There's No Catch With Christ - Luke 2:8-14

anything like me, but I'm the type of person who's always looking for the catch.

So pretty much if something seems too good to be true,

then it probably is too good to be true.

And I think a lot of us today are very skeptical of good news because we've been duped so many times by supposed

good news, right? So for instance, a few months ago, my sweet innocent, beautiful, perfect

Ezra

decided to throw my phone across our hall and shattered the screen

because it's Ezra. And so I had to try to get a new phone.

And I saw an advertisement that they're still running today, by the way, because I saw it literally like two days ago.

An advertisement from Verizon that said any phone in any condition.

And I was like, well, that sounds like a pretty good deal.

So I call them up and I'm like, hey, my two-year-old just threw my phone, but good news is I saw your ad.

I want to take you up on that. And she goes, oh, your screen's broken?

I was like, well, yeah, but you said any phone in any condition. And she said,

actually, if your screen's broken, that's gonna be an issue unless you've already paid off your your phone currently.

And are you planning on buying the premium unlimited plan because you'll need to do that.

And you need to add at least three other lines to this plan in order to get this deal.

So do you have I'm like, no, what kind of swindling is this?

So it sounded like good news, but there was a catch. You had all these other things and don't even get me started on spectrum.

Yeah, yeah, you know,

there's a bunch of swindlers.

You know, after the hurricane, we were without internet for a few weeks. And then when we got our internet back,

it was like it was the first ever internet ever even created.

I mean, you couldn't do anything on that internet.

And so I saw that they were running this advertisement saying that basically if you were affected by the hurricane,

they'll give you a credit towards your bill.

So I call them up and say, hey, this sounds like really good news because we were affected by the hurricane.

So I'd like to get that credit and she tells me, okay, we can give you ten dollars.

And I politely informed her that she was about eighty dollars short of where she needed to be.

And she said, well, ten dollars will cover the two weeks you were without internet.

And I said, okay, but what about the fact that ever like every day since the hurricane,

you have sent me a text saying, and I don't know if y'all got these, I got a text saying your internet is out.

I said, so what about all those days? And she told me, kid, you not, she says,

well, if you wanted a credit for those days, you would have needed to have called us and told us that your internet is out.

And I said, hold on, I just want to make sure I'm hearing you correctly.

You're saying that every time you text me and tell me my internet's out, you want me then to then call you and tell you that you told me that my internet's out so that I can get a credit for my internet that day.

And she said, yes.

Okay, so listen, all of that is to tell you two things.

Number one, never trust spectrum.

And number two, people today are very weary of good news because they believe there's always going to be a catch.

And so for many people today, when you tell them that there is good news about Jesus,

that if you will turn from your sins, repent of them, trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, you will be saved and you will get to be with God forever in glory.

People go, okay, that sounds like good news, but what's the catch?

You say that this is good news for all people, but is it really all people?

I mean, what if I've lived a pretty bad life up to this point?

In order to get this good news, do I need to have grown up in the church? Do I need to be a certain type of religious person?

Do I need to come from a certain heritage?

You're saying this is good news for me, but I just want to know what's the catch?

And when you read this Christmas passage that we're all familiar with, I want you to understand the point that we're seeing here is that we can hope in the good news of Jesus because there is no catch with Christ.

We can hope in the good news of Jesus because there is no catch with Christ.

And praise the Lord for that, amen, church.

Now, when the Bible says that this is good news for all people, it means that it is good news for all people and that there is no catch involved.

This gospel, this good news, it fills us with hope.

And so the question that I want us to consider as we're going through this passage this morning is, how does the good news give us hope?

The angels come and tell us about the hope that's offered here in the good news, but how exactly does this good news give us hope?

I want you to look at verse eight with me, if you will.

The Bible says, and in the same region, there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock by night.

Now, I'm going to pause there and know what you're thinking.

We've only made it through one verse. You're already pausing.

Yes, because here's what we need to understand about shepherds.

When it comes to shepherds, we've kind of churched up the profession a little bit.

Okay?

Like when we see shepherds today, we tend to view them positively because of how prominent shepherds are in the Bible, how important they are in the Bible.

I know for me personally, like if I see a shepherd, I think, man, that is awesome.

That is such a biblical profession.

I would love to be doing that. That is so cool.

