for us. And I was able to be more free to be present with God, to be present with myself, and present with others. And it's not to say that now that it's all done and it's been going great that I never struggle with that. It's still things that come up after a little bit. But I come back to this moment, where God revealed His plan and said, "This is why." And I always come back to that and say, "That's exactly why." And it gives me peace all over again. So, have you had an unexpected moment turn into a holy moment? Again, maybe it's right now. Maybe you're in the midst of it. Or maybe you look back and it was four or five years ago and you can see now clearly what God is doing. Maybe you're in the crisis mode where it's like, "I don't understand yet. This is just a lot of chaos. It's a lot of stress and anxiety." And I'm praying that God does have a plan. I want to reassure you, He does. And you can continue to talk with Him and pray, "God, please let me know. Give me a little sense of the plan so I can just hold on to something and I can understand that this is of you and that you are doing something through this." Be reminded that chaos can easily turn into crisis without sensing the divine plan.

Second question is, "What is your typical go-to response when feelings of anxiety and confusion surface in your life?" We sent out this email yesterday and I don't expect any of you to have read it. You're on holiday mode. It's totally okay. But it is an Advent meditation. It's an invitation to meditate each week. There's four meditations on the peace that Jesus brings. And one of them brings up this question, "What is your typical go-to response when feelings of anxiety and confusion surface?" Because oftentimes we want to handle everything. We want to control something. We want to come up with a solution. And God becomes further and further from the solution and the answer to our problems in that moment. I want to read Psalm 131 because I think it speaks directly to this idea of, or this moment when anxiety and confusion surface. It says, "My heart is not proud, Lord. My eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself. I am like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child, I am content. Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore." The psalmist is encouraging us to have a go-to response of humility and hope. Humility, understanding that God is in control. We can't do, we're limited in what we can do. And then hope, to put our hope in Christ as the answer, as the source of joy, of hope, peace. It's helpful to be mindful of our natural response when feelings of anxiety and confusion surface, to be intentional, to draw closer to Jesus in that moment. Instead of backing further away from him, sometimes we do that unintentionally, but to be intentional to say, "Jesus, I need you right now. I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling anxious. God, let me meditate on your truth, on your character. Let me draw near to you. Let me just come with all my questions and let me just ask them all to you." And just release it and say, "God, you do the work that you're gonna do. I don't have to know everything, but we have a moment with Jesus." So take some time this week and think about what do you do in moments of anxiety and confusion, and is it drawing closer to Jesus? And if it isn't, what can you do to make that happen? And lastly, what chaos or crisis are you facing and have you seen the heavenly purpose in it yet?

This is similar to the first question, but again, just having a moment to assess your life. Maybe it's, again, three or four years ago. Maybe it's happened earlier this year. Maybe it's a recent development that's happened in the past couple weeks. But whatever that potential chaos and crisis, have you seen the heavenly purpose yet? And if you haven't, then ask these questions. What might God be trying to tell me? How is God trying to lead me right now? What is God trying to invite me into? What blessing and growth and opportunity might lie ahead if I follow Jesus? Will you trust God and rest in the peace that He alone brings? This Christmas season, during Advent, our prayer is that we experience the peace of God. That we can take joy in who He is and what He's doing in our lives, and that we can see clearly the love that He has for us, and that we are filled with hope for our future. Would you guys pray with me?

God, thank you again for this story, and I pray you know everyone's story here, and you know exactly where they're at, and you know the past moments that are unexpected that they've gone through, moments of chaos and crisis. Maybe presently you know people in this room who are going through a very difficult season or an unknown season. And God, you also know for those of us who are enjoying life right now that we will have future unexpected moments. And I pray for all of us that when those moments arise, that we would be able to see your divine purpose. God, that we would ask the right questions to you, to better understand that you are at work, and to rest in the fact that you are in control. Nothing is a surprise to you. And that you have a plan through it all. And God we ask that you would give us peace. Peace in this season. Fill us with hope, joy and love. We pray this knowing that you are a good God, that you are good for us. We pray all this, Amen.

The Message of the Manger: Part 4

The Messiah of the Manger

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Man, this Christmas season is flying by. I know last week, Pastor Lauren got all of us thinking about the Christmas traditions that we do. She had mentioned donuts in her family, which I thought was awesome. I don't know if you guys are in the midst of carrying out all your traditions. We have Christmas cookies going, and then we have some movies on, and we love it. We still have to do the Christmas lights, and behind Bel Air here, we haven't gone through yet. We're looking forward to doing that. And so, hopefully you guys are enjoying those things. I know it goes by fast, and so we want you to enjoy that. But yeah, the season is, 2024 is just around the corner. And today, speaking of things going fast, our series is coming to an end. We're wrapping up our Christmas series, The Message of the Manger. We've had, three weeks ago, we talked about the mystery of the manger. That was the incarnation, how Jesus is fully God and fully man, and wrapping our heads around that to the best of our ability. We also talked about the miracles, all the impossible things made possible by God for the birth of Jesus. And then last week, Pastor Lauren talked about the majesty of the manger and how people were awaiting the coming heavenly king.

And so today, we're gonna shift our focus from this moment around the manger. I don't know if you know this, by the way, we have a manger up here. Did you guys see this throughout the, it's been there? I love it, Pastor Chris built a manger for us. But we're shifting from the scene directly around the manger around Jesus' birth, and we're gonna look forward to what he's gonna do in his life. We wanna answer the questions, why was Jesus born? Why did God send his only son to earth? In other words, why do we have Christmas? In order to understand that fully, I wanna take us back a bit and help us understand why we needed Jesus to descend from heaven, why we needed the incarnation, why God had done all these amazing things, all the miracles, and why people were waiting for a king, the majesty around the manger. Because God didn't just do this for fun. He didn't just say, "Hey, this is a good time in history." They just kinda like, "Let's put Jesus in the story right now. "This works out, this would be a good time." Or, "Hey, it's getting kind of shady. "I think we need Jesus to kinda help it out a little bit." No, there was way more intention and purpose in the arrival of Jesus. There was a need for him. And this moment at the manger is a culmination of so many other moments. This was anticipated and prophesied and waited for, for years upon years, generations upon generations. And so I wanna start briefly at the beginning.

Now let me ask, how long do you think humanity was in need of a Messiah, of a Savior? Well, it's all the way back at the very beginning of our Bibles, thousands of years ago, in Genesis in the Garden of Eden. You may be wondering, this is Christmas, Why are we talking about Genesis right now? Well, without understanding what happened here at the beginning of the Bible, we won't fully grasp and appreciate what is happening when Jesus is born. You see, we believe that the Bible is one coherent story, all leading us to Jesus and God's plan of salvation. It's important that as we read scripture and try to understand what God is doing in the midst of different people and different scenarios, that ultimately it's driving us to the arrival of Christ. The moment where Jesus the Messiah arrives. And it's gonna point us to what will happen in Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection. So, to go all the way back, just a brief refresher for some of you, or maybe something new. We're gonna go back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. And back then, everything was perfect, right? God had created this Garden of Eden. He had put Adam and Eve in there to be partners with him, and everything is great for a time until it isn't. Until Adam and Eve, and we know of the fruit and the tree, and they choose to separate themselves from God, and sin is inserted into the story. They choose to try to do life apart from God. And all of humanity from that point on has a sin problem. And that sin problem is a separation from God. Instead of being destined to be with him forever, humanity is at risk of never being with God, and apart from him for eternity.

So that is the sin issue, and it's an issue that God wants to correct, but in his perfect and beautiful way, and it's gonna take time. And he alludes to his plan when speaking to Adam and Eve and the serpent in the garden. After everything goes down, God is debriefing with each of them. The big moment happens, sin enters, and God, I'm going through this so fast, but God is talking to Adam, and he's like, "Hey, this is how life is gonna change." He talks to Eve, "Hey, this is how life "is gonna change for you." And he talks to the serpent, the enemy. And he says this, in Genesis 3.15, he says, this is God speaking to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, "between your offspring and hers. "He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." The "He" in that verse is foreshadowing to the coming Messiah, Jesus. Jesus will defeat the enemy. And so everything in our Bibles, everything, up until we get to here, right around here, Jesus' birth, everything in between is God's plan unfolding about bringing about that Messiah. From the moment that sin enters the story, everything else is pointing and leading to Jesus entering the story. It's from this moment on that we know that God has a plan of salvation. Someone is going to come and rescue humanity. Like I said, sin has corrupted humanity and driven us away from God, and there's nothing that humanity can do on its own to restore that broken relationship. The human situation because of sin is hopeless and chaotic and despairing and void of any love.

