Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 20, 2015 | Home For Christmas - Jesus Comes To Your Home At Christmas

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December 20, 2015 | Home For Christmas - Jesus Comes To Your Home At Christmas · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:14
SPEAKER_03: Christmas will find me the wee for coming.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: I love that sermon bumper video.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Is that cool?
0:57
SPEAKER_01: And we're the only, probably the only church that has that.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that is pretty, pretty cool.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Um sure do appreciate you leaving the line to Star Wars and coming over here this morning.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Talk to several people.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh more than one, more than two, more than three who this week who watched, who've watched all six of the previous Star Wars movies in the last 34, 48 hours.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: So bleary-eyed people.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: So uh we're in a uh if you're visiting this morning, if you're newcomer, we're doing a series called Home for Christmas, is if you couldn't tell from that uh what you just heard, or or even from this amazing house that's behind me.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: So we're in the series.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: This is the fourth of five weeks, and uh uh so anyway, I'm looking forward to uh to presenting that to you, and I'm really looking forward to tonight, five o'clock, seven o'clock, hundred musicians, it's gonna be awesome.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking forward to Christmas Eve.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Three, four, five, and six.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Come to one of them or all of them, albeit all of them.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: So Melan and I are really blessed that uh this year we've got we've been uh guilting our kids all year long to get them to come home and they're all gonna be home this next week for Christmas.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: We have two who live in town and our three little grandsons, but the two who live out of town with their four little granddaughters are also gonna join them.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh so we're we and the thing is I know that not everybody has that blessing of having their family home for Christmas.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh that uh that some of you won't won't be able to be home for Christmas.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I thought um, I came across a video, it's in German, but I want to show it to you anyway, and I'll and I'll I'll I'll do a little voiceover of some of the German maybe on it.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: But uh watch this video where where where grandpa gets the phone call from his kids saying that they simply can't make it home for Christmas.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Hi Daddy, it's me.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Just wanted to call and let you know we can't make it for Christmas this year.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: We'll try again next year.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: It'll work out, I promise.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas, Daddy.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: See you soon, Grandpa.
3:43
SPEAKER_04: There goes a day, there goes a week.
3:47
SPEAKER_04: So many goals I have to.
3:51
SPEAKER_04: The more I do, the lows I care.
3:55
SPEAKER_04: The more I miss, the love you turn.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: If life is a song, somehow it's time.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: I don't know the words without a deck.
4:05
SPEAKER_04: You've been on my mind all the time, and I'm missing you.
4:19
SPEAKER_04: But the truth is that all you did.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: How else could I have brought you all together?
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
4:53
SPEAKER_04: Truth is my home.
4:57
SPEAKER_04: Without you.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Time to come home.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Zeit Heimgukamen.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Time to come home.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: So um two weeks ago, um Hunter picturing home in heaven, uh, talked about how Jesus left his home at Christmas when the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Last week, uh Tim, thinking of home in Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph lived, talked about detours, having to detour away from home and the detours at Christmas time, talked about Bethlehem, talked about even detouring down to Egypt on the way back home.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: This morning's a little different.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: I want I want you to picture home this morning, it's going to be you, where you are, inside you.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And my title is Jesus Comes to Your Home at Christmas.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: And the story that I'm that's perfect for this is a very familiar story called The Annunciation of Mary.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: And you may want to open your Bible to Luke 1, because I'm using the new uh King James Version, traditional version this morning, because it's Christmas Sunday, and you may want to use a more modern version.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: But what's on the screen is going to be the King James Version.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's an amazing story about a girl, I don't know how old she is.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to think of her as 14.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: She may be 15, she may be 13, but this is the only story really about her in the whole Bible.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: Luke 1, 26 through 38.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: And she is clearly one of the most remarkable girls who have ever lived.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: And and I decided to go through this story this week and just sort of live in this story, see if I could feel her emotions after her or her responses.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: I want to share those with you.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: And the story goes, now in the sixth month, and by those words it means the sixth month of her cousin Elizabeth's pregnancy.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel, Gabriel is uh the number one messenger angel of God, uh thought of as an archangel.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Michael is the number one warrior angel of God.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Gabriel's the number one messenger angel of God, and he's sent by God to a city of Galilee, that's up north in Israel, city of Galilee named Nazareth, which is not a city, really, just back then a village, a hamlet, 100, 200, maybe 200 people, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Betrothed back then, engaged, but it was a little bit more.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: After you got engaged, you were called married, but you know, you waited one year and then you uh had the ceremony and the consummation and everything.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: So she's still a virgin.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: She's in this one-year period, and she's betrothed to Joseph.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: And the virgin's name was Mary.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: And we all we know this.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Notice, though, that the one word that's repeated in this verse, as though they don't want you to miss it, is virgin.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: That is, she is a virgin, and you're supposed to notice that.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: Verse 28.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: And having come in, the angel, this Gabriel, said to her, Rejoice, highly favored one.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is with you, blessed are you among women.
