Speaker 1: 0:18

Hi, my name is Manuel. I'm a middle school altered youth leader here at Northgate, and today I'll be reading Luke, chapter 2, verses 8 through 20,. The birth of Jesus. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks. At night, An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them Do not be afraid, I bring the good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared, with the angel praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth. Peace to those on whom his favor rests. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them, but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. This was the word of the Lord.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Thanks be to God. Good job, looking dapper right Like come on, look good, look good, right there. A couple of housekeeping things before I get into it. My name is Lawrence, one of the pastors here. If you're in middle school, you want to go hang out in the box. They're all taking off right now to go with Manny and the team. So I just know that there's a lot of teachers, students, athletes, coaches, administrators that actually come to this church, that are part of this. So I just want to acknowledge you Also. My wife, specifically, is the athletic trainer and teaches sports medicine at American Canyon High School. But they just did something no one has done ever in this region, which is they're going next week to Southern California to play for a football state championship, which is cool, and I'm just celebrating that because we actually have a lot of people a part of this community that are part of American Canyon, that community. Like I said, students and athletes, teachers, administrators they're all a part of this. So congratulations to you guys. Praying for you guys, that'll be fun.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Another housekeeping thing is Christmas Eve. Services are right around the corner. No joke, I know you got to get your shopping done, you got to do this, but you also need to get tickets. So, for those of you who are new to Northgate, we do free reserved seating tickets for our Christmas Eve services. Why, you might ask. Well, it's because we don't want you all accidentally to show up at the same time. We got no seats for you. We usually have between 3,500 and 4,500 people that come to the Christmas Eve services. They're killer. Which, by the way, this is the best invite opportunity you have. And I'm telling you, friends, right now please just hear this, and I know this from experience the people that you're thinking about inviting are literally just waiting for an invitation and all they can do is say no, no big deal, like it's not going to hurt your feelings, that bad right, but you don't want to be afterwards being like man. I think they would have got so much of this. They would love this experience. Or they're going to be like why didn't you invite me to that? That looked rad, like all the things you're telling me about that.

Speaker 2: 4:05

So we're doing tickets because you come here and you got grandma and you got all these plans and you dressed up, and then you came here and there's no seats for you. And then what happens? You're mad at me like I did something. So to decompress that, it's free tickets so we can manage space. We're doing five services this year. We're doing Sunday services as well. They're the same exact thing and, yes, you need tickets for them. So they're at nine and 11, our normal service times but it's Christmas Eve service. It's the same thing. That happens on Monday night and then Tuesday nights Follow me, but you need tickets for all of them. So go on, make sure you get your tickets. Some of them are already sold out.

Speaker 2: 4:42

The other thing I'm going to ask you to do is that you're like I don't know, some people have done this. It's cool, I get it. You're like I don't know which service we're going to go to yet, so I'm going to get 10 tickets for every service until then I decide right, because you're going to bring 10 people. I hope you really do. That would be fantastic, that'd be awesome.

Speaker 2: 4:58

But can you make that decision this week? Because people are seeing sold-out services and we're going to do a big, massive invite and now we're having this conversation. You're like oh yeah, I need to invite people to Christmas Eve service. This is going to be awesome, and then they're going to come on and there's not tickets available. And then all of a sudden it comes to it and you haven't given the tickets back or made that decision and we have all these empty seats and we're like dang it Right and they're like we couldn't go and you don't want to watch this online. This is really made for a beautiful in-person in the room experience. It's going to be awesome. You can see some stuff that's kind of coming together in here. There's going to be some aspects inside this year which is kind of fun and a whole bunch of other surprises.

Speaker 2: 5:40

But can you do that this week, Like make a decision? Which service are you going to go to? If you're going to go to more than one, bring different people to different services. If you can help us out and serve and be welcoming to the community on the First Impressions team or in the Hot Coco, the hot cocoa area or somewhere else, please go to the information desk and say like I can help out this year. That would be awesome. Cool Christmas Eve service Check Got it and it's coming up fast. We have next week and then the following week it's happening, let's go.

