1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,200 Well, this morning we get to talk about one of the most familiar stories in the entire Bible. 2 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:10,880 A story that's known not just by Christians all over the world, but by tens of millions 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:18,240 of non-Christians as well. Now, most unbelievers don't think of the Incarnation story as actually true. 4 00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:24,400 For them, it is something of a quaint little fable or a myth, something to feel good about every 5 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:28,880 time the Christmas season rolls around. But I'm here to tell you this morning that Luke, 6 00:00:28,880 --> 00:00:34,560 the biblical author, has not left us the option to see it that way. You might recall the purpose 7 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:42,160 statement of his gospel, which he talks about in Luke chapter 1. He claims to have undertaken, 8 00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:50,960 we're going to get it, claims to have undertaken the task of compiling an account of the things that 9 00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:57,680 God accomplished among the followers of Christ in his day. Details handed down to them by those who 10 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:04,320 were eyewitnesses of the events. And he claims to have investigated these things carefully, 11 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:10,400 so that his audience might know the exact truth he says, the exact truth about what they had been 12 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:15,600 taught. So when you read the beginning of Luke's gospel, what you see is a man who is committed 13 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:22,880 to the historical method, not someone looking to fabricate a quaint little legend. Now, this 14 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:27,600 morning we sit here together as a group of people who not only believe that the Christmas story is 15 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:33,520 factual history, we also believe that as Luke was writing, he was being carried along by the spirit 16 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:39,120 of God. And so every word comes from the Lord himself. And that means every single detail 17 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:45,760 of this story is important to us. And yet, because the Christmas story has become so familiar to us 18 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:52,800 over the years, right? All of the cartoons and the Christmas cards, all these things that we hear 19 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:59,760 and read, because it's so familiar, it's possible even for us to miss some of the very important 20 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:05,440 and deep truths that sit just below the surface of Luke's narrative. So I want to present to you 21 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:11,920 this morning four words, four big ideas for you to watch for as we walk through this story. And 22 00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:21,120 here they are sovereign, ordinary, trust, and lowly. And we'll come back to these multiple times 23 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:26,320 throughout the message. Now, years ago, I remember Dr. MacArthur talking about how Matthew and Luke 24 00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:32,880 give us three important settings in the story of the incarnation. First of all, they give us a world 25 00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:38,640 setting represented by Rome and by Caesar Augustus pointing us towards the fact that Jesus is the 26 00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:45,440 Savior for all of mankind across the entire world. Second, a national setting represented by Herod 27 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:52,080 the Great and pointing to Christ as Israel's Messiah. And then third, the personal setting 28 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:58,560 represented by Joseph and Mary, pointing us to the mind-boggling truth that Jesus is the redeemer 29 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:05,440 of individuals who put their faith in Him alone and follow after Him as Lord. Now, last Sunday, 30 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:10,960 we laid the context for the first of those three settings. We looked at the lives of Caesar Augustus 31 00:03:10,960 --> 00:03:15,920 and Herod the Great and the roles that each one of them played in God's eternal plan. And we talked 32 00:03:15,920 --> 00:03:20,880 about how they were the heavyweights of that day. Well, this morning, we're going to look at the very 33 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:27,440 different set of characters, the nobodies of the story, the so-called nobodies, by waiting into 34 00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:36,080 the lives of Joseph and Mary. So grab your Bibles. Let's go to Luke chapter two. Luke chapter two 35 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:40,960 will also be in Luke chapter one. So you can hover around there. But if you have an actual Bible, 36 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:44,800 I know some of you guys have actual Bibles. What are these things called? Ribbons? 37 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:52,320 Markers? Okay, you can put that maybe in Matthew chapter one as well, because we'll be in Matthew 38 00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:56,560 one. You heard the call to worship this morning from Matthew one. We're going to be in all of these 39 00:03:56,560 --> 00:04:04,960 places. So the first idea I want to explore this morning is that one of sovereignty. To ask some 40 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:09,760 questions of the Christmas story that perhaps you've never considered before. Beginning with this one. 41 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:17,520 You ready? If God is sovereign over all things, why did the incarnation story play out as it did? 42 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:25,840 As Matthew and Luke describe. Why? Now, I realized last week we looked at seven practical reasons 43 00:04:25,840 --> 00:04:32,240 why it was, from God's perspective, the exact right time to send forth his Son. But surely, 44 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:37,760 even last week, we saw that Jesus was coming into a world of conflict, a world of trouble, 45 00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:44,320 a world of turmoil and violence and suffering. So I'll ask the question again. Why would God 46 00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:50,560 sovereignly orchestrate it this way? Think about this. A pagan emperor who could not care less 47 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:58,160 about Judaism, issues a decree from 1400 miles away, compelling a young couple who are expecting 48 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:04,080 their first child to leave their home and travel a long distance to register their name so that 49 00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:10,080 they can be taxed by this oppressive government. And while they're there, this young pregnant 50 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:15,600 woman goes into labor and because there's no proper facilities available to them, she is forced to 51 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:22,560 give birth in this dirty, disgusting environment. Really, Lord? That's how you drew it up. 52 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:26,640 Honestly, up to that point, from a human perspective, the reader would have to say, 53 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:32,800 this is a mess. This is a disaster. And even more so when you consider the identity of the child 54 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:37,280 being born. And yet, this is how the sovereign God of the universe ordained it to happen. 55 00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:43,200 Couldn't the delivery at least waited until the registration was done and Mary had returned 56 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:48,560 to Nazareth, where she could be with family, where she could be in her own home, where others 57 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:56,000 could help her with the birth and then celebrate with her? Come on, Lord. At the very least, 58 00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:02,000 Lord, couldn't you have given her an available room to give birth in a clean environment? 59 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:07,520 And the questions don't stop there. When God chooses to announce the birth of His one and only Son, 60 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:16,720 He sends His greatest choir, the angels, to go announce it to shepherds. Shepherds, a bunch of 61 00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:23,600 blue collar guys working out in the fields, poor, uneducated, simple folk. But again, we affirm 62 00:06:23,600 --> 00:06:30,720 that this was God's sovereign plan. But why? Why not send the angels to the high priest 63 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:38,960 in Jerusalem? Why not have the angels go to the Sanhedrin and announce Israel's Messiah has arrived? 