8:17
SPEAKER_01: And notice that that's not the same as what some of you perhaps have grown up hearing.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, Hail Mary, full of grace, which which uh which misses the Greek word, which is favored.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: It's not that she herself is a rock star, you know that she's full of grace and she's a mother of grace.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: It's that God is the rock star, and God has this has decided to favor her, okay?
8:42
SPEAKER_01: And but when she saw him, she was, interesting verb here, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was, okay?
8:53
SPEAKER_01: And then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, wow.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: And of his kingdom there will be no end.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't know how you'd respond to this, but she goes, uh, how can this be, since I do not know a man?
9:27
SPEAKER_01: And now I have another long response, and the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Therefore also that holy one who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, is also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren, for with God nothing will be impossible.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: And now we get to the last verse, verse 38.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Then Mary said, Behold the maidservant of the Lord.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: In other words, here I am, I'm I'm the servant.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: Let it be to me according to your word.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And the angel departed from her.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: All right, I ask myself, so one of the feelings, or maybe better, the responses that Mary has in this short passage, and interestingly to me, it seems there's not just a couple, there are four, and they come right after each other really quickly.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: And the first one is that she spooked.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: And I picked that word, I could have picked the word, she's scared, she's afraid, but it uh, you know, when someone just comes right like that, you know, I mean, imagine uh that you uh I just pictured myself for a moment living in a trailer in uh Carbondale and having Gabriel appear at the door.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know, I just thought, what was the first word that came to mind?
10:46
SPEAKER_01: I'd be spooked, you know.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And so I think she's and and we're not surprised at this, right?
10:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because we know that's what angels do to people in the Bible.
10:57
SPEAKER_01: I love It's a Wonderful Life, don't you love It's a Wonderful Life?
11:00
SPEAKER_01: And the angel's name is Clarence.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: How many people does he spook as he goes through life?
11:06
SPEAKER_01: Not very many.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: He's he's somewhat challenged, he's really cute.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: I really like him, he's a good buddy, buddy, and he's fun to drink God with, but you know, he's a great angel perhaps for Hollywood, but he's never gonna make it into heaven because he doesn't scare anybody.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: And every angel in the Bible, it's like there's a school in heaven, you know, and they go, okay, little baby angels or whatever.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first line you have to learn, you know, when you go to earth.
11:30
SPEAKER_01: First thing you do if you happen to be a messenger angel, is the first line's gonna always need to be don't be afraid, because you're gonna scare them to death.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
11:41
SPEAKER_01: No, really.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, as I learned a few weeks ago, the first line of the policeman is always, may I say your license, please, you know.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Maybe first line of a dentist, open wider.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: But first line, first line of an angel is always, don't be afraid, as it as it was here.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Don't be afraid.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: She is, she's spooked, she's scared.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: And then, but almost immediately, because the angel says something, she has the presence of mind to understand and hear what he what he says, and she is very interestingly, she's perturbed.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: The word used is she's troubled at his saying.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And we usually think of that and you know, it's like she's confused.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: She really doesn't answer, she doesn't understand why he says, You're highly favored.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: But the word perturbed in the Greek is more than just confused, it's like a little annoyed, it's like upset.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: It's like no thank you.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, and so you go, why is that?
12:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm no, I mean, we all know lots of 14-year-old girls who would love to hear someone show up at the door and say, you've been you you're highly favored.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: The limelight's on you, baby.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: All of heaven is looking at you.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: You've just one teenage model of the year.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, I mean, there's today, 14-year-olds in our country, not so true, not so true in some countries today.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: 14-year-old girls in our country maybe wouldn't mind the limelight, but it strikes me that she's troubled, that she's disturbed because she's a quiet little girl from a simple little village and she likes it that way.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: And she is like a lot of 14-year-old girls in places I've been around the world.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: I've been in eight Arab countries, for example, and in every one of those countries, if a 14-year-old girl suddenly was told you're going to be very famous, they'd go, I don't want that.
13:36
SPEAKER_01: That's something really bad.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: I need to avoid that at all costs.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: But so I think there's a shock, and then there's kind of a what would it be like?
13:46
SPEAKER_01: Let me just ask you.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: If if you drove home today from church, and the moment you got inside your house, you know, you looked out the window and all of a sudden the presidential motorcade came up your driveway.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Okay, first you go, whoa, you know, you'd be freaked.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: But the second thing is you go, I'm not sure I like this.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: I was I was, you know, planning to have a quiet afternoon.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And I let's not get into that.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: That was probably a bad, a bad, a bad illustration, you know.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: But no, no, here's one.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: How about if I right now pointed at there's some of you, if I just pointed at you right now and said, Hail, highly favored one, I've just decided to call you up on stage, say a word to everybody, you blessed, you blessed.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And you go, no, thank you.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I and I think the nativity story, that movie that came out a half a dozen years ago, the really good one, I think it captured this perfectly because it has Mary turning to her cousin Elizabeth and going, Why me?
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Why does it have to be me?
14:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm no one.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: And so, so very, very, very, very interesting thought here in Mary.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: And then it, but then it immediately moves to the angel course saying, I gotta tell you something.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, behind door number one was scariness, behind door number two is you getting upset.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Behind door number three is a baby.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you're gonna have a baby.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And so that's when the third response of Mary comes out.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: She's puzzled.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And here's where I'm really, I'm just so impressed with this girl.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, how calm she is, how she can think through all of these things, and um and realize exactly, you know, that the angel.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, now the thing is, both she, both Mary and we understand the problem with this.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's this basic contradiction.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: Virgin, virgin, verse 27, baby, baby.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, verse 28 to 30.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: This doesn't compute.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: This doesn't, this doesn't work out.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Now, we're not surprised by any of this because, well, first of all, we know the Christmas story backward and forward.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: But secondly, we've been reading Sunday school stories about angels appearing to women who and telling them they're gonna have babies all the way through the Old Testament.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: Am I right about this?
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but let's keep in mind Mary had read those stories too.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: She knew those stories better than we do.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: So, you know how but you have the story of Abraham and Sarah, and they're like in their 80s, he's 80, he's 90.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Angel comes and says, Okay, you've had infertility issues, you're really old, but you're gonna, you know, I know you want a baby, you're desperate for a baby, you're gonna get a baby.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get a baby, Isaac.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Or you have the story of Rachel, Jacob's wife, infertility issues.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: You have the story of Hannah praying for a little Samus.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: She'd love to have a little Samus.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: She can't have a little, she's got infertile.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: Sure, her the other wife, Panenna, has got like 10 kids, and Hannah's going, please, please, please.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Okay, you're highly favored, gonna give you a baby.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: There's the story of Manoah's wife, Samson's mother.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: She'd love to have a baby.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Angel says, Okay.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Even in this chapter, right?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Zachariah and Elizabeth, they're so old it calls them dry.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: What a terrible line.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, angel comes and says, Okay, you're gonna have a baby.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: But here's the problem.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: See, we're used to the story, but we don't think about it the way Mary Mary's thinking.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: I know all those stories, but all those women are old.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm not old.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: All those women have infertility issues.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't have infertility issues, I'm a virgin.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: All those women wanted babies, I don't want a baby.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: I love, by the way, the scenarios that are created that picture Gabriel as being as shaking under his robes, wondering what in the world, how in the world she's gonna respond.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: And all of his buddies up in heaven looking over, going, oh no, oh no, here it comes.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: What's she gonna say?