Speaker 2: 6:07

One last note on that the following Sunday we're not going to have service. Why? Because I need a weekend off. No, I'm joking, actually, that's kind of true. We started doing this because our volunteers, our change makers, they give us so much, our staff gives us so much, and we're like go be with the family and go do that. So go do your family thing, and then we're gonna have a first Friday. We're gonna kick off the new year first. Before we come on Sunday, we're gonna have a Friday night worship experience to make up for whatever you did on New Year's. Get you right with Jesus, and then you can come to Sunday and we'll jump back in. All right, so there's that. I'll tell you more about that stuff later. Here's the deal. We're in week two of this Christmas series that we're calling Unexpected Christmas, where we're trying to take this fresh look at the Christmas story, like the old Christmas story, the events surrounding Jesus's birth. Here's what I mean by that.

Speaker 2: 7:03

A lot of people ask me. They're like you know, when you talk about stuff in the scripture or the Bible, like you see it differently, like, ah, I never saw that before, how do you get it? Let me tell you just open this up, because this is something that you can use Whenever I open up the Bible or the scripture and I start reading a passage. This is like the first thing I want to try to do. I'm going to try to put myself in their world. Maybe a way to think about this is like look for a bench or a rock or a hill or something or a tree to sit under theoretically, and just like observe and see what's going on. Try to put yourself in their world, try to put yourself in their shoes, try to put yourself in this place.

Speaker 2: 7:35

For the people who wrote this and then read it, you know, thousands of years ago, like what was their life? Like what was their daily life? Like what was going on in their world. And sometimes that can be tough because, like we know what's going on in our world, we know what our life is like, but let's figure out how to go way, way back. Like what did they have to deal with every day? What did they believe about God, about life, about the universe or about how everything worked? And, specifically in context for us in this time, the time that Jesus was born, the story that we're going to look at today the country of Israel has been invaded by the Roman Empire and they crush anyone and anything who opposes them. So at this point in history, many of the Jewish people were barely holding onto faith. They were, like, ready to tap out, like they thought God had forgotten about them, had abandoned them. And you actually see this in their prayer life.

Speaker 2: 8:37

If you read the last couple of books of the Old Testament, their prayer life included a lot of questions like how long? Like how long is this gonna last? Like, how long are we in the dark? How long are you gonna be distant? Like how long, god, are we gonna go on suffering? Like are you gonna do anything about it? Are you even there or do you care about what's happening in my life? And as I start looking at things like that, I think to myself I've prayed that prayer Anybody else Like. Which brings me, actually, to the second thing that I try to answer in every passage that I'm studying, which is like what's the tension? Like what's the tension these people live in? Like what questions need to be answered about their life?

Speaker 2: 9:20

For an example, pastor Ken last week shared about two very faithful people, old people, who lived their life just wanting one thing, asking God for one thing to happen in their life. We don't have a child, god, we just want to have a child, we just want to have a family. And they lived in this culture that assumed if you don't have a child, god, we just want to have a child, we just want to have a family. And they lived in this culture that assumed if you don't have a child, it must be punishment from God for something that you've done wrong, which isn't true. But if you sit back there and you sit on that bench and you look and you're like, oh, this is what they were feeling. Talk about tension.

Speaker 2: 9:56

This is one of the first places that I go sometimes when I'm asking God to help me or fix me, or like it just doesn't happen right, and you go did I do something wrong? Like, why am I being punished? Anybody else feel like that? Sometimes, then, god tells these people that they're going to have a child and their first response isn't like faith or gratitude, it's doubt. It's like why are you going to do that? But God was faithful in spite of their doubt. And so a lesson you can learn from that and Ken gave us so many lessons is maybe it's not too late. It's not too late ever to take a step of faith, even until your last breath. It's not too late to say that I need something to change in my life. It's not too late for any of us. And even though things aren't happening in my timeline or the timeline that you think it ought to happen in, you feel like you're just stuck in this waiting game. Hang on to hope. Hang on to hope there's another takeaway. I feel like from last week and again so many that it's not wasted time.

Speaker 2: 11:09

If you practice obedience, they live this life full and a long life of obedience to God. In other words, the circumstances of our life get really confusing and frustrating. When that happens, you know you just gotta show up. You gotta show up in your marriage, in parenting, in sobriety, whatever it is. You know nothing's getting better. You show up day by day and do what God's telling you to do. A third thing maybe you can unpack and be living in that tension is understanding. You're just not here by accident, like you're not here by chance, like God actually still has a plan for your life. Even though you don't understand it, god is doing something in this time of your waiting in life. You can't see it, you don't understand it, but you just got to hold on. You just got to give up, you just got to have courage.

