From Home to House, The Bethlehem Journey

Let's have a prayer, Dear Heavenly Father. If we are

truthful with ourselves, we live somewhere between a house and

a home, yearning for a home. There are times in

which life is hard, the journey rough, and we need

you Lord in the journey, not just at the end

of the journey. So come to us as we seek

to understand what it means for you to have come

from home to house in the Bethlehem journey in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Micah five to two is one of those sillient, brilliant

verses in the Bible that should awaken our consciousness to

who God is in our life and who Jesus is

in the plan of salvation. Every Christmas we reminded of it.

But you, Obeth Frotha, who are little to be among

the clans of Judah. From you shall come forth from

me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose

origin is from of old, from ancient days. Ifrotha in

Hebrew means fruitful or exhausted with the idea of worthlessness,

I mean so here we have a name of a city, Bethlehem,

of Pratha, and the adjective that describes Bethlehem is not

one we would expect. It literally means fruitful or exhausted,

but the idea of worthlessness is core to the meaning.

The subduedgent Greek translation of the Old Testament Hebrew reads

Bethlehem house of a Fratha, few in number among the

thousands of Judah. Bethlehem is the house of Afraththa Frotha

is the house of worthlessness, exhaustion, pain, and somehow it

holds the promise of fruitfulness embedded in the Word as

well and life. In spite of the tragic nature of

the bethley Ham journey. We don't find Bethlehem early in

scripture is a positive place. We find Bethlehem as a

challenging place. The Hebrew text reads Bethlehem is little among

the clans of Judah. The Greek Old Testament translates it

as few in number. Not the majority here is in mind,

but the miserable few you might leave out as of

no concern is the concern of the Bethlehem journey. See,

God cares about the few that no one cares about.

He cares about the person that's been excluded and marginalized

in life. He cares about the person who feels pulverized

and doesn't feel like they have a future. In the

Bethlehem Journey, how does the song go, O, Little Town

of Bethlehem, The little town of Bethlehem. How still we

see thee lie above thy deep and dreamless sleep, The

silence stars go by, Yet in the dark streets the

everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years

are met in thee tonight, the very first time the

word Bethlehem appears in the Bible, is wrapped around a

tragedy of a dying mother, Rachel, and her child who

will never see his mother again. In Life Bethlehem, it

is the story of a husband who loses his wife

but gains a son in her sorrow to remind him

of his sorrow and loss for the rest of his life.

The idea of sudden sickness, of early abandonment, of loss,

of pain and death is wrapped around the storyline that

is the Bethlehem Journey that ends in tragedy early on

in the Book of Genesis. But then life goes on,

doesn't it. It doesn't just end in tragedy. Life goes on.

In the Bethlehem Journey Genesis thirty five eighteen to twenty

writing of Rachel, Moses records this tragedy. And as her

soul was departing for she died, she called his name Benonna,

but his father called his name Benjamin. So Rachel died,

and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that

is Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar upon her grave.

It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there

to this day. Benoni means son of my sorrows. Jacob

couldn't handle the name Rachel gave her son. He just

couldn't tag him with that for the rest of her

his life, and so he renamed his little boy Benjamin,

the son of the right hand. Rachel was buried a

Frotha that means exhausted or worthless.

She poured out her life, last life.

Energy to give birth to the boy of her sorrows,

and then she died Bethlehem Ephratha. Rachel was buried at

Ephrathra that means exhausted her last energy. As her soul departed,

her breath departed. Rachel was buried in a place called

Worthless that would be named later the House of Bread,

a paradox Bethlehem. Aprotha represents pain and loss in the

most basic visceral terms.

That is the house of suffering, but a house of promise.

Nonetheless, because life's journey goes on the house of bread,

it would become if we are honest with ourselves, we

must confess that we live in houses just like that.

We live in places with painful memories, worthless feelings at

time in the messy mix with losses and death, traumas, failures,

family conflicts. In our journey, that is the Bethlehem journey,

every house here has those painful parts in play. Pain

is altogether familiar in.

Our kind of houses.

In Jenesis forty eight to seven, Jacob will later say

that he buried Rachel literally in the road to Effroth,

that is bethley Ham.

Right there in the road.