64 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:45,120 Or why not have the angelic choir just light up the temple courts with the glorious 65 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:52,000 news that He is here? It's puzzling to us, isn't it? Because this is not the way anyone in this 66 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:56,560 room would have drawn it up. Now we'll come back later to see if we can answer some of those 67 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:02,560 questions. But for now, understand this first word, sovereign. This is exactly how God designed 68 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:08,400 it to go down. Okay, let's look at the text in Luke chapter 2. And as we do that, I want you to 69 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:16,400 notice first of all how simple and short Luke's narrative is. Think about this. This is the most 70 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:24,400 impactful event in all of human history, and Luke gives it 20 verses, like less than half of a page 71 00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:30,400 in a standard-sized Bible. Now, if you think about this historically, in the ancient world, 72 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:36,400 biographers would often embellish stories to make the heroes of those stories seem bigger than life 73 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:42,400 as glorious as possible. That is a very common thing. You see it in Assyrian records, in the 74 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:50,400 annals of Babylon and Persia and Greece and Rome, but you don't see it with Luke, right? 75 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:56,400 Although there are certainly supernatural aspects to his account, the account is not embellished. 76 00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:04,400 It's not overly complicated. He simply states as facts what he discovered in the investigation 77 00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:10,400 of this event. The eyewitness testimony that he gathered. And yes, if you're in case you're wondering, 78 00:08:10,400 --> 00:08:16,400 it is possible that Luke went and interviewed Mary in her later years, or at least had a source 79 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:22,400 within the family of Joseph and Mary to talk to. It's possible that he was able to locate 80 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:28,400 and speak with families of the shepherds that saw those events that night. And this is something 81 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:32,400 that we have to factor in. When you consider the historicity of an account like this, the 82 00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:40,400 ability of ancient people to pass along stories by oral transmission, especially Bedouin communities, 83 00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:46,400 the type that would have been connected to these shepherds. They don't write things down, but they 84 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:54,400 are absolute experts at relaying the details of a story by oral transmission. In fact, you might be 85 00:08:54,400 --> 00:08:58,400 surprised to learn how most archaeological digs in the Holy Land get started. If you've ever asked the 86 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:04,400 question, well, how do these guys know where to dig? It's usually because of a story that gets told 87 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:10,400 in a particular place by a people group that have lived there for thousands of years. And they will 88 00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:16,400 tell Westerners like us, you should dig here. Because this is where it happened. It's been passed 89 00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:20,400 down for thousands of years. I learned it as a child. And guess what? When they start digging, 90 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:26,400 what do they find? More often than not, they're correct. So this is important to understand 91 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:32,400 in the historicity of this account that Luke would have done this investigative work. Okay, 92 00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:38,400 let's dig into the text now in Luke 2. And as we do this, guys, let's strive to do what we always 93 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:44,400 try to do here at Oak Hill. And that is to try to slip on the sandals of the biblical characters and 94 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:50,400 to walk in their shoes. To try to understand, don't read it just on a flat page, understand what they 95 00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:55,400 were going through, what they were thinking and feeling, and even more so with this particular 96 00:09:55,400 --> 00:10:02,400 story. Look at verse 1. Now in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a 97 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:08,400 census be taken of all the inhabited earth. And by that, Luke means by the entire world that Rome 98 00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:15,400 rules over. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone 99 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:21,400 was on his way to register for the census each through his own city. And Joseph also went up 100 00:10:21,400 --> 00:10:27,400 from Galilee from the city of Nazareth. So I mentioned this last week, Luke is so good to 101 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:35,400 history nerds like me. To set the story in the context of this very famous man of whom much has 102 00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:41,400 been written, Caesar Augustus, and then to shrink it down even more and set the context during the 103 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:47,400 governorship of this lesser known man named Quirinius. Now this is a man who even secular historians 104 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:54,400 agree, served two terms as governor of Syria during his lifetime, and you'll see in here of often 105 00:10:54,400 --> 00:11:02,400 missed nuance in verse 2. It says this is the first census taken under Quirinius. Now that's 106 00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:08,400 important because there is a more famous and well documented census that took place in the year 107 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:15,400 6. In fact, Luke himself mentions it in Acts chapter 5, under Quirinius. But if that were the 108 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:21,400 census in view, then the timeline here doesn't fit. So Luke doing the job of a good historian says 109 00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:26,400 no, I'm not talking about that second census. I'm talking about the first one. And by the way, 110 00:11:26,400 --> 00:11:32,400 just as an aside, the early church father Justin Marder who lived in Rome in the second century, 111 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:38,400 in his day, he wrote a famous work called his Apology. And in that work, he says in the second 112 00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:44,400 century, the very census that Luke is referring to in our text, he says, if you want to look it up, 113 00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:51,400 it's in the archives here in Rome, you can actually see it. It's a very real thing. And so Joseph 114 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:56,400 now has to leave his home, right, leave his village of Nazareth, which by the way, in that day 115 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:00,400 Nazareth, if you've been there, you see it's a pretty built up city today. Back then, it wasn't 116 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:06,400 much of a town at all. Most historians have looked at it and said probably less than 100 people 117 00:12:06,400 --> 00:12:14,400 in Nazareth, right, a single synagogue, one marketplace. Most of the people would have been 118 00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:19,400 farmers, but then you had some skilled laborers as well, probably a potter and a weaver and a 119 00:12:19,400 --> 00:12:26,400 dire and a blacksmith, and of course a carpenter, right. But these were the days of Roman 120 00:12:26,400 --> 00:12:32,400 occupation and Roman taxation. Keep in mind, at the time of the incarnation story here, 121 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:39,400 Rome has controlled Israel militarily for almost 60 years now. So they've been living under this 122 00:12:39,400 --> 00:12:44,400 oppressive shadow. And the Jewish residents, whether you lived in Galilee or Judea, they 123 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:51,400 resented having to put up with this, this Gentile presence in their land. And then to add salt to 124 00:12:51,400 --> 00:12:58,400 the wound, this Gentile government was extracting taxes from them and not for their benefit. They 125 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:04,400 didn't get any benefit from paying taxes. Those taxes went back to Rome to offset the costs of the 126 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:10,400 