But Jesus brings love and peace and hope and joy to humanity, as he is the source of all those things. And he brings restoration for our relationship with God. Jesus is born to confront the issue of sin. This is why we need Jesus. This is why God has sent his son to earth. And this is how the manger points us So what Jesus the Messiah will do. So there was our brief Bible lesson from the past and now we're back in Jesus' time. There are many references to Jesus being the Messiah in helpful passages in Scripture and they all describe a little bit about who He is and what He does. We don't have time to go through them all but I would encourage you this week and up until Christmas and this season to maybe do a Google search in your personal time and you know Bible passages Messiah and see what you learn from that. But today I want to focus on one, and that's in Luke. We'll be in Luke today, chapter four. And in this scene, this is Jesus, grown up by the way, we're far past his birth, we're gonna come back to the birth, but we're far past his birth. He's a grown man, he's starting things, he's starting his ministry. And so he's coming from the wilderness, where he spent significant time being tested and tempted by Satan. And he succeeds through that temptation and testing by resting on his purpose, his mission, that he came to be the Messiah. He's a part of the rescue plan. He is the rescue plan. And so he comes back from the desert and he's like, "I gotta let people know who I am now." He's kind of been under the radar. He's just been Jesus living his life.

And so he goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and he reads from a scroll of Isaiah. Isaiah's a book in our Bible. It's full of prophecy. And this is an epic moment of Jesus sharing who he is. So if you guys wanna follow along, I'm gonna read from verse, starting in verse 16, chapter four of the book of Luke. It says this, "He went to Nazareth, "where he had been brought up, "and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, "as was his custom. "He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah "was handed to him. "Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, "because he has anointed me "to proclaim good news to the poor. "He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners "and recovery of sight for the blind, "to set the oppressed free, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." This is, I mean, amazing, thinking of how long people have been waiting for the Messiah, how long generations after generations and the people, this wouldn't be the first time they've heard this passage before. So they know everyone's anticipating at some point there will be someone to come rescue us. And they recognize as Jesus is reading this, like that's him. This is the guy that we've been waiting for. All their eyes are fixed on him. So what is Jesus gonna do? Let's find out what the Messiah is all about. I just wanna go line by line here and break down what Jesus is saying by reading this scripture.

So the first part says, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me "because he has anointed me." Well, anointing symbolizes holiness and authority. In the Bible, kings, prophets, and priests could all be anointed to signify that they had been set apart and selected for a specific role. And the Hebrew word here that Jesus is using when he says "anointed" is also the word for Messiah. So he's saying, "Look, it's me. I am the anointed one. I am the Messiah, the one you've been waiting for." So we know that Jesus, as the Messiah, has been anointed, he's been purposed, he's been selected for this role by God. To redeem and to rescue, to sacrifice and to be king. The passage continues to proclaim good news to the poor. Jesus as the Messiah brings good news, brings the gospel. John 4, in the Gospel of John, there's a different scene that's a little bit more explicit in explaining this role of the Messiah. There's a conversation between Jesus and a woman, and the woman says to Jesus, "I know that the Messiah, called Christ, is coming, and when He comes, He will explain everything to us." says to this woman in this passage, "I, the one speaking to you, I am He." And so we know that Jesus brings truth. He brings perfect understanding and explanation to the Scriptures, to the way that we are supposed to live according to God. His purpose was to reveal truth and to... He has the power and clarity of sharing God's perfect Word. This is the role of Jesus as a prophet, being the voice of God. And he would do this throughout his life by teaching in synagogues, by having conversations with his followers, parables, more conversations with his disciples, explaining what scripture really means and what God is actually calling people to.

The end of that verse says, "To the poor." And why "to the poor"? Well, Jesus would teach on the on the Sermon on the Mount, that the poor in spirit are blessed, because the kingdom of God, God himself, values those who the world may see poor in their eyes, God sees value in them. And so he's speaking the gospel to everyone, not just who the world would think, hey, the good news should come to those who have earned it, who have lived a certain life. No, Jesus came to give good news to absolutely everyone. The passage continues again, it says, He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and set the oppressed free. So it's not just that the Messiah reveals truth, he does that, but he also has come to do things. He's come to rescue and to redeem. Now the Israelites for a long time had this idea of what that rescue plan would look like. They thought an earthly ruler, an earthly king, that would help them rise up against their oppressors, thinking of the Roman government, and we're gonna establish this new kingdom here on earth. That's what all of Israel thought. But Jesus is not talking about an earthly nation or kingdom. Jesus came to rescue, to save lost people, and to give freedom, but freedom from sin. Rescue from that eternal separation from God that they were dealing with. That people would no longer be bound by the oppressive sin and darkness in their life, but would have the light of Christ and have freedom in him. Jesus came to free sinners and to give new life, eternal life to those who believe.

And then it ends with, “to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Now, this is referenced to an old Israelite tradition that every 50 years, any slave would be freed and any borrowed land would be returned to its original owners. And Jesus is not saying, "Hey, that's what's happening this year, everyone." He's saying, "I'm now ushering in a new era of salvation." This is an era where the work of sin can begin to be undone, where people were once separated from God, and now that relationship can be restored, not fully, like it will be in heaven, but we can once again commune with God the Father through Jesus. So this whole passage, verses 18 and 19, when Jesus is reading this, he's saying, this is what I'm bringing, what the Messiah brings, is an era worthy of celebrating, of anticipating, of getting excited about. This is what the Messiah will do. This is why God sent his only son to earth. This is why Jesus is born, and this is why we have Christmas. Jesus was born to save, to share God's truth, and to redeem the lost, to free humanity from their sin. And so in our scene, Jesus says all this, rolls back up the scroll, gives it to the attendant, and all eyes were on him. And it was clear that he was saying this about himself.

And in verse 21 it says, "Today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus has announced that he is the Messiah. And he's alluding to what will happen, God's plan that's gonna be carried out in the coming years of his life. Now today, our series is around the manger. We're approaching Christmas Day where we often think of baby Jesus, and that's appropriate, we can do that, we can celebrate that. But it's important to know that thinking of Jesus in the manger is to think of what that baby, the Messiah, will do in his life. While we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we truly celebrate the birth, what that birth brings, what the Messiah brings. You see, Christmas means less if we think we aren't in need of rescuing. Christmas means less if we don't think we need a savior. And Christmas means less if we aren't looking forward to the Messiah doing work in our own lives. The passage in Luke continues in a very unfortunate way. We won't read it, but let me just tell you what happens. Jesus says all this, and I wanna compare it to what we're doing today too. So Jesus says all this, he's at the synagogue on the Sabbath, which is what they would do at that time. We're today at church on a Sunday, which is what we do. And Jesus comes unexpected and claims to be the Messiah. And at first people were in awe. They're amazed at what is happening. But then the people wanted proof. They didn't take Jesus at his word any longer.

And so Jesus has some harsher words for them, telling them that prophets are not accepted in their hometowns and the people are offended. As one scholar says, it says, "People are more ready to see greatness in strangers "than in those that they know well." And that's what was true of the people in Nazareth. And so I just want us to pause and think about that. If you know Jesus, if you've been walking with Jesus for most of your life, are you at risk of being numb to the greatness that he's doing around you and in you and through you, especially in another Christmas season? Are you numb to how amazing the birth of Jesus is? Well, that's kind of what Jesus is saying to these people. He's saying, "Hey, I'm saying all these truths and you want more. You don't need more, but you want more." And they get angry. And they get so angry that they want to push Jesus off of a cliff. I'm not making that up. That's in the Bible. They are pushing him. This crowd, this angry mob, is forcing him to this cliff. They want to throw him off. They're so offended. But in verse 30, this is what happens. "He walked right through the crowd, and he went on his way." He just left. He walks on and continues with his purpose, with his rescue mission, because he is the Messiah. And they missed out on experiencing more of the Messiah in their lives.