17:42
SPEAKER_01: And and thinking, it sure didn't go well six months ago, you know, when he talked to her cousin.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and Zachariah, he was like a priest and he was wholly devoted to God and everything else.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: It did not go well at all.
17:55
SPEAKER_01: What in the world's gonna happen?
17:56
SPEAKER_01: I love, I love, I love thinking about that.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: And you know, they're they're taking bets up in heaven, perhaps.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, angel going, okay, at the minimum, she's gonna say, I'll buy into this as long as you let it go another nine months or so, you know, after I get married to Joseph, it'll be loads easier on me, loads easier on the baby.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: Let's do that deal, you know, at the minimum.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: So you can just see, you know, how how how this is going.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Mary's wondering, how how in the world can this happen?
18:30
SPEAKER_01: This is not right.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: So, so um the angel says, you know, it can't happen because nothing's impossible with God, and God's gonna do it.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: Now, to my amazement, all of a sudden, after going, whoa, I'm scared, and then going to what?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want this to happen, to going, how can this happen?
18:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm puzzled, all of a sudden we move to the last verse, and she's suddenly receptive.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: Then Mary said, Behold the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: See, this is why we admire this girl so much.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Somehow she she got to the place where even without full explanation, she said, Okay.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wonder if she had pressed, if she said, I need a little more information.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if Gabriel had said, Okay, I know what you're thinking, I know what you're thinking, you're not like all those other women, you're not old, you're not desperate for baby, and so forth, there's no problem in your womb.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: But listen, I need to explain something to you.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: There may not be a problem in your womb, but there's a problem outside your womb in the whole rest of the world.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: Because ever since Adam and Eve, the whole world has turned dark.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: This is the dark planet.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: This is Tatooine.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: This is, I mean, as far away as you can get from brightness and from heaven and so forth.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And God needs to do something about the sin problem, and he can't, he doesn't, he's not gonna do it through the womb of an older, infertile woman.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: He's chosen you.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: No, the problem's not in your womb, no, you're not desperate for the baby, but the world is desperate for a baby.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: The planet Earth has a big problem, and you're gonna solve that.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: She doesn't ask, he doesn't give that to her.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: So I asked myself this week, how in the world does she get to the place of receptivity without any of that information?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: And I'm assuming, my little psychoanalysis, that she did this to herself, that she's a sharp little girl, and she said, Mary, there's only one question you have to answer.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that person you're listening to right there is a true messenger of God?
20:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that God sent that angel, that guy?
20:39
SPEAKER_01: Because if you think that's true, then what he's saying is true.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: You need to believe what he says, and you need to receive this baby.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I assume happened.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: It makes me admire her so much that she was able to be calm, work through the scariness, work through the perturbation and the puzzlement and so forth, and go, okay, okay.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: I think you're a messenger of God, therefore I believe this word, and I'll receive this child.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's why this is the only place in the whole Bible, the only place we know of in history where the angel doesn't have the last word.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: And every other occasion when God sends an angel and they go back and forth, the angel always has the last word and then disappears.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: In this case, Mary gets the last word.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm your servant.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Let it be done to me according to your word.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: And the angel left, like God's going, Well, Gabriel, nothing more to say.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: This is our goal, this is what we wanted.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: She said it all.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: And that seems to me to say something to you and to me today.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And I find this same idea incredible.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Christmas carols, Christmas songs, and in some other verses in the New Testament, such as thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou cameest to earth for me.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: But in Bethlehem's home there was found no room for thy holy nativity.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: There may not be room in the inn, there may not be room in Bethlehem, there is room in my heart for thee.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Another early songwriter wrote, Joy to the world, the Lord has come.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: Let earth, what?
22:37
SPEAKER_01: Let earth receive her king.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Let every heart what prepare him room.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: You have the same picture.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: It's not a common picture in the New Testament.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you ask the question of God, okay, God, how do I become a Christian?