Roman troops that they resented in the first place. So it's a bad situation. But this decree comes 127 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:18,400 down in imperial edict straight out of Rome. But try to imagine now how Joseph, in his situation 128 00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:25,400 must have resented this intrusion into his life. I have to stop working now. I have to pack 129 00:13:25,400 --> 00:13:32,400 everything up. I have to make this long grueling journey down to Judea with my wife and for what? 130 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:38,400 So that I can pay taxes to Rome. Imagine the resentment you would feel. But he had no choice in 131 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:43,400 the matter. As frustrating as this must have been, Luke is going to show us that God was at 132 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:49,400 work in each one of these details. But could Joseph have seen it at that moment? No, of course not. 133 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:56,400 God had sovereignly ordained this entire process. He was working from Augustus to Joseph and from 134 00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:03,400 this vast city of Rome to this little town of Nazareth. And yes, he's working in the timing too 135 00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:09,400 of Mary's pregnancy. Let's go back to verse four. Joseph went up from Galilee, from the city of 136 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:16,400 Nazareth, to Judea in the south, right, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because 137 00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:24,400 he was of the house and family of David in order to register along with Mary who was engaged to him, 138 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:32,400 engaged to him, but with child. Okay, so let's talk about this Mary. Got some images I'm going to use 139 00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:37,400 today. Just you know how I love this, right? To give you something to look at, to sort of picture. 140 00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:41,400 This is from the movie, The Nativity. And I think they did it. Probably the best job I've seen at 141 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:48,400 casting actual Middle Eastern people in one of these holiday movies. So this is, I think, a good picture 142 00:14:48,400 --> 00:14:52,400 of what Mary might have looked like. By the way, her name in Hebrew, not Mary, would have been Maryam, 143 00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:59,400 right? It's important to know that. Hebrew culture, Hebrew name. But in terms of marriage, she would 144 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:06,400 have been very, very young by our standards today. Certainly a teenager. And we know this because 145 00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:11,400 archaeologists have dug up marriage records from this culture and in this time. And they will tell you 146 00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:18,400 that most women at this time were married between the ages of 13 and 17. That was standard practice. 147 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:23,400 And it was strongly encouraged by the rabbis of the day for practical reasons. Why? Well, because 148 00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:30,400 lifespans were short. Right? People didn't expect to live to be 90 like we do today. Lifespans were short, 149 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:37,400 kids were valuable, and there was no, air quotes, workplace for a woman to go out and build a career 150 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:42,400 other than in the fields and in the home. And so there would be no reason for a young woman to wait 151 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:50,400 to get married and to start having children. And what of Joseph? Well, he is probably older than his 152 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:56,400 bride. That was pretty normal in that day because before he gets married, he wants to establish his trade 153 00:15:56,400 --> 00:16:03,400 to build an income so that he'll be acceptable to his bride's parents. But still, most historians will 154 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:09,400 tell you he was probably either late teenager or very early 20s. So this is a very young couple. 155 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:14,400 Now, you may have heard the old saying, you marry the entire family when you get married, right? 156 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:20,400 You marry into your in-laws. And that was even more true back than it is in our culture today. 157 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:28,400 In first century marriages, it was a transactional union between families. The kids didn't get to pick 158 00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:33,400 their spouses. They were arranged by the parents. And the parents didn't often, if you were in Nazareth, 159 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:38,400 they didn't go, well, let's go look in Judea for a bride for you. No. You looked within your own tribe, 160 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:45,400 in your own region, so it was a very limited pool, and it was all very tight knit. Now, the language 161 00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:50,400 that you'll find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it can be confusing about the marital status 162 00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:55,400 of Joseph and Mary. You see a whole bunch of words. Sometimes it says they were engaged. 163 00:16:55,400 --> 00:17:03,400 Sometimes the old word betrothed, sometimes pledged. And then other places it calls them husband and wife. 164 00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:09,400 But don't you be confused. They're all describing the same union. So let me explain what the normal process 165 00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:16,400 for a proposal would look like. It starts with the groom's family. They would submit a contract to the 166 00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:22,400 proposed bride's family. Sometimes it was written, sometimes it was oral, but it was binding. It was a 167 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:27,400 contract and they offered a bride price. I guess today we call that a dowry, right? But they offered 168 00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:32,400 a bride price with it. And if the bride's family looked at that and looked at the young man, looked at 169 00:17:32,400 --> 00:17:39,400 the price and said, okay, then that couple was immediately engaged and it was binding. That contract was 170 00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:46,400 absolutely binding. No backing out. And according to the Mishnah, the engagement would then last up to a year. 171 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:52,400 They'd be engaged for up to a year and oftentimes the bride would continue to live in her father's home 172 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:58,400 and they would have very limited contact. It was a period of testing, a period of commitment. But this is 173 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:04,400 important under Jewish law. Even during that engagement period, they were considered to be married 174 00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:10,400 because there was no backing out. It was a done deal. They were considered to be married. What that tells us is 175 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:17,400 that when Joseph and Mary go off to Bethlehem in the eyes of Jewish custom and law, they were husband and wife, 176 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:23,400 even though they had not yet had the traditional wedding ceremony and the party that goes with it, and they 177 00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:29,400 had not yet gone into their own tent and consummated their relationship. They were still considered husband 178 00:18:29,400 --> 00:18:35,400 and wife. And we know this didn't happen because Matthew tells us in chapter one of his gospel, it says that 179 00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:43,400 Joseph kept Mary a virgin until she gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. He kept her a virgin. And obviously 180 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:48,400 that was important for the fulfillment of prophecy, right? Going back to Isaiah 714, which says, 181 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:58,400 A virgin will be with child and bear a son and shall call his name what? Emmanuel, which means God with us. 182 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:04,400 And that truth, friends, listen now, that truth, the virginity of Mary and the conception of the Christ child 183 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:11,400 by a supernatural overshadowing of God's spirit is an absolute cornerstone of Christian belief that is not 184 00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:18,400 optional for us to believe. That is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. And it's been affirmed 185 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:25,400 over and over again in creedal church history. The Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Calcedonian 186 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:32,400 Creed, and others. It is absolutely essential for this reason, because the virgin birth is connected to a number 187 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:38,400 of other essential doctrines that have to be believed in order for any of us to call ourselves a historic 188 00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:44,400 Christ follower. I'm talking about the deity of Christ. I'm talking about the full humanity of Christ. 