But what you need to understand is that no one in Jesus' day would have thought this way.

No one in Jesus' day looked positively upon shepherds.

Shepherds were the lowest of the low, and they lived on the outskirts of society.

In fact, they lived out in the fields with their flocks, which meant that shepherds were not able to keep the ceremonial law.

And since they were not able to keep the ceremonial law, they were considered ceremonially unclean.

There was also this idea at the time that almost everybody believed that shepherds were a bunch of liars and thieves.

And you actually see Jesus allude to this in John 10, verses 7 through 8.

John 10:7–8

Jesus, the Bible says so again, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All who came before me. So all these other shepherds are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

And so at the time, people believed that shepherds were thieves and liars,

and so much so, in fact, that a shepherd's testimony was inadmissible in court.

And so if you were actually, you know, something happened to you,

and a shepherd witnessed something happening to you, and you were assaulted or mugged or something like that,

and you tried to call them as a witness in court, the court would not allow their testimony to stand.

It was inadmissible because everyone believed they were thieves and liars.

And so with only the exception of lepers, shepherds were the lowest of the low.

Do you see how we've kind of churched it up today? We've kind of given them this new light today,

but at the time that was not present. And yet it is these very people, the lowest of the low,

the liars, the thieves, the unclean, that God chooses first to reveal the news of the birth of His Son.

It's so interesting when you read this passage that the Messiah and His birth was not first revealed

and announced to kings, rulers, billionaires, or business owners.

God chose to reveal the birth of Jesus to the unlikeliest of people,

people that no one would have included. And so folks, this teaches us something very important this morning.

It teaches us that the gospel is good news for all people without distinction.

The gospel is good news for all people without distinction.

Now you might be wondering, what exactly does that mean? Well, I'll tell you.

It means that the gospel is not like a college scholarship.

When I enrolled in college, I knew it was going to be expensive, but people said, hey, good news, you can apply for scholarships.

And scholarships, they sound like good news. Did they not? You're having trouble paying for something?

Good news is there's these scholarships and they're actually going to cover the calls for you.

So that's great. But I found out there was a catch with college scholarships.

As I start looking into them, I noticed that college scholarships were incredibly tailored to very specific people and very specific types of people.

So I'm reading through them and I'm being asked questions like, are you Native American?

No. Have you served in the military? No. Are you part of a minority group? Again. No.

I look into more scholarships and there were some ridiculous ones.

There was a scholarship that was willing to give you a scholarship if you were above like 6'6 or something.

So I was like, hey, are you 6'6? And I'm like, well, I mean, I could put that on my driver's license.

I mean, I don't know if you can tell from here. I'm just a little off from 6'6.

So not much, but I couldn't get that scholarship.

And there's another one for if you were really, really short.

So if you were below like 5' tall or something, you could get a scholarship for that.

But turns out I'm not that short either. So I'm not tall enough to get a scholarship.

I'm not short enough to get a scholarship.

There was in fact a scholarship for if you had red hair. So yeah.

And it says, hey, do you have red hair? I'm like, no, but my girlfriend does.

Turns out that gets you nothing. Nothing at all.

So I'm looking around trying to take advantage of this good news.

And what I found was in contrast to the ongoing narrative we hear all the time in this country,

turns out being a white male with dark hair meant that you were entitled to nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And so college scholarships sound like good news, but they're only good news for certain people.

You see what I'm getting at here?

And I want to just say praise the Lord this morning that the gospel is not like that.

The gospel is not good news just for certain people.

The Bible says the gospel is good news for all people without distinction,

which means that it doesn't matter if you're black, white, Asian, Hispanic, American or European.

It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.

It doesn't matter if you've lived a moral life or a reprehensible life.

It doesn't matter if you live in Heathwood or the backwoods.

The gospel is good news for you wherever you are this morning.

This is why this is such good news because it means that no matter where you are in life this morning,

this is good news for you and there is no distinction.

Just as God first brought the news of the gospel to the unlikeliest of people,

He still offers that good news to unlikely people today.

And I want to just tell you this morning, church, that the truth of this passage needs to be seen

and needs to be evident in the church today.

In other words, a church should not all look alike.

They should not all dress alike.

They should not all come from the same background.

They should not all come from the same socioeconomic status.

