Who Is Your King?

All right. Well, good morning everybody. Great to see everybody today. If this is your first time with us or your second time or something like that, man, welcome back or welcome. Really appreciate having you. For all the folks that normally gather with us, I just want to say good morning. It’s great to see everybody today.

Yeah, so we spend a portion of every Sunday morning during our worship service just praying. Not because we think it’s some sort of incantation to get whatever we want, not because we think that God isn’t aware of what we need, but we pray because we trust that God loves us and He wants to hear our concerns and He wants to hear our dreams. So, we have spent the month of December praying specifically for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. That’s what the video a few moments ago detailed. Because we are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, that means every Christmas season we give directly to this fund, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. That money goes directly to the salaries of the missionaries that are overseas. Not a dime that you put designated, whether it’s the physical envelopes or if you give online with the drop down, not a dime of that that goes to Lottie Moon goes to administrative costs. It doesn’t go to anything other than directly supporting the missionaries overseas. So, really want to encourage you to give toward that. As a church, we set a goal of $3,500, which, you know, to the Lord and to many of us, honestly, is just kind of a drop in the bucket. I would encourage you to consider what is God calling you to give toward that.

And we give toward that and we send missionaries overseas because there are over three billion people alive right now that have never once heard the name Jesus. They haven’t rejected Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They just haven’t even heard of Him. On top of the couple billion people that will reject Jesus. So we send missionaries and we send money to those missionaries because how will they believe unless they hear? How will they hear unless someone preaches? How will somebody preach unless they are sent? So, let’s pray for that right now. I want to invite you to grab a neighbor to pray for Global Missions and pray for our church’s Lottie Moon Christmas Offering before I wrap it all up. Thank you guys.

Holy Spirit, I want to say thank You for gathering all of us here today. Thank You for starting this church close to 200 years ago, for keeping us here in 2025. And as we look ahead to 2026, in a couple weeks, Lord, I want to acknowledge that we are here purely because of Your kindness and Your grace and Your mercy to us. Not to us be the glory, but to You alone. Lord, I want to thank You for the thousands of missionaries that the Southern Baptist Convention has sent overseas through the IMB. I want to thank You for the tens of thousands of children that kind of just got brought up into what You called mom and dad into. Lord, I want to thank You for the season that my wife and I got to serve overseas, Lord, representing not just a denomination in America, but representing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Father, I pray for our missionaries. And I’m asking that You’d give them a really sweet Christmas season, God, that there would be people back here that would help communicate to them in some way that we have not forgotten about them, we love them, we’re proud of them, we respect them. God, I pray that our church and the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, Lord, would give abundantly to the Lottie Moon Offering. Lord, as a display not just of our affection for the missionaries, but our devotion to the mission-oriented God that calls us into salvation and has called them into ministry overseas. Lord, may our giving be a reflection of our love for You. Jesus, You said where Your treasure is, there Your heart will be also. In one sense, I don’t have to pray that our giving would reflect our love for You. It always reflects that, but I pray that our giving would reflect a sacrificial and a devoted love for You. Please, Holy Spirit, please get a hold of us right now as I spend a few minutes just opening Your Word, trying to do the very best that I can to relate this to the lives of people here. Please get a hold of me. God, I confess I’m too weak to create any Life change in anybody, including me. You have got to be active here or else none of this has any effect. Holy Spirit, please grab this and plant it deep in our hearts and bear fruit in our lives through this, please. God, we love You. Thank You for loving us. It’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, if you have your copy of the Bible, I want to invite you to ch Luke chapter 2. Luke chapter 2. If you’re still learning the road map of the Bible, you just cut it right in half. You probably land in the Psalms. I want you to hang a right until you get to the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Luke chapter 2.

We are in a series called Advent. If you grew up in a Southern Baptist tradition, you probably don’t recognize the word Advent. We might call it Christmas time, but Advent is the word that most of God’s global church has used to reflect on this time of the year that we’re in right now. It’s just a season where we reflect on Jesus coming and being born God with us. So that’s what we’re doing this morning. I’m just going to continue that as we look at the birth narrative of Jesus Christ Himself.