189 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:52,400 I'm talking about the impeccability of Christ. And at bottom line, the doctrine of miracles itself, which 190 00:19:52,400 --> 00:20:00,400 recognizes this essential truth that God, God is not subject to materialism or naturalism, that nothing 191 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:07,400 is impossible with God. He does as he pleases. Amen? So we don't get to pick and choose on that. The virgin 192 00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:16,400 birth is an essential doctrine. Now let me give you another doctrinal aside. Matthew 1.25 says, only this, that 193 00:20:16,400 --> 00:20:25,400 Joseph kept her a virgin until when? Until she gave birth to a son. Not after that. And certainly not 194 00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:33,400 perpetually, as the Roman Catholic Church falsely teaches. Biblically, it would have been against nature 195 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:41,400 and Scripture for Joseph and Mary not to have consummated their marriage after the birth of Christ. And of 196 00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:47,400 course the Gospels refer to Jesus as having brothers and sisters, which the Roman Catholic Church to this 197 00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:54,400 day still denies claiming one of two things. Either A, the words don't actually mean brothers and sisters, 198 00:20:54,400 --> 00:21:01,400 even though it does in the Greek. They would say, no, what they meant was cousins, or claiming that Jesus's 199 00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:09,400 brothers and sisters were from a previous marriage of Joseph. So they'll say Joseph, when he married Mary, 200 00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:15,400 must have been much, much older. He had a previous marriage and a whole bunch of kids, and those are the 201 00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:22,400 brothers and sisters. Is any of that scriptural? Absolutely not. That is just nothing but made up, man-made 202 00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:27,400 tradition, not in the Bible whatsoever. That just so that you understand when you hear Roman Catholics 203 00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:37,400 talk about that issue. Okay, back to our story. Now obviously, questions arise when a teenage virgin walks into 204 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:48,400 her village and she's showing. She's pregnant. But as we know, during the engagement period, God sent an angel, 205 00:21:48,400 --> 00:21:56,400 Gabriel, his great messenger angel, to visit Mary and to tell her about this impending pregnancy. So as the song 206 00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:04,400 goes, I'll ask the question, what did Mary know? That was for Grant. I'm not going to sing it. I thought about 207 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:13,400 singing it, but I'm like, you'll kill me. Please don't. What did Mary know? Go back to Luke 1 and go to verse 208 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:29,400 28. So this angel, Gabriel, says to her in verse 28, greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you. And he 209 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:35,400 goes on to say, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And dropped down to verse 31. 210 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:44,400 Behold, he says, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus or in Hebrew, Yeshua. 211 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:52,400 Now listen then to the five things that the angel tells Mary about who this child will be. Verse 32, he will be 212 00:22:52,400 --> 00:23:01,400 great. He will be called the son of the most high. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, 213 00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:11,400 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end. Oh, that's all. But that's 214 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:19,400 what Mary knew in that moment. But honestly, now step back, ask the question, how could she have processed that? 215 00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:29,400 Even as a devout Jewish young lady, how could she have processed through that? I mean, she's already, excuse me, 216 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:35,400 I'm going to be pregnant. I mean, she probably hadn't even gotten past that before she started dealing with all these 217 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:45,400 titles that her child is going to have. Wait, the heir of the Davidic kingdom, of an eternal kingdom? 218 00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:51,400 Honestly, it's beyond what we can imagine. What was going through her mind at this point. And then Gabriel goes on to 219 00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:57,400 explain to the extent that she could understand how, as a virgin, this is going to happen. Verse 37, first of all, 220 00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:06,400 he says, nothing will be impossible with God. And then comes this, the issue of trust that I mentioned earlier. 221 00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:16,400 Mary's response in verse 38 is astounding, isn't it? Mary said, behold, the bond slave of the Lord, I am your servant, Lord. 222 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:24,400 May it be done to me according to your word. That is an astounding response. Now you may say, well, hold on, Jeff, 223 00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:32,400 why is that response so great? I mean, she did get an angel announcing it to her that she's going to have an awesome kid. 224 00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:41,400 What's so great about that? We only say that because we know the end of the story. But put yourself in her sandals in that moment. 225 00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:49,400 Think about all the complications that could arise from the news that she just got. Not the least of which is this. 226 00:24:49,400 --> 00:24:58,400 Who on earth is going to believe that this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit? Who's going to believe me when I go back? 227 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:08,400 When I show up pregnant, by the way, I'm probably going to lose my husband. Oh, and they may stone me to death for fornication. 228 00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:17,400 Oh, okay. What this does is it helps us understand how the level of trust that Mary shows here. 229 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:25,400 And then there's the long term ramifications of the child. What do all those titles mean for me as his mother? 230 00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:31,400 Do I get a list of new responsibilities? Like, what am I supposed to do? All these questions she must have had. 231 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:40,400 But there's no way Mary could possibly know. And yet still, with very little information, she wholeheartedly puts herself in the hands of the Lord 232 00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:48,400 in that moment and trusts Him. It is astounding. Listen, we all know how the Roman Catholic Church likes to deify Mary. 233 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:55,400 And we don't want to do that. But we also should acknowledge who she is and the incredible faith that she has. 234 00:25:55,400 --> 00:26:03,400 The great woman that she is. It's okay to say that as Protestants without crossing that line. She's very, very special. 235 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:10,400 Now, we know from Luke one that Mary then went to visit her relative Elizabeth during that engagement period to Joseph. 236 00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:15,400 It tells us that she stayed with Elizabeth for three months. In fact, Luke uses a very, again, little details. 237 00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:25,400 He says she arose and went in a hurry to go see Elizabeth, right? Well, yeah. Wouldn't you want to get out of town? 238 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:34,400 Again, who in Nazareth was going to believe her story once she starts to show? So she got up and she left. I mean, imagine this. 239 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:41,400 Easier for young ladies to think about this. What are my parents going to think? What about, what about Joseph's parents? 240 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:50,400 What about our friends in the village? Can you imagine the gossip? But then imagine three months pass. 241 00:26:50,400 --> 00:27:00,400 And here comes Mary back to Nazareth. Put yourself in Joseph's sandals, the shock when he sees that belly. 