Advent Week 4 - Love

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I lay me down, lead me to your heart, lead me to the cross, bring me to my knee, so lay me down, let me of myself, I belong to only leave me, leave me to you. The voices don't say anything, true they never do. But the whispers of your victory rising up inside it won't waste the waiting at your feet, even though right now I can't see the end. Well you see it, you know it, I know it way, you, world is a shell, if disease in itself, but the dead things will rise, you breathing new life, oh I know the God of victory, silencing the enemy, won't waste the waiting, I'll sit at your feet. You built us for glory, enough for defeat, even though right now I can't see the end. Well you see it, you know it, I know that you always it. [00:04:52] Speaker B: Check. [00:04:53] Speaker C: Good morning guys. I missed the two minute warning, so now we have a 1 minute and twelve second warning. Come on in, chat with some friends for a sec, find your spot, get comfy, we're going to get started here with worship. If you got kids between the age of infant and age four, you can get them checked in downstairs. And if you're a guest with us, welcome. We'd love to connect with you. And we have connect cards in the back as well as online. We'll see here in about 50 seconds. [00:05:23] Speaker B: We don't speak that way, we don't love that way. Came to serve, believe. [00:05:56] Speaker A: All. [00:06:00] Speaker B: We raise. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Our ass to the world, lay down his life, save his enemies. [00:06:36] Speaker C: All jack to stand with us. [00:06:51] Speaker B: God rest you mary, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, let Jesus Christ our savior. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Was born on Christmas day, save us. [00:07:07] Speaker B: All from Satan's power when we were gone astray, o sidings of comfort, comfort and joy o tidings of comfort. God our heavenly Father, a blessed angel came to certain shepherds of the saint, how that in Bethlehem was born the son of God by name who sidings of comfort come joy within this place and with true love and brother each other now embrace this holy tide of Christmas. All other mouthy face o siding the comfort, comfort. Enjoy the comfort. [00:09:15] Speaker D: Morning. [00:09:15] Speaker C: As we worship we are working through a season of advent. And if that's something that you're not familiar with, it's basically a season of anticipation, anticipation of Christ coming. And week by week we've got a different theme. So four weeks ago we started out with hope, then we had faith, then we had forgetting the next one joy. [00:09:38] Speaker D: And then we had love. [00:09:40] Speaker C: And this week as I was thinking about this, I realized they all kind of build on each other, right? Because when you have hope, you have faith. [00:09:48] Speaker D: When you have faith, you can have joy. [00:09:50] Speaker C: When you have joy, you can have love. And I wanted to read this passage. This is from psalm 95. Come, let us shout joyfully to the Lord. Shout triumphantly to the rock of our salvation. Let us enter his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout triumphantly to him in song. For the Lord is a great God, a great king above all gods. The depths of the earth are in his hand and the mountains peaks are his. The sea is his. He made it, his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care. Father God, we come to you this morning and we celebrate love. We celebrate the love that you had for us, because you made us and you love us. And not only that, when we fell, you sent your son to come and make a way for us to be reconciled to you. God, we celebrate you for who you are. We celebrate you for your love. And it's in your son's name we pray. [00:10:53] Speaker D: Amen. [00:11:27] Speaker B: Joyful, joyful. We adore the God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts unfold like flowers before the open to the sun above melt the clouds of sin and sadness drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day with joy surround the earth and every flex I raise. Stars and angels sing around the center of unbroken grace feel and foreign mountain flowering meadows chanting bird and blowing fountain call us to rejoice ever bless. Welcome bring up the joy of living ocean depth of happy rest. Thou our father Christ, our brother all who live in love teach us how to love each other. Lift us to the joy. [00:13:27] Speaker A: Sardine chorus. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Which the morning stars began. Father, love is raining or us brother, love finds man to men ever see march we are victor in the joyful music I went in the triumph on high sweet be singing over the place and the mountains every fight echoing that joy is jubilee me why your joy is dream for long. What the glad some tidy be witches by your heavenly song. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Lose day. [00:15:44] Speaker B: Christ who birth the angel come adore unto lose day. [00:16:51] Speaker E: If there's one thing that we all know deep down, it's that we're made for love. We all spend our lives searching for it. We want to find another person who will love us for who we truly are. Yet we are also terrified of the opposite. What if the other person will see us as we truly are and reject us. For many people, their entire life is spent dangling between these two truths in a twisted dance. They are trying to show just enough of the nice parts of who they are to attract someone else, but keep the dirty parts of their soul locked away. This is exhausting, and many people never truly find love because they are simply looking for it in the wrong place. [00:17:32] Speaker F: The truth is, you are made for love. There is only one person who can truly see, truly sees you for who you are and still completely loves you. This is because he created you. In psalm 139 we read, Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I have sit down and when I stand up, you understand my thoughts. From far away you observe my travels and my rest, and you are aware of all my ways. The Lord sees you and knows you fully. He created your inward parts. He knit you together in your mother's womb. He saw you fully when you were formless. He knew everything about every single thing in your life before you were born. God truly sees you. [00:18:22] Speaker E: What do we do with this truth? How do we respond, knowing that we are stripped bare before a God who sees everything about us, from our wicked thoughts to our prideful, rebellious lives? God sees all the parts of ourselves that we hate and hide. How could he do anything besides reject us? But he doesn't. Instead, the God of the universe loves us. He sees us. He really sees us. And his response is compassion and love. One John, chapter four, nine through ten, says, God's love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his one and only son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to the atoning sacrifice for our sins. This season of advent is a celebration of Jesus Christ being born as a human to show us his love, to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins so that we might live through him and live eternally in his love church. Let's worship him in awe of his perfect love for us. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Glory to the new king mile God and reckon joyful all ye nations rise join the triumph of the sky with angelic host proclaim Christ is born that hemp heart the herald angel sing glory to the new christ by high christ the everlasting lord laid in time behold him come offspring of the virgin failed in my the godhead hail the dwell Jesus sorry man, you well heart the herald angel sing glory to. [00:21:17] Speaker A: Sarn prince. [00:21:31] Speaker B: Of peace hail the son of righteousness risen with healing mile he lays his glory by one that men don't force. I want to raise up sons of earth, want to give birth, heart the herald angel sing Glory to. [00:22:36] Speaker G: Hello, everyone, I'm Chrissy. Michael. And what am I? I do stuff with treehouse. Yeah, and I just wanted to tell you that the kiddos have been working on a song called Christ the king of Christmas since mid November, and not so much away in a manger, but they all kind of know it. So anyway, they want to bless you all today and come up and sing. Everybody, have the children, have your kiddos come on up here. And if you're visiting today, or you haven't been here in a while, it's totally fine for your kids to come up to you. We'll sing it together, learn together, if they're wanting to. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Come on up. [00:23:20] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:23:20] Speaker G: How about we go over here on the right? Everybody can see it better. This way, this way. [00:23:32] Speaker A: This way. [00:23:33] Speaker G: Don't hide behind the podium. [00:23:43] Speaker A: Excuse me. Okay. Mommy. [00:23:48] Speaker G: Yeah. [00:23:52] Speaker E: To the side. [00:23:55] Speaker A: All right, come here. [00:23:59] Speaker G: Matthew. [00:24:04] Speaker A: Over here. Gucci birch. [00:24:12] Speaker G: Okay, sorry about that. All right, we can't see. Gavin, Millie, you're in front of your brother. Gavin, moshe, this way. Tall kids in the back. Millie, Claire, back a little bit. [00:24:31] Speaker A: Come on up. [00:24:36] Speaker G: No? [00:24:42] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:46] Speaker G: You'Re gonna be cute from the back. [00:24:51] Speaker B: Let the Christmas tree remind you of the one who trusts the Lord, who walks the path of godliness and loves to hear God's word. Pray that as you grow up, that's just how you will be standing tall for Jesus like a Christmas tree. [00:25:09] Speaker A: Let your love show. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Let your faith. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Let anyone will know Christ, the king of Christmas. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Well. Let the fairy lights remind you of that bright shining star. Spotted by the wise men who traveled from afar. They gave Jesus all their treasures and they worshiped him that night. Let your worship of King Jesus shine like very light. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Let your love show, let your faith. Let everyone will know Christ, the king of Christmas. [00:25:53] Speaker D: Well. [00:25:54] Speaker B: Let the candy cane remind you of God's amazing grace. Read the blood of Jesus as he suffered in our place. White full forgiveness one. As Jesus rose again, you can tell your friends the gospel with a candy cane. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Let your love show. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Let your faith grow. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Ho, ho. That everyone will know. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Christ, the king of Christmas. Well, let all the gifts at Christmas time fill your heart with praise to God. For all his goodness shown in so many ways. Let every day, in every way be completely his. Give your life to Jesus as a Christmas gift. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Let your love show it. [00:27:12] Speaker G: Now, our second song is away in a manger. We're just going to sing the first and the last verse, but we would like for you all to join us in the last verse. [00:27:21] Speaker D: Okay, just give us a secondary. [00:28:23] Speaker A: Children, take us to heaven to live with me. There's out. [00:28:51] Speaker E: Go back to your parents. [00:28:52] Speaker A: Or if you're under four, come with me. Let's go. We're going. Come on. Nora. Nora. All right. Thank you. It. [00:29:59] Speaker D: Just a sweet little choir. Angels. Oh, man. What a great way. What a great way to step into the sermon time. Amen. Guys, we are continuing our. Well, actually, I can't do that. Thank you, Chrissy and all our treehouse workers. What an amazing blessing. It is such a beautiful thing to be led in worship by your own kid, isn't it? What a joy to be together, church man. We are continuing our Advent series today, and I'm just excited to see what God has for us in a really familiar text. So if you guys actually want to get ready for us, you can go ahead and open your bibles up to luke. Chapter two is where we're going to be today. If you don't have a physical copy of God's word with you, we have them around the room. We really believe in the importance of access to God's word here at Emmanuel. And so we would encourage you, if you don't own a physical copy of the Bible, to grab one of the pew bibles and take it home. Or even we have some nicer ones back at the welcome table. We'd love to make sure you have access to God's word before we get into the text, I'm supposed to remind you what next Sunday is going to look like. So I don't know if you've noticed, but all four candles of the wreath are lit. So next Sunday, Christmas Eve, there will be a new candle, the Christ candle. And we're actually going to have two gatherings next Sunday. So we will have our normal Sunday morning gathering, all our normal Sunday morning schedule. So we'll be in here at 1030 for a full Christmas Eve gathering. We'll sing, we'll pray, we'll go through the text, we'll light the Christ candle. But we are going to do something in the evening as well. And so I want to encourage you guys to consider being a part of this. We're going to do something a little different. It's going to be kind of similar to what we did on Good Friday this year. And so we're going to have what we're calling kind of an open house candlelight worship time. And so from five to 630, myself and Chuck and carol and Adam will be in the sanctuary kind of rotating through a pretty short reverence, just candlelight service where we'll sing some songs, we'll encourage each other with the word, with prayer, and we'll do the thing you have to do on Christmas Eve. Turn the lights off, we'll light the candles. We'll sing a silent night. It'll be beautiful. We'll rotate through that for about an hour and a half. Outside we'll have a fire pit going. You can grab some hot chocolate, say hi to friends. You can walk over. We'll have a little prayer prompt station over close to the nativity scene if you want to take a minute, pray and prepare your heart. I say all that to say on Christmas Eve evening. I know we're busy. We got a lot of stuff going on. A lot of us have family things to be at. So whether you have five minutes or 45 minutes, I would love for you to stop by and experience what we have going on in as much as makes sense for you and your family. I would love to see you guys there. I think it's going to be a special experience today. However, today we have lit the love candle. And no, I don't mean an artifact from Jim's college dating life. I asked my wife this morning if it was okay to make that joke from