As you’re turning there, I just want to brag for just a few moments on the 40 or so guys that are part of Experiencing God. It’s been an incredible past four and a half, five months as we gotten to go through the study together and open up with each other. I’ve had an incredible time and my group, we meet at Don and Cabbrook’s home. Donna is not part of our group, but she is an incredible hostess and she does one of those simmer pots every every time and she makes sure that I know that she does those simmer pots. So, but no, it’s been a lot of fun to see guys open up and learn how to discern the voice of God.

You know, the the the whole point of the study is that we would learn how do you experience God? I don’t think any of us are here this morning uninterested in that. I think all of us here this morning would love to have a deeper richer tangible even experience of God of the divine. And that’s what we’ve been studying the past few months as the men.

One of the core tenants of experiencing God is this. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, church, prayer, and circumstances. It’s really clear to know that God speaks through the Bible. Like what is the purpose of your life? Matthew 28 tells you the purpose of your life. It is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you unto the end of the age. The Bible, God’s already communicated through the Bible. He does that every morning. You should be reading your Bible every morning. I trust He does that every morning.

God speaks through the church. That’s really clear, too. I think about my call to ministry. It was not me by myself just opening the Bible. It was people at my church growing up that said, “Jeremy, you ought to consider doing this for a living. And if it doesn’t work out, then I’m sorry, bud.” You know, no, we speak, God speaks through the church when we affirm each other, when we call each other out, when we encourage each other. That’s clear enough.

It starts to get maybe a little more mystical. God speaks through prayer. I fully believe that when you pray, God can speak to you when you’re praying if you’re tuned to His frequency.

And the last one is God even speaks through circumstances. Man, sometimes you want to do something in life and the details of life just don’t match it. I when I was a child, before I met the Lord, before I felt called to ministry, I deeply desired to be an Air Force pilot. I was also born with 2200 vision. And my older brother, one night at dinner, I’m I’m wearing glasses at this point, viciously pops that bubble in the way an older brother can. He says, “You’re not flying a plane for the Air Force for eyes.” And I’m sure I start weeping into my meatloaf for whatever it is. The circumstances of my life, God communicated, Jeremy, you’re not going to fly a plane in the Air Force.

This morning, why do I why do I do this? This morning, we’re going to look at a passage where God is not mentioned. God does not speak and no one is praying, but God is speaking through the circumstances. You see, walking with God requires learning how to discern His still small voice in the day-to-day details of your life. And that this morning, I want to give you an example of what that could look like. This is Luke chapter 2. If you’re a notetaker, there’s one big idea I want you to take away from this morning. It’s this: Christmas is both historical and history making. Luke in his gospel, he’s trying to help us see these are historical details. This is not just pie in the sky. This is not wishful thinking. This is not something he’s made up. This is historical. Christmas is historical. Christmas is also history making. In the birth of Jesus, everything changed. How our world operates, maintaining the laws of gravity and physics, but how our world operates changed 2,000 years ago. God was making history. You’ll see that for yourself. This is Luke 2:1-7 in its entirety. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So everyone went to be registered each to his own town. Verse four, 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. Verse five, he did this to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant. While they were there, the time came for her 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 them. This is a really familiar story. This familiar story, it’s got three main movements. You’re not surprised by any of this. It’s got a census. It’s got a journey. And it’s got a birth. So, let’s walk through the passage looking at these things and how God might be speaking. This starts off with Caesar’s census, verses 1 through 3. Caesar’s census. Now, historically speaking, I want you to know who Caesar Augustus is. And as an informed Bible reader, you need to know that Luke is going to point at something that gives some people some major issues. Now, Caesar Augustus was raised by a guy named Julius Caesar. Anybody recognize that name from middle or high school literature? Julius Caesar. Caesar Augustus took the throne as a teenager when Julius Caesar was assassinated by his confidants. He takes the throne in 27 BC and he rules until AD 14. Julius Caesar to Caesar Augustus was more than just a transition of power. It was a transition of how Rome operated. Under Julius Caesar or up until Julius Caesar, Rome was a republic. Julius consolidated power, subjugated all of the provinces and made it into an empire. Thus, his assassination. When he’s assassinated, the teenager Augustus Caesar or Caesar Augustus takes the throne again as a teenager. He is the emperor as a teenager. He helps solidify this transition from a republic to an empire. And he’s followed by a guy named Tiberius in Luke 3, which I’ll give you a little Bible reading nugget. Sometimes in the Gospels, the Sea of Galilee is called the Sea of Tiberius because it was renamed by the Romans in honor of their new emperor. So there you go. It’s a little nugget you could put and you just put in your pocket until you get to Bible trivia night. Does that sound good? >> Thank you, Diane. I appreciate that. Okay. Now, the thing is Augustus is not his birth name. Again, this just a little nugget for you. The name Augustus was actually given to him by the Roman Senate. You see, Julius had oppressed the people of Rome so harshly. Augustus who was born as [inaudible] knew the best way that I befriend these people is I just lift that thumb. So that’s all he does. He lifts the thumb. He gives some authority back to the Senate so the people can govern themselves and the people name him Augustus. That is a form of this name or this word August. To be August is to be revered to be holy. So every time they would look at this man Caesar Augustus, they are saying the revered king, the holy king. They’re making a statement. Every time they pledge their allegiance to Caesar Augustus, they are pledging their allegiance to the holy king of the world. Sound a little interesting, huh? Now Caesar Augustus, Sometimes he would appoint his own local leaders to take over. That’s verse two. This guy named Corinius. Corinius takes over the province of Syria, which for Rome’s purposes includes Israel. If you don’t know your geography, Syria and Israel are nextdoor neighbors to each other. The issue here though is that Corinius doesn’t take over officially until AD 6. That’s 12 years after King Herod dies. And we know from the gospels that Jesus was born when King Herod was alive. So maybe I just introduced an issue for some of us.