He puts a tombstone, so you would never forget who

Rachel was. It's a paradox that Bethlehem is called a road,

but it means literally the house of bread. How is

a house of road? The place that is named the

house of bread is a road Because Bethleyhem is a

journey of both pain and promise, and of bread also

is a destination that brings you home to God in

the journey that is hard, the journey from home to

house and house to home, and our journey to find God. Friend,

we are not alone on the road with pain and

sorrow all around. You may have been hammered coming up

to Christmas. Your life dreams may have fallen apart. Maybe

you lost a loved one. Maybe you have been struggling

at a level that is beyond belief. And dear heart,

the story of the Bethlehem Journey is for us who

live on the road where we need to have God

in the road. Maybe you've been on that kind of

road this year, and maybe you were wondering if God

is there to be found in your house of pain

and loss and sorrow that you don't talk about when

you come to church. Maybe you feel it's a worthless

kind of house. Maybe you can't connect with God in

your life. Dear Heart, God is to be found on

the road, and maybe in your journey you ask the question,

where is God for me in my house today? If

you exclude a Bimelech, the ninth judge of Israel, who

was named Ibsen, if you exclude him from the list

of the judges, he was number nine, not number ten,

Samson would not be number thirteen, but number twelve. Ibson

was a judge who judged Israel. He came from the

town of Bethlehem. His name in Hebrew means a father

of a target or father of coldness. Friends, there are

times in life when you feel like there's a big

target on your back. Have you ever felt that way?

Anybody ever felt that way? The devil shooting at you

can't get the target off your back. And there are

times you feel like God is cold and far from you,

a father of coldness. The Bethlehem journey is our journey

at times. It's when we have a hard time connecting

with God. It's when we struggle to feel like God

loves us. In troubled times, we ask hard questions of God. Well,

why does God seem to be a father of coldness

to me and my family? Why has God made me

his target in life? You might ask? Job asked the

same question Job sixteen twelve. Notice what he says, the

great sufferer, I was at ease and he broke me asunder.

He seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces.

He set me up as his And how does the

text read as his target? I mean there are times

in our relationship with God when you can legitimately ask

the question, why has God made me his target? You know, friends,

we live in a real world with a real God

who knows what we go through, and he's not here

nullifying our experience or feelings in life. Ibsen was buried

in Bethlehem, just like Rachel after she gave birth to Benoni,

named the son of my sorrows, pain, isolation, sorrows, coldness,

is rightly buried in the house of the Fratha on

the road of life that is called Bethlehem of Judah.

The first idea of Bethlehem the Bible is a house

that hurts, a house that keeps on hurting, a house

that struggles, yearning to become a home. In the plan

of God, Bethlehem of Pratha represents a house that is

a very poor place for a home. It seems Bethlehem

of Pratha is represented of the road. We all live

on the road we universally suffer on the road we

are buried on in our long slog to find God

in life. If the road to Bethlehem that is a Frotha,

is all there is in our journey of life, then

our house here is not a good place to call

a home. Moses taught us that before there was a world,

before there was an earth that was put in space,

before there were stars and galaxies, before there was anything

time space, as Einstein called it, God was our slanding

spot for the future. God was our dwelling place, our home,

the promise of all that could be in Psalms ninety,

verse one, one of my favorite verses in the Old Testament,

Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations

verse two, before the mountains were brought forth, or even

thou hast formed the earth and the world from everlasting

to everlasting. Thou art God. I mean, that's the central

point you can land on in life. That's the reality

that fixes us with purpose and meaning. No God, no home, God,

you have home, Jesus said in John fourteen to two.