22:52
SPEAKER_01: How do I get saved?
22:53
SPEAKER_01: How do I become a son or a daughter of God?
22:56
SPEAKER_01: God's answer is almost always the same.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: He uses almost always in the New Testament the same word, okay?
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Seven-letter word, B-E-L-I-E-V-E.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Believe.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: And he uses it well over a hundred times.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: It's a mental word that you need to believe the word that I'm telling you about my son, that he came to earth to live to die for your sins.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and you'll have life in his name.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: So Jaylor goes, help, help, everything's falling apart.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Tell me really quickly, Paul, how do I get saved?
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, Acts 16, 31, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's God's word.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: It's a mental word, and once in a while, God says, I take it, he said to himself, Well, you know, my people, you know, these people on earth are kind of like children.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: They're not really mentally sharp at times.
23:45
SPEAKER_01: Let's come up with a picture word.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Let's come up with a metaphor that may help them a little bit.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's when he came up with the word he uses.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Only a couple times in the New Testament, but it's the word receive, this picture, this sort of merry picture of receiving something into yourself.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, for instance, in John 1.12, to all who received him.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: But by the way, it's just no different.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: This is the same thing as believing.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: It's to those who believed in his name.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: He gave the right to become the children of God.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: In other words, being receptive is a synonym for the act, the response that happens to you in your life when you trust Christ as your Savior.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul said something like it.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: He said in Galatians 4.19, My children, I am again suffering labor pains for you until Christ is formed in you.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: It has this picture of the embryo, which is Christ growing up in you until you become a little Christ.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: When you're mature, you became a Christ figure.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Well, it has to start somewhere.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: You see, and it starts with you opening up your heart and letting Jesus Christ come in.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: And you and I kind of understand that.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: There's this famous picture.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: We have it on a big stained glass window there on the north side.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knocking at the door, you know the story.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Revelation 3.20, behold, I stand at the door and knock.
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SPEAKER_01: You can look that way if you want to, to the to the right.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Open the door, let him in.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: I would love to come in and sup, eat supper with you, and you with me.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: Now you and I know, if you've read the Bible or studied it, that that's actually a word to Christians who've drifted away from God, who've stopped fellowshipping with him.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: And so Christ knocks at the door of sort of backslidden Christians, we'd call him, and say, I want to come back in and eat more meals with you.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: But you know it's got to start somewhere.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: And in a sense, it starts when you trust Christ, when you believe in him, then you receive him into your home.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: That's why Robert Boyd Munger, 50 years ago, wrote the famous book entitled My Heart Christ's Home.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: He pictures trust in Christ as Christ coming into your home and then the rest of your life moving through each of the rooms of your house and cleaning them out.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: That's why in the New Testament, a Christian is described as someone who can say, Christ lives in me.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: And Paul can say, listen, Christ in you, that's your hope of glory.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: He's inside you.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: That can happen at Christmas as it happened at Christmas to Mary because she was receptive.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a neat story about this told in one of his books by a guy named Jess Moody.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: He was a college professor, he was a pastor of a sizable church in the northeast part of our country, and this some years back, but he's telling the story of when he was leading a Bible study during the week at a home, and to his surprise, he looked out and he saw Rose Kennedy, John F.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Kennedy's mother, sitting out there in the Bible study.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: And he's explaining how it was holiday season, I think, and he was explaining that you know Christmas is a great time to open your heart and allow Christ to come in.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And you should do this because life is short and you don't know how long you have, and you need to receive him.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: And the study was over, and and and Mrs.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Kinney came up to him and she asked, she said, Can I talk to you privately?
