Christmas: The Way Was Made

In the beginning,

there was darkness.

But God said,

let there be light.

This was the beginning of creation

and the story of our salvation.

And there was light

when everything seemed lost.

We got the promise of hope.

A day will come where pain is gone.

A baby shall be born.

He'll be our living hope.

He is coming with a precious gift.

He shall come to bring us peace.

A humble birth will shine on earth.

When our Savior born takes his first breath.

Our Prince of Peace, mighty God is here.

The light has come.

Glory in the highest.

The heavens sing.

As the earth rejoices for the joy he brings.

Let us praise his holy name.

Rejoice together for us. He came.

I did find sin unraveled that night.

As Mary and Joseph cuddled this child.

This was a baby like no other.

Swaddling clothes face uncovered.

Lay our king.

The one who came to make us free.

He came for the ones that have lost all hope.

For his purpose was pure love.

To give his life for our souls.

We are no longer alone.

Emmanuel.

God is with us.

That is the point and purpose of Christmas.

That God would be with us.

One of the ways that that is experienced

is by us being with each other.

And to that end, I want to make sure that, you know, those of you who are connected

to the Davidsons, that Lisa service will be Tuesday at 10:00 at Jay Chapel.

And one of the ways, though she is with the father right now,

one of the ways that the father visits us

is by us being with each other.

And so I know the family would appreciate it

if you're connected with them.

If you can make that a priority, I would as well.

She was a dear, dear

friend and servant of God and of this church.

Another thing, just as a way of announcement,

I want to let you know that as we go into the Christmas season,

the focus certainly is on God with us

and God's plan after Jesus

for his revelation to the world would be through his church.

The church is God's Plan A,

and there is no plan B.

This was his idea,

and the thing that the world needs more now than ever are churches.

And so we at flipside with Excel Leadership Network

that I helped run is our goal for 2025

is to start 100 churches this year.

Here's why.

Because in 2021, that was the first year in our nation's history

where we lost more churches than what we're started.

So just to keep up with population growth, we need to start more churches.

But secondarily, this mark for 20,

Jesus tells a parable about the sower and the seed.

And then that parable, Jesus says, some seed fell on good soil

and produced a harvest of 30 of 60 of 104.

So undertaking that model, we at flipside

and with Excel have already started 30 churches in a year.

We've already started 60 churches in a year, and over a 20 month

period during the pandemic, we started 100.

But now in this one single 12 month

period, our goal is to start 100 churches around the world.

It is the focus of our church.

It is one of the purposes of what we do,

and it is God's plan for his revelation to the world.

As Hallel, the elder

John Lewis and JFK all said, if not us, who?

If not now, when?

And so what I'm asking you church is over and above your tithes and offerings

through this Christmas season and culminating on Christmas Eve,

if you will partner with us

through our ministry and work with Excel and funding 100 church

plants in 2025 over and above your regular tithes and offerings on our app.

There's a little button there under giving for church plants.

You can indicate that in any way you choose,

but this is something we're committed to, and I invite I invite you into it.

It is God's plan and we have to be about it.

And the third thing is this

we have been in the Old Testament for so long through the Book of judges,

and last week you were graced with the opportunity

to sit under a young man's incredible teaching.

In the book of, Exodus.

And now we're jump into the New Testament.

And to make that jump easier for you,

I want to help you understand

how we get from the Old Testament to the New Testament,

because the old times, it closes in Malachi.

And when the Old Testament closes, there's a certain world regime

that the known world is living under, and we open the New Testament.

There's a whole new regime, a whole new language, a whole new way of being.

And so there's 400 years

between the close of Malachi and the Old Testament,

the opening of Matthew in the New Testament,

of which the Bible is silent and they're called the 400 silent years.

And it's as if God has withheld his revelation.

Now he didn't.

We just don't have any biblical record of what happened during those 400 years.

But there's a lot that happened.

But unless, you know, history

secular and, and and,

Jewish history, you're not going to know what happened during those 400 years.