In my father's house are many rooms. God's heart is

so big that he does not try to exclude any

one of his children. It is big enough for every

human being and every creature in the universe. If God

is our house, as Moses claims, then the heart of

God must be a big house. For a big home,

a house that is room, room for the small, room

for the great, room for the weak, room for the strong,

room for the broken and the mended. A house that

is a room only is not good enough without God

inside the house. A house that is an isolated room

is only a raw kind of row unless God is

the place to call home on the road, dear heart,

God is what makes our house a home and our

journey a home. No God, no home. The whole Book

of Ruth is wrapped around the city of Bethlehem. How

many of you read the Book of Ruth? I mean

amazing story. It reads like a soap opera in a way,

but it's not. It's a drama of how love and

life and tragedy men together so that God finds a

woman on the outside and brings her home. Naomi leaves

the house of bread that is Bethlehem for the foreign

fields of Moab, where famine strikes hard, and where her

two sons die, and where her husband dies and her

life fars falls apart in that foreign land. Naomi came

home to Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest

in the spring, with only Ruth, her Moabitis daughter in law,

and on the road to Bethlehem. On the road that

is lost in the journey. There's a hard life. There

is a good time and a good place, a providential

point in her life where the factors coalesced, where God's

providences intervene, where love and life meet, and her life

starts all over again, all over again, and Naomi's journey

full of sorrows and lost. God leads Naomi home. Now

she said to them, do not call me Naomi, call

me what. What does the text say, Well, it's in

Ruth one twenty there it is, do not call me Naomi,

but call me what. Mara means bitterness by the way

and Hebrew, but it can also mean vision, a feminine

vision for the Almighty has dwelt very bitterly with me.

Now all she could see, thank you so much. All

she could see in the storyline is the fact that

her life was bitter.

Thank you that does a great work for the pastor.

But she could not see the vision of a life

that would make a different difference. She had seen her name

in the wrong light. Verse twenty one. I got two

of these, that is super duper, she says. I went

away full, thank you, And the Lord has brought me

back empty. Why call me Naomi when the Lord has

afflicted me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me.

So Naomi returned and Ruth the moabide is her daughter

in law with her, who returned from the country of Moab,

and they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the

barley harvest. Now that's important here. Barley is the first

grain that spout sprouts in the spring. Jesus was resurrected

at the time of the barley harvest. Barley is food

that comes to life at the end of a hard winter.

Barley is for bread, hearth, and home, a warm fire,

family gathering. Somehow, Bethlehem is the place where God finds

you when you were hungry, alone and lost. How do

even like barley soup vegetable soup with If you don't

put the barley in vegetable soup, you can forget it.

I don't like it now, you hear me, ladies. So

if you make vegetable soup, put some barley and let

it do its thing. Bethlehem is the place where God

feeds you when famine has struck hard in your life,

when the winter has hit you. Bethlehem is the right

landing in your journey at the end of a hard

winter full of famine, death and pain. No one will

ever be found by God unless they are lost in life.

You can't be found if you have not been lost.

No one will ever be healed by God unless they

are first wounded on the road that is life. You

can't be healed if you have not been wounded. So

don't bemoan the path you've been on. Don't feel hard

about the fact that you have been wounded. God lifts

up the one who has been thrown down. In fact,

Hoseiah says he has torn that he may heal. God

is the answer to the question hard asked on the

road that leads to Bethlehem, the House of God Micah five,

verse two. But you, oh Bethlehem of Fratha, who are

little to be among the clans of Judah, from you

shall come forth for me, one who is to be

ruler in Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days.

This promise of Jesus prophetic promise centuries before Christ was born,

kneeling the place of his birth, prophetically establishing his identity

by the authority of the Holy Prophet. This promise of

Jesus is the promise of his coming to Bethlehem.

To save us.

And Micah five to two, Jesus came from two directions,

not one. We think, well, he just came from Mary.

He came from Bethlehem. No, Christ comes from two directions,

converging in Bethlehem's manger. Number one, Jesus came from Bethlehem.

On the human level, he was born at the seat

of David. He was born from Adam. He was born

a human being. Somehow God prepared a body for him.

He came to us as humanity. But number two, Jesus

comes from the ancient past. In Micah five to two,

he comes from the distant eternity as God at the

divine level, and the two meat and the baby of Bethlehem.

Our need is met in Jesus. The Hebrew text Lily

reads that he is from the East, from days of

eternity Manhatam, from the east the dawn. In fact, the

book Revelation indicates that Jesus is the bright and morning star.

Before there was.