the stage, and she said, yes, we lit the love candle. And what this is, guys, it's a reminder as we consider Christmas, as we consider the incarnation of Jesus, to do so from the perspective of the immense love of God. And we're going to do that from Luke, chapter two. Today we're going to talk about what I think is probably one of the most overused cliche words in the entire english language from one of the most well known and cliched stories in the whole Bible. And there's a lot actually going on in that that's going to take, I think, a little bit of intentionality on our part to fully engage that, in part because there's actually a lot of historical and textual elements in this text that we're going to need to talk about that might stretch some of our Sunday school memories. And so what I want to invite you guys to do is I'm going to take us into a minute, just a moment of prayer, and I want to invite us all this morning to just make the choice to say, hey, let's be present. Let's engage this text as much as we are able to. Let's engage this with fresh eyes and see what God might have for us. So pray with me and we're going to jump into this. Father, thank you so much for the privilege of being here this morning. It is such a beautiful thing to be together with brothers and sisters, to sing, to pray, to celebrate. God, thank you so much for the gift of kids you have given this church that we get to sit here and hear the fruit of the people who love and serve and shepherd our kids downstairs and hear them sing and proclaim the gospel. Lord, we want to pray your blessing over treehouse. God, we pray your blessing over the kids that you have brought into this church family. Lord, God, empower us, anoint us to steward them well. Lord, we ask that you would save our kids. You would speak the gospel into their hearts individually, each and every one of them. And that our church, us as a family, we would get to have a role in these kids spiritual development in their journey toward you. Lord, anoint our time today. Give us humble and open eyes and open ears to hear from you what our heart actually needs. God, move in us today. Let us not move past this because it's another Christmas sermon. But God, give us ears to hear from you. We love you, we trust you. We need you to do this work. So we pray it in your name. Amen. I have been in my free time reading through Dante's divine comedy, which, if you don't know, is one of the most famous pieces of poetry ever written. I got a picture here that illustrates the whole trilogy of books. Yeah, it's nuts if you don't know. This really is one of the most famous pieces of poetry ever written. Most of us are familiar with the first of the three books, Dante's Inferno, where Dante's fictional version of himself is given an escorted tour through hell. But there's actually three books in the series. And there is this really interesting interaction in the middle book, Purgatorio, this beautiful exchange between Dante and the roman poet Virgil, where they talk about God's design for love within humanity. And there's this piece where it just basically says, all human beings, all of humanity, is made to love. We're designed to give and receive love, designed as hardwired into our dna, so deep within us that Dante says the actual desire to give and receive love can't even be seen as inherently good in and of itself. It's just instinctual to humans because of how God made us. Rather, one has to look at how love is directed to see its morality. Is it turned inward toward self, or is it directed out at God and others? I think that question, this interaction between the two I think it's actually beautiful, but I also think it'll be helpful for interacting with our text today. See, guys, when we talk about the advent, and by that word advent, we just mean the coming of Christ, the incarnation, God entering into human history. The advent is the supreme example of this kind of gospel love, a kind of gospel love that is pointed toward the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. Jesus gave himself to us. The Christmas story is a story of sacrifice. Yes. I mean, yes, we see faith and expectation and sacrifice, and we see them in all the main characters in the story, and Mary and Joseph and all that. But all of that pales in comparison to the love of Jesus on display in the Christmas story. The love of Jesus that would drive the king of reality from his throne in heaven to a manger in Bethlehem is an intense kind of love. Beloved, you hear nothing else today. If you hear nothing else from the entirety of your ministry experience with me as a pastor, hear this. Jesus Christ, the king of the universe, the God of reality. Jesus truly loves you. He truly loves you. You, the real you, all of you, all the parts of yourself that you love, that you present to the world, all the parts of yourself that you hate, that you do your best to hide, to cover up, to ignore, to pretend isn't there. God really loves you. And his love for you is true love. He puts his money where his mouth is. He puts his love into action. The love of Jesus for you, believer, is as genuine as is possible for love to be, and that changes everything. That is a fundamental truth that should change your experience, your interaction with the world. Guys, the love of Jesus is what empowers us to love others, to take our dna, deep desire to give and receive love, and to turn it away from ourselves and toward the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. Truly, the gospel of Jesus is good news. Good news for all people. Beloved. It's good news for you. It's good news for you here today, right now. Regardless of what spiritual state you brought with you into this space, the gospel of Jesus is good news for you right now, right here today. Amen. So let's jump into it because this text is so familiar. I think what I'd like to do, we're in Luke chapter two, is I'm going to go through it chunk by chunk and kind of scene by scene and see if there's some stuff we can pick through and think through a couple textual and historical things and just see how that might illuminate the text for us and point us to what God has for us today. Sound good? Luke, chapter two, we're picking up in verse one, and we read this. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. This was the first registration that took place while Cornelius was governing Syria. So everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant. So right off the bat, we see that Luke as a writer, is concerned with placing Jesus'birth within the larger historical context. This is just a thing for your own knowledge and your own study of the word. But I do think it's important. Out of the four gospel writers, Luke is the only one who actually uses the accepted cultural structures for historical writing in the ancient world. It's very evident that Luke sees what he is writing not just as a theological work, but as a historical work. He writes the way ancient historians wrote. I don't have time to really dig into this today, but if you nerd out on this kind of stuff and you want to, I would encourage you to reach out because we can grab a coffee and talk about it. But often around this time of year, you'll see these little, like these kind of gotcha articles popping up online or on the news or whatever, challenging the historicity of the biblical Christmas story. And guys, here's the thing. While there really is some interesting historical debate about some of the details of texts like