And so I've written a few page little document

that will get you from Malachi to Matthew and fill in the blanks

of how we get to Matthew chapter one, because a lot has happened.

So if that's if you're interested in that, you can pick up

those little, pages at the start here booth.

I would happily share those with you.

Because it's good

to be intelligent about this stuff.

In this Christmas season, we're going to look at

four chapters in two Gospels,

Matthew and Luke, chapter one and two of each.

So today we're going to look at Matthew one.

Next week will be Luke one.

The week after that will be Luke two.

And we'll end on Christmas Eve with Matthew two.

So if you want to read ahead and kind of find out where we're going, there it is.

A lot of the story is very familiar to most people,

but there's a lot of the story that is very unfamiliar and unknown

to most people.

And so, in true flip side fashion, we're going to do what the unknown.

And, and we're going to find out what is there.

Let me tell you this.

The devil's plan from day one has been to thwart the plan of God.

That's what his business is

in the Old Testament.

The devil tried over and over and over to destroy

the lineage that would lead to the Messiah.

To Jesus and the New Testament.

He started early in this process by trying to kill all the babies.

A little baby Jesus included.

And now he continues that work primarily

through making churches selfish and insecure.

So they don't plant churches

because the church is God's planning and there is no plan B,

and if they can get churches and pastors to be insecure and selfish,

so all they do is worry about their own fountains and coffee shops and donut shops

rather than planting churches.

Do you understand?

So all the way

through the Bible, we see this plan of the evil one

to thwart and destroy God's plan both to bring salvation

and for the revelation of himself to the world.

And as we look at the Christmas story of Matthew and Luke,

we're going to see the same thing multiple times.

So today, I want to be in Matthew one,

and I want to cross-reference that with Luke chapter three.

Now there are different,

but we see the same beautiful truth.

And that beautiful truth that we see is

this, that God is with us,

even though oftentimes

we're not worthy of him.

He's with us

even though our story.

Not worthy of being with.

I want us to note this,

that Matthew, the writer of the first gospel,

was Jewish and a tax collector.

Now, what that means is

the Roman government had a 40 over Israel,

and they were under Roman occupation.

And as any government is going to do, they're going to tax the people.

And so Rome gave some Jews

authority to be their tax collectors or IRS agents.

Rome had their set amount of taxes that they wanted to collect,

but they gave authority to these tax collectors to charge more.

And many did.

And with the more that they charged their own people, they pocketed the extra.

And so tax collectors, Jewish tax collectors were working on behalf

of occupying Roman government, were hated by the Jews.

Matthew was one of them.

As a tax collector, he was very, very, very detailed.

Anybody who works with the IRS is very detailed about the money.

You all right?

Okay, so Matthew is no different.

Matthew, being a tax collector,

was invited by Jesus to be his disciple.

His apprentice, which brought the other disciples

because he was the outcast one.

He was the one knowing life.

Not only did Jesus invite Matthew to be an apprentice of his,

he also invited a zealot.

The zealots were the opposite of tax collectors.

They wanted to assassinate Roman authority.

So one was working for Roman authority.

One wanted to kill them all and Jesus put these two carts together.

Jesus usually does stuff like that.

And so Matthew brought all of this detailed,

very systematic way of seeing the world.

He brought that to the writing of his gospel.

The book of Matthew.

And Matthew was a very detailed account of the story of Jesus

from a Jewish mindset and perspective,

focusing on the royal line,

the kingship of the Messiah.

How many gospels are there

for good?

Luke?

Some of them are called Synoptic Gospels.

How many are synoptic Gospels?

Three. Good. Okay.

The Synoptic

Gospel means they basically tell the same story.

So the three synoptic gospels are Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

John's the fourth gospel.

He's kind of an outlier.

He's very, very different in his perspective of writing.

And what he records is very different than what we see in Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Two of the four writers of the Gospels

were disciples of Jesus and apostles Matthew and John.

Mark and Luke were not.

So Matthew was the only apostolic, author of the Gospels.