And so what is our response to the Messiah today? Are we amazed, hearing amazing things, seeing amazing things from God? And sometimes we're in awe and we're like, "Yes, God, you are so good. "This is incredible." Or are we more offended and angry? Jesus, you wanna do what with my life? Jesus, you're asking me to change in what way? Jesus, you want how much of me? You want all of me? Sometimes these things offend us. They stir us up. We don't like that. And maybe we identify with both these groups if we're honest with ourselves. Even in the same day, we can be, at one point in the day, we're amazed at God. In the next moment, we're really offended. "God, I don't like what you're doing in my life right now." But verse 30 is a warning to us. He walked right through the crowd, went on his way. Our Messiah is on a mission. He's got things to do in our lives, and we don't want to miss out. If we reject or ignore the Messiah, we'd be missing out on being freed from sin, or seeing light in the darkness, or being rescued completely. So I wanna invite the worship band back up as we close. We're gonna close our sermon this morning and really our whole series with this. The Message of the Manger, that was the title of our series. And so I wanna make sure that we all know what that message is, be very clear. The message of the manger is one of salvation. It's about how the incarnation of God in the person of Christ came down through miraculous means and circumstances. Jesus came to be our King, came to be our Redeemer, our Rescuer, our Lord and Savior, our Messiah. And so will you this Christmas lean into God? Will you worship Him? Will you give him your entire life? And as you celebrate his arrival and you celebrate what his arrival means, don't let Jesus pass you by this Christmas.

Let's pray. God, thank you again for Christmas, for sending your son. Thank you for what that birth means and the fact that we get to have an opportunity to experience everlasting life with you. That through your son that you would bring salvation, that you would correct this sin issue that all of us are dealing with. So God, our prayer this morning is that in today, in this next week, and through Christmas and beyond, that you would draw us closer to you. And if that's by focusing on your birth, on the birth of Jesus, then so be it. If that's on focusing on what Jesus would do later on in his life, great. In whatever ways, God, I pray that you would draw us closer to you, that we would come to this point of surrendering, giving our lives over to you, worshiping you with all that we have. I pray that we would all, however we're feeling, at some point in this Christmas season, we would experience your joy, your peace, your hope, and your love. God, you are so good. We give you all the praise. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Message of the Manger: Part 3

The Majesty of the Manger

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome! I am so glad to be here with you today. Last time I was up here, I was very pregnant. So hopefully my lung capacity will be a little bit better this time. If I haven't met you, I am Pastor Lauren, and I am so excited to be with you today with our third week of Advent. Real quick, unrelated, I know you heard it from the guys, but I wanted you to hear it from me. Thank you so much for your generosity as we have transitioned with a new baby and just, we have not bought diapers yet because of you all. You guys have blessed us so much. I think we saw months worth of diapers left in our garage. So we are so thankful for that and for meals and gift cards. And then right after that, you guys have been so generous with Pastor Appreciation and just loving on our families. And so I just wanted you to hear that from me, completely unrelated to the sermon today, but thank you. Thank you for those that have given and sacrificed and served to fill in spaces when I was missing this the last couple of months. So thank you. Just wanted you to know that you are appreciated and you are so loved. And I just love the culture of generosity we have here in our SVC family.

Well, we are on week three of the message of the manger series. Pastor Chris started us off with the mystery of the manger and talked about Jesus coming and being fully God and fully man and how we can maybe grasp that on some level, but there's still so much mystery there. And it's a wonderful mystery. If we could figure God out, I would be concerned. So I'm glad there is still some mystery and that I am not God and I do not fully understand Him. And then Pastor Andre talks about the miracles last week of the manger and the multiple miracles surrounding the birth of Jesus and His incarnation and Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and Zechariah and even the wise men coming. And then today we are going to talk about the majesty of the manger. So something you should know about me is I love Christmas. I know that is not the case for everybody. I know this time of year can be really hard for a lot of people, but I am so grateful that I just love it. I love, it's just magical to me. I love the music and the twinkle lights and the presents and the songs, just the movies, just all of it. Give me all of it, I want it all. And I get it from my father. Now I'm a pastor's kid, so he's used me in a lot of sermons, so I have the microphone this time, so I get to use him.

But my dad loves Christmas, and growing up, the first-ish weekend of December, he would make homemade donuts, and a big breakfast, we'd have like our nice Christmas dishes, and he'd play Christmas music, And that was our way of ushering in the Christmas season. And as a tradition, we carried on with our kids. In fact, my parents are in town. And so he made donuts with my kids yesterday to help us continue that tradition. But when I was a freshman in college, I was not going to be home in time for Christmas donut day. But I went to college about, we went to college in Indiana. My parents were here in California. And I was so bummed I was gonna miss it. And we looked forward to it every year. But I went to college about 15 minutes from my grandparents. And that Saturday morning that my family was doing Christmas donut day in California, I get a phone call that my grandma is at the front door of my dorm. And I go downstairs and she has a plate of homemade donuts. 'Cause my dad called her and said, "You gotta make my kid donuts." That to me is the magic of Christmas. I want all of it. I love it.

But we're gonna talk about the majesty today. The majesty of Christmas, I've come to appreciate it more and more. I've always known Jesus is the reason for the season. You know, we know that that's why we celebrate. The older I get, the more I appreciate what it truly means that our God came to earth as a baby. And truly, appreciating the majesty of Christmas makes it that much more magical. It just enhances the magic of Christmas for me. So what do I mean about, or what do I mean when I say majesty? Majesty is one of those words that I know what it means, but to explain it, I'm like, oh, what's the definition of majesty? So I did what we all do and I Googled it. And some definitions that came up were impressive stateliness, dignity or beauty, Royal power, a title given to a sovereign. All of these accurately describe Jesus. He is impressive and beautiful and he is sovereign and has royal power. So today we're gonna focus on his majesty and specifically his kingship. His kingship isn't necessarily something we talk about super often, but diving into this, I found it is just, it is an attribute of Him that I think is really important and it impacts our daily lives. So how do we know that Jesus is King? How do we know that? What does it mean for us practically to have a King?

Well, the Bible talks about Jesus is King and there are many prophecies of the coming King or coming Messiah. And Messiah means anointed one. And in Bible times, prophets would anoint the next king as a symbol of their kingship. So Jesus is the Messiah. He is the anointed one. And it was foretold in the Old Testament, thousands of years before Jesus's birth, that he would be king and that he would sit on David's throne forever. So we're gonna be kind of jumping around in scripture today. So if you wanna follow along, great. pleased you, we got Bibles in the seats. You can pick it up on your phone or we'll have it on the screen for you. But our first passage today is Isaiah 9, six through seven. And it says, "For to us, a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing it and upholding it with justice and righteousness. From that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." This is just one of many prophecies of Jesus's coming King. The Israelites in the Old Testament, they wanted a King. They were struggling to follow God and his way for them. They saw the surrounding nations had kings and they wanted a king. They wanted a ruler and a warrior to help them conquer other lands. They wanted a protector. They wanted a king. The problem is their only options for kings were humans. So there was not going to be a perfect king. There were good kings and there were a lot of really bad ones too. David is one example. He was a good king. He made a lot of mistakes, but the Bible also says he was a man after God's own heart. So he was a good king, but he wasn't a perfect king. And he wasn't going to live forever, so he couldn't sit on his own throne forever. Someone else had to come. Only Jesus could be that perfect king. We know from the first week of our series that he was fully God, and so therefore he could be perfect. He could fulfill this prophecy. But we also know that he was fully man. And so he had to come from a family line. Specifically, he came from David’s.

Isaiah 11:1, couple pages later says, "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse." Jesse was David's father. "From his roots, a branch will bear fruit." Branch here is capitalized, meaning it will be a person. Jesus is the branch. So here again, we have another prophecy of Jesus's royal lineage. And then in Matthew one, we see his whole lineage laid out for us. I think sometimes at least growing up, I was like, why do we need all of these names? Why do we need to know his family history all the way back to Abraham? But it shows us where he came from. It shows us that he is in the royal line. He is the one to fulfill and sit on David's throne forever. The Israelites begged for a king. In New Testament, the Jewish people were looking for a king. We, even today, need him to be our king. We need him to redeem us, to restore us, to protect us. but only Jesus can do that. Only He can do it perfectly. Author and theologian Amy Gannett writes, "Jesus is the true and better King who came from the line of David, who would lead His people only in righteousness, who could ever be trusted to guide them in the pathways of Jesus." They were good Kings, but there was no one like Jesus. The thing about having a King though, is that a King has subjects and the subjects must bow down to their king, must honor and submit to their king. So when we, as human beings, choose to follow Jesus, we are essentially saying, you are my king, you are my Lord. I submit to your authority, to your sovereignty, to your majesty.