Now here’s the deal. We believe that scripture is inherent and infallible. That means it is correct in its details that it gives to us. And if that is true, if God has guided this book to be true, then sometimes in life you don’t have all the information. Sometimes in life, you need to look at things from God’s perspective and say, “This doesn’t make sense to me. How can God make this make sense for me?” And one day when we get to heaven, it’ll make more sense. One day, there’s going to be an archaeological study that’s going to help reconcile some of these things. Until that happens, let’s place our faith in Jesus that He has guided this.

Well, so Caesar is in power. Caesar Augustus is in power. At some point, Corinius is taking power. That’s the historical moment. But in that historical moment, God is making history. Verse one starts. It’s in those days, something is happening. Don’t miss the context of what’s going on. You got Elizabeth and Mary, two cousins, one’s old, one’s young, both given miraculous pregnancies. And all of this is unfolding as part of a bigger plan.

Here’s the deal. Jesus may have been born under the human reign of Caesar Augustus, but God’s eternal purposes and plan are the real sovereign kingdom working here. God Himself, God is about to step into time and space. God is about to enter the world He has created. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge humanly speaking. If God is about to come into the world, I don’t care who is Caesar. I don’t care who’s president. I don’t care who’s in charge. I don’t care what the markets are doing. I don’t care what my health is like. If God’s in charge, if God is stepping into this world, then He’s about to do something that I want in on. It does not matter who was emperor over Rome or who sits in the White House today. God is in control and He will do whatever He wants to do.

In those days, Caesar declares a census that leads to a family’s journey. Verses four and five, a family’s journey. Caesar declares this census that requires everybody in the kingdom to go to their own hometown. And that leads us to a family’s journey. Verses four and five it says this. Joseph also because he’s part of everyone. Joseph 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 the family line of David. Oh man, English teachers are just itching all over right now with this run-on sentence. Maybe it’s just me. Verse 5, Joseph did this to be registered along with Mary who was engaged to him and was pregnant.

Caesar’s census creates this family’s journey. Let me tell you a little bit about the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. See, this is a map of Israel without any of the political boundaries being drawn. Joseph is living in the town of Nazareth. That’s that dot up top. He’s got to get to his hometown, which is Bethlehem, 90 miles south. If you took a right out of our parking lot, started walking, hit 17, and went 90 miles, do you know how far you’d get?