this, and today we are going to talk about the way that some of our cultural assumptions don't really match up with what the text is teaching us. Overall, you need to hear this. You can definitely trust the reliability of the gospel narratives. You can trust them. There are lots and lots, lots and lots of historians outside the church, even, who use these texts as good reliable sources of ancient history, that there is good evidence, good evidence to trust the biblical narratives. Luke helps further this story, his narrative, by grounding it in a telling of world history. So what actually happens in the story? We see that a census was called of the jewish people by Rome, right? This comes from the top, all the way down. Remember, the jewish people are subjects of the Roman Empire. They are not free, they don't have their own land. They exist under the authority of Caesar. And he has called a census. Now this is a taxation census, right? Jews weren't actually allowed to serve in the roman army at this point in history. This is for the sake of counting the people so they get the right amount of money and stuff out of them. This is not something that would have been a pleasant experience for the people of Palestine. It would have been overseen by the national or the global roman treasurer as well as regional governors. At this point in history, a jewish man named Herod the Great was the regent over that area. And likely this is, again, just to kind of help us understand it, he likely had folks counted in the city of their descendants as a way to make this forced roman process feel a little more jewish. This isn't the way Rome normally did their census. They normally did it just wherever you lived. But this would have harkened back to the tribal identity and the counting of people, tribe by tribe, in the Old Testament. And so it was likely Herod's way of trying to soften the blow of an otherwise pretty terrible situation to have everyone go to their tribal ancestral land and there be counted. Joseph is of the line of David, so he must return to the city of David, Bethlehem. He's been living in Nazareth and Galilee, but he has to make the track south out of Galilee to the city of his ancestors. And the text tells us that he's got pregnant, Mary with him. And the text goes out of its way to let us know they are not yet married. Now, this is actually an important piece for us, in part because it seems like it's in conflict with the way Matthew tells the story, but also because it actually illuminates some of what's going on here. You have to remember, the Jews use different categories for marriage and engagement than we do today. Essentially, Joseph and Mary are engaged at this point. They're betrothed. But this is not the way it is for us. You're engaged to someone in our culture and it's essentially a handshake agreement, right? People break off their engagement. It's a bummer, especially if, like, invites have already gone out. But that's all that really happens in this day. In this culture, betrothement was a legal status. You couldn't just get out of it because you didn't want to be betrothed anymore. In fact, if you read in the Matthew narrative, when Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant, he doesn't believe her. He doesn't believe that the baby is from the Holy Spirit. And so he begins to think through the process of how to divorce her. Right. Even though they are still engaged, they're not fully married. It takes a visit from an angel to convince Joseph to stay with her. And the text tells us that after the visit, he took Mary home to be his wife. But here's the bit. And this is a little awkward, but it's just what it is. They did not consummate the marriage until after Jesus'birth. So even though Joseph finished the process, he built their home, he brought her home. They're living as a married couple. They had not yet coupled. And that is the way the jewish people in this time, in this culture, defined marriage, was by the coupling. And so even though he has brought Mary home to be his wife, because they have not yet done the deed, they are still betrothed in a legal sense. It puts them in this really weird, unique situation that would not have been looked well upon in their society, in their culture. So Mary and Joseph are making this journey late in her pregnancy, and they're bearing all the complexity and, honestly, shame of their unique situation. Jump back into the text with me, verse six. While they were there, the time came for her. This is Mary to give birth. Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no guest room available for him. Guys, there are few scenes in all of the scripture as well known as baby Jesus in the manger. Right. I mean, like, how many of us have the nativity scene set up in our living room right now? Right. It's pretty. It's wonderful. I'm sorry for this, but we actually need to take a minute to dissect our living room nativity scene for just a moment. I really do apologize if this is bubble popping for some of us, but there is a way that our modern nativity scenes kind of miss the mark in several ways. And again, it can muddy the waters of us understanding this beautiful story. So I've got a picture here of kind of typical nativity scenes. The way we set them up, that seems pretty spot on, right? That's the way most of ours look. There's some kind of barn. If it's a fancy one, it has fake moss on it. Like, that's how you can tell it's a nice nativity scene. Right. So there's a couple of things we need to pick apart here. The first one is this. There weren't any wise men at the nativity, right? They showed up a good while later, months, maybe even years afterward. The second one, and this is where it gets a little more pertinent to our story, has to do with the stable, a detached barnstable, the way we think of it. Right. The big red wooden building out back where you store animals. This was almost unheard of in this community at this time. In Bethlehem, they did exist, but they were incredibly rare and they were almost always connected with wealth. A community like Bethlehem would have much more likely had one of two kinds of stables. So either the home would have been built really close to one of the naturally occurring caves in the area, and you would use the cave as a stable, build up some fencing around it and build the house really near to it, or the stable would just be built onto the side of the house with open access in and out of the home's common room. That's a weird thing. But sit with that for a minute. You may be thinking at this point, why does that matter? They were at an inn, right? Doesn't that make sense that an inn would have a detached barn, sort of. But this is where our childhood nativity scene is going to break a little more. It's actually very unlikely that they were staying at a hotel or an inn. The greek word that we read in our English, as in could mean hotel. It is used that way sometimes, but it much more often just means guest room. It's actually, by the way, the exact same word used later in Jesus'ministry when he goes to Jerusalem for the last time to share his last supper with his friends and they stay in the upper room. Do you remember that piece? It's the same word. In a society with a large emphasis on hospitality, like ancient Palestine, most homes of any size would have had dedicated guest rooms for family and friends and strangers who came through town. This was really normal, even amongst the poor, because you have to remember, Joseph's family is