Speaker 2: 12:03

And you know, next week, actually, we're going to talk about a similar tension. Mary and Joseph, you know, they're just living their lives. These young kids, they had it all planned out and they get this news totally unexpected hey, mary, you're going to have a baby. What, right, how is that going to happen? It's a bad voice. It's not worth it. Thank you for the water, jeffrey. I appreciate it. It's puberty. I got a beard. I don't know why. I said that. All right, so next week, tension, we're talking about tension, right, you know they're like what? You're gonna have a baby. Like, how is this even gonna happen? Right. And they're like, oh, angels. Like, yeah, it's gonna be conceived of the Holy Spirit. Right, and not only that, but it's gonna be God's giving us a son that's gonna save the world from sins. And it's like Joseph, hey, guess what? Like. And Mary's pregnant. And he's like what, right, yeah, you need to take her as your wife, right? And their response is the same. It's the same really, for us when unexpected circumstances hit my life. Like, they're freaked out, they were afraid, which led to this question Like how is this gonna happen. Like how can this even be? And we'll actually dive into that next week and grab some takeaways from their unexpected Christmas story.

Speaker 2: 13:19

But here's the biggest thing I remember when I studied the Bible. Here's like the bottom line People are people Like everybody's broken, broken people. And why would I expect anything different? And here's this. People back then in the Bible are no different than people today. They lived in the same tension that you and I lived in all week long. We're trying to make sense of what's happening in life. We're trying to figure out where God fits into this and what's going on in my life. And like does he even care or am I just on my own? Like, am I just in this broken, random, scary world? Like that's our whole week for many of us. And however we answer that question is how we will live our lives.

Speaker 2: 14:09

And sometimes here's the thing sometimes we tend to forget about like faith and how it works. Why? Because for a lot of us, we don't need faith. When, like, everything's easy or makes sense, like when the money's coming in, like when everybody's healthy, everybody's coming home, everybody's getting along, you don't need faith. Like you're just on cruise control, everything's good. Like I'm not thinking about it? Kuna matata, like let's go. When do you need faith? When, all of a sudden, it doesn't make sense. That's when you lean on God.

Speaker 2: 14:40

And so today, today, I want to pick up on our Christmas story with some very familiar characters who lived in the same tension. When is God? And what's going on in my life? Today, we're looking at the shepherds and, just like Manny read, we're picking up in Luke, chapter 2, verse 8, says this and there were shepherds living in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night.

Speaker 2: 15:08

Let me give you a little context. Where is nearby? It's Bethlehem. Nearby Bethlehem. It's still actually located about five miles west of Jerusalem and Jerusalem's where the Jewish people, they had their temple. This is where it was located and it was the epicenter, the center of Israel's religion. And at this time, mary and Joseph, their hometown, was actually in Nazareth, which is located about 91 miles northeast of Jerusalem. It's still there. I've been there, and the reason that they're actually in Bethlehem is that the Roman government wanted to take a census. They wanted to count all the people so they could export more taxes from them. Nothing's changed. It's great. So everybody was required to go back to where their ancestors were born and since Joseph was a descendant of King David and David was born in Bethlehem, so even though Mary is nine months pregnant, they load her up on a donkey and they made it this hundred mile journey south, and this is why they're in Bethlehem right here in this moment.

Speaker 2: 16:12

So, aside from Bethlehem being the birthplace of the most famous king of Israel, david, it's also this place outside of Jerusalem where sheep were being actually raised and then would be sacrificed at the temple, and if you know anything about Jewish faith, then they needed a lot of sheep. There was a lot of sacrifice. Aside from, like, special religious days like the Day of Atonement or Passover, where, just like hundreds and hundreds of sheep were slaughtered literally every single day, two lambs were slaughtered at the altar and the temple, and those lambs had to be perfect. They had rules. It's not a spot, not a blemish, no defects at all.

Speaker 2: 16:54

In fact, in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, in Numbers Exodus 29 and Numbers 28, one lamb, it tells you, was to be sacrificed in the morning, at the third hour, and you're like what does that even mean? We don't talk like that. It starts from sunrise. So sunrise is at 6. It's 6 am. There it's near the equator, so it's pretty consistent. So it'd be 9 am. You'd start counting from then and then one lamb was then to be sacrificed in the ninth hour, which is 3 pm.