Well, that’d be that’d be north. Sorry. If you took a right, how far down you’d get? Past Hilton Head, almost to Savannah. You’d almost hit the metro of Savannah. You’d pass the Ace Basin. You’re making it down, I think, to Jasper County. That’s a walk. And for us living in the Low Country, it’s all flat. Can you discern how hilly Israel is? For them to make that 90 miles, that’s not a 90 mile stroll. That’s a 90 mile hike navigating rough terrain with these kind of scraggly rocks. They have to go down to the Jordan River kind of basin and then come back up. It’s over 800 feet of elevation change from Nazareth here to Bethlehem up there. That’s the type of walk they were doing. Oh, and By the way, Mary is—come on, ladies. Mary is pregnant. Ladies, does anybody want to go hiking 90 miles when you’re pregnant? Guys, are any of y’all trying to talk a pregnant wife into a 90-mile excursion on foot when your wife is pregnant? No.

But it’s weird because under Roman and Jewish customs, Mary didn’t have to come. She wasn’t required. It was just the heads of the household. It was just the men that would have to come. So why would she come? Most likely things are getting awkward in Nazareth for this teenage mom that’s pregnant without being married to Joseph. Even though her womb carries the Messiah, the awaited Jewish savior, I’m assuming that every time Mary goes to the market, every time she goes to the well, every time she’s walking the streets, she hears the—“Have you heard the story? She claims God gave her this baby. What? What has she been doing? Does Joseph know? Of course, Joseph knows. What’s Joseph going to do? I hear he’s going to divorce her.” Mary would want to get out of that situation.

Think about it. God has sent an angel to her, promised her, “I’m going to give you a baby that is the savior of the world, the very child you have been yearning for for thousands of years.” But most likely all the other people in town couldn’t get past the stigma of how that child came into the world. Joseph bringing her along is probably just a way of getting her out of a situation. And there’s no telling how long the census will take. Mary, first-time mom, probably doesn’t want to go through that by herself.

But what’s God up to in this? Where is God making history in all this? You see, you and me, we have the benefit of reading backwards, which means this is a completed story that we are looking back on. We know that God is working through the circumstances. You see, Joseph’s journey back to Bethlehem is not just a historical reality. It’s not just a political necessity. It’s not just a property requirement. And it certainly is not a coincidence.

Joseph’s journey back to Bethlehem was fulfilling something that God had promised long ago. You see, Mary didn’t just happen to come with Joseph. Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem. This is what Micah 5:2, written hundreds of years before Jesus would ever come on the scene, God promises: “Bethlehem, you are small among the clans of Judah. Yet one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.” Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive and have a son and name Him Emmanuel.”

Jesus may have been Mary’s miracle baby, but He was God’s predestined savior. He is from before time. He’s coming to keep God’s promises in this historical moment. This promise which goes all the way back to the very beginning when Adam and Eve had royally messed it all up, and God comes to them and He gives them consequences for their sin, and He looks at the tempter, the Satan, the evil one. And He looks at him and He says, “I will put hostility between you, Satan, and this woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. Her son will strike you on the head. He will deal you a death blow. You’ll only strike His heel. You’ll only hurt Him.”

Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem to fulfill a prophecy because God, from before the very beginning of time and before time ever began, had created this plan to save you and me from our sins. Amen.

This is the way. Mary did not just come with Joseph because she was tired of the social backlash. She did not just come with Joseph because she had nothing better to do. She didn’t just come with Joseph because she wanted to tag along with her buddy. And Jesus was not just born in Bethlehem because Joseph had to be there. And Jesus was not born in Bethlehem certainly not because the King of the world as they knew it made it happen. Notice, because the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the ruler of the universe made the decree. The ruler of the universe said this baby will be born in Bethlehem. The ruler of the universe said, “I will step into time in that place.” The ruler of the universe said, “This is going to happen.”

Man, you’ve got to get something through your head: that God is infinitely and intimately concerned with the circumstances of your life. There is not a single thing that happens to you that is merely a coincidence. I am fully convinced that the things that happen to you are part of God’s plan to conform you into the image of Jesus so that He will be the firstborn among many brothers. That’s not me. That’s Romans chapter 8. I’m fully convinced that everything that you go through in life is not the wishywashy issues of people around you that need somebody to poke on and mess with. It’s because God is after something in your heart that you could not have without those things.