The church needs to have the diversity that is evident in the gospel,

which is just one reason why I love our church so much is because even though we might all look very similar,

we come from very diverse backgrounds and it is beautiful to see.

I mean, we've got people who have spent their entire life in church

and we've got people who spent time behind bars.

We've got people who own their own businesses.

We've got some other people who work retail.

We've got some people with deep pockets.

We've got some people with no pockets.

We've got people who I'm pretty sure they were born in the church like their mom gave birth in the baptismal.

They've been here ever since and they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

We've got that here at this church and then we've got other people who came to faith as an adult.

And the first time they ever stepped foot into a church service is when they were a grown adult.

We've got people who barely graduated high school and went on to work a factory job or a trade job.

We've got people with master's degrees.

We've got married people, single people, divorced people, and I want you to understand this church is

when we see this in the church today, we are seeing the truth of this passage in action

that Jesus came to seek and save the lost without distinction.

And so no matter where you are, no matter what your background is,

no matter your level of education or your financial situation,

I can promise you this morning on the authority of God's word that the gospel is good news for you.

In this gospel, I want you to notice what happens in this announcement.

Look at verse nine.

In an angel, the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, fear not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.

That will be for what church? All the people for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.

And this will be a sign for you.

You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

Now I know that everybody in here this morning is very familiar with this passage because it's the Christmas passage, right?

You're all familiar with it, but can we just take a moment to appreciate how much the sovereignty of God and the wisdom of God are on display in this passage?

I don't know if you've ever taken time to appreciate this, but think about how much the sovereignty of God is on display here.

Because after all, the whole reason that Joseph and Mary are in Bethlehem is because Caesar Augustus called for a census so that everyone would have to return to their hometown to be counted.

And since Joseph was from Bethlehem, he has to go to Bethlehem.

And you need to understand that God sovereignly orchestrated this in order to fulfill his prophecy in Micah 5-2.

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, you who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel, who's coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

So God revealed to Micah the plan about the Messiah.

And he says, Micah, tell the people that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem.

Now let's pause, all right?

Here's what God did not do.

God did not look down the corridors of time and see that one day there was going to be a man named Caesar Augustus, who would one day become emperor, who would one day call for a census, which meant that Joseph and Mary would then one day have to go to Bethlehem.

And it would be at the time for her to give birth.

And so Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem.

God did not look forward in time and see that and then go, all right, Micah, the plan is Bethlehem.

I see it, I'm looking down ahead and he is going to be in Bethlehem at the time.

So I need you to tell people that's where he's going to be born.

That is not how it happened.

From the foundation of the earth and even before the foundation of the earth, God sovereignly determined that Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem before Bethlehem ever even existed.

He sovereignly determined that Mary was going to be the virgin to give birth to Jesus.

He sovereignly determined that Joseph was going to be Mary's husband.

He sovereignly raised up Caesar Augustus and put him in place and worked in his heart to call this census in order to bring Joseph and Mary all the way to Bethlehem in order to fulfill what he had already determined that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.

Do you see the sovereignty of God here, church?

This is not an accident.

This is not God just getting it right.

This is God sovereignly orchestrating the events of the world to fulfill his plan.

So God does not act after humans.

God acts before humans and makes them adjust their plans to fall in accordance with his will.

That's the sovereignty of God on display here.

And I want you to think about the wisdom of God on display here.

I mean, God could have chosen anyone on earth to be the first people to hear the news of the birth of the Messiah.

And yet, who does he choose?

Shepherds.

And honestly, who better to choose than shepherds?

Because even though no one at the time really looked well upon shepherds, you have to remember that Jesus was not just going to be born the king of kings.

And he was not just going to be born the Messiah, but the Bible says that Jesus was going to be born to be our good shepherd.

You see, there's a problem in Israel.

And the problem was all the religious leaders of Israel who were called their shepherds were all corrupt.

And it's painfully ironic that the religious shepherds looked down upon common shepherds and said,

they were liars and thieves and unclean when the religious shepherds were a bunch of hypocrites.

And so God had a plan.

He even said in Ezekiel 34, verses two through four,

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.

Prophecy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God,

Oh, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves.

Should not shepherds feed sheep?

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up,

the strage you have not brought back, the lost you have not salt.