from Bethlehem, right? He's visiting his extended family, second and third cousins. It is incredibly unlikely that he would show up for the census and none of his family would take him in. The idea of someone returning to their hometown and then having to pay to stay at an inn is the kind of thing that would literally bring communal shame to the entire community. This is not something they would have done, which actually kind of explains the story for us. The census means pretty much everyone's house is full, right? By the time Joseph and Mary show up, there's not really room. They're looking, and so someone says, oh, my gosh, they're here. The girl's pregnant. We can't let them go to an inn. See if you can move some of the animals. Let's make some room for them. Right. This is kind of the picture you get of this. And by the way, I think a lot of us picture in our heads this idea that Mary and Joseph are, like, rolling into town on the donkey while Mary is already in labor. Right? That's kind of the picture. We just kind of assume these two teenagers desperately moving through the city, like, knocking on door to door to door about trying to get somewhere to lay down before the baby comes. Right. What's actually more likely here is that they arrived and stayed with family for several months. That's kind of a normal way hospitality was practiced in this culture. If you had to go visit somewhere, you went and you visited. That's why their homes were built this way, to accommodate long term visitors. Now, either because of the sheer number of guests at the census, maybe having to do a scandal around the nature of Mary's pregnancy, maybe a combination of the two. There's not enough space in the communal guest rooms they have access to, so they stayed in the stable. This would have either been in the house itself, but just on the other side of the building from the guest room, or it would have been in a cave right out behind the house, very close to it. And I want you guys to hear this part. You can bet every single cousin and aunt who had any experience with childbirth or midwifeing was right there helping out, because that's how this society operated. I've got a picture here of an archaeological reconstruction of Bethlehem homes. This is built on some of the actual digs that have been done in the Bethlehem area. You can see kind of this drop down area on the side of the house where animals could come in and out. This upper area, that's kind of a second story where guests can stay. We don't know for certain what their experience was like, but history tells us it was probably something closer to this, because I think we get this image of the birth story. Like, Bethlehem is this selfish little town who couldn't raise a finger to help a young couple. And because of that, they miss out on the birth of the son of God. But I think what Luke is really getting at here, what he's really trying to point us to, is a picture of poor, unknown, oppressed people in their community doing the best they could with what they had. I think it's a better picture of what Luke's getting at. Think of Mary, this young girl facing all the normal pains and stresses of childbirth. But she has the added stress of her unique marital situation, the added stress of being far away from home, surrounded by extended relatives who she barely knows, who maybe haven't seen Joseph since. He was seven. It's still a moving scene, right? To me, this idea of all these people coming around this young lady and helping her work through the birth of her firstborn son far away from home and her own mother. I think it's a really beautiful and moving picture, but it's less a moral indictment on the residents of Bethlehem and more a question to God himself. As I look at this text, and I consider, as I was praying over it this week, I kept coming back to this. Why? Why would God do it this way? Why is your son, God, entering the world like this? The king of reality, the Messiah, the son of David, the anointed king who we've been waiting for, entering the world in a nowhere town, in a stable, surrounded by animals and peasants. Where is the pomp? Where is Jerusalem? Why not the palace? Why not the temple? Heck, why not Rome? Why such a quiet, humble place? I think there's something really beautiful in this scene. Humble small people living out their life in faith and love, doing the best they can, right from Mary and Joseph to those unknown family members making room in a crowded house. There is just this quiet love in this scene. Something about it just tells us that God, for whatever reason, wants to enter his world amongst the least, that God desires to enter into his creation with the forgotten and the unnoticed. There's something of the kingdom of God in this space, and God knows this, which really leads us perfectly to this next scene. Keep reading with me in verse eight. In that same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today, in the city of David, a savior was born for you, who is Messiah? The Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to the people whom he favors. When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, let's go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. So the story moves on. The virgin Mary labors. Jesus enters the world. All the hustle, the bustle, the excitement, the pain, the blood that normally go with birth and at the end of it, Mary and Joseph wrap up their newborn baby boy. They swaddle him, they lay him down in a feeding trough, and then the scene abruptly shifts. Outside the city and the surrounding hills, shepherds are out at night keeping watch of their flocks. I'm not going to belabor this point too long, but there is something important, and I think, interesting about this scene that's easy to miss. See, we've kind of romanticized the picture of shepherds out watching over their sheep, right? It's kind of beautiful and picturesque to us. And it doesn't help that the Bible itself actually has a really positive picture of shepherds. Psalm 23 compares God to a shepherd. The New Testament uses language comparing church leaders to shepherds. We're generally positively disposed to these folk, right? But to the original readers of this story, the sentiment would have been very different. In the first century, shepherds were some of the lowest paid laborers there were. They were gone for weeks at a time with their flocks, and they were known to cheat and plunder to bolster their meager income. In fact, shepherds were so looked down upon in first century jewish society that they were not recognized as credible witnesses in legal proceedings. They were not allowed to take an oath and bear witness on their own account if accused to a crime or allowed to bear witness for anyone else because no one trusted shepherds. All that takes this. It takes this really sentimental scene, and it causes us, I think, to step back and again, just go, why God? Why shepherds? Of all the people on earth, why does God announce the birth of Jesus to shepherds? This is the third time in Luke an angel has appeared to give a word from the Lord. But this time, the scenes have been really normal and quiet up to this point. But this time, here is all the pomp. Here's all the stuff we've been expecting. Here is the show. Here is the splendor. The text says, the very glory of God shines around these shepherds while Gabriel tells them the good news. The king is born, the Messiah is here, the promise is fulfilled, and then all these angels show up. And by the way, this