242 00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:10,400 Wow. Doesn't take an expert in biology to know that no woman in the history of mankind has ever gotten pregnant by herself. 243 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:19,400 Joseph knew Mary to be a godly young woman. I mean, you can imagine the wheel spinning like, how is it possible that you were with another man? 244 00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:27,400 Imagine this. That story would be devastating today, but in that culture even more so. 245 00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:37,400 And so the first thought would be, well, the marriage contract, it's gone. It is unavoidable. It is canceled. It is out the window. This marriage is over. 246 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:48,400 But then Matthew gives us this amazing insight into Joseph's character. Here's what he writes in Matthew 1.19. 247 00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:58,400 It says, Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace Mary, planned to send her away secretly. 248 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:09,400 Look, this guy had every right to be furious. And he could have made this whole situation about himself, about his reputation, 249 00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:20,400 and to take sort of public vengeance on Mary so as to save himself, to vindicate himself. But he does the opposite. 250 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:31,400 He shows compassion and he shows kindness and he shows a protective heart over Mary, which are really, by the way, really good signs for a future husband 251 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:42,400 to have those character traits. And he says, you know what? I'll handle this quietly and discreetly. Pretty cool, huh? 252 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:48,400 But then his decision to do that gets interrupted by a divine message that is going to change the course of his life. 253 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:55,400 Matthew continues in chapter 1, verse 20, but when he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream 254 00:28:55,400 --> 00:29:05,400 saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 255 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:18,400 Phew! Wow, that's good news. She wasn't with another man? I mean, again, imagine processing that. 256 00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:27,400 And then we see more trust come out. Just as Mary trusted, here comes Joseph, verse 24, and Joseph awoke from asleep and did as the angel of the Lord 257 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:36,400 commanded him and took Mary as his wife. So listen, when we talk about the Christmas story, Mary gets center stage and rightfully so, 258 00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:43,400 but we should not completely miss this good man standing by her side. He really is. 259 00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:48,400 Joseph seems to be a man of remarkable faith and integrity and humility. 260 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:57,400 And I know we're not given details in Scripture, but this was the man who, in a physical sense, raised Jesus and taught him a trade. 261 00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:03,400 It became his father, and that is undeniably important. 262 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:08,400 Okay, back to Luke 2. Let's talk about Bethlehem. 263 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:14,400 Bethlehem, say it. Bethlehem. 264 00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:18,400 You know what it means, a map. Okay, good. 265 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,400 So, just so that you can picture this, I know some of you guys know this map well. 266 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:29,400 Israel, find the two bodies of water, Sea of Galilee in the North, Dead Sea in the South. 267 00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:33,400 Blue dot, find is Jerusalem. Let that get your bearings. 268 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:38,400 Look how close Bethlehem, the red dot, is to Jerusalem. Very important. 269 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:44,400 It's only about five or six miles out. And the pink dot is Nazareth, up in Galilee. 270 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,400 So that's the distance these two are going to travel in order to get to Bethlehem. 271 00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:54,400 Now, at the time of the incarnation, Bethlehem's best days were in the past. 272 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:59,400 They're pretty glorious days, though. Bethlehem, remember, is the town of Ruth and Boaz. 273 00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:04,400 And it's the place where Jacob's first love, Rachel, where she died and was buried. 274 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:10,400 In fact, even today, if you go to Bethlehem, the tour guide can show you Rachel's tomb. Still there. 275 00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:17,400 But most importantly, a thousand years before this, Bethlehem had been the home of a man named Jesse. 276 00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:23,400 And Jesse had eight sons, the youngest of which was named David. 277 00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,400 Jesse the Bethelmite and his son, David. 278 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:33,400 The same David who would become Israel's greatest king and the recipient of this great covenant promise from Yahweh 279 00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:39,400 that says, Your house, David, and Your kingdom shall endure before me forever. 280 00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:43,400 Your throne shall be established forever. 281 00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,400 So the house of David becomes the only legitimate ancestral line of Israel's Messiah. 282 00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:54,400 And then comes the prophecy of Micah, about 200 years later, in the eighth century BC. 283 00:31:54,400 --> 00:32:02,400 And Micah says, From Bethlehem, will come a great ruler who has eternal beginnings. 284 00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,400 That's interesting. And yet Micah also says this about Bethlehem. 285 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:12,400 It's too little. It's too obscure to even be listed among the clans of Judah. 286 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,400 We'll look more closely at that in a week four. 287 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,400 Today we say, Oh, little town of Bethlehem. 288 00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:21,400 You can always picture it in your mind's eye, right? 289 00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:29,400 Nothing great about it except this, that in the fullness of time, God chose that very small, ordinary little town 290 00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:33,400 as the birthplace of the one that he sent forth from eternity past. 291 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:35,400 That's kind of a big deal. 292 00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:41,400 And that's where Mary and Joseph are now headed, looking something like that, to Bethlehem. 293 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,400 Remember, as they leave, he is frustrated by Roman taxation. 294 00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,400 She is now approaching full term in her pregnancy. 295 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:54,400 And now they have this difficult journey ahead of them, somewhere around 80 miles of walking, 296 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,400 80 miles of travel on foot and by donkey. 297 00:32:57,400 --> 00:32:59,400 What are they carrying with them? 298 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:05,400 All their food, their water, their supplies, their bedding, a whole bunch of things. 299 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:11,400 And having to deal with all the difficult terrain of Samaria and Judea, they're sleeping outside. 300 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:18,400 If it's wintertime, it's cold in Israel, exposed to the elements, facing hazards, wild animals. 301 00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,400 Yeah, wild animals, desert robbers. 302 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:28,400 But what's interesting again, if you look at the story in Luke 2, Luke doesn't dwell on the difficulty. 303 00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:30,400 It's very short. 304 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:32,400 Why? 305 00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:39,400 Well, because as hard as it sounds to us, that kind of journey in the first century wasn't unusual. 306 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:41,400 People did it all the time. 307 00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:46,400 Several times a year, every time they went from Galilee to Jerusalem for a festival, 308 00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:48,400 they took this journey. 