As a disciple of Jesus has a very unique,

view understanding

because he had a unique relationship with Jesus.

And so he brings all of that to the table

in writing his gospel.

Two things we're going to see

today.

Two things we're going to look at the genealogy of Jesus

from Matthew's perspective.

And then we're jump to Luke's for a little bit.

But the two things you'll see in the genealogy of Jesus are this.

We will see through his genealogy God's plan and through his genealogy.

God's presence.

And this is why it's important for us to study this,

because those are the two things that you and I need today as well.

We need an assurance and a confidence of both.

God's plan and his presence.

If God has a plan but he's withdrawn,

he's nothing but this ethereal

puppet master with no involvement.

If he's present but has no plan

and he's just a good pillow

and comforter.

So we need him to be both.

Both to have a plan and to have his presence with us.

And we see both of those in the genealogy of Jesus.

So this is important for us.

Old Testament prophecy

told us time and time and time again, and looking forward to the Messiah,

that the Messiah would come through Abraham's line,

through David's line, and through the tribe of Judah.

And both Matthew and Luke contain

genealogies of Jesus's background.

Matthew, in descending fashion from Abraham to Jesus.

Luke in ascending fashion from Jesus all the way to Adam.

So they both have genealogies, but they're different.

They tell the same story, but they're different.

And we're going to dive into those.

Matthew is concerned with the legal line

of Jesus through King David to Abraham.

And so Matthew begins, like this in Matthew chapter one, verse one.

If you have a Bible, turn there.

It's on the scriptures on our app, so you can follow along there as well.

This is the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David,

the son of Abraham.

Matthew's concern is the legal line

and the legal right that Jesus has to the throne.

Going back through David to Abraham.

While Matthew is concerned with the legal line,

the legal Jewish line that traces through David to Abraham.

This is not the bloodline of Jesus.

The bloodline is different because

Matthew's genealogy will travel through Joseph,

and Joseph was not or Jesus wasn't in the bloodline of Joseph.

You know why?

Because it wasn't Joseph's kid.

It was adopted by Joseph.

Jesus's bloodline

runs through Mary.

The interesting thing, if you're to read, I'll read it to you.

It's not on the screen. Let me just read this.

I was I was going over this Luke in verse 16 of Matthew one,

and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary,

of whom was born Jesus, who was called the Christ.

When the Greek text reads, of whom was born.

It's the singular feminine

word for that.

And so what the Matthew is saying is that Jesus came from Mary,

not from Joseph, of whom was born the singular feminine.

So it came from one feminine source, Mary, not Joseph.

And so it's clear, Jesus was of the bloodline of Mary.

Matthew with the legal line of Jesus.

Now I want us to consider who

was in the legal line of Jesus to the throne.

So go to verses two and three.

And the Bible says this Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,

Judah the father of Perez, and Zera, whose mother was Tamar.

Underline that one for you. She's important.

Perez the father, Perez Ron

has run the father of Ram, and it just goes through this litany.

All these, these three different lists of 14 generations

leading up to Jesus.

There are people in this lineage that we would expect to be there.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

I mean, all the I mean, all the.

Yeah, right.

I mean, these are ones that you're going to claim at the family reunions.

These are the ones like we're hanging our head on them because they, you know.

But there's some in this line that.

Especially as a Jewish person.

Just make it scratch your head

in this lineage that we'll find.

There are four women named.

And if you were trying

to establish a 40 and credibility, especially in a family lineage,

you would not use women because in that

not in that culture.

There was a famous Jewish prayer that Jewish men would pray every morning.

Thank you. Oh, God,

that I am not a Gentile, a dog or a woman

then.

So there just there wasn't much credibility in that.

And so the fact that Matthew uses for women in this lineage,

just like this, was going against protocol.

And the first woman he lists there is Tamar.

What's important about Tamar?

Again, remember I said the things we're going to focus on

today in this genealogy is God's plan and God's presence.

Okay, so

this woman came as a surprise to God.