And with force and harshness, you have ruled them.

And so this was the problem.

And so God had a plan.

He said, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to get rid of all of Israel's corrupt, hypocritical religious shepherds.

And I'm going to replace them with my own son, the good shepherd.

And this is what he even prophesied back in Ezekiel 34, verses 15 through 16.

Ezekiel 34:15–16

God's solution, he says, I myself.

If you have your Bibles out and you want to circle some things, go through this passage.

Circle every time it says, I myself, you'll see the emphasis.

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.

And I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord.

I will seek the loss. I will bring back the straight.

I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong.

I will destroy and I will feed them injustice.

And so then it was fitting that the birth of the good shepherd was first announced to some lowly unsuspecting shepherds in Israel.

And here's what you need to keep in mind.

It was pretty clear to everyone in Israel at the time that the shepherds needed saving.

If anyone needed salvation, it was the shepherds.

If you're looking on this scene and you're here in 1st century Israel, you would have thought, well, yeah, that makes sense.

It makes sense that the angels would say to them, hey, guess what? God's got good news for you.

God's going to send you a savior.

He's going to do something about your uncleanness and your sin.

He's going to bring about redemption and atonement. That would have made sense to them.

But I want you to notice this church. The angels did not say this was just good news for the shepherds, did they?

They said this was going to be good news for all people.

And that teaches us something very important this morning.

It teaches us that the gospel is good news for all people because all people need the gospel.

The gospel is good news for all people because all people need the gospel.

If y'all let me chase a rabbit here for a moment, I'm going to.

You see, there is a problem in the church today and it's been a problem for a very long time.

At least the past hundred or so years.

The church has been preaching morality as the gospel for so long that people in the church today think that the only people who need the gospel are the quote unquote bad people.

You'll see what I'm saying.

People today, we ask, well, who needs the gospel? Who should we witness to?

Oh, you got to go for the addicts.

You got to go for the ones who sleep around, those who cuss, the poor, the homeless, the immoral.

Those are the people who need the gospel.

Those are the people who need to hear the good news of Jesus.

And hey, listen, that's true. I'm not saying it's not true.

But what I'm saying is the problem is because we tend to only think of bad people as the ones who need the gospel.

The church has become completely inept at evangelism.

We have no idea how to actually share the gospel anymore in the church today.

Because what happens when we come across someone who's pretty well off?

What about that?

What happens when we come across people who are respected members of their communities?

What happens when we come across people who love their families well and provide for them?

I'll tell you what happens because I've had people say this to me so many times I can't even remember at this point.

They'll come to me and they'll say, hey pastor, my co-worker, my friend, my family member, they're not a Christian.

But they're not really a bad person.

You know, they've got a good marriage. They make good money.

They participate in community events. They're well liked and well respected by people all around here.

And so I don't really see a problem in their life so I don't know how to share the gospel with them.

And it comes from this belief that we have today that the gospel is a solution to some sort of worldly problem.

And I want to just tell you this morning church that the gospel is not primarily a solution for poverty, addiction,

immorality, or any other worldly problem. The gospel is the solution to sin.

And that's a problem that everyone has.

The Bible says that if you are not in Christ, you are dead in your sins.

And so it doesn't matter how moral your life is. It doesn't matter how many good things you do or how good you are to those around you.

If you do not have Jesus, none of it matters.

And so listen to me. If you're wanting to share the gospel with someone in your life, I want to encourage you.

Stop looking for some sort of worldly problem to address as though the gospel is primarily about solving that issue.

And instead focus on the fact that that person needs Jesus.

I mean, I remember having a conversation with someone I used to work with, someone that everyone liked, and he was an atheist.

And he didn't really have any of these problems that we looked for.

And so I was like, okay, well, let's figure out how we can have a conversation with him.

And I remember talking with him one day at Lowe's, and I remember telling him, I said, hey, listen, everyone at this store likes you, man.

Like, no one's got any problems with you. No one has anything bad to say about you. Your friends with everyone.

I mean, by everyone's standards here, you're living a great life.

I said, but the problem is at the end of the day, we are all going to stand before God one day.

And he's not going to ask us if we live the good life.

He's not going to ask us how many people like this or how many people have good things to say about us.

I said, the only question he's going to ask us on that day is, have you trusted in Christ for salvation?

