Embracing the Humility and Significance of Jesus' Birth

And it all points to one thing, the authenticity of scripture, the authority of God who absolutely works within the bounds of that which came before, but surpasses it. You realize like God surpasses what's actually written in the Bible. Sometimes we think the best was in the past, but the truth is God does so much more because even the people who were writing, the people who were writing, the people who were creating the imagery and the literature and the poetry of everything, they can only understand so much. [00:00:57]

And this is why we have to be grounded in the Word of God. This is why we need to be grounded in what's actually, you know, upon these pages, because it gets proved again and again and again in greater detail in greater ways that all of the sudden it really is the thing that will keep you from being tossed to the right or to the left upon the storms of what's going on in the world around us. [00:02:38]

Because if we can imagine what the world was like in the days of Jesus, in this beginning of this very part of the birth of Jesus, this introduction of this moment in which God decides to come from His heavenly abode and having to come down into earth. Coming down to change. [00:03:06]

And he was very, very inventive in how he did so. He killed his political rivals. He killed his friends. He killed his wives. He killed. several of his own sons all out of fear for his own self and then he would and this is all written about historically and things about who you know how King Herod was and and yet at the same time then after he would kill he would go into a state of deep deep depression and then as he came out of his depression he would build he got visions and and figured out how to to build things that today we don't know how like we don't have the technology to build the Temple Mount complex and what we think of as the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock sits and things like that this was a construction project during the time and the life of Herod and we don't know how he built cut moved transported and lifted some of those stones that are so heavy into like 30 meters off the ground something like 12 ,000 tons I have no idea how many kilos that is that's you can all like ask Google for conversion but can we we can't even imagine that King Herod figured out underwater concrete and it was a technology that was then later lost lost in time until concrete was rediscovered in Scotland many many many many centuries later King Herod [00:05:16]

That these were what we would later think of more as the scientists of the day, which at the time, of course, all science also had a pseudo -religious aspect of it. There's all kinds of things. There's all kinds of mythology throughout the Arabian area, throughout where Persia was, and going down about the announcement and the change when the time and the birth of Jesus came. [00:12:22]

The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. [00:17:58]

They knew something was going to happen in the sky. They knew it was the right time of year. But then when several things came together that hadn't happened, there was this greater light that signified not just the coming of a royal birth, but there was this great belief all over the world already in the pagan world as God like a shepherd. And so it was already, it's all part of, you know, if we think of when we see like, you know, the Big Dipper or Aries or, you know, these constellations that we don't really pay much attention to because you know why? They no longer point and signify to the same degree as what they did at the time of Jesus. [00:19:00]

And it pointed to Bethlehem. Because remember, the Jews were in exile in Babylon. And they lived in Persia for a very long time. And they were still in the region even during the days of Alexander the Great and the Hasmonean Empire and the rise of the Roman Empire. There were Jews. And then because of this pseudo -security, houses and schools and learning institutions, grew. And you had the people of Persia who were already the lawyers of the land. They loved learning. Learning was one of their main gods. Korea. [00:20:27]

And they humbled themselves, and they rejoiced, just like the shepherds came and rejoiced. Now we have the Gentile kings coming in and rejoicing. A fulfillment of prophecy, a fulfillment of Scripture, a fulfillment from the days of Abraham to Moses, and now the prophets, and it's being realized, and they still don't know. They don't know what there is that they're actually doing. [00:34:39]

And it just hit me so much that our god didn't become a shepherd to understand sheep he became a sheep so he could understand us and these wise men came and they worshiped and the prophets foretold and the prophets could only see this much but we get the benefit of all of it we get the benefit of this baby who wasn't [00:43:14]

I love this Jesus i love this king i love the beginning of this story i love the fact that we get to see even a one new man aspect of the nations coming and recognizing but baby jesus didn't hold up like a flinty rock and say okay it's time to circumcise you now too [00:45:42]

deeply sharing from your hearts and I hope that we get to have a little bit more of this as we keep going on because the goal is to get these words of the Gospels into your hearts that you would have authority of the gospel in your life and that you could be able to share it and that therefore no matter if sometimes I hear it the sermons like oh that was really tough and I thought oh no was it and but then we can have a time to just like get back to the simplicity of what is the gospel what is the message of Jesus and who God is in this mess and in what we're learning and and things along this line and that you're joining in to this Commonwealth of the followers of Jesus from the from the very first ones who walked with him and then for each generation that came after and we're just carrying that torch we're carrying that light we're carrying the truth and what's amazing is more and more that even as our world has become more sophisticated technology more sophisticated and and these things yet the gospel is becoming even more and more real it cannot be disputed and each one who tries fails and then the gospel becomes more real because it's the same thing that was used in the early days of the church's many years ago to look back we can feel that the gospel is a living word this is a living living word this is a living god you know those prophets couldn't see who this king was going to be those wise men couldn't see who that king was going to be that that Israel at the time of Jesus couldn't see what kind of Messiah we actually need and And I think in the same way today that the world has the same kind of blindness. [01:05:43]