Philippians 2:9-11 says, "Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He is Lord. Everyone take a deep breath, 'cause that's really hard to acknowledge sometimes, that we are not the king or queen of our own life, that we are not the Lord of our lives. We like, as humans in general, we typically like to have control. We like things to go our way, or is that just me? Okay, I like to have control. I like things to go my own way. And it can be really hard to let that go, to submit to Him and acknowledge that He is King, He is Lord, and His ways are better. When we look at the Christmas story, we see someone who also had difficulty submitting to Jesus's kingship. Pastor Andre talked about this last week and talked about King Herod and how he was, he heard of this baby king and was threatened by him. He did not want to humble himself. He refused to acknowledge his authority and even went so far as seeking him out to kill him and kill thousands of other baby boys just to make sure he had his bases covered. It's interesting though, because in stark contrast to that, we have the wise men. They went and searched for Jesus at great personal sacrifice. They went to find Him because they knew He was King. They knew He was the one that they had been looking for and waiting for. They wanted to worship Him.

Matthew 2:1-2 says, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?'" They hadn't even met Him yet and they knew who He was. "We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him." We know from different studies that the wise men took about two years to get to Jesus. So he was about two years old. He was a toddler. And these wise men came and bowed down and worshiped a toddler. Now we all know enough two year olds to know that that's humbling in and of itself, right? But they were willing to submit to him because they knew who he was. They were so convinced of his kingship that it didn't matter if he was two, 20 or 25, 80 years old, it didn't matter. He was their king. Many years later, around the time of Jesus's ministry, the Jewish people were under the oppression of the Romans and they wanted their king. They wanted someone to come save them. They were on the lookout of this king that had been prophesied in the Old Testament. They knew the scriptures, they knew that He was coming. They expected the Messiah to be an earthly king, to set up an earthly kingdom and to save them, to free them, to bring them redemption from the Romans. Unfortunately, that wasn't, or fortunately, that wasn't Jesus' plan. They didn't realize that Jesus would set them free. He would redeem them. He would save them from their sins and the consequences of their sins. He had so much better planned than anything they could ask or imagine. So although he was king, he wasn't what they were expecting. And because we're on this side of Jesus's death and resurrection, and we have the Bible, We know the end of the story. We know that he didn't come to set up an earthly kingdom, but an eternal kingdom.

Revelation 17:14 says, "They will wage war, they, his enemies, "will wage war against the lamb, "but the lamb will triumph over them "because he is Lord of lords and King of kings, "and with him will be his called, chosen, "and faithful followers." We get the spoiler alerts. We know what's coming. We know we have a king and he is gonna win. We're told that he will be triumphant. He will be the king of kings eternally. We have the opportunity now to make him the king and Lord of our life while we wait for that eternal kingdom. but it requires something of us. How do we do that? How do we put Jesus on the throne of our heart and our life now while we wait for eternity and take ourselves off of it? Well, I got a few ideas for us to help this process. The first thing is that we have to remember that our king wants a relationship with us. I don't know many kings that want a relationship with every single one of their subjects. Our king is different. He is good, he is loving, he wants our best and he wants to be in relationship with us. Does he want us to submit to him and to surrender to him? Absolutely, but he wants to be our friend too. He wants to be in relationship.

John 15:15 says, "I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father, I have made known to you." So the first thing is remember, he wants a relationship with us. Secondly, we must submit to his kingship. We must surrender to him, just like the wise men did. We have to choose his way over our way. And I do not stand up here as someone teaching this because I have it figured out. I promise you I do not.

The Lord typically gives me a word or a phrase for the coming year to focus on in my study, in my just everyday life. It's just something that I can be intentional with throughout the year. Well, this time last year, the Lord gave me the word surrender. And I'm just gonna tell you, If the Lord gives you the word surrender, buckle up. And I knew something was probably coming. If I needed to work on surrendering more to Him, there was probably something coming down the pike. And there were, there were so many opportunities this year for me to practice surrender. We had our fourth baby. There were some professional things that were opportunities for me to trust Him. There were things that didn't go my way that required me to pivot. And I'm still pivoting. Like don't, I do not have it figured out, but it was lots of opportunities for me to say, or to ask myself, do I trust him as my king more than I trust my own ways? That's a hard question to ask. And there were some days, if I'm honest, I wanted it to be my way. I had to surrender my plans, my will, my timeline. I wanted it to go the way I thought it should. But these opportunities to surrender and these situations throughout the year grew me deeper. They took me deeper in my relationship with Jesus and my faith in Him and to grow my trust in my Lord and my King.

Next, we must choose humility. Being humble, like I said, can be so hard 'cause it's not necessarily our natural inclination. But if the wise man can bow down to a toddler, we can bow down to the risen King. I wonder sometimes if it's easier for us to focus on some of the other attributes of Jesus, like savior, friend, shepherd, because they kind of make us feel good. You know, baby Jesus at Christmas time is cute and cuddly and makes us feel good, right? It benefits us in some way. But Jesus is King? That requires us to humble ourselves and acknowledge that He is King and we are not. Humility. We have to practice humility. And lastly, we must keep an eternal perspective. Jesus isn't just king right now. He's not just an earthly king that will pass away. He is an eternal king. And so when it's hard to submit, when it's hard to be humble, when it's hard to go His way or choose His will for your life, Keeping that eternal perspective that it is not just about right now, it is about eternity, makes it a little bit easier. Here's a secret sauce for you though, okay? Here's what makes this work. We make that choice to submit to Him over and over and over again. When you choose to follow Jesus as your savior and you make that choice, that's a one-time decision. You don't have to keep asking for salvation. He's given it to you, it is a gift. But our part, our submission sometimes require us to do it over and over again. Sometimes day by day, we have to keep submitting minute by minute in some occasions. We have to keep choosing Him to make Him King over and over again. So all of this is the majesty of Christmas. It's the majesty of this manger that when a baby came to earth, he was the fulfillment of so many prophecies and promises. He was the answer that we were looking for that we all need. Fully God, fully man. came as a miracle, not only to create the coming physical kingdom, but an eternal one, and to be the King and the Lord of our lives right now.

So my prayer for us this Christmas season is that we would celebrate the magic of Christmas. Go to the parties, eat the food, make the donuts, Have presents, do it all, go see the lights, celebrate with your people, enjoy the magic of Christmas, but let that magic be even better by remembering the majesty of who was in that manger. Remember that he came to have a relationship with us, to identify with us as humans, to be the perfect King that no one else could be for us, to save us, to redeem us, to protect us. And as we leave today, I just have a question for us. You can just kind of take with you and maybe think about this week and answer for yourself. I gave you some ideas of things that can help, but we all have to answer this for ourselves. What would it look like for you to trust Christ alone, to be your king and keep him on the throne of your heart? What does that look like for you personally? How do you practically live that out? Worship team's gonna come up and I'm gonna pray us out. But I pray that you are encouraged to not forget that even though he came as a baby, he was still our king. He's still the Lord of our hearts. And if you don't know him as the Lord of your heart, as the king in your life, please come talk to us. Let us share that with you. If you have questions, we'd love to answer them. But for those of us who've already made that choice, what an added part of Christmas we get to just celebrate even more.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this time. We thank you that we can fellowship together and celebrate the Christmas season with all of the fun and the magical things that come along with it. But help us to never forget the majesty, the grandeur of Christmas, because you are King. You sit on the throne right now, God. You are King eternally and in our hearts today. We praise you that you are King. We praise you that your way is better. May we submit and humble ourselves before you, our King and our Lord in Jesus' name, amen.

The Message of the Manger: Part 2

The Miracle of the Manger

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So far, I mean it's December, it's finally December, I feel like Christmas was being pushed off and pushed off and now it's here we can all you know go full in. I love this time of year I've always loved Christmas. It's a season for many things it's a season of giving as we're talking about with this outreach. It's a season of special food I know this Christmas food kind of like Thanksgiving only comes around once a year unless you guys are having stuffing all the time which that's awesome but for us it's only around Christmas time. Christmas movies those are awesome and again just all these things that only happen during this time the decorations hopefully family, hopefully also a season of rest or break, whether from work, there's some time off, or school, but we just love this season.

And it's also a season of miracles. Miracles, we think of miracles, or maybe some of us experience something, but this year, this time of year, they just kind of come to the forefront of our mind just a little bit more. I want to remind us that each week in our series, "The Message of the Manger," we're looking at different aspects of Jesus's birth, trying to highlight God's plan, His providence, and His provision in the arrival of our Savior. We're striving for a better understanding of the true story, the true message, and the true purpose of Christmas. And Jesus's birth is a pinnacle moment in history. We want to have it on on the forefronts of our hearts and minds every day this season. And so this week we're gonna be focusing on the miracles of the manger. Last week was the mystery, this week we're doing miracles, and it's because the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth have God's fingerprints all over them. I wanna start by defining what a miracle is. A miracle is an act or event that occurs outside the bounds of normal or natural means and demonstrates God's involvement. So it's something that is outside of human possibility where God is intervening. And I have today three miracles, three small stories, vignettes, and when we put them together, they help us see even more the work that God is doing around this very first Christmas. So are we ready to dive into these three stories? Okay, good. Are you ready at home, all those at home? Okay.