I said, buddy, I just want to tell you, if you haven't done that, then everything else you have going on right now in your life, it doesn't matter.

You have to trust in Jesus because if your answer is no, you haven't trusted in Jesus, he's going to say, well, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness.

I never knew you. Do you see the difference there, church?

We don't have to look for a worldly problem to try to fix.

We need to get to the heart of the issue and the heart of the issue is that people are dead in their sins and they have no ability to be alive in Christ apart from salvation in Christ.

And so the gospel is good news for all people because all people need the gospel.

Jesus didn't just come for the thieves and the liars for the unclean.

Jesus came for the businessmen. He came for the politicians.

He came for the wealthy. He came for the single mothers. He came for the upright. He came for the church members.

Jesus came to seek and save the lost.

And that is why this is good news.

And this good news is not just about salvation, but the Bible says here it's about peace.

Look at verses 13 and 14.

The Bible says, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying,

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

Now here's what's really interesting about this is that the angels are announcing this at the exact same time as the Pax Romana,

which just means the peace of Rome. This was a time of great peace in Rome.

And Rome loved to flaunt their peace.

They loved to go about talking about the Pax Romana, but you have to understand that their peace came at a price.

Their peace involved subjugation and enslavement.

It was peace for Rome at the expense of all others.

And so at the end of the day, it was a superficial peace.

And here's what I found interesting.

I found a Stoic philosopher who was writing at the exact same time that Luke wrote his gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

A Stoic philosopher writing at the same time.

And this is what he said.

He said, while the emperor may give peace from more on land and sea,

he is unable to give peace from passion, grief, and envy.

He cannot give peace of heart for which man yearns more than even for outward peace.

That's coming from a non-Christian Stoic philosopher who's recognizing that this peace Rome's bragging about,

it's not really that peaceful.

It's superficial.

And in contrast to this superficial peace, the angel declares that there will be peace on earth for all those with whom God is pleased.

And let me tell you folks, that just teaches us that we will never have true peace until we have peace with God.

We will never have true peace until we have peace with God.

I mean, you look at our lives today and I think we're a lot like Rome,

because we can have all manner of superficial peace.

And most of the time our peace is based on what?

Church, give me one guess.

What's our peace based on?

Our circumstances, right?

That's entirely what we base our peace on.

It's our circumstance and what's going on in life at the time.

And so here's what happens.

We say, hey, I'll have peace as long as I have this amount of money in my bank account.

That gives me peace.

But then what happens when that number drops below?

All of a sudden you're not so peaceful anymore, are you?

All of a sudden you're getting anxious and worried.

Or we'll say, I have peace as long as when we get together as a family and we have our family get together at Christmas,

we can make it through it without one argument.

My family has not yet been able to do that, but there's still hope.

There's still time.

But we say if there is an argument, well, then we didn't actually have peace.

Why?

Because of this circumstance that happened.

Or if there's no drama or difficulty in our lives, we say, hey, I have peace.

Why do you have peace?

Because everything's going good right now.

Everything's smooth.

You know, there's no drama.

There's no difficulty.

Life is pretty good.

And what happens, something goes wrong and you get anxious again.

And you get fearful.

And you get worried.

And all of your peace goes.

And so what that tells me is that we are basing our peace on our circumstances rather than grounding our peace in Christ.

I want you to understand this morning, church, that Jesus did not come to give us a superficial peace like Rome.

He came to give us a true and lasting peace that surpasses understanding, the Bible says.

It means that Christians can have a true and meaningful peace in any and every circumstance that would typically cause the world to become fearful and anxious.

And I've seen this personally myself.

I mean, I've witnessed it.

I witnessed it a multiple times this past year.

And it's so encouraging when you see this.

I remember talking with Michael Stevenson this past year.

He was going through a difficult situation where his boss didn't really like him and he thought his boss was trying to get rid of him at work and looking for a reason to fire him.

And so he thought he was about to lose his job.

And so he started looking for another job, another opportunities.

And I remember talking with him at the time and I went to have lunch with him.

I said, Michael, just be honest with me, man.

Like, are you not worried about losing your job?

Are you not concerned about it at all?

And in typical Michael peaceful fashion, he said, no, I've prayed about it and I'm at peace.