word that we read as multitude in Greek is a military term referring to combat units. The army of the Lord appears surrounding Gabriel, and they sing and proclaim Jesus'birth and the glory of God. I love the sheer strangeness of this text. The army of God breaks into the sinful and broken world with their king coming ahead of them. And they arrive not with news of war. They arrive not with news of judgment. But they arrive to proclaim peace. This army and this king don't march into Jerusalem. They don't march into Rome. They're in Bethlehem. The angels are singing their hearts out into the night for like five guys and a bunch of sheep. It's very strange. Imagine. Imagine with me really quick. Imagine the folk who are running third shift, stalking the back room at Walmart or the guy keeping the gas station open at 03:00 a.m. Or the overnight workers at the courtesy diner. They're in the back lot for a smoke break. And that is where Yahweh, the creator, sustainer, God of reality, decides to announce his entrance into human history. And what is their message? Good news. Good news for everybody. The king is here. God is glorified. He's bringing peace to his people. It's an important announcement. It's important news. It's for all reality. And these shepherds, these men who literally couldn't be sworn in to deliver testimony in court, are entrusted with the message and run into town to announce that the messiah is here. But first they want to see him. Verse 16. They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger. And after seeing them, they reported the message. They were told about the child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherd said to them. But Mary was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them. The shepherds returned and glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told. Now, I'm not going to lie, guys. If this text weren't so familiar to me, I think it would feel like it's landing on this real just sputter. I mean, God has entered into human history. Angels have appeared and spoken the word of God. The spirit of God has overshadowed Mary, and the virgin has borne God himself and brought him into the world. The angels, the army of God, has announced his coming. The shepherds serving as the strangest heralds in history. The visit the parents and the baby. They go back to the town of proclaiming what they've seen and heard, and then they go back to work. And Bethlehem goes back to sleep. And Mary treasures it all up in her heart. Btw, that is your annual reminder that she did in fact know. I remember when my first child was born, Millie, if you guys don't know her, when we were finally ready and allowed to leave the hospital, I actually had this kind of deep sense of dread, right? We go out and we're setting up the car seat in the car for the first time. And I just kept having this thought of, like, are they allowed to just let us leave with this baby? That doesn't seem wise. We don't know what we're doing. We have to drive around at speeds that everyone else is driving with this infant in the car. I remember legitimately saying to Kim, I just don't know if we're the most qualified ones to take care of this child. Imagine that. I mean, some of you guys who've had kids, you're like, yeah, I get that. I get that. I was there. I remember that moment. Imagine that feeling for Mary and Joseph after this experience, after everything they've been through for the last nine months, after all the wildness of these shepherds showing up, being those nuts. Angels talk to us and there's the baby. That's so cool. Anyway, I got to get back to work. Bye. And then everything gets quiet and people fall back asleep. And you've just got Mary and Joseph sitting there with their baby man, trying to get a little bit of sleep, maybe before Jesus needs to feed again. And it's just nothing. It's just a young couple with their brand new baby. I don't know about you. To me, I'm just like, it seems like there should be more there. I think one of the most striking aspects of the story of the birth of Jesus is just how unremarkable it is. Now, don't mishear me. The setup is wild, right? The setup to Jesus getting here is pretty much unique amongst human history. It's wild. There's angels involved, right? But when Jesus actually gets here, when the moment finally comes, Mary has her baby, her husband is there. Whatever help the extended family could offer? We know angels were appearing and singing, like, out in the middle of nowhere to angel or to shepherds. But for this couple, they just see the baby. And I'm sure that moment was, like, pretty wild. But at the end of the story, it's just a family, a young couple out of town with a newborn. So what do we do with this? What do we do with this story? What are we supposed to see? What are we supposed to learn in this? Besides the fact that God does stuff that just makes no earthly sense, right? The story breaks all social expectations. And that's interesting. It's fun to kind of put some of the Bible trivia together and go, oh, my nativity seems wrong, but what does that mean? What does that teach us? I think when we do the work to step back from kind of our precious moments, memories of this story, we're left with kind of this quaint picture of seemingly inconsequential people doing their best. And there is. There's a lot of fear, anticipation, faith and love. And they all play out in this story, whether it's Joseph and Mary living their life with faith and trust in God's plan. Extended family sweeping away a section of the stable so the couple can have some space. Midwives doing their ancient work. Shepherds announcing the good news. We see this very human and very real living out of day to day, moment by moment, faith and love. And it is moving. But I'll tell you, guys, this is not what the story is about. It's not. This story isn't about the steadfast faith of Mary and Joseph. It's not about the shepherds rising above social assumptions and proclaiming good news. It's not about any of that, guys. This story is about the love of God breaking into the sinful and broken world. This story is about the promise of God to fix what sin has broken. It's about the God who is faithful when we are faithless, who says he will accomplish something and does. It's about the God who clothed Adam and Eve's shame, who preserved Noah's life, who continues Abraham's family name, who guided Isaac, who wrestled Jacob, who preserved Joseph, who blessed Tamar to continue the line of Judah, who confronted Moses and his fear in hiding, who proved himself to Gideon, who redeemed Ruth, who called Samuel, who promised David a kingdom, who fed Elijah in the wilderness, who sent Isaiah to the blind, to the deaf, who burned within the heart of Jeremiah, who judged Israel through Nebuchadnezzar and brought them back with Ezra. This story is about God. It's about Yahweh. It's about his immense love for his rebellious creation. Because our God loves deeply. Our God loves with passion. He loves with patience. His love acts in human history, and he serves his people. The love of God is powerful. The love of God is present. The love of God fights back at the curse and draws us back to our original edonic design. Beloved, this story is about the amazing love of our God. Don't mistake it. Beloved, don't be like the world. Don't see a young peasant girl in an unknown town and think, oh, man, God is so aloof and strange and unknowable. Don't fall for it. Don't fall into the foolishness of this world. And think