The first miracle of the manger might be the most obvious, and that is the birth of Jesus. How was that possible? You start off, many of you probably know this story, of with a young woman, probably in her late teens, who is betrothed to be married to a man, and her name is Mary, and she is approached by God through a messenger, an angel, letting her know that her life is about to change forever. Now, anytime there's a pregnancy announcement, that is some kind of recognition that life is about to change in a drastic way. And I don't know about you, but seeing some of these pregnancy announcements recently, they're getting pretty extreme. They started with just like, hey, leaving the pregnancy test out on the counter for the husband to come home to and like, oh, what's happening? And then, you know, now it's like cake and then you open it up, you slice it open and it's pink or blue. And then there's balloons that pop in the air. I don't know if you guys have seen these things. Some of you are like link stairs, but others of you know that these viral trends of pregnancy announcements are getting very, there was just a huge fire that happened because of a pregnancy announcement that went wrong. So, careful with pregnancy announcements. But they're going, they're huge. And all that to say that a pregnancy announcement signifies a big change in life. And this pregnancy announcement would have gone viral today, if it happened today, but it's extreme. And so I want to read for us, and you guys can follow along, we're going to be in a couple different scriptures. We're going to start off in Luke chapter 1, and this is a conversation where the angel is approaching Mary. So I'm going to start in verse 20. You guys can read along in your own Bibles. I love that, or you can read it on the screen.

But it says, "The angel went to her and said, 'Greetings, you who are highly favored,' speaking to Mary, 'the Lord is with you.' Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son. you are to call him Jesus. He will be great, and he will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end." "How will this be?" Mary asks. "Since I'm a virgin," the angel answered, "the Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Mary's having this conversation with this angel who tells her she's gonna have a child and she's engaged and so she's she might be wondering like is this gonna be like my future child with that guy or is this something different and the angel says oh it's very different this is going to be the most different thing ever to happen when it comes to a pregnancy you're gonna have a child that comes from God through the work of the Holy Spirit this is going to be a miracle this is God getting involved outside of human means in the most personal way by sending his Son. This is, and I love this phrase, this is the author of life inserting himself into the story. This is God intervening in human affairs for the sake of bringing salvation to the world. This miracle birth is more than just bringing life into the world through miraculous means, it's about bringing eternal life through the only way possible, Jesus. So Mary is going to give birth to Jesus, who is human, is a child, but is also something more, who's God. We talked about this last week, the mystery, and she's going to do so remaining a virgin. And this is the first of our major miracles. So what does this miracle mean? Well, the miracle of the virgin birth signifies that this baby is unlike any other ever born. The The miracle of the birth, this divine causation behind Jesus lets us know that this life and death of this child is going to be deeply divine and purposeful and missional. The miracle of the virgin birth shows just how powerful God is. For us in our finiteness, in our limited power and capability, the virgin birth is truly a miracle because it's something that is impossible happening.

But for God, I want us to realize this, this is nothing extreme. In the realm of what God can do, this is effortless. He's not straining to make this happen. That's how powerful He is. From the miracle of healing a blind man, to turning water into wine, to the virgin birth, this is not hard for God. And it just shows how amazing, how capable, how powerful our God is. The significance of the virgin birth is this, that Jesus is truly man, but also truly God. And it signifies that the divine initiative in salvation, that means that salvation does not come from man, but from God. And so this miracle, think of this miracle as absolutely life-changing, world-changing. And I love if we think of this as the news of this miracle, starting small, just started with Mary and the angel, and then to Joseph, obviously. And then as time went on, it maybe grew and the circle became large and maybe her extended family knew about him, I'm pregnant, it's not Joseph's and here's what's happening, here's what the angel said. And so now we fast forward thousands of years later and now the whole world can know about this birth. It's a miracle. All right, the second miracle, we gotta go fast 'cause a lot of miracles to get through.

The second miracle of the manger is found earlier in the same passage and it has to do with Elizabeth and Zachariah. Now Elizabeth is Mary's older relative. And God is absolutely purposeful in this miracle. I want to say that from the forefront. This is so intentional by God and what he's doing. Imagine Mary, not yet married, and the possible shame and judgment that she would face in society as she is having a child out of wedlock. And she's saying these things like, "Hey, it's of God." And people are like, "Sure, sure it's of God, trying to hide whatever you want to hide." but the shame and judgment and how that would test her faith. And so God was thinking of that, knew of that. And we have the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah. So I wanna read from Luke chapter one, you guys can follow. I'm gonna be jumping around here, but I'm starting in verse five. It says, "In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. His wife, Elizabeth, was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly. but they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive and they were both very old. If that sounds familiar, hold on to that thought.

Verse 11, "Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth. for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He was never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I'm an old man, my wife is well along in years." And the angel said to him, "I am Gabriel. "I stand in the presence of God. "I have been sent to speak to you "and tell you this good news. "And now you will be silent and not speak "until the day this happens, "because you did not believe my words, "which will come true at their appointed time." I'm gonna fast forward a little bit. During the part where the angel is talking to Mary, the angel says this to Mary as a way of encouraging her. Says in verse 36, "Even Elizabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age and she is said to be unable to conceive and she's now under six months for no word from God will ever fail.”

And then later in the chapter, we won't read it, but their baby is born, Elizabeth and Zechariah. They have their baby. And again, as Scripture says, Zechariah during this time was unable to speak because he questioned Gabriel, said, "How can this be?" And Gabriel says, "It's going to happen, but by the way, you can't talk for the whole pregnancy." So for ten months, this guy cannot speak. I'm sure Elizabeth is just having a great time making all the decisions. What are you... Okay, I'm going to go ahead and buy all this stuff for the... Yeah. But the baby is born, and they're trying to decide a name, and it should be named something in the family line. But in that moment, to everyone's astonishment, Zechariah can speak and says, "No, the angel said it was going to be named John. This baby is going to be named John." amazing, amazing story.

So where is the miracle here? Well, in the life of Elizabeth and Zechariah, this is a huge miracle. They were unable to have a child, and now God has given them a son. And, as I said, if that sounded familiar, is there anything else that happened in the Bible? I'm glad it did. And if it didn't, that's okay. Let me tell you how amazing our God is, and how He links things, and how He uses those references to encourage people. So, If you guys thought of Abraham and Sarah, then good. That should, the way this is written, what was happening, even Zechariah and Elizabeth would have been reminded of Abraham and Sarah, who were also past childbearing years, and God gave them a child to fulfill a covenant that God made with Abraham, to be the father of God's people, and that the promise of the Messiah would come through Abraham's descendants. And now we have Elizabeth and Zechariah, who are going to have a child, and that child's entire life will be focused on announcing the coming Messiah. That reference, again, would have been in Elizabeth and Zechariah's mind, and I think it would have been of great encouragement to them to think of. I know in our great history of this nation of Israel, there was another couple who prayed and wanted a child, and God gave them a miracle baby. And we too are about to experience a miracle baby. So this is God intervening in ways that were not possible by human means. And how does this, again, miracle tie in with the miracle of the manger? Well, the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus are linked together from even before they were born. And again, there's no doubt in my mind that Mary is facing this new ordeal of being pregnant as a virgin, that seeing her relative Elizabeth, who is elderly and now pregnant, going through her own miracle would be of the greatest source of encouragement to Mary.

If ever there was moments of doubt, and maybe there were in Mary's mind of, "God, is this really happening? Can I do this?" And then she sees Elizabeth, who is experiencing her own miracle, and so clearly God is intervening in Elizabeth's life. How encouraging is it to Mary to say, "God is intervening in my life. God is in control over what's happening." Mary can hold God's Word strong in her heart, that she would believe and have faith in her own pregnancy. It's God's way of saying to Mary, "I'm right here with you. I've got you. Don't worry. I've got things under control." And we also know that John was born first, and so she could see that whole miracle through its entirety, and again, be a source of encouragement, empowerment, and peace, as Jesus will soon be born. So what does this second miracle mean? Well, it conveys that sometimes we need help. Sometimes we need some encouragement and some evidence that God is at work, and God knows that. He sees that, and He meets us where we're at. At the same time, this miracle also shows that God is not holding back from doing whatever is necessary for the the birth of the Messiah. God's pulling out all the stops to make it happen. Even these references to the Old Testament, and keep in mind that would have been a huge boost to their faith, God is doing everything to make sure that Jesus comes into this world and the purpose, the plan of salvation is going to come to fruition.