I'm trusting that the Lord will provide and he will put me wherever I need to be, whether that's here or whether that's somewhere else.

I don't know, but I'm trusting that God is going to provide.

So I'm not worried about it at all.

Now that was in the context of having multiple kids to provide for, a wife to provide for, a house that has a mortgage, cars to pay for, schools and college and everything else.

That sounds real nice.

And then you take in the context and you go, how can a person have peace when so much is on the line?

And it's because his peace is not based on those circumstances or situations. His peace is rooted and grounded in Christ and knowing that God is going to lead him, guide him and direct him wherever he needs to go.

And I think we've all personally witnessed this and Don Cruz this past year.

Have we not?

I mean, I've told you many times before I cannot imagine going through what Brother Don has gone through this entire past year.

I mean, being with Jan day and night, every single day and night as her dementia slowly took more and more of her away from him.

And he was right by her side.

And I remember shortly after Jan passed, I went to visit Don at his house and I said, Don, I know this might seem like a silly question, but how are you doing right now?

What are you feeling in this moment?

And Don said to me, well, I'm sad she's gone, but I'm at peace.

And I wouldn't wish her back now for anything else in the world.

And ever since she has passed and we have seen Don, has he not had an air of peace about him?

Does he not just walk around with that peaceful demeanor?

Folks, I want to tell you something that this cannot be attributed to age or wisdom.

When we see peace from Michael and Don and others in these types of trying circumstances, this is a peace that can only be attributed to having peace with God.

And it is clear evidence when someone is able to have that peace that this is a person with whom God is pleased.

You see, when you read those words of peace on earth among all those with whom God is pleased, that shouldn't tell you, well, I've got to go do something to make God pleased with me.

I've got to make sure I'm in church enough. I've got to make sure I'm reading my Bible enough.

I've got to make sure I give money to the homeless.

I've got to make sure I participate in these events and serve here and volunteer here.

If God is going to be pleased with me, I've got to go and do something in order to achieve it.

And the whole point that this is saying here is actually it has nothing to do with what you're going to do.

It has everything to do with what Jesus came to do.

God is not going to be pleased with you based on your performance.

God's going to be pleased with you based on Jesus's performance by turning away from yourself and trusting in Jesus Christ that his life was sufficient to please the Father.

That his resurrection was true. That he is ascended on high to today.

And if you have all your hope and trust in Jesus, then God is pleased with you.

So it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with Jesus.

And the good news for you this morning is that this peace can be yours today.

And I know that sounds like a churchy thing to say. I'm admitting it.

Sounds like a very preacher thing to say on a Sunday morning for a Christmas sermon.

But it is absolutely true that this peace can be yours today because this is the peace that God offers us in Christ.

This is the peace that Jesus himself even talked about in John 14, 27.

He says, peace I leave with you.

In my peace I give to you.

Notice these words, church, not as the world gives do I give to you.

So my peace is not going to be based on your circumstances.

It's not going to be based on whatever is going on in your life at the time.

I'm giving peace in a different way.

And so let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid.

He says in John 16, 33, I have said these things to you that in what? In me.

Yeah, you see that? That you may have in me, you may have peace, not in your circumstances,

not in your bank account, not in your job security, not in your relationship status.

But in Christ you will have peace.

In this world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

And that's it, church. Do you see what I'm talking about?

We can hope in the good news of Jesus because there is no catch with Christ.

This is not the the carrot held out in front of the donkey saying, oh, you're almost there.

You're just a little bit closer. You're going to get that carrot.

Now this is good news saying Jesus is offering you salvation.

He is offering you eternal life.

He is offering you hope. He is offering you peace.

And there is no catch.

The only stipulation is you have to stop trusting in yourself.

You have to stop trusting in your good works.

You have to stop trying to earn your way into God's favor.

And you have to say, I'm putting everything I have in Christ.

All of my hope, all of my trust, all of my faith is in Jesus.

His life was enough. His death was enough. His resurrection is true.

And he is coming back. All of my hope is in that alone.

This can be yours today.

And so what I want us to do this Christmas and every day after we should be praising God for the Savior,

He sent for us to live the life that we were required to live but couldn't live

and to die the death that every single person deserved to die

so that through faith in Him we can live with God and enjoy Him forever.

Amen. Let's pray.