It's a surprise to those who don't understand what God does.

But this woman, Tamar, and go back

all the way to Genesis 38 to read a little bit about her story.

Tamar husband dies.

She has no sons, and so that her family doesn't die out in that line.

Doesn't she acts as a prostitute

and tricks her father in law

into propositioning her, and she gets pregnant by her

father in law, Judah, and has a baby.

That's not the story that you tell

when families get together and talk about your heritage

right?

You leave that one out.

But just think about this seven generations

listed later in this, you come to, let's look at verse five,

Solomon, the

father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth.

Oh, the father of Jesse.

This is all in David's line.

So you come to this lady named Rahab.

You go back to Joshua two to hear some of her story.

She was she didn't act like a prostitute.

She was a prostitute.

And when the when the Hebrew spies went into the

to spy off the land, she hid them

and gained their favor.

So when they took over the land, they protected her and those with her.

And she kind of was adopted into the Hebrew family

and became a worshiper of their God.

So she wasn't even a Jew.

And she had a real question.

Well, there was no question about her past. It was back.

And she's a

part of this legal line of Jesus again,

not one that makes the family newsletter.

Not only that,

but then you come to this other lady named Ruth.

Ruth.

She was again another non Hebrew,

but her background goes like this.

If you go back to again the Old Testament and Abraham

has this nephew named lot,

and lot moves into this city area called Sodom and Gomorrah,

and Lord has two daughters and a wife and whatnot, and

and God finally tells a lot, look, I'm done with Sodom and Gomorrah.

I've had enough of them. I'm going to destroy them.

So get out. You and your family get out.

So they leave.

As they're leaving, lot's wife turns around

because she still kind of desires to be back in that environment,

and she turns a pillar of salt and lot and his daughters sweet.

The story goes that lot's daughters

are looking around thinking, there's nobody for us to have babies from.

So let's get dad drunk

and sleep with our father

and have kids through him.

So the oldest one does.

And what comes from that

incestuous relationship

are the people that we call the Moabites.

Ruth was a moabite.

That's her family lived.

From this ancestral relationship,

it's not a good.

It's not a good scenario.

Not only that, then this fourth woman that is

somewhat mentioned.

And Jesse, the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife.

Her name is

Bible students.

Bathsheba.

She's called the one who had been Uriah's wife. Why?

Because her story in second Samuel 11

is the story of lust,

of adultery, of contracted murder.

And all of this

is in the line

of Jesus, his legal line to the throne.

That's not even the worst of it

in the legal life.

We come to verse 11 of Matthew one and Joseph, Siya,

the father of Jacob Niya and his brothers at the time of the exiled of Babylon.

Now, that doesn't mean anything to most people, but it means something to me

and I'm going to help.

It means something to you.

This guy, Jack Anaya was a horrible, terrible king.

Everybody say horrible, terrible king.

He was a horrible, terrible king.

So bad.

Everybody say,

how bad was he?

You go back to Jeremiah chapter 22.

Jeremiah 22 · chapter mention

This is what God says of Jeremiah

is this man Jack and I despise broken pot in order no one wants.

Why will he and his children be ruled out, cast into the land?

They do not know. O land, land, land!

Hear the word of the Lord.

This is what the Lord says about this guy, Jack of niya,

who is in the legal land of David.

Record this man as if childless, a man

who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring,

Will prosper.

None will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah.

The line is done.

Does anybody see a problem?

Because of his sin that.

The bloodline

that would lead to the throne

seems to be severed.

There's no way

that the Messiah

through purely the.

I'm sorry. The legal line. Through the legal line.

It seems that that is severed.

And there's no way that the legal that the Messiah could be

a part of this legal line, because it's cut off here in Jeremiah 22.

And so it looks like legally,

the devil wins.

This has been his plan all along

to sever the legal line of the Messiah,

right?

Never wins

except

the devil never wins.

He's a defeated foe.

In those moments

in your life and in my life,

when it looks like the devil has got the last laugh.