Speaker 2: 17:21

Now this is important to understand and you say, wow, why is this important? Hang on to this. This is actually a nugget for the future and part of this conversation today it's also to understand that in this context, sheep were really special. They were very valuable. They were probably owned by very rich families that got rich by selling the lambs to the temple. They didn't donate them. Rich people then would never go out and do the labor of the ordinary man. This was hired out because they were considered kind of the elite, the upper class. And so the shepherds we need to understand that most likely the shepherds at night here were like elementary and middle school aged boys.

Speaker 2: 18:08

I just want to pause for a moment and maybe share the unexpected thing that I've come to learn or understand, like I shared with you kind of how I try to unpack Scripture and understand it and sit in it and kind of look at the whole scope of it, my whole life well, my whole Christmas experience of life and the times that when I started going to church and hearing about the Christmas story, I'd always thought because I had been told that the shepherd boys were like nothing by nothing, meaning like. It was always taught to me that they were the lowest class, they couldn't even testify in court, they were homeless, they were poor, they were the worst of the worst, they were considered thieves, and hanging out with sheep was like literally the best they could do and society looked down at them like they were slaves. But for me, maybe to you I would like to challenge that for some of you, as I have been challenged in an unexpected way. How so? I started looking at the breadth of scripture to understand shepherds, and the Old Testament texts are generally positive about the status of shepherds, and this would have been much more significant for the New Testament writers.

Speaker 2: 19:25

The great teacher of Israel was Moses. He was a shepherd, as was the ideal king David. He started as a shepherd boy and if the view is the despicable nature of shepherds, can we explain why God was called my shepherd in Psalms? God is a shepherd to his people and then he appoints leaders who are to shepherd people like a flock. I think it's striking that when the gospel writers record Jesus's concern that the people are like sheep without a shepherd. Note his response Like Moses, he says teach them with authority. There is no negative condemnation connotation in the term shepherd, nor when Jesus actually describes himself as the good shepherd in John 10, verse 11.

Speaker 2: 20:21

So where did this other view come from that maybe some of you are familiar with or have heard taught before? Well, many of those points of view depend on the view of Aristotle, who actually lived in a different region three centuries earlier. So again, we need to understand the context of this space and where we're sitting and understanding and what we're reading about today. The shepherds most likely would have been peasants, but they could hardly have been despised by those who depend on their work in this sacrificial system. The significance of the shepherd is not that they were particularly poor or marginalized, but that they were ordinary rather than elite. And what matters is not whether they were rich or poor, but that they were human and that in itself humanity is poverty enough in comparison to the riches of his grace freely offered in Jesus. So let's look at the tension that's taking place in this story today. So if you were one of the shepherd boys and you put yourself in their shoes and their minds and what you had decided about God and life and what the future held for you.

Speaker 2: 21:44

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and here's what I think they're thinking. Again, this is just me trying to live in their space. What they're thinking it might be something like no one's there, no one cares, no one's coming. I'm lower class, I'm just Joe Schmo, I'm just the blue collar guy that gets it done. Nothing seems to go my way. I was just dealt a different hand. I'm on my own. This is just how my life is always going to be. Anybody ever felt like that Forgotten, alone. No one's going to help me. Not only that. I mean think about this. They raised hundreds and thousands of lambs to pay for the sins of rich people who could afford them, in order to sacrifice to a God who must be really, really angry to need this much blood. So what happens next?

Speaker 2: 22:46

The next verse fits into the category of what I think is something unexpected Verse 9. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them don't be afraid, I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah, the Lord, and this will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

Speaker 2: 23:22

So remember this is 2,000 years ago, when people were waiting for God to send a savior, a Messiah. They were looking for this military or political figure to ride in and save the day, to like, save the Jewish people and restore Israel to its former greatness. But, like, these are shepherds, not kings, not the rich, not the elite. These are ordinary little shepherd boys, and they're the ones who get the privilege to hear that God is about to do something unexpected. God is about to turn the whole universe upside down.