A dawn, before there was a time, before there was anything,

there was Jesus. And you can't have that credential if

you're created being. Before there was a dawn, Jesus was

the bride and morning star. The Book of Hebrews says

Jesus created the eons, the time ages. Einstein calls that

space time the fabric of reality. Before there was a was,

there was Jesus from the east from days of eternity,

in his journey from his home to our house. See,

God is not a monad. Some people say, well, you know,

God just exists an attorney, and then he popped in

Jesus so he wouldn't be alone. Friends, God is the

triune God of eternity, and there is in the nature

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that love grasp.

That is the character of God. That is the covenant

of God. And from the bounty of God's love. The

universe came, not from the emptiness of God's need. The

problem with the anti trinitarian philosophy is that it fails

to recognize that we need the triun God to have love,

to have the covenant, that is the Ten Commandments. A

selfish God cannot save you. A God who gives, God

can say. And so in Bethlehem's Manger, eternity converges with humanity.

Before there was it was there was Jesus from the east,

the hebrew says, from days of eternity. Somehow the God

of all eternity met us in the baby born in

Bethlehem's manger. As the Great I Am who is our home.

He became the I Am here, God, Jesus. If Jesus

is merely a created being, as some claim ignorantly, then

nothing special is born in Bethlehem's manger. No grand revelation

of God comes to us at Christmas. If Jesus is

not the Great I Am God of the Bible. The

prophet Micah is very clear who Jesus Christ is. The

text says, from you shall come forth for me one.

Jesus came to us for God's sake. God's character brought

Jesus to us. God's representative to the human race is

God with us, Emanuel. God sent Jesus to us because

Jesus is God who must become one of us. He's

the bridge between the eternal God and our everlasting need.

Jesus is God's love letter to the world, the ancient

of days, the timeless Word. Peter calls him the living

and abiding Word of God, the Word of the Lord

that came to Abram and a vision was Jesus. The

everlasting covenant of God's love is Jesus, the messenger of

the covenant God's nature. His character of love is Jesus,

the outshining of his eternal glory. All of God was

manifested in Jesus in Bethlehem's manger from a deep eternity

to Bethlehem to the Cross and beyond. Jesus is God's

final word, God's last answer to pain, God's decisive gift

to reverse loss. Our sense of worthlessness imbued with value

by the gift of God and Jesus. In The Journey

that is a Hard Life, John tells us that Jesus

came from the bosom of the Father. Now, some people

have interpreted that to meaning that Jesus was created, that

he somehow he emerged from God's bosom, emanated from God

as a demi God. The Bible does not teach that,

nor does the Spirit of Prophecy. The bosom of the

Father Friend is a warm place full of love, acceptance, life,

and joy. God, the Father, God, the Son God, the

Holy Spirit wrapped in love. The bosom of the Father,

the association of Holy Angels Jesus came from the bosom

of the Father when he was born in Bethlehem's Manger,

to give us God and the love that is God.

John one ten. He was in the world, and the

world was made through him. Now Jesus isn't just a

moral teacher. Jesus is the creator the universe. Yet the

world didn't know him. He created this plan, he terroorformed.

He was the light of God at the dawn of

time Verse eleven. He came to his own home, and

his own people received him. Not Jesus came to Israel.

Now the Greek doesn't say home. The Greek says his own.

The Rise Standard version expands it there.

But he had.

Taken his place as the head of the Jewish nation,

as the angel of God's covenant that protected Israel in

ancient times, and they rejected him Verse twelve. But to

all who received him, Now, how many of you want

to be in that camp, I'm gonna raise my hand

high to all who received him who believed in his name.

God's name is God's law, his covenant, his character. He

gave power to become children of God. When we read

the word of God, we accept the truth. We are

endued with knowledge insight to become the children of God.

Next verse, who were born not blood, nor the will

of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God,

the new birth through the living and abiding Word of

God Jesus. And then notice what happens here, and the

Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace

and truth. And we have beheld He is glory. If

you're using the Old Testament language, we have beheld the

Chkina glory of God in Jesus. Glory is of the

only son from the Father. The light that comes from

God is God. That light is the Chicaina glory. Jesus

is the light of the world. And so don't think

for a minute that Jesus is just some demi God

that shows up to impress us that God created to

solve his problems out of his selfishness and loneliness. Not so,

he came from the bosom of the Father. The light

that emanates from God, who is light ellen white. The

Tsar of Ages page twenty four, that first chapters are

of agents should be read by every Christian. The most

brilliant treatise on the incarnation ever written is that chapters

are of ages. It's chiastic, which means it's a supernatural chapter.