Think about it. If there really is a God who’s in control and is good and knows all things, then why would anything be a coincidence? Think about it. Parents, you’re buying your kids gifts right now for Christmas. I assume if you’re like me, you’re still doing that. Maybe if you’re like Melissa, you did that two months ago and you’re super prepared. Your kids will open up presents on Christmas morning, some of which they asked for, some of which they didn’t. And you, as a parent, know that none of the gifts they’re going to open is just a coincidence. You as a parent selected each one of those and have placed those gifts in their lives to accomplish a purpose. And God says that as parents, we’re just okay at best. Maybe grandparents are better. Probably grandparents are better. But God is the very best parent. Which means everything that happens in your life has been chosen by Him. It’s been stewarded into your life. Nothing just happens.

You’re going to go through something this week that’s going to feel mundane and just coincidental. What if you put on your God glasses and you said, “God, what are you trying to teach me through this flat tire? What are you trying to teach me through me bumping into somebody from 20 years ago? God, what are you trying to teach me through this random thing I’ve experienced?” The fate of somebody’s eternity might depend on you recognizing God’s voice in those circumstances.

The circumstances of Jesus’ birth were not coincidence. It didn’t just happen. God had a plan that He had been guiding the whole time. So, you’ve got Caesar’s census. You’ve got a family’s journey. So, how did this long awaited savior enter the world He created? Luke tells us about it. Jesus’s birth. The final thing, Jesus’s birth, verses 6 and 7. It’s kind of crazy to me before I read it. Look how big this thing is. This Bible, and y’all, my Bible, it doesn’t have like some of the articles in it that y’alls might have. It has cross references. This is the story of God’s love and redemption of humanity. Jesus’s birth gets two verses. That feels a little, I don’t know, understated to me.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. We don’t know what month they arrived. We don’t know the situation they arrived in. Just while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. Then she wrapped her firstborn son. Don’t know, Luke. Why you wrote firstborn son? It’s kind of clear, Jesus. Yeah, you didn’t even mention Him. Luke says verse 7, she gave birth to her firstborn son. Then she wrapped Him tightly in cloth. Okay. Laid Him in a manger. Okay. Because there was no guest room available for them.

Man, the details that are included here are a little weird. The details that aren’t included here, I think, are kind of confounding. Historically speaking, Jes—Luke tells us that Jesus when He was born was placed in a manger because as my translation says there was no guest room available for them. Some of your translations in place of the word guest room it has the word inn. In our minds the way we see it played out every hotel in Bethlehem is at max capacity. So Jesus and or Joseph and Mary are scrambling to find some place suitable and they keep getting turned away at various places. But I would say that’s not really the situation.

I held this one in Sunday school this morning. All right. So look with me. There are two words that are used for a guest room or for an inn in Greek. That’s the original language of the New Testament. Pondocon is the first. Do you want to say it with me? It’s kind of fun. Pondocion. Now say it with some gusto. Pondocion. That’s great. That’s the word that’s used in Luke chapter 10 verse 34. The parable of the good Samaritan. You remember the story? Jesus is telling this parable. There’s a guy that’s traveling. He gets jumped by a couple robbers. They take all of his stuff. They leave him for dead. Then you have a Samaritan eventually come by, pick him up, bandage him up, put him on his donkey, take him to the nearest inn and pays the innkeeper and says, “Look after him until I get back.” That’s not the word that’s used here. The word that’s used here is kataluma. Say it with me. Kataluma. That’s a guest room. Like in Luke chapter 22 verse 11. At the end of Jesus’s life, Jesus tells the disciples to go find a particular upper room. Tell the owner of that house, “The teacher asks you, ‘Where is the kataluma where I can eat the Passover with my disciples?’” That’s where we get the Lord’s Supper from. That’s the word that’s used here in the text. It’s not a hotel. It’s a private residence guest room. But we have to understand even more of what a kataluma is.