Speaker 2: 23:57

So let's take a little look back at what the angels just told these little boys. The angels say I bring good news of great joy for who? All, all the people. The key word there is all right, because up to this point, the good news was just for the Jewish people, and what Jesus is doing right here and what God is doing is saying this is about to get expanded to all. It's not just for Jewish people. It's not just for the rich Jewish people who can afford overpriced sheep. What's about to happen is going to be good news of great joy for all people. Good news of great joy for all people. And you may think, we can think, that maybe in these little boys' minds they're going. Maybe that includes me.

Speaker 2: 24:49

God is about to bring great joy to anyone who's willing to put their faith in his son, and that's good news. But let's be honest. I mean let's be really honest with yourself. You ever heard somebody say, hey, I got some good news and your first response is like, yeah, it's probably just good for you, right? Good news for you or good news for some other people, but it probably doesn't apply to me. I'm pretty sure that that happens in a room like this every week. You know you hear somebody up here teaching something good about Jesus and your first response, if you're really honest with yourself, is you go like, yeah, that's pretty good, might be good for her or him, or their marriage or their family or their addiction or their circumstance or their cancer or their whatever. That's all right, but I bet it won't work for me. And you sit here and you're like, yeah, it sounds really good, but it's too good to be true, not for me. And the angel shows up and says what I'm about to announce to you from God is available to any and all who put their faith and trust in what God is about to do. It's for everybody. And it's unexpected.

Speaker 2: 26:22

Now they say this savior had just been born in the city of David Remember that's Bethlehem that one matches up with prophecy. Everybody can understand this. They didn't understand this at the moment. They actually made no connection to this stuff. The disciples didn't even make connections to many of the Easter eggs that are all hidden in the first parts of this stuff. The disciples didn't even make connections to many of the Easter eggs that are all hidden in the first parts of this story. It wasn't even actually until Jesus' ascension, the Holy Spirit came down, opened up minds. So they go oh my gosh, this all makes sense now, right? So not only this baby is going to be born in Bethlehem. Look at this, it's going to be a sign for you. It says where you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth, lying in a manger. So again, let me pause for one other quick moment to talk to you about what I think is a myth. It's just that time of the year. Not all of you have seen this, but it's going to be stirring up again. It was just a year or two ago that you saw more of this popping up.

Speaker 2: 27:13

It was social media posts, blogs, some other things that go on to claim, I think, one of the most audacious claims. It's a really bright, beautiful idea here. It is that supposedly these temple shepherds who wanted, you know, unblemished lambs when a lamb was born, they saw it was unblemished they would wrap it in strips of cloth, they would swaddle this lamb and then place it in a manger to keep it safe, to keep it from thrashing around and blemishing itself, and it would have been a swaddled lamb that they would say is fit for sacrifice. And what is the evidence for this claim? So, right off the bat, you go like, oh wow, that's so beautiful, like the shepherds are going to show up and be like we get it, like that is going to be the sacrifice, right. What evidence is there for this claim that this even happened? None, there's literally zero. There is no evidence. I don't know where it originated, but it's spread like wildfire on some social media things. This is really like, oh wow, look at this connection, that's happened. There are Easter eggs, like I said all over, but this, this happened. There are Easter eggs, like I said all over, but this is not specifically one of those things. There is literally no historical evidence anything like that ever took place.

Speaker 2: 28:27

And so when the shepherds were told by the angels to go to Bethlehem where they would find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. They did just that, like they did just that. They went to a town. They find a baby Jesus wrapped in cloths that was common at the time lying in a feed trough because it made for an excellent baby bed. And these shepherds certainly did not say to themselves, ah, just like we wrap our lambs to keep them safe for sacrifice, right? What's the swallowing then? It's actually this beautiful testimony to the very ordinary nature of Jesus's birth, the ordinary that this is for everyone, this is in everyone, not just the elite, and I wonder how much.

Speaker 2: 29:15

For Luke, it was a detail that confirmed this eyewitness account that he's writing about, since he emphasizes, mary treasured all of these things in our heart and this was his resource and source of information for the nativity. And then, kind of like to put an exclamation point. This happens, it says, suddenly a great company of heavenly hosts appeared with the angel praising God, saying glory to God in the highest of heaven. We just sang that song actually, today, where you go glory and we go in excelsis Deo. That's this right here. That's where this comes from. It's just in a different language. Some of you guys are like whoa we did that, that's where this comes from.