309 00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,400 Now, obviously it was harder than usual because Mary was pregnant, 310 00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:55,400 but Luke assumes that his readers understand this hardship. 311 00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:57,400 I tried to think about what this would mean for us today. 312 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:03,400 It'd be like if I came to you and said, you know what, I got to drive myself and my family to downtown LA. 313 00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,400 And you'd all go, ah, that's a terrible drive. 314 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,400 We all would do that, right? 315 00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,400 Because we understand, and Luke's audience understood this. 316 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:16,400 We had, ah, the traffic and all the switches on the freeways to get there, 317 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:21,400 but we would not drone on and on and on about the great hardship you're going through. 318 00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,400 And the same thing is true of the audience in this day. 319 00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:30,400 And besides, we can be honest, Mary and Joseph were just a bit tougher than we are today. 320 00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:32,400 They had to be. 321 00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,400 We are a pampered people. 322 00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:35,400 They lived hard lives. 323 00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:36,400 They woke up early. 324 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,400 They did hard physical work, long days, never ending chores. 325 00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:44,400 They faced daily challenges just to survive. 326 00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:46,400 We're like, oh, my internet's slow. 327 00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:51,400 So they would have been familiar with this hardship. 328 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,400 They would not have been intimidated by this journey. 329 00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:55,400 That's what I guess what I'm saying. 330 00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:56,400 Not as much as we might think. 331 00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:02,400 But of course, as they get there, now everything's about to get complicated, right? 332 00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,400 They get to Bethlehem and it is super crowded. 333 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:07,400 Probably because of the census. 334 00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:11,400 There's more than just them going there to register. 335 00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,400 And so Luke writes very simply, look at Luke 2, verse 6. 336 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:19,400 While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. 337 00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:25,400 And at the end of verse 7, he tells us that they had to put into action the sort of emergency plan 338 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:29,400 because there was no room for them in the inn. 339 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,400 Okay, let's talk about the inn. 340 00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:38,400 If you've ever pictured in your mind a motel 6, wipe that away. 341 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,400 There were no motels in 1st century Bethlehem, right? 342 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,400 Yeah. 343 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,400 I remember growing up literally with that picture in my mind, like, oh, I've been to motels. 344 00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:50,400 Not the picture. 345 00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:55,400 The word for inn in the Greek actually in a general sense just means a place of lodging. 346 00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:56,400 That's it. 347 00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:58,400 That's all we get. 348 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:05,400 I think the best way for us to think about this overcrowded place is this was some type of public shelter 349 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,400 that you could pull up to and get a room. 350 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,400 Maybe you might even think of it in terms of like a campground. 351 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,400 But they get there and there's just no place. 352 00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:17,400 Oh, by the way, there's no mean, nasty innkeeper in the story. 353 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:23,400 We put that in every nativity story and every play that we do, but there is no nasty innkeeper here. 354 00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,400 By the way, there's also no mention of a stable or a cave or anything else. 355 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,400 We just don't have a lot of details. 356 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,400 But here's what makes sense to my mind. 357 00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,400 And I could be off, but I'm just going to tell you what I think. 358 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:42,400 Today, if you pull up to a shelter for a stay, there's going to be a parking lot there for you to park your car so that you can go into the shelter. 359 00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,400 I think this was something similar in Bethlehem that night. 360 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:52,400 Somewhere near this public lodging, there was a place to house the animal or animals that you brought with you. 361 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,400 Doesn't that kind of make sense? 362 00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,400 There's a parking lot for your car today back then. 363 00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,400 You could stay in this public shelter if there was room and you know what? 364 00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:06,400 Put your animals over here, whether it's a stable or a cave, whatever, park your animals over here. 365 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:12,400 But because there's no room, Mary and Joseph just, the time's come. 366 00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:18,400 We have to make an emergency plan here and they're like, well, that's where we're going. 367 00:37:18,400 --> 00:37:20,400 They keep the animals. 368 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:22,400 I think that makes the most sense. 369 00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,400 Whatever structure they could get into at that point. 370 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:31,400 And the only reason we know that they're with the animals is because of the term manger in verse 12, which means a feeding trough. 371 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:33,400 So it's likely they said, no room here. 372 00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:35,400 We're out of time. 373 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,400 Let's go hang out with the animals. 374 00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,400 They use their own bedding that they brought along with them on the trip from Nazareth. 375 00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:50,400 And then they just tried to carve out a place in that, whatever it was, and to stay away from the animals and to try to stay warm. 376 00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:54,400 That seems like a reasonable choice on Joseph's part. 377 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:56,400 We just have to make do at this point. 378 00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,400 Now, again, let's be honest. 379 00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:06,400 If you're Joseph or Mary, would you not be shaking your fist to God at this point? 380 00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,400 Just a little bit. 381 00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,400 Lord, can we catch a break here? 382 00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:19,400 You told us we were favored, but then we have to go down to this place we don't want to be in. 383 00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,400 For a reason we don't want to be here for. 384 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,400 You tell us we're favored, you tell us this is going to be your son. 385 00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,400 We respond in faith. 386 00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,400 Why can't we just get a decent room? 387 00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:39,400 Would it not be hard to struggle to see the hand of God in this if you were Mary or Joseph? 388 00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:41,400 I think it would. 