We must remember

that as a defeated foe, the truth remains that greater is he who is in me.

Than he who is in the world.

Than a weapon formed against us even at the hand of the evil one will prevail.

That is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

So even when it appears there is no way.

No way.

Yes. What?

There's a way.

Even when all we see are roadblocks,

defeats.

Dead ends.

Oh, there's a way.

When it looks like the devil.

When we gotta remember.

We have a god who was with us.

And he died when?

Though we know that Greater Rashid was in me than he was.

Oh, no weapon formed against you will prosper. The.

Though we know all of that.

Sometimes it feels.

Though there is no way.

And this is where we push pause on the genealogy and Matthew want,

and we jump over to the genealogy in Luke chapter three.

In Luke chapter three.

The Bible tells us this.

Now Jesus himself was about 30 years old when he began his ministry,

and he was the son.

So it was thought of Joseph, the son of Hili.

Now, now this is.

Please stay with me here. I'll do my best.

To unpack this,

Luke says Jesus was the son, so it was thought of Joseph.

You notice his words? So it was thought. Why?

Because Jesus wasn't the son of Joseph right

now, as far as everybody else understood, who didn't know the story,

he appeared to be the son of John, but it was.

And it says that that,

Joseph was the son of Hili.

And let me explain something to you, how the Scripture is written here

in the in the original Greek text,

the words son

are not included in this genealogy.

It just reads, he was of this person.

So the way this actually reads is Joseph of Healy.

The the, the writers of the scribe inserted the word son.

So it would help us understand that these most of these

are the son up, but the actual text has no son there.

And in the Greek there's no word for son in law,

okay, that doesn't exist there.

And so the only way they had to write this was Joseph of Healy,

and they inserted the word son.

But here's what most likely Healy

Joseph was the son in law of Healy,

not the son of

okay, now,

Healy was the father of Mary.

Okay.

Joseph of Healy, who was the father of Mary.

So Healy is it is a part of this line through marriage.

But Mary was the daughter of Healy.

So what we have in Matthew is the line of the Messiah through Solomon

and that evil king Japanese in Luke three.

The son of,

Malia.

The son of Menna, the son of Matthew,

the son of Nathan, the son of David.

Luke's genealogy is different.

Matthew runs from David

to Solomon to this evil King

Mary's genealogy runs from David,

not through Solomon, because that's where this evil king is.

Runs to Solomon's other or so David's other son, Nathan,

because that's the line that Mary comes from

to understand.

Yeah.

The legal line.

David Solomon.

Jack, when I that line is cursed,

the bloodline.

Mary Healy, David

or Nathan David bypasses Jack or niya.

Both Joseph and Mary

are in the line of David.

Jesus legal line through Joseph.

Bloodline through Mary.

Both have a right to the throne.

So when it appears

that there is no way Jack or Naya,

God makes a way.

Mary,

to understand.

Some of you right now are looking at the jack layers in life.

You got a jack and I.

There's no way this thing has happened.

It is ruined. It.

There's no way

God says, oh no, no, there's a way.

Because I got a Mary in your life.

Do you understand?

Do you understand?

Get your eyes off the Jack.

And I.

It might be a roadblock.

It might be a detour.

It might be a dead end.

For now.

But God's got a plan

because of his presence.

Do you understand?

Now, this.

This is good news because of Mary.

But now we still got a problem here.

Here's the problem.

In that culture.

The blessing of the father does not run through women.

Yeah.

So, though Mary has a clear line, guess what?

She's not a son.

She's a girl.

She's a girl who identifies as a girl

and not a boy.

And so she has no right.

Right.

Unless

God made a way

and the way God made.

And if you don't know the Bible, you don't know the way.

Let that be a lesson, okay?

If you don't know the

Bible, you don't know the way.

The way for Mary

to be in line for the inheritance of the throne.

It goes back through numbers 27

and in numbers 27, there's

this man named the lesser had ever seen.

His love for that.