Speaker 2: 29:58

It's just in a different language. Some of you guys are like whoa. We did that. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to those whom his favor rests. And the angels had left them and gone into heaven. And the shepherds said to one another let's go to Bethlehem, let's see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off. They found Mary and Joseph and the baby who was lying in a manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what they had been told about this child and all who heard were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. All were amazed at what the shepherds had told them. They weren't amazed that the shepherds were telling them. It wasn't that they said they were shocked that the news was coming from a shepherd. No, they were amazed, friends, at the content of what the shepherds said. If the shepherds were viewed as social outcasts, they would have been shocked that the shepherds were involved in the process. Instead, they were amazed at the story itself. So if we sit back and we sit in that tension, we say am I amazed? So I pose the question to you Are you amazed? And how is that playing out? When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what they had been told about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at the shepherds, what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured all of these things and pondered them in her heart. And then the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were as just as they were told. So again, are you amazed? The unexpected has happened.

Speaker 2: 31:55

Friends, look at what the shepherds do. First, they told anyone and everyone and anything that would listen, about what they had just experienced. Some of you do that. There were some of you who got baptized last month and, like you, just, you couldn't keep your mouth shut, right, you're just. You're like, you're not going to believe this, like what's happened to me, like I had this experience. I'm going gonna tell you there is nothing more fired up than a person who just bumped into Jesus. I'm telling you right now, bump back into Jesus if you don't have that fire and you will find it again. And then, all of a sudden, finally, your family says like shut up, we get it. Like chill, stop talking to us about this. And then you just keep talking. Second, what'd they do? They glorified. They glorified God and praised him. And then the third, and I think this is overlooked they went back to their sheep. They went back to their life. They, like, went back to their job.

Speaker 2: 32:51

So the shepherds see all of this, they experience all this and what do they immediately do following the biggest announcement in the history of the universe? Well, they did a few things, like I just talked about, but I would have written a different story. What happens? They didn't get physically rescued from their hard life. They have this moment that literally changes the course of history, that they get to experience and they have an encounter with, and a transformational moment with, jesus. And they didn't go back then to the shepherd fields where there's a bunch of people saying like you get a new job now. You found Jesus, you get a raise, new life. There wasn't like a bunch of parents in the field being like we're going to adopt you, right, that's how I would have written the story.

Speaker 2: 33:42

But nothing changed in their physical circumstances. They didn't come back and they didn't still have mental health issues. They didn't have this experience and come back and all of a sudden, the cancer or the sickness was gone or there was now somebody sitting at the table who wasn't sitting there before. Their physical circumstances didn't change At least the Bible doesn't say not right away but something, friends, was different. What changed in them? I mean, like yesterday, they were ordinary, they were orphans, they were forgotten, they were alone, they were on their own, they were full of fear, you know like, just like us. And that night they had hope, they had joy and they believed that they were included in the all as in, like the good news of great joy for all people. Are you like them right now, barely holding on to faith, thought maybe God has forgotten, you has abandoned? You See, friends, here's what I know.

Speaker 2: 34:52

When you encounter Jesus and realize what God has done and doing in your life, and the lengths he has gone and willing to go so that you can know that you are loved and grace and salvation and peace and joy and hope is available to you, just by saying I want it and I accept it, it changes then how you see everything. You get new glasses, a new lens in which to look through, and when it changes how you see everything, faith then demands a response. It's not just head knowledge, when you truly understand grace, that you've been given and truly put your faith in Jesus and the one who is and is done and done everything that he can for you. It changes you and then it changes your heart. And by that I'm saying, when you encounter Jesus, he changes your heart, which means your heart becomes more like Jesus, which means this you begin to love like Jesus, you begin to care about the things that Jesus cares about, especially the people that Jesus loves and cares about. And I just want to tell you, if that doesn't happen, you may have missed Jesus, you may have stayed in the field Because, friends, I'm telling you, god is with us, emmanuel he has come and you have been invited out of the field.

Speaker 2: 36:41

It's for everybody and we're going to respond in worship. We're doing this beautiful song and for some of you, this might be a part of your story that's keeping you actually out in the field. You're like I'm hearing this great news, keeping you actually out in the field. You're like I'm hearing this great news, but the chorus says my sin was deep In there, but your grace was deeper. My shame was wide, but your arms are wider, and my guilt was great, but your love is greater still. Would you stand with me as we respond in worship to God with us. Thank you.