All right, the third miracle is one that truly foreshadows greatness and God's redemptive plan. It's going to bring everything together. And this one actually happens after Jesus is born. If you're in your Bibles, we're going to be flipping over to Matthew 2. But I'll just kind of summarize where we're at. You guys have heard of the three wise men or the three magi? Well, they've come from the east. God is doing his own work over there and brought these three wise men to go visit Jesus. And along their way, they come to Herod, the king of that area, and they say, "Hey, Herod, we're on our way to see the new king of Israel, the new king of the Jews." And he's like, "Uh, what? I am the king of the Jews. This is news to me." And he does not like this. He's threatened. But he plays it coy, and he's like, "Oh, yes, you as well? Well, let me know if you find him so I can also go and worship him." He's lying. He doesn't want to worship Jesus. And so the magi go and they follow the star, but they're warned to not return the same way. God's intervening, God's protecting Jesus, and He's guiding the wise men's path. And so they go to Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, and they deliver their three gifts. Do we know their three gifts, by the way? Yes, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Good. And then they leave, and they go a different route.

And the angel comes to Joseph and gives him a message. And so I'm going to read from Chapter 2, starting in verse 13, "When they had gone," that's the wise man, "an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. 'Get up,' he said, 'take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for King Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.' So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, 'Out of Egypt I called my son. When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem in its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time that he learned from the Magi. If that rings familiar, then hold on to that thought. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. A voice is heard in Rama weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more. After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in the dreams of Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who are trying to take the child's life are dead." Herod, again fearing for his reign, commits an awful atrocity by commanding that the newborn babies, two years old and younger, be killed. And as much mourning as that takes, there's also a miracle in this.

God intervenes outside of human possibilities, God sends a messenger via angel to Joseph, telling him to take his family and baby Jesus and to flee to Egypt. Now, if you know your Bible, and this part sounds a little familiar, and you're thinking, "Where have I heard a ruler trying to kill baby boys two years old and younger, and you got to Moses, then I'm proud of you. Good job." And if you don't know your Bible, that's okay. Let me tell you again How amazing our God is that he would do this so purposefully. Again, for Mary and Joseph, this would be very much on their mind. These are all, when he does this, when we come across this from the stories, this is purposeful by God. This is God trying to say to us as readers and also to the characters at that time, to the people at that time, "Hey, I'm up to something. If this sounds familiar, it's because I am doing something great that maybe I've done before in a similar vein." He's trying to give them a heads up. He's trying to give them encouragement, some foreshadowing. So again, Egypt, Pharaoh, Moses, this was the same similar situation that Pharaoh, when Israelites were in captivity in Egypt, Pharaoh, fearing of what could happen in the future, orders baby boys to be killed, and miraculously Moses is saved in the basket. We all know that story in the basket in the Nile and is rescued. And Moses would grow up to become the leader of Israel, bringing salvation to them by delivering them from slavery in Egypt by the power of God. And Moses would become their first, Israel's first prophet and priest. Well, in our passage today, under similar circumstances, Jesus is being saved from certain death, and he's going to bring salvation to the world, from people's slavery to sin, and he's going to be our perfect prophet, priest, and king.

So, I love this. I love when God does this. I love when the Bible makes this apparent to us that God is up to something big. What's the significance of this miracle? Well, God was telling them, "I am at work right now. I'm doing something amazing. This is crucial to my plan, to my people, to the world. And even as we read this today, a couple thousand years later, from when this all happened, we can still be reminded that God is the bringer of salvation. His heart is to save what is lost, to redeem what is broken, and to bring life and true freedom where sins' bonds are tight. The miracle of Jesus being saved from death affirms that nothing is going to stop God's plan of salvation. Absolutely nothing. And so we have these three miracles, and these miracles help us see that the birth of Jesus is the most central point of all of history. The birth of our Savior is the most important birth of all time, because the birth of this Messiah, God's plan of salvation, was being carried out through this child. Jesus' birth is absolutely a miracle, and it's surrounded by other miracles. Even though the situations for these people seem dire, improbable, or impossible, we see that God is in control. He cares and He provides for them, looking out for them. And church, I know you know this, but He does the same for us today.

And so I want us to know some messages for us from the miracles of the manger. I want to ask you some questions as you reflect on these miracles. The first one is this. What impossible situation do you need God to show up in this Christmas season? For Mary, it was having a child as a virgin. For Elizabeth and Zachariah, it was having a child in their old age. And then for Mary and Joseph and for the baby, it was being saved from having Jesus be killed as a baby boy. What situation are you in where you desperately need God to show up and and intervene in your life. You know, as happy as the holidays can be, they're honestly, they can be a mixed bag of emotions and situations. And, you know, we could be missing loved ones. We can be reminded of deep hurts and wounds that we have in our hearts. Finances can be tight and maybe we don't get to celebrate in the way that we want to, or give in the way that we want to. As happy as this time is, it's also true that the enemy doesn't take a break at Christmas. You may have areas in your life that you're facing challenges that are even getting harder as we speak in this time of year.

So where can God be at work in your life? The miracle of the manger helps us to recognize our need for God's intervention. We need to ask God for help. So I encourage you in this time, with whatever's coming to mind, whatever situation or person the Spirit is putting on your heart right now, to cry out for God and ask for a miracle. Ask for God to intervene. Maybe you've tried all the human ways to fix the issue or to address whatever's going on, and now, God, in your own way, in a way that is beyond normal means, please intervene. Pray that prayer this week.

Second question, what is God trying to draw your attention to? We saw in our passages how God was cluing people in to the work that he is doing. Elizabeth and Zechariah experiencing a similar situation to Abraham and Sarah, Mary and Joseph and Jesus going through a similar experience to Moses in the Old Testament. And these were all God's way of saying, I'm up to something, I'm here, I'm present, I'm working. So what might God be trying to get you to see that He's doing? The miracles of the manger help us to expect God to show up. All these signs are that there's something big happening, God is on the move. So I want to say to you, don't miss God trying to get your attention. Is it through, is He trying to get your attention through relationships, people close to you that have influence over you, and they're saying something to you? Maybe God is speaking through them. Or maybe it's through circumstances that something is lining up, or the way that things are happening in your life, it seems that maybe God is pulling you in a certain direction. Or maybe it's in the silence, it's in the quiet, it's through the lack of all those things that God is trying to speak to you, trying to get a hold of your heart. Whatever it is, expect God to show up. Expect God to be at work in your life. You may not know all the details, you may not know how he's going to do it beyond the next step in front of you. You may not even know that. But you can still expect God to be at work, to be present and engaged in your life.

And the third and final question, what are you expecting of God? What are you expecting of God? Praying for miracles, we can all, I'm guilty of this, we can often think of something glamorous or over-the-top, amazing. "God, if you could just answer my needs in this amazing way." But God, it's not that God can't do that or doesn't do that, but look at the story of the manger. When Mary and Joseph didn't have a place to go, did he send them to a five-star hotel or the most amazing birthing center in Bethlehem? He was like, "Don't worry, I got you. This doula was off, and so she's perfect for you." No. They were in a stable and Jesus was put in a manger, a feeding trough, right? Like, we have, we can, we tend to have expectations. But just because God chooses to intervene doesn't mean it's going to be exactly what we expect. It's not going to be necessarily the nicest or prettiest or most expensive thing, but will it help us? Yes. If God is sending it, then yes, it'll help us. Will it point to us to God? Yes. Will it provide for our needs? Absolutely. So, check your heart and your expectations of what you expect of God. The miracle of the manger helps us to accept God's provision, whatever it may look like. If it means fleeing certain death, then we have to run. If it means not being able to talk for 10 months, but then getting to celebrate a new baby boy, then we'd be silent. And if it means doing whatever is necessary, that may not be desirable, but it's what God's calling you to do, then we do it out of obedience and thankfulness. So accept God's provision, whatever it may look like. I'll ask the worship man to come back up right now. I want to close with this. I hope this week that you are encouraged in in this Christmas season, that when you think of Jesus, when you think of the manger, that you're reminded that it can be a season of miracles, of God intervening in your life, in a way that's outside of human possibility, of human means, all with the purpose of drawing you closer to Him. And let us remember this, that the greatest miracle is Jesus' birth, and that it also brought the greatest gift. That's the gift of salvation, which we'll talk about more coming weeks. But if you want to talk more, I want to put this out there too, if you want to talk more about this miracle, the miracles of the manger, or the fact that Jesus brings salvation, we'd love to do that with you. And so if you want to talk to myself or Pastor Lauren or Pastor Chris, please come see us afterwards or email us throughout the week. We'd love to answer these questions during this Christmas season. So this week, let's have joy and peace in our hearts as we keep our hearts and minds on Jesus.