27:14
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yes.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: And so they went into the back room and and she seized his hands and she said excitedly, I've done that.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: I've done what you said tonight.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: I received him that way, and I wanted to tell you the story.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: She said, uh uh uh when I was young, I was a young bride and married into, as you know, a very wealthy family, and everything in my life was was about me and self and money, and I just loved the money thing and spending the money, and all the and it was all about me.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: And then and then I got pregnant, and and we had a baby.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: My husband and I had this beautiful little girl baby.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: And but then something happened shortly when this when she was really little, we noticed something seemed wrong when we took her in for tests, and then they gave her more tests, and then they came out and they gave us the horrible and devastating news.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: They said, your daughter, we're sorry, has a mental retardation, and that is it is so severe that you are actually not going to even be able to raise her.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: She's going to need to be institutionalized for the rest of her life.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: And she said, uh, my husband and I were absolutely devastated.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: And she says, for me, not for him, but for me, that devastation turned into an anger.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: I I grew very, very angry at God.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: I said, God, how if you exist, could you ever let anything like this happen to me?
28:31
SPEAKER_01: And she said that anger became a bitterness.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: And she said, it wasn't just bitterness at God, it became a bitterness at anybody who ever asked me about my daughter.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: She said there was a holiday party, and we had all dressed up for this big holiday party.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: My husband and I were about to go out, and he said to me, uh, Rosa, I don't know that we should go.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: Because you are just so explosive in your bitterness that if anyone asks you about our little girl, you're gonna explode.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And she says, I knew he was right, so we didn't go.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting, I was just sitting there on the couch, and she said, My maid who's cleaning the living, came over to me and she said, Uh, Mrs.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Kennedy, she said, I have been watching you for weeks.
29:19
SPEAKER_01: And she said, It hurts me to see, but you you seem very angry, and I am afraid this anger will ruin you.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I wanted to give you a prayer.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Just a short prayer to pray that I think may help.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: And the prayer is, she said, Oh Lord, make my heart a manger where the Christchild can be born.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Just that, she said, Oh Lord, make my heart a manger where the Christ child can be born.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Rose said, I was told Dr.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Moody, she says, I was so angry with her, I fired her on the spot.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: I told her to get out of the house and never come back.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: And she said, uh, I was still angry when I went to bed that night.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: And and she said, I tossed and I turned.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: And I couldn't get that prayer out of my mind.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: And she said, something broke inside me in the middle of the night.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: I just surrendered to it.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I slipped out of bed and I knelt by the bed, she said, and I and I prayed those words, oh Lord, make my heart a manger where the Christ child can be born.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: And she said, the moment I prayed it, I knew that God heard that prayer.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: Something happened.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: She says, I've always been religious.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm a Catholic, you know, as you know.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: And she said, but that's sort of my religion, but this was something different.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: This was something in my heart, something inside.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: And she said, it was as if my heart suddenly opened, and suddenly that anger and the sadness and the bitterness started slowly draining out of it.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: And she said, it completely changed my life.
30:53
SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted you to know that.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: She said, Oh, by the way, I hired back the maid, and the maid, by the way, lived with him until her death.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: So I think a terrific story.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Now, for Mary, it was, oh Lord, make my womb a manger where the Christ child can be born.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And what I'm here to say this morning about you and your heart being a home for Christ is this that you may want to pray that very prayer.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: You may want to pray, Lord, make my heart a manger where the Christ child can be born, or make my heart a womb where the Christ child can be born.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you want to take advantage of that picture word.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: And open yourself up this Christmas and let Christ be born in you the way Mary did.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: Christmas, goes the old poem, is the gift from heaven of God's Son given for free.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: If Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under the tree.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: And this week, as you listen to the Christmas carols, if you happen to hear the carol, O little town of Bethlehem, make sure you pay special attention and perhaps pray along with the words that go, O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: Cast out our sin and enter in.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Be born in us today.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you a chance to quietly maybe uh say that prayer to God, be born in me for the next two minutes.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll play a video of a song Be Born in Me.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: I would urge you, I'd urge all of you to whisper that prayer this Christmas morning, this Christmas Sunday morning, whisper that prayer to God, be born in me today.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I ask that as the Holy Spirit came down upon Mary, your spirit would come down upon everyone here, everyone who hears me, who this morning would say, Be born in me, be born in me.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I'll hold you in the beginning, you will hold me in the end.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Make my heart your Bethlehem, make my heart a manger, make my heart a womb where the Christ child can be born.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit move into their lives and do for them what you've done for Rose Kennedy and for so many others.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Be born in us.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for coming.