The Holy Spirit gave us that chapter through Sister White.

The Testament of Jesus. By his humanity, Christ touched humanity

by his divinity.

He lays hold upon the throne of God.

As the son of man, he gave us an example

of obedience. As the son of God, he gives us

power to obey. It was Christ who, from the bush

on Mount Horebes, spoke to Moses, saying.

I am that I am. That's clear.

Who was the god of the burning bush? According to

this passage, Jesus was. He was the word that spoke

to Moses as the Great I am God. Thus thou

shalt say, under the children of Israel, I am hath

sent me unto you.

This was the place deliverance.

So when he came in the likeness of men, he

declared himself the I am the Child of Bethlehem, the

meek and lowly Savior. Is God manifest in the flesh.

And she quotes one Timfy three sixteen God in human flesh.

Next slide, and to us he says, I am the

good Shepherd, I am the Living Bread, I am the

way the truth of life.

All those statements in.

The Gospel of John are I Am Yahweh's statements, Jehovah

Yahweh statements. All power is given to me in heaven

and earth. That is only possible if you are divine.

I am the assurance of every promise. I am be

not afraid, and I like that part God with us

is the surety of our deliverance from sin, the assurance

of our power to obey the law of Heaven. You

strip Jesus of his divinity and you can forget yet

obeying God. There's no power in a life that looks

to Jesus as something less than Almighty God and human

form are the savior of the world. It takes God

to save, not a demigod or a human being. This

is why this false teaching that has come into the

church as of late is a direct attack upon the

Gospel and the person of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

If the Jesus who was born in Bethlehem is only

a man for you, then Jesus is not enough to

save you. Wrap your head around that, dear heart. Jesus

is the great I Am who comes here so God

can make his home in our house, Emanuel, God with us.

So God can actually be here right now in the

journey that is life. Christ comes to be the I

Am here God in your life and my life. Not

the eye exist God, the I Am here God, Emanuel,

God with me and you from home to how Jesus

comes here to be near and to save and love

you in the journey of life, because God is love

John one point seventeen. For the law was given through Moses,

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ verse eighteen. No

one has ever seen God the only Son, the monogamy

we us, the only begotten Son, the unique son. It

carries all of that connotation. Who is in the bosom

of the Father? He has made him known. I am

in the Father and the fathers in me. The gift

of Jesus is the gift of God. The man who

is the great I Am, who is our home is Jesus.

We're getting ready to put a Christmas tree up at

our house, and many of you put your Christmas trees up.

Yet put your Christmas trees up. Some of you have.

Good I'm gonna put one up for sure. The ladies

in our church did this wasn't that nice of this

to do this? We have lights on this Christmas tree.

I like lights.

You know, it's not a gaudy tree.

They didn't put a lot of stuff up here to

try and make it look like jingle and jangle.

They put lights on the tree. You know.

Jesus in a way is the tree of life, and

he's the light of the world. Let's leave the trees

that way. It's beautiful. If you want to bring a

gift for the mission field or something, Sister White tells us,

you can put them on a tree like this, and

we ought to. So if you want to get some

Christmas gifts for the Lord and for offering, it'd be

nice to hay him on the tree. When Jesus found Zachius,

he found him where in the tree. Burdened with his

sin and failure. He was in a tree. And Jesus

said this to Zacchius, right up there in the tree.

And he says the same to us every day of

our life Luke nineteen five. And when Jesus came to

the place, he looked up and saw him and said

to him, Zacchius, make haste and come down. And what

did Jesus say Next, look at the text for I

must stay at your house today. That's what he's saying

to us. I must stay at your house today. The

man who is the great I Am, who is our

home in all generations, must stay at your house today.

The home that is God in Bethlehem's manger must come

to your house for you to be saved and healed.

If Jesus is not your home, your house, your house

is not a home. Ellen White steps to Christ page thirteen.

Beautiful statement. It was to redeem us that Jesus lived

and suffered and died. He became a man of sorrows

that we might be made partakers of everlasting joy. God

permitted his beloved son, full of grace and truth, to

come from a world of indescribable glory. To notice the statement,

a world of indescribable glory to a world marred and

blighted with sin. Next, light darkened with the shadow of

death and the curse. And what does she call it?