I don't know if he said it right, but you don't know the difference,

because he had five daughters and no sons,

and so his blessing

would not be passed to his son because he has no sons.

It would go to somebody else bypassing his daughters.

And so his daughters get together and they say, hey, this isn't right.

Just because we're not a boy doesn't mean the blessing of the father shouldn't

run through us.

And so they make an exception. There's an asterix,

and a new protocol is created

that says the inheritance can pass

to the daughters when no son is present.

And so God made a way.

God made a way

when there seemed to be no way. Yeah.

And because of the tragedy of the life and death, and having no sons.

And grace was given to the daughters,

and through the grace of God,

God made a way for Mary

to be the line of Jesus

to the throne.

Making a way

where there was no way,

long before generations before Mary had to have it.

God already did it.

What a good God.

What a God of grace!

What a God of foreknowledge!

What a God of planning.

I'm telling you,

I know that some of you all you see.

Is the

end, is the loss, is the roadblock, is the defeat.

Is the jack linear?

I am telling you, based on the truth of Scripture

that God has already made a way, even if you can't see it,

and you can allow yourself to deny it and walk away from him,

or to embrace it by surrender to him. Or.

The story of Christmas

is that God makes a way.

Christianity

is the only religion in the world where God comes to man.

Every other religion

and every other faith system is an attempt of man to get to God.

But Christiana is the only one where God says, no, no, no, I will come to you

because I am with you.

And Christmas proves it.

Matthew one verses 18 through 25.

The story is very familiar to most people.

It's the story of Christmas.

It's the story where God is with us, and Joseph and Mary are are engaged to be

married and engagement in this culture was as binding as the actual marriage.

Now, they had not had the sermon, they had not consummated their relationship yet,

but it was a legally binding agreement that had been already made.

And so to get out of engagement was literally a divorce.

In this culture, sexual purity was a

utmost importance,

and it wasn't to be trifled with and flirted around with.

And so when Mary discovers she's pregnant, she has inside information

from the angel that says, don't worry, Mary, the Holy Spirit's come upon you.

You're the chosen one of God.

And so she knows what's going on, but nobody else does.

Joseph finds out she's

pregnant, and Joseph, being honor man, decides this.

I love you, but I can't live with you.

And so I'm going to protect you.

But I have to end this.

I love the fact that Joseph

protected.

That was his first response.

I will protect this one who's hurt me.

It's amazing.

And then you know the story.

The angel comes, says Joseph. Don't worry, man, I got this.

Your wife is good and you're good too.

So go through with this.

This is of God.

And the moment he gained God's perspective, everything changed.

And here's what I know.

When we have to understand, when we gain God's perspective,

it changes our attitude and it changes our response.

See before God's perspective. I'm done.

There's no way I need out of the way.

I'm going after God's perspective.

It changes his attitude.

It changes his response.

God, I trust you and I'm in this because I know

that you got away and that you're with us.

The same thing for us.

If we lack God's perspective,

our attitude is one of I'm done, I'm out, this is over.

There's no hope.

But with God's perspective, my attitude and then my response changes.

God, I'm going to trust you, God.

I'm going to believe God.

I'm going to submit because you are good.

You got a plan. You're with me.

You understand?

Today.

And so the angel tells Joseph

that the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.

You'll call him Emmanuel, which means what church of God with us.

And let me ask you this question.

If this is Jesus's name.

Emmanuel, where was he ever called? Emmanuel? The scripture.

There's no

record of anybody ever calling him Emmanuel.

So how can you have a name and never be called

the name?

The entire biblical record

is the story of God with us.

The entire life of Jesus.

Is the story an example of God with us?

He is with us in the storm, walking on the water.

He's with us in the knee in the application of fish and bread.

He is with us in our lameness. By making us walk.

He is with us.

Making a way.

All through the life of Jesus

we see the truth of Emmanuel that God is with me.

And so think for a moment.

Let's go back to the genealogy.

God is with those.

God is with us

who agree to be adopted into his family.

And once I agree

to be adopted into the family of God, God is with me.