that because angels announce their news to sheep and shepherds, rather than kings and politicians, that God is just operating outside of our realm. Quite the opposite. Because of God's love for his creation, he injects his love into the world through everyday normal people. He doesn't play the games of man and human society. He doesn't play a human politics. He is God, ruler of reality. And, beloved, he is love. This story is love of God in action. John 15. Jesus himself says, no one has greater love than this than to lay down his life for his friends. When we think about the sacrifice of Jesus, most of us go straight to Good Friday. We think about the cross. We think about the tomb. And by the way, we ought to. Jesus'sacrifice on the cross changed everything. But I encourage you, beloved, do not forget the manger. The manger sets the stage for the cross. The manger inevitably leads to the cross. The manger is the beginning of Jesus's sacrificial love on our behalf in some very real and important ways. The passion of Christ begins on that cold night in the stable and then the famous Christ him. In Philippians two, it says this, adopt this same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on a cross. Guys, the whole of the incarnation, not just the cross, the whole of the incarnation is an expression of God's sacrificial love for you. Jesus pours himself out for us. Beloved, I encourage you. I encourage you. Take a moment and consider the cost of the incarnation. Consider the cost of Bethlehem and the manger. Imagine the movement from being God and the king of reality to being a baby. Imagine that shift. Imagine yourself choosing to live life as an amoeba. You can't. And by the way, that comparison falls far too short to truly understand the manger. In that moment, Jesus went from being everywhere to being somewhere. He went from knowing everything to knowing hunger and exhaustion and not myself. He went from all power and all authority to helplessness and dependence. As in the manger, the creator of reality is crying for his creation to feed him and change his diaper. There is immense sacrifice in the manger, beloved. Consider it. Consider the love of Jesus for you today. Jesus really, really loves you. I mean that, beloved, that means something. There is power in that love. It means that you can be freed from the power of sin, means you can receive salvation that you can have a life in him. You need not be owned by the powers of this world with this amazing gospel love. Guys, it's even better than this because it empowers you to love as well. I opened by mentioning this idea from Dante's comedy, right? We're built to give and receive love. The question is, how do we direct that God given inclination? Do we point it toward ourselves? Do we suck up love and affection wherever we can get it and direct our own love even back at ourselves? Do we only give love to others when they earn it by loving us first? I think our text today points us toward the gospel way in regards to love. In one John, chapter four, it says, God's love was revealed among us. In this way. God sent his one and only son into the world so that we might live through him. And love consists in this. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. And just a few verses later, John sums up this idea by saying this, we love because he loved us. Put it as simply as possible. I'm going to put this in the screen so we can consider it. The amazing love of God for us doesn't stop with us. It empowers us to live with the same kind of love for others. Band if you want to come back up. Christmas is in a week, guys. That's fun. That's exciting. It's in a week. We're all busy. Many of us are still shopping, trying to get in all the traditions, meeting with families, scheduling events, finishing up our work goals for the year. Many of us are mourning and feeling lost. It's flustered. It's a busy time for most of us. Beloved, do not miss the love of Christ this Christmas. I urge you, beloved, don't miss the heart of Christ for you this Christmas. Don't fall into the noise and forget how amazing the love of God is for you today. Don't get so busy and so loud that you lose the opportunity to love others. With the love of Jesus today, right here, right now, you can remember and receive the love of God. Beloved, do you know him? Do you know him? Have you given your heart to him? Have you given him your life? Do that today. You're in this space. You have not trusted Christ as your savior and your lord. You can do that today. Love of God is freely, readily available for you. And even if you have, even if you've known him a long time, you can still engage his love for you afresh today. Beloved, I promise you, no matter what sin you struggle with, no matter how busy you are, no matter how callous in your sin, no matter how much you're struggling in your mental health, no matter how many broken relationships you have sitting on you, whatever burdens your heart and keeps you from the lover of your soul, I promise you, church, you can return to him today, right here, right now. You can make room for Christ in your life. Now do it. Promise you, church, you will not regret. You will not regret focusing your Christmas experience on Christ. It's worthy. You can live the love of Jesus today as well. You can love like Jesus did. Through the power of the spirit. You can receive the love of Christ and give that love to those who are lonely and hurting. You can give that love to family members with whom you've broken relationship. You can give that love to friends, even friends in this church with whom you feel a wall of hurt and brokenness in between you, beloved, you can love like you've been loved. You can give that gift to the power of the spirit. So let's end our time today with a moment of prayer. I want to encourage you guys right now. I want to urge you guys, do not leave today without considering this invitation. I know in a moment like this, some of you are like, okay, cool. He closed his bible. We're almost done. And your brain is already 45 minutes ahead thinking about the stuff you have going on today. I get it, I get it. We're busy. I just want to encourage you, please don't miss this moment. Slow your heart down. Connect with the Lord for a few minutes, man. If you need to get on your knees in this space to do that, I encourage you to do that. If you need help in your prayer, I'm going to grab one of our pastors to pray with you for a minute. We would love to do that. Beloved, don't miss your opportunity to reconnect with Christ today. Consider his love for you. Consider what it means to engage it. Consider what it means to give the love of Christ around you. Let's take a minute, come to him, see what he has to say to us. And then we'll continue our time with communion. [01:19:29] Speaker H: Union. [01:19:32] Speaker D: Hello. [01:19:33] Speaker H: Oh, thank you. Right now we're going to participate in a time of communion. So if you haven't grabbed the elements, you can go ahead and raise your hand and some kind soul will be by to serve you. David, are you the kind soul? Okay, you'll see, David. Thanks, David. Communion seems like a very fitting culmination or response to the sermon. That we just heard about God's love. The message that God's love is humble and quiet and sacrificial. But it's also loud and bold and triumphant. Right now, this is an opportunity for those of us who have submitted our lives to the Lordship of Christ to remember the most profound and transformative love