So here’s a picture for you of a typical house in Israel at the time of Jesus’s life. The kataluma would have been on the first floor and would have had two major parts to it. Sometimes a Jewish family would have found a cave and that would have been half of the kataluma and they would have just kind of built out from the cave. Other times they didn’t do that. Half of the kataluma would have been a hosting room. It would have been like your living room or where you receive guests, something like that. It’s where you might have some of your nicer hosting furniture, but you don’t really watch TV in there. You know, that’s the kataluma. But the other half of that kataluma, aside from hosting guests, would have been where you brought your animals in at night. You see, at that time, animals, if you had left your livestock outside, there’s a good chance that a robber would come by and try to take them or some wild animal would get a hold of them. So, for their protection and for your wealth, you would bring them in at night and you would put them in the animal portion of the kataluma. The rest of the house would have been built on top of the kataluma and that would have been where you sleep. That would have been where you prepare your food, things like that.

So Jesus, there was no room in the kataluma. So He had to be born and laid in a manger. The manger, as you well know, that’s a cattle’s feeding trough. Jesus was not born in the hosting room. Jesus was born, as you might call it, the stable. Now, that to us feels extremely degrading. And there’s a part of it that is. You think though about what had to happen for there to be space for Jesus to be able to be born where the animals normally would have been held. Remember, the whole empire is returning to their hometown right now because of the census. You get the thinking that Joseph isn’t the only person traveling to Bethlehem. This is like a family reunion of sorts. Everybody has come back to their hometown. That means the human portion of the kataluma, the normal guest portion, that’s already full. So the family that lives in this house has a choice to make. Do they turn Joseph, little nephew Joseph, and his fiancée who for some reason is pregnant, do they turn them away, or do they figure out what to do with their animals? For Jesus to be born where the animals normally are means that Mary was not turned away but that the animals of the home were put outside. For Jesus to be born in the kataluma, for Him to be laid in the manger, means that this family risked their livelihood of what the cattle and the other animals could provide and they put them outside.

But what was God up to in all of this? Because it’s true, Jesus’s birthplace is pretty humble. He’s born in an animal’s area in a personal home in what actually is a pretty small town. Bethlehem is not Charleston. It’s more Ravenel. And don’t get me wrong, Ravenel is awesome. Christ’s birthplace is pretty humble. It’s not where the king would have been born. Man, if Jesus is the King of the world, He could have been born in the palace. He could have been born into royalty with the fanfare and with the columns and with all the accolades that would come from being born as royalty like Caesar Augustus. But He’s not. Jesus could have been born in the temple. He could have been a priest from birth. After all, He’s supposed to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Why wouldn’t He be born in the spiritual hotbed of the community He’s been sent to save? But He wasn’t. Jesus could have been born in the Roman Senate. He could have at least been born some sort of ruler of some sort of province like Syria or Israel, but He’s not. God chose for His promised Savior to be born in an out-of-the-way makeshift room in a small town. Why? Why? Why would God choose this for His Son? Man, when our kids were born, I want the best for them. I’m going to do everything I can to secure the cleanest, most spacious, most accommodating place for them to be born. Why would God, who owns everything, who can create worlds with a snap? Why would He choose for His Son to step into space and time to be born as a person here? It’s because Jesus is high and exalted, holy, perfect, always right, and eternally rich. As much as He is those things, He is humble and mild in every way. If Jesus were to walk in the room right now, you would not think that He’s the guy down the road that owns all the nice things. You would not think that Jesus is too good for you. You would not think He’s dressed too nice for you to know. You would not think that He’s looking down His nose at you. If Jesus walked in the room, you would say, “That is just an average guy. He is just of the people. He is He’s like me. He knows what it’s like to be a little tight on money sometimes. Jesus knows what it’s like to kind of have some issues in His life.” Jesus was humble. He was approachable. This is how Charles Spurgeon, the great British pastor, put it: Infinite and yet an infant. Eternal yet born of a woman. Almighty yet nursing at His mother’s breast. Supporting the universe yet needing to be carried in His mother’s arms so that He would grow up to be the sacrifice for your sin. You will never hear God’s voice in the circumstances of your life if you do not embrace Jesus. Not just the historical baby born two-ish thousand years ago, but unless Jesus changes the history of your life and you embrace Him as your Savior today. If you want to hear from God, but you feel like there is too much wax in the ears of your soul and God’s voice can’t get through to you, then what’s going on is that you may not have an actual relationship with Jesus. Jesus was sent to live and to die and to rise as your Savior. Have you accepted Jesus as your Savior? Have you? Or are you still figuring this out? Do you still have these questions in your mind about how can God become man and how can the humans and divine have a relationship and the world had to come from somewhere? You really just want me to trust an ancient textbook that tells me about it? Yes. I’ve got doubts, too. Man, I’ve got my questions. But I’d rather share my doubts with God as my friend than lob my doubts at God like He’s my enemy. God crossed the greatest gap between any two people when He came to be born in that manger. See, here’s the deal. Our sin separates us from God because of our sin. Not just the big ones, murder, adultery, larceny, whatever it is. Not just those things, but it’s the small things. It’s the little white lies. It’s the looking at people that aren’t your spouse with lust. It’s greedily and with covetousness, wanting your friends’ things. It’s resenting the circumstances of your life. Because of those things, because of those sins, there is an infinite chasm, an infinite gap between you and God, one that you can never cross through your good works. You can never give enough money in the offering plate. You can never pray hard enough. You can never read the Bible enough. You can never attend enough men’s Bible studies or women’s Bible studies. You can never do enough to make yourself good with God because there’s this infinite debt between you and God. This infinite chasm between the two of y’all. Jesus crossed that when He came to live the perfect life that you and I are supposed to live but can’t because of our sin, to die a sacrificial death for us that God would accept as the true sacrifice.