Admitted him to leave the bosom of his love. See,

that's what it is. It's heaven, the adoration of the angels.

To suffer shame, insult, humiliation, hatred, and death. Both in

John one and steps to Christ. That imagery of the

bosom of the Father, the bosom of his love. It's

not speaking of the creation of Christ wrongly applied. It's

speaking of Christ coming from God to Earth to save

the human race when he became a baby in Bethlehem's Manger,

Steps to Christ, page thirteen, well worth reading the whole chapter.

It's amazing chapter. Jesus came from home to house in

the Bethlehem journey to bring us home to God, to

be our home.

On the road.

That's a hard kind of life. Friend, Jesus knows what

a frotha means on the Bethlehem road. He's aware of

Rachel's cries of pain, of Jacob's sorrow and the grave.

Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquaint with grief,

not just generi grief, but your grief, your sorrows in

your house. Jesus is the bread of life in the

house of bread called Bethley Him. Jesus is Heaven's hay

and the manger where sheep must feed. Jesus is the

first harvest after a hard winter, when spring must come

again and barley must become bread in the house of bread.

Jesus is the place to settle down from a nomad

life to be at peace with God in the journey

home to God for this joy that was set before him.

The Bible says Jesus endured the cross. He went to

Hell on Calvary's cross so he could take us to Heaven.

After the cross, despising it, sent shame so he could

come from home to house to make his home right

here with us in our journey on the hard road home.

Home starts here because Jesus is here John fourteen twenty three.

Jesus answered him, if a man loves me, he will

keep my word. So what's the love of God? We

love God? What do we docrating that verse, what do

we do we keep his word? Does obedience matter in

the church? You know this nonsense talk that I can

have love, love, love, God loves me and do whatever

I want to do is nonsense. God will come to

you and make his home with you if you obey him.

That's faith. Now, God is not here calling for absolute perfection.

He's calling for commitment and surrender. God takes care of

the perfection component in our lives. But we have to

come to God or we don't have God. If a

man loves him me, he will keep my word, and

my father will love him. He's quoting the ten Commandments.

Remember the textas says, you know, showing steadfast love to

the thousands of those who keep my commandments. In the

second Commandment, he's just quoting the law of God. And

we will come to him and make our home with him.

Wrap your head around that, let your heart wrap around it.

God in Christ will come to us in our life

and make their home with us through the Holy Spirit. K.

Johnson Parker of South Dakota once shared this story that

her mother told her about her brother Archie Clickman, who

had fought in World War One, who'd come home in

a most unusual way at Christmas. War War One was

the hard fought war of trenches, of poison, gas, of

sudden death, paining disease, and pure psychological suffering. H. G.

Wells called it the war to end all wars. But

it didn't end the wars at all. We had World

War two, War on terror, all kinds of stuff. Ever since.

War has a way of hanging on in this world.

The industrial military complex in our country likes wars. You

can't make money unless you have wars. World War One

ended on November eleventh, nineteen eighteen, just before Christmas, really,

but just before it ended. The last Christmas of the

war before it ended was December twenty five, nineteen seventeen.

That Christmas Day, the Klickman family was absorbed with fear, uncertainty.

They had no idea what happened for their family. It

was reported that Archie Klickman was missing in action and

that he was presumed dead just before Christmas. Imagine getting

a message like that before Christmas. His body was not found,

so there was no closure for the family. They were

feeling awful. Now, how can you celebrate Christmas when your

loved one is lost to life? You're at home, safe

and sound, and your loved one is not anywhere to

be found. A deep pain and yearning for life settled

into that house in nineteen seventeen when Archie Klickman turned

up missing just before Christmas. In Parker, South Dakota, the

people of the town always joked about the postmaster who'd

read all the postcards before the mail ended up, so

he was the gossip guy.

He would read the postcards.

He knew what was going on those cards and everybody

knew it. It was kind of a big snoop who

couldn't keep his nose out of everyone else's business.

Awful kind of thing.