So think back to the genealogy for the liars among us.

If we are God's, God is.

You can't be so bad

that God says, I'm done

if you are his

and he is yours.

For the sinners among us,

if you are God, your God is yours.

God says, though you are sinner, I am with you.

For the sexually impure, guess what

God says not even that

can make me run away.

I'm with you

through the tragedies of life.

God says, because I am yours and you are mine.

No, that tragedy looks like a dead end of the defeat.

I am with you

through every misstep,

every sin, every hurt, every defeat, every failure.

God says, I am with you.

And that's his promise

to those who are with him.

Their friends.

And none of us are born into that relationship.

It comes through adoption,

where the father makes the plea,

I want you to be my.

And the child says, I want to be yours.

This is the promise and this is the purpose of Christmas,

that by faith

God is with us.

And all of this culminates God with us culminates

revelation 21, verses 345.

Let me read it for you.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

now the dwelling of God is with men, God with us,

and he will live with them.

God with us.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying,

no more pain for the old order.

The things has passed away.

He who

is seated on the throne said, I am making everything new.

And then he said, write this down,

for these words are trustworthy and true.

God is with us.

He will make a way.

If you surrender

fully to him.

And so the question that we have to answer,

every one of us.

Will I trust him enough today

to give myself fully to him?

So what I call a surrendered life.

When we surrender control.

When we surrender our rights

and our expectations.

And when we surrender to this God,

what's left in the wake of surrender

is joy and confidence.

Joy and calm.

Because I know I got a God that even though

there appears to be no way, there is a way.

Even though when all I see is dead end, there is a way.

Even when all I see is defeat.

There is a way.

So I can surrender completely and be filled with joy and calm.

Because I know I got a God

who not only has a way, but as promised, his presence with.

And when I know that my God has a way and has given me his presence,

I don't care about the defeat, the failure in the dead end.

I can look at it with joy and confidence because I got a God.

You understand?

Is not the God you have?

Oh, yes.

If it is

joy and confidence in the face of every defeat,

I ought to be left in the wake of that God.

This is Christmas.

This is Christmas.

Father.

Thank you.

Thank you that you made a way.

Thank you that you.

Have always made a way.

Oh, yeah. You promised us your presence.

You are a good God. God.

Father, I thank you that there's no defeat.

There's no sin, there's no failure.

There's no dead end.

There's no pit, there's no hole.

There's no habitat.

There's no hurt.

There's no hang up that's greater than you.

I thank you that you always make a way,

that you made a way through your son, and that he came to earth for me and for us.

The things that you've

invited us into your family.

Holy spirit, I pray that every person here would submit,

that we would submit ourselves and surrender.

To you, God, who made a way.

I'd encourage you in this moment.

Just.

It's.

To say something along these lines at this.

To have this moment between you and the God who makes it way,

the Jesus who is the way.

So you, God.

Thank you that you love me,

that you made a way.

I believe that ways through Jesus.

And I'm responding to your invitation

to be a part of your family because of Jesus.

Yeah.

Today

I accept your way

for my saving

through your son, Jesus.

Thank you for your forgiveness.

Give me the faith and the sight

and the trust and the confidence

to know and to remember

that you got a plan

and your presence is with me.

So I can live confidently,

with joy,

with you.

Father, we love you.

Thank you for the celebration of Christmas.

That reminds us of your presence in your plan.

That you've made a way where there seem to be no way

you are a good God.

In your name I pray, Amen.

Amen.

Listen, next week, Luke one.

So read through Matthew one with new eyes

and read ahead and Luke one in expectation.

And next week you understand.

Listen, I'm giving you this charge as your pastor

and as a head coach,

because we're getting ready for game day on Monday.

Okay?

So getting ready for game day,

you go into this with all confidence.

Not who you are, but and who he is that he's already made a way

that you surrender fully to him

and you go into game day with confidence and joy.

You understand that you carry Christmas with you

because he is a good God and you are not alone.

Yeah, you understand? Listen.