that He had been waiting for the whole time. And not just to die for you, but also to be resurrected from death, conquering death forever. You can have a relationship with God. You can hear God’s voice if you would just embrace God’s message and invitation to you right now to make Jesus the Savior and the rescuer of your life. Have you done this? Is Jesus your master? Is He your king? And if He is, and if God speaks through circumstances, then where might God be speaking with you? There might be a Caesar in your life. Someone that’s trying to rule and dominate you, someone that’s always making demands of you. Is God trying to speak through that? Is there some diagnosis that’s hanging over you? Some situation you can’t get out from under and it feels like it’s just on you all the time. Is God trying to speak to you through that? Maybe God’s trying to speak to you through your own odd coincidences like the journey that Mary took. This journey she didn’t have to, but God had desired her to go on. Maybe God’s got this journey for you filled with odd details and coincidences that you just can’t understand. Like, God, I thought that my life would look a little different at this age. God, I thought that my family would look different. I thought my career would be a little different. I thought that I would look a little different. But God, for some reason, here I am today. Why is this? And I think that God might be trying to speak to you through those things. Maybe God’s trying to get a hold of you through a humble situation like the birth of Jesus. Look at this. Jesus, the Lord of the universe, born and laid in a cow’s feeding trough. Maybe God’s putting you through a humiliating, humbling situation because God is after your heart looking like His, not your life looking as comfortable as you want it to. How is God trying to speak through you or to you? This Christmas season as we’re going through all the normal stuff, may I kind of invite you to welcome some abnormal things like saying, “God, where are you working in this? God, how are you speaking to me?” And you would trust God to speak. I actually want to pray to close just like that. If you would all bow your heads and close your eyes, you just ask God that question. God, how are you trying to speak to me? If it still feels fuzzy, I just invite you ask Him again. God, how are you trying to speak to me? Holy Spirit, I fully believe that You speak to us every day. You speak to me every time I open the Bible and not just reading the words on the page, but when sometimes the words grab me. Holy Spirit, I fully believe that You speak to me through this church. God, You use the other believers that love and know You and You speak truth into my life through them. Sometimes to correct me, sometimes to comfort me. Holy Spirit, I fully believe that You speak to me as we’re just praying, You and me. We’re just together and I ask You questions and You have the kindness to just give me a still small answer. And Holy Spirit, I believe that You speak to me through circumstances. God, when I don’t get all the things done that I want to do, I have to believe You’re in the middle of that, God. When those holy interruptions come into my life, I’ve got to believe that You’re working in that. Lord, I pray that You would tune the ears of our hearts to Your voice, that we would pick up on Your voice. Please make us a church that would hear You and have the courage to follow You in whatever it is. God, we love You. Amen.