Would you guys pray with me? God, thank you again for sending your son in the most miraculous way to the Virgin Mary and for all the other miracles that happened during that time to encourage Mary and Joseph to save them, to save Jesus. God, we see as we read these stories, we see that you are so clearly at work in ways that aren't always recognized at the time. And so we take that today and pray that that be true too, that even though we may not see it, God, we want to trust that you are at work, that your fingerprints are all over our lives. And God, we pray for miracles. There are things that are on people's hearts right now where they are desperate, that they see no other possibility beyond your intervention. And so we pray in your perfect way, however glamorous or unseen it is, that you would intervene, that you would be at work in each of our hearts and in our lives. And God, we pray that someday that you would make that appearance to us so that we could give you all the praise for what you're doing. We're so excited to worship you with everything that we have. So we pray this in your name. Amen.

The Message of the Manger: Part 1

The Mystery of the Manger

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Yes! Let's go! - So Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. So glad you guys are here. Welcome. Thank you everybody who's joining us online. I know we got a lot of people out that are sick and we love you, but we love you from afar. We don't want that sickness here, amen. But we pray that you restore health and get back to 100%, be back here as soon as you can. We miss you. We're not the same without you. So we are this morning gonna kick off our Christmas sermon series. And this year we're going a little different. I know we're not technically taking the traditional Advent route, but don't worry. This Advent will come back, we promise. But we wanna do something a little bit different this year. Pastor Andre and Ari had taken some time earlier in the year and really prayed through kind of, what does God wanna share with our church family this Christmas? What does God wanna teach us this Christmas season? And the more we talked about it, the more we focused in on what Christmas is about, we just kept getting drawn back to the manger and get back to this place where Christ first came that first ever Christmas and was placed and laid in that manger. And that changed the trajectory of the world. And Christmastime is awesome. There's so much excitement and joy and fun that happens at Christmas, whether it's presents on Christmas morning, and maybe it's a favorite food that you cook or bake only at Christmas time, or maybe it's a family tradition that you have wrapped around Christmas that you only do during that Christmas season. And I love those. And they can be so much fun and excitement in that with lights and music and food. But it's important for us to even in the midst of all of that, to still celebrate when Jesus came, what that meant for the savior of the world in Jesus Christ. And I think for us, unfortunately, we live in a world where there's really two polarizing opposites when it comes to Christmas, right? Either you have on one side, maybe it's all about just the stuff. And you don't necessarily hear about Jesus. You hear about the North Pole, you hear about Santa, snowmen, elves, reindeer, you fill in the blank and they miss Jesus. And sometimes on the other side, for those of us who have been in the church, it seems like forever, we hear the story of Christmas and go, "Oh yeah, I remember Christmas. The wise men and the shepherds and the manger scene and the donkey and Mary and Joseph and everybody else, the angels. Yeah, I remember Christmas.

But I think even there it gets lost because we forget truly what Christmas is about. And this awe and this majesty, this mystery that we're gonna talk about this morning that comes with the manger. And I want to encourage you this year, that as you walk through Christmas, now through the next 30 days until Christmas morning, that you might have fresh eyes. You might have a renewed perspective, a renewed outlook maybe on what Christmas is about. That in the message of the manger, there's mystery, there's miracle, there's majesty, there's Messiah. And as we look at the manger scene and baby Jesus that was wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the manger, that in that very moment, the world changed. Let us not forget that, that when we look at that baby in the manger, we look at the savior of the world. So we're gonna be in John chapter one this morning, and we're gonna go deep today. We're jumping into some deep, deep theology. So I want you guys buckle up. It's gonna be some heavy stuff. I actually took a course, a class in college. It was all about Christology, which is just the study of Christ. I've never had a class in my life hurt my head so much. The book that was involved in this class was one of the thickest books I've ever owned in my life. And I remember times sitting in my dorm room reading this and I would just have to stop and I would literally start to have a headache because these theologians and these people that had giant IQs, way smarter than myself, would take paragraphs upon paragraphs upon pages upon pages to just take one little sliver of who Christ was and try to explain it in normal people terms. And you still couldn't fully understand. It was just like, oh my gosh. So this morning, if you walk away and going, I don't even know what Pastor Chris said today. Hey, you're in common company. I don't know what I'm saying today either. So it's all right. And if you walk out of here going, that makes sense. I understand it all, you're preaching next week. So you come and tell me.

No, but we're gonna start in John chapter one this morning And we're gonna start all the way at the beginning. It said, "In the beginning was the one who was called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning, the Word was with God. And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word. Everything that was created received its life from Him, and His life gave light to everyone. The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From him, the complete gifts of undeserved grace and truth have come down to us. Jesus came that very first Christmas. And in that, John here starts his gospel account on talking about this Word. And this word translated, if you were to dive a little deep into this, is translated as logos. And that word in the Greek means basically God. This logos, this word, this God came. And that term, if you wanna write something down this morning, big term here would be incarnation. And the incarnation here is God becoming man, fully God still, and yet at the same time, fully man. And we at Christmas time are invited by God to further understand this mystery. It's something that for centuries, the church has talked about and yet still doesn't fully understand. That's how big God is. I love that about God, that we can sit here and talk about it and try to understand it and to learn about who he is. And yet we still kind of fall short. 'Cause that's who God is. And we on our humanity are limited. And that this mystery is okay. Because this mystery pulls us in. It draws us in to see the miracle of Jesus. It pulls us in to point to his majesty of who God is and truly shouts that he is the Messiah. That's what this mystery does. And when we come into this place of seeing Jesus coming to earth, we're faced with this struggle of two. Of Jesus being fully the person of God, and yet fully a human. And so we struggle in this because sometimes we sit here and we try to wrap our minds around this thing and go like, okay, he's fully God, but he's fully human. He's fully human and he's fully God. How does all of this come together? And John here is pointing us in the direction of helping us to understand.

So let's unpack this a little bit here. Unpack this. It says in the beginning was the word. What is this beginning? Well, this beginning is actually even before time came into existence. This is pre Genesis 1, 1. This is time before when there really was no time when God was there. There was no world, there was no creation, there was no night, there was no day, there were no nothing out there and yet God existed. And at that time, all things were originally created. This logos was already in continuing existence. Clear as mud? This term here, I'm gonna have a four of these. I'm gonna call them the four essentials of Incarnational Christology. Okay, we're gonna have four of these this morning. The first of which is this, yes, good word. This first one is one eternal person, the logos, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit have always existed and will continue to always exist. And this is what John here is saying, "In the beginning was the Word." God has always been, will always be, and will forever always continue to be. That's how God is. John continues on, he said, "The Word was with God." The Logos was already in face-to-face relationship with God. They were close, tight relationship with one another. That's where God being there with the Logos, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit, all together have this incredible relationship that you and I get to have just tiny glimpses in our earthly relationships. This is where we say God is an incredible relational God. This is his nature, this is who he is. And we see that even before time began. And the word was God, John continues on. The Logos was already existing with the same characteristics of God itself. John talks about this, talking about the deity of the incarnate Christ in verse 18 of John that says this, "No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son who is himself God and is in closest relationship, remember, relationship with the Father, has made him known. Paul also talks about this in the words of, not Paul, John talks about this. When Jesus has died and he's risen again and he appears before the disciples and Thomas shows up, and Jesus says, "It's me." Thomas, come touch my side, touch my hands. I am here, I am risen. And Thomas literally says, my Lord, my God. These are the same words that are used in the original manuscripts that talk about Thomas at that moment going, Jesus, you are God. You're not some separate entity. You're not some lower thing. You are God. And there was a never a time when this word that John talks about that was separate from Jesus, they have always continued to exist. And then John says, the word became a human being. You might remember it as the word became flesh. And this is Jesus. That very first Christmas, the word became flesh. This logos changed his way of living to be fully conformed to concrete humanity, just like Adam and Eve. And this is what we call the incarnation. The word literally means in flesh. God entered the world as a human man, Jesus Christ. So that's Christ divinity. That's his God side.