That Christmas, his fault of character turned into a Christmas

blessing and miracle for the Klickman family when a postcard

arrived just before Christmas. On Christmas Day, the mail didn't

run as usual. You know who wants to deliver mail

on Christmas, You wait for the day after Christmas. But

a postcard had just arrived just in time for the

postmaster to read it before he went home for Christmas.

And yes, he snooped and read it. It was from Archie.

Instead of waiting to send the mail the next day

as usual, the postman called Kay Johnson, Parker's grandmother on

Christmas Day.

That was Archie's sister.

Archie had sent a postcard that he was well, that

he was alive, and the card had arrived just in

time for Christmas Day. Archie's sister said it was the

best Christmas of her life when she got the call

from the postmaster that he had read the card, and

he read it to her, and suddenly that family was

overwhelmed with loss, grief lifted and they were so happy

because Archie had come home through the message that he

had sent. Because of that card, even though Archie was

far away, that Christmas was the best of their life.

He came on home in person. A year later.

He lived a long life and he died, and he

learned that home was waiting for him because it was

love in that place. Dear heart, God has sent each

of us a postcard. That is the Bible. You know

if you have it, hold it. It's God's postcard. There

is good news waiting to be read, like Mike of

five two, Oh you o Bethlehem of Froth, who are

little to be among the clans of Judah. From you

shall come forth from me one He comes for God

for us in the context he will gather God's people.

The postcard announces that Jesus is alive, He's well as

we approach Christmas. There's no need to be afraid if

your life is in surrendered to Him. There's no need

to feel like, well, what will my future be like?

If God is leading you. God in Jesus is here

through his word. He is here, and home is here

because of Jesus. For our house to be a home

in the Bethlehem journey. Jesus is near to every person,

every heart, every year, every day, for all time. He said, Lo,

I am with you always, even to the end of

the age. Here is no longer just a place for

a house. Here is home, because Jesus is a Manuel

God with us. Judge Roger Titus now passed away. I

remember the litigation that we endured. Seven day trial. They

said seven hours and seven minutes. I'm not sure that

was good time keeping, but it's a good way to

remember our trial, being on the federal witness stand watching

Judge Titus interact with us. He had to uphold the law,

but somehow God worked it out where Judge Titus led

the jury and they gave a verdict, and then he ruled. Afterwards.

They gave us this church. We should pincher ourselves every

Christmas to realize that God changed the laws of the

land to give us this church. And we know in

the Bible that God can take things away from us

if we're not obedient to him, that we are only

given gifts if we are true to God, and that

we stay committed to him. We have a long history.

We can be proud of it. Reaching hearts good DNA.

Judge Roger Titus, in his legal verdict in two thousand

and eight gave us a picture of our future for us.

He talked about how Cedar Ridge is not a place

for us. They need to build right here on this property.

And he ended his legal verdict granting us three point

eight million dollars, which was the first of a number

of installments, with a poem from Thomas Hood. Here's a

peace of that poem that he had there in that verdict.

Peace and rest at length have come. All the day's

long toil is past, and each heart is whispering home

home at last. May God bring you home. Jesus is

the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and He's also home.

Come home to God this Christmas. Dear Heavenly Father, we

don't need something less than God in our lives. We

need a Manuel God with us. We need to know

that on Calvary's Cross, God was in Christ reconciling the

world to ours himself. That God was broken at Calvary's Cross,

that God lost God, the one God lost God in

a mystery we can never understand that we can accept.

And yet Father, we see in Bethlehem's Manger and the

hope for all the years. It could be that some

dear heart came here today and they said, I don't

have hope in my life. I feel hopeless. If you're

that person, raise your hand to God right now, say Lord,

that's me. I feel like I'm a target. And if

you feel that way, as you're raising your hand, feel

the hand of God reaching down to you.

Emanuel.

This Christmas, thank you that Jesus left the bosom of

the Father to bring us to the bosom of the Father.

One day we will sit on that heavenly throne with

him and hear the story. Lord, Thank you. May be,

just accept the story now and be a part of

your plan in this place. Lord, bless your people, cause

your face to shine upon them, give them peace, forgive

the sins of us, Lord your people, and grant us

obedience to receive the full blessing of Emmanuel God with

us in Jesus name.

Amen, Amen,