of all. And that is the love of Christ, a love that knows you in your deepest shame and yet accepts you in sacrifices for you. So on the night when Jesus was betrayed, he gathered with his closest friends to share a meal. He said, this bread represents my body broken for you. Take and eat and do this in remembrance of me. [01:22:11] Speaker B: And the shame of scandal came the savior of the human man. But the skies were filled with the praise of heaven. Shepherds, listen as the angel self of the gift of God comes down to men. At the dawning of Immanuel, king of heaven, now the friend of sinners, humble servant in the Father's hand, filled with power and the Holy Spirit, filled with mercy for the broken. Yes, he walked my road and he felt my pain, joys and sorrows that I know so well. Yet his righteous steps give me hope again. I will follow my Emmanuel's betrayal. He was lifted on a cruel cross. He was punished for a world's transgressions. He was suffering to save the loss. He fights for breath. He fights for me. Losing sinners from the claims of hell. And with a shout our souls are free. Death is created by a man. [01:24:06] Speaker A: You. [01:24:15] Speaker B: Now standing in a place of honor, climb the glory on the highest throne. It's defeating for his only love. Till the father calls you bring them home. Then the skies will part as the trumpet sound. Hope of heaven or the fear of hell but the bride will run to her lover. Dumb. Give it glory to it and you but the bride will run to her lover's arms. Give it glory to him that. [01:24:59] Speaker A: You. [01:25:08] Speaker I: Guys, thank you for worshipping with us this morning. I don't know about you, but I love Sunday mornings here at our church. One of the reasons I do is because it's one of the few instances in my week where I speak less and listen more. And when I come here and I sit and I listen and I don't speak, or when I do speak, I'm singing songs of praise to God. What I hear is this, that God loves me and he loves you. And it is a consistent gospel message that we hear here in Emmanuel fellowship every Sunday morning. And I thank God for that. And I thank God for you and for being here. And so we all have next steps as we listened and as we hear of God's love for us, his profound love for us, of Jesus breaking into the sinful, messy world. We all have next steps. And those steps are almost always, and I think always relate spiritually applied to our lives. Sometimes those spiritually applied next steps are also concrete, but never lose sight that what we do outward is meant to actually have an impact inward. In fact, it usually begins inward and then works itself outward in our lives as Jesus pours into us. And so I'm going to mention three this morning, next steps for you. If you go to Emmanuelfellowshipstl.org, you will see the next steps tab and you can go there and we ask that you do that, encourage you to do that, to see what next steps there are for you. But three I want to mention today. The first is, and we haven't mentioned this a lot, but there are a couple of table tents around the room, back on the hospitality table and on the coffee table that talk about a lottie moon Christmas offering. Many of you know who Lottie moon was, but we have a Christmas offering every year. Lottie Moon was sent as a southern baptist missionary to China back in 1873 to 1912, and she saw firsthand the desperate need for lost, the desperate need for Jesus in a lost world. And so she wrote back to the churches in America describing the need for a greater missionary presence and for funds to be given for financial support to be given to those missionaries. And so that's what that's for. So if you give online, you'll see in the drop down menu, Christmas offering. That's for the Lottie moon offering. If you give here in person, on the envelope, just write Lottie Moon or Christmas offering and it will be applied to that 100% of what you give goes to the mission field. And so we encourage you to take advantage of that. The second next step is primarily for the men of our church. We have had an existing women's ministry now for a couple of years. It has borne much fruit in our women, in the ladies lives of our church. We are launching a men's ministry beginning next month, and this is what it's going to look like. There's a sign up sheet on the hospitality table every other month beginning in January. January 13 is a Saturday evening here at Emanuel. We're going to have a men's steak dinner. Nothing speaks to the heart of men better than food. In fact, better than steak. So we're going to have a full steak dinner. It's going to cost a minimal fee of $15. But we're asking for you to sign up and pay later. You don't need to pay now, guys. Just sign up and pay the night of the event. But it's a time for us to get together, to have discussion, to have teaching, to have some fun together, and to build some relationships, to build some accountability. To really go deeper, ultimately, is to go deeper in our relationships with one another as men who love God. And so we encourage the men to do that. Sign up on the sign up table, if you would. If you have any questions, grab one of the pastors. We would love to explain that to you further, but I think it's pretty self explanatory. We would love for you to come. The last thing is, and I'll just briefly touch on it, because Sam did at the beginning of his message. Join us next Sunday morning, our normal time. We'll have our discipleship hour at 09:00 a.m. From nine to ten here in this place. Pastor Jim is, I think, on part five of his class on evangelism. So if you haven't come, show up for that, show up an hour early and be a part of that, then we have our normal gathering at 1030. And then Christmas Eve is the kind of that open house. Even if you have a few minutes to come, pray, have some hot chocolate, enjoy some fellowship, come in here, light a candle, sing some songs, praise the Lord, even if it's just for a few minutes or for the half hour where we do this, we would love to have you and be a part of that. Our benediction today is there are invite cards also on the hospitality table. So we encourage you to grab some of those on your way out, as you may know. Hopefully, you know, people respond to invitations to church. One of the main reasons people don't come to church, studies have shown, is because people don't ask. So if you take a card, invite people and invite them to Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, rather, and we would ask that you would do that. Our benediction this morning is from first Peter, chapter four, verse seven. And it says this, the end of things is near. I think we feel that each of us feel that intuitively in our soul, but the end of things is near. Therefore, be alert, be sober minded for prayer. But above all, because I think many of us are alert and sober minded and aware that the end is near. But the next thing we don't do, we tend to kind of internalize that and fret and worry and wring our hands. The scripture says, above all, maintain constant love for one another. [01:30:34] Speaker D: Why? [01:30:35] Speaker I: Because love covers a multitude of sin. And you get to be that in the lives of people who need to experience the love of Christ today and this week. So go and do that. We love you guys. We'll see you back here next week, Lord willing. Love you guys. [01:30:53] Speaker A: We don't give that away. We don't live that away. We don't. We don't want to get away. It. We don't serve that way. We don't.