389 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:48,400 No comfort, no warmth, no privacy, no family around, no meds, no midwife, 390 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:56,400 no delivery nurse, just a couple teenagers doing their best to bring divine life into the world. 391 00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,400 That's the picture we get. 392 00:38:58,400 --> 00:39:00,400 Amazing. 393 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:07,400 And then Luke gives us this very short statement, and for you ladies who are moms and you had to endure 20, 24 hours worth of labor, 394 00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:14,400 I'm sure this isn't very satisfying for you, but in verse seven it just says, and she gave birth. 395 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:20,400 She gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him in cloth and laid him in a manger. 396 00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,400 That's it. 397 00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:26,400 Not complicated according to Luke, just the facts, ma'am. 398 00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:37,400 In the fullness of time, at just the right moment in God's eternal plan, God sent forth his son into the world. 399 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:46,400 The second person of the triune Godhead broke into time and took up actual physical space, 400 00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:53,400 conceived in the womb of an ordinary Jewish teenager by a mysterious overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. 401 00:39:53,400 --> 00:40:01,400 And in this prophesied little town of Bethlehem, the savior of the world is born of a woman, just like any other human baby. 402 00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,400 Amazing. 403 00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,400 There were no royal robes for him to wear, no fancy clothes. 404 00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:12,400 He did not come out with one of those little halos over his head that you see in all the paintings. 405 00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:24,400 The God of immensity and omnipresence confined himself in a concentrated way in a body less than 10 pounds in weight and less than two feet in length. 406 00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,400 Think about that. 407 00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:31,400 And then there's Mary, young Mary, giving birth to the hope of the ages. 408 00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:40,400 Exhausted and trembling in the cold, and you can picture just kissing and caressing her firstborn son. 409 00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:55,400 And right there by her side, her beloved Joseph, a teenage husband who just, you know, just a few weeks ago was talking about divorcing a few months ago, divorcing this woman, ending this whole thing. 410 00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:01,400 Talking about a whirlwind story, and Luke just says, these are the facts. 411 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:07,400 I did the interviews. I talked to the right people. This is how it took place. 412 00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:12,400 And so all they have for the Son of God now are some strips of cloth. 413 00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,400 And they wrap them up as snugly as they cancel. He'll stay warm. 414 00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:19,400 And then they look around. They're like, we got to put them down for a moment. 415 00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,400 Well, there's a feeding trough that the donkeys just used. 416 00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,400 We'll put them there. 417 00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,400 And then imagine, step into their sandals. 418 00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:34,400 They sat back and they looked at this child and they thought about what the angel had said. 419 00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:40,400 What were they thinking in that moment? 420 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,400 It's amazing. What a story. 421 00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:49,400 What a story we have that God orchestrated in his sovereignty. 422 00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:53,400 So I just have a few moments left, but let me try to make some observations. 423 00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,400 By the way, I didn't get to the shepherds like I wanted to this morning. 424 00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,400 We'll deal with them next week. I promise because they're very important. 425 00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:00,400 So come back. 426 00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,400 But let's return to these four words that I started with. 427 00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:08,400 Sovereign, ordinary, and trust. Let's take those first three. 428 00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:12,400 First God's sovereign plan in every part of the incarnation story. 429 00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:16,400 Even the difficult details that none of us would have ever drawn up. 430 00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:20,400 Even all the uncomfortable things God was sovereignly in charge of. 431 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,400 He had a purpose in that. 432 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,400 Do we believe that that's true? 433 00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:29,400 And if we believe that that's true, do you believe that that's true in your life as well? 434 00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,400 That God is intimately involved in the details? 435 00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,400 Or have you begun to think, well, God isn't paying attention to me. 436 00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:38,400 I don't matter. 437 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:42,400 No, God is at work in all the details of your life right now. 438 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:47,400 We just need to slow down long enough to see it and affirm it and believe it. 439 00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,400 Do you not know that He's working in your life? 440 00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:57,400 If you're a believer, He's working in your life right now to conform you to the image of His Son. 441 00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:02,400 Second thing, the way the Lord uses ordinary people to accomplish His will, 442 00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:07,400 you could not get more ordinary than Joseph and Mary in that day. 443 00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,400 Simple, common, blue-collar, whatever you want to call Him. 444 00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,400 But then add these character traits to those two as well. 445 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:20,400 Humble, righteous, kind, compassionate, obedient, faithful. 446 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,400 That's what God seeks among His children. 447 00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,400 If you've ever felt insignificant in a world of billions of people 448 00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,400 where all the news is always about people in positions of power, 449 00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:34,400 consider the Christmas story, come back to it over and over again, 450 00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,400 how God turns the mind of an emperor 451 00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:42,400 and wields the power of an empire for the good of His ordinary children. 452 00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:45,400 Think about that. 453 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:47,400 Think about that. 454 00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:51,400 It's been said many times He is a big God for little people. 455 00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,400 So never doubt His concern for you, His care for you, 456 00:43:54,400 --> 00:44:01,400 if you are an adopted son or daughter of the Most High and a co-heir with Christ. 457 00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,400 He cares for you greatly. 458 00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:05,400 The third idea is trust. 459 00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,400 Joseph and Mary trusted what God had revealed to them about His plan. 460 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:14,400 No matter how wild and fantastic it sounded, and it would have, come on, be honest. 461 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:18,400 That would have sounded wild to you, but they trusted. 462 00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:19,400 And they said, what? 463 00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:21,400 Okay, Lord, I'm Your servant. 