And then we have Christ's humanity, his human side. And it says this in Philippians chapter two, who being in the very nature of God, do not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. And at the name of Jesus, every niche about in heaven and on earth, under the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to glory of the God, the father. So God himself emptied of him, his own plans, his own agenda, his own desires. I'd be curious to see how that conversation went in heaven. God walks over to Jesus and goes, "Hey, I got a plan." And Jesus goes, "Yeah, I know. "I gotta leave, don't I?" And God goes, "Yeah, it's gonna be tough, "but it's gonna be worth it." Finally, to the point, the plan of redemption, of salvation for the entire planet, is gonna happen and it's gonna be through you, Jesus. And Jesus empties himself. It says in verse six and seven, see this existence in the form of God that Jesus had is translated as morphe theo, a God form or a God being, a person. Is it an essence? Anybody drinks sparkling water? You have those cans where it's like the essence is like they just rub the fruit on the outside of the can and hope that something tastes like it. (congregation laughing) Or they had the giant batch of water and some guy with like a spray gun went, "Psst, psst, psst, all right, bottle that." You guys know what I'm talking about? This isn't what God here is, is with Jesus. This isn't just a man that has a little spritz of divinity over him. This is a whole divine lifestyle. one that is in lockstep with God. We just finished a series in Romans. I thought about getting them this morning. All right, turn your Bibles to Romans 1, one. It'd be like, oh, just kidding. But Romans, I gotta go back to Romans. It's just so good, right? The power of the gospel. Romans talks, Paul talks about this in chapter 12. He says, "Do not conform to the power of this worm, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what's God's will." His good, His perfect, His pleasing will. Jesus has a morpheiau with God. It is in lockstep with who God is. And so God then, He humbles Himself in Jesus and takes on the status of a human. But this isn't a thing where Jesus is now separated from God, if you're taking notes, our second point of our super deep theology, essentials of incarnation Christology, is God and Jesus has the same eternal deity as the Father. So when Jesus took on the form, as it says in there in the Greek, morphandalo, the form of a bondservant, Jesus did not walk away from his divinity. Jesus wasn't just a good guy here on earth who performed some tricks and pulled the great escape artists after his death on the cross. Jesus was and continues to be to this day, God. He takes on this form of a bond sermon Another way would be saying that Jesus then devoted to another, to the disregard of his own interests. Jesus took on the calling and accepted God's great salvation plan in him and became a servant to come here to earth, to go to the cross for you and for me so that our biggest problem in life, our sin problem would be put away with and our relationship with God could be once again restored with him. Amen. That's what we celebrate at Christmas. That is the mystery of the manger. And so Jesus takes on this human likeness, this homatoia, a forefront, and this brings on himself these physical traits of a human person. Jesus looked like an everyday ordinary dude in Israel in that day and age. I'm sorry to tell you, Jesus didn't have long blonde hair, wearing a white robe with the blue sash. If you grew up in church, you knew that flannel graph figurine. Jesus looked like a normal person in that day and age. You wouldn't have been able to go, "Oh, there's God." He looked like a regular guy. And yet what? He was God. He was God. Our third incarnational Christology point is Jesus then had the same temporal humanity as us. The same temporal humanity as you and me. And yet what? He was still God.

So how does that work? How does all of this work? How does all this come together? Well, these two natures are united in what we call Christ's fullness. These two natures are pulled together. A big term for this, you ready? Is hypostatic union. I told you you're getting some good stuff today. A hypostatic union. This is the union of Christ's human nature and divine nature. See, they don't just merely coexist and take turns leading from time to time, nor are they blended together to create a third nature. The human and divine are united as one. Jesus had one fully divine nature and fully human nature. They were not mixed and they didn't create something new. Instead, they coexisted in perfect unity while retraining full attributes of both. This is important, okay? This is super important because the reality here is remember that Jesus' human nature was not a fallen human nature. That's where this born of a virgin Mary comes into play here is that Jesus comes through a sinless line. He was free from sin. He was free from any corruption. And yet he lived as a human with divine nature. There was no transfer of one to the other. So if we were to say it like this, another way would be the divine, if you were to take divine godly deity attributes and put them onto a human, the human would cease to exist, right? And if you were to take a human and to give it character and nature of God to make it a God-like figure, it would cease to be a human. God brings this mystery of this unity together to where God walks this line that no other human has ever walked. Perfect, blameless, full step of God's will. of God's will and yet not losing his divine character. The scriptures teach us that the human nature of Christ remained in its integrity after the incarnation and that the divine nature remain divine. Our fourth point of incarnational Christology would be full unity of the person of Jesus. a perfect harmonious being, fully God and fully human. And this union was incredibly personal. Again, reflecting this nature of God, incredibly relational. God, Jesus did not have a split personality. Some might say he had split personality disorder. That was not who Jesus was. It wasn't like when miracle time happened, The God side took over and da, da, da, da, da, da, da, bread and fish, water into wine. But then when Jesus was hungry, which says in scripture, when he was tired, when he was worn out from travel and being with people, it wasn't like the God side went away and he never experienced some of our physical struggles that you and I face every single day. He was still God, even in those moments and yet remain blameless. The two natures didn't take times being in control over him. He was one whole person with two natures that were perfectly united with him.

I love this quote from Dr. Jerry Bercheres. Maybe this will help bring some understanding here to this. He says, "The Logos, the second person of the Trinity, who was fully equal with God in every way, emptied himself of the divine role and lifestyles and prerogatives, I'll get there, and took a fully human nature, living as a perfectly spirit-filled human, submitting himself to the will of the Father and the leading of the Holy Spirit in order to reveal the Father, redeem the world, and become the Messianic King.”

This is the of the incarnation. This is the purpose of Jesus coming that very first Christmas, to be laid as a babe in the manger, to redeem, to reveal the Father, to reconcile the world, and to become our Messianic King. So all of this to say, we could take weeks and talk about this. You just got the speed version. But all of this to say, as we look at the manger, I don't want you to get frustrated and go, I don't understand this God. I don't understand how this perfect union coming together fully God, fully man, born without sin, born as a baby, not as a human coming together. I don't want us to get frustrated with that, but rather might we stand back and marvel at this mystery. To stand back and to look and to hear this message of the manger that even from the beginning, when the heavens and the earth were not even created before time even existed, when there was nothing but God, the Word, the Logos, existed and it was there. And the Word came to us and made flesh and dwelled among us. This isn't some fairytale that we tell every Christmas. Jesus, God, deity, walked among us humans on earth, as a servant, to love us, to show us there's a better life to live, to show us that this feeble, fragile thing that we think we know as love isn't really true love, but a fraction of the real thing that God wants us to experience, that fake peace that the world tries to sell us isn't true peace, that fake hope isn't the true hope that we have in the cross. And that grace and mercy that we might try to share with each other isn't the full picture of what God desires for our lives. And that this message from the manger is a mystery. Pastor Andre and I have studied this for a long time and we still don't fully get it. But that makes us step back and go, "God, you are incredible." That you somehow fixed a problem that we didn't know we had and yet you figured it all out to the tiniest detail. And you did it through a baby in a manger? That's incredible. And that God took on flesh and he dwelled among us. We'll invite our worship team up. We're gonna close in the song this morning. But as we think about Christmas this season, we think about the manger and the baby. Don't get caught up in this mystery, but to remember what God did, that the Word became flesh, the Word was God, and the Word dwelled among us. It's not something we can fully understand. I feel there's days when I wake up and I understand it a little bit, and then the next day I can wake up and go, I have no clue what happened. (laughs) But let's marvel in that this Christmas. So when you look at a manger scene, you look at a manger, you see those throughout the season, these next 30 days, let's marvel at this mystery. Let's marvel at this idea of how God came that very first Christmas and changed the trajectory of the world. And let that grow our faith. and let that flow over us and consume our heart with this beautiful picture of what God did.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you. Jesus, to come in the way you did that very first Christmas. God, we are so grateful of how you gave up your rightful place on the throne in heaven and came and took on flesh and dwelled among us, God. May we revel in that mystery this Christmas season to hear the message of the manger with a new perspective this year, that Jesus, you would be reminded us of your Messiah person that you are. God, don't let us get caught up in the hustle and the bustle of Christmas, but to focus back on what you did that very first Christmas. We thank you, Jesus, we love you. In your name, we can only pray this. Everybody said, amen.

Christmas Eve Eve