464 00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,400 Whatever comes next is from You, I want it. 465 00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:30,400 And you may say again, yeah, but Jeff, I don't get angelic announcements in my life. 466 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:33,400 I trust God that much if an angel came to me. 467 00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,400 Granted, you're not probably not going to get an angel in your lifetime. 468 00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,400 But can I tell you something? 469 00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:46,400 Right now in your lap is God's written revelation to you. 470 00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,400 Start there. 471 00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:49,400 Start there. 472 00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:51,400 You want an announcement from God? 473 00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,400 Start with the Bible in your lap right now. 474 00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:55,400 Read it. 475 00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:56,400 Trust it. 476 00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,400 Obey it. 477 00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:01,400 And you'll be like Mary and Joseph. 478 00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:03,400 Amen. 479 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,400 Last thing I want to share with you is that word lowly. 480 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:13,400 And when we talk about lowly, it pertains to the true hero in this story, and that's Christ Himself. 481 00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:19,400 I started this morning by asking, if God had sovereigned over all things, why did the Incarnation story play out like this? 482 00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,400 Because it could have gone otherwise. 483 00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,400 I mean, God could have done anything He wanted to, right? 484 00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,400 Many ways it could have gone differently. 485 00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:32,400 But the question isn't what God could have done, but what He willed to do. 486 00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,400 And here's what you need to know. 487 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:43,400 It was God's will that though Christ was eternally rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, and He became lowly. 488 00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:49,400 He was eternally rich, but He became poor for us. 489 00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,400 I can't find the source of this quote, but it's a great quote. 490 00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:57,400 When God came down to the earth, He came all the way down. 491 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:02,400 He came to a pair of teenagers in Nazareth, right? 492 00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:08,400 If you're young here this morning, you're like, ah, you know, wait, I'll get serious about this one in my 30s and 40s. 493 00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:13,400 He came to a pair of teenagers. 494 00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:18,400 He came to this obscure town, first in Nazareth and then in Bethlehem. 495 00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:22,400 Came to a smelly place where animals were housed and fed. 496 00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:28,400 He came into a situation without comfort or ease. 497 00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:35,400 And in all of those things and more, we see the shadow of something far more difficult coming down the road for Christ. 498 00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:43,400 He was in the world, but the world did not know Him. 499 00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,400 He came to his own, but those who were his own did not receive Him. 500 00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:53,400 It starts in Bethlehem, but it ends at the cross, doesn't it? 501 00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:58,400 He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 502 00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:04,400 He came all the way down to be despised by the very people He made. 503 00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:12,400 Foxes have holes, He said, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. 504 00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:17,400 No room in the inn, ever for Jesus. 505 00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:24,400 Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped onto, but He emptied Himself. 506 00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:32,400 He made Himself of no reputation, taking on the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. 507 00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:39,400 Again, the story, the incarnation, is the story of the Son of God's humiliation for our sake. 508 00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:45,400 But sometimes when we hear that, we're like, ah, I don't like that word humiliation too much. 509 00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:50,400 Listen, in doing that, understand He desired to identify with us. 510 00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:52,400 He chose to do it. 511 00:47:52,400 --> 00:48:00,400 His own volition, God the Son, desired to identify with us to walk as a man in this fallen world, 512 00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:07,400 to feel the weight of temptation, to understand human suffering, to laugh like we do, to cry like we do, 513 00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:12,400 to rejoice and to grieve through the events of life as a human being. 514 00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,400 That's how much He loved you. 515 00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:15,400 He wanted that. 516 00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:19,400 He was willing to do that. 517 00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:29,400 And ultimately, He came so low that He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 518 00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:39,400 To stand in our place as a substitute for sinners so that He might bring many sons and daughters like us to glory forevermore. 519 00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,400 What a mystery this story is, you guys. 520 00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:44,400 And what love Jesus shows. 521 00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:56,400 The hope of the ages, born of a virgin, come to take our sins upon Himself and to set us free for all eternity. 522 00:48:56,400 --> 00:49:00,400 Let's bow our heads and continue to worship Him. 523 00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:01,400 And I mean that. 524 00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,400 Let's worship Him in prayer together. 525 00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:13,400 Lord, we are so humbled by what You endured for us. 526 00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,400 Lord, this story is so remarkable. 527 00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:26,400 I pray God that we would never ever read it casually without looking below the surface and seeing the beauty of Your sovereignty. 528 00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,400 To see how You use ordinary people. 529 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,400 To see how they responded in trust. 530 00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:37,400 But most of all, Lord, to see how lowly You chose to become in order to set us free. 531 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:40,400 It is a remarkable story, God. 532 00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,400 And it brings us to a place of incredible worship. 533 00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:49,400 And Lord, that's what we want to do in the time that we have left this morning to sing Your praises. 534 00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:59,400 Not to check our minds out and be thinking about lunch or anything else today, but to lift our eyes and to see You, Jesus. 535 00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,400 The one who took on flesh for our sake. 536 00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,400 God, seal these truths in our hearts. 537 00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:09,400 Help us to understand them on a deeper and deeper level. 538 00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:12,400 Continue, God, to grow us. 539 00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:14,400 Get form us to the image of Your Son. 540 00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:16,400 Thank you for our time together this morning. 541 00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:20,400 Thank you for the privilege we have of worshiping You together. 542 00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,400 Help us do that well now. 543 00:50:22,400 --> 00:50:25,400 In the name of that one who was born in Bethlehem, we pray. 544 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:43,400 Amen.