Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Thank you. Merry Christmas, everybody.
[00:00:06] How's everyone doing?
[00:00:10] I'm gonna get you out of here so fast. You are gonna be with your families. It is gonna be a good night. You came to the right service. The parking's the best. It's been all night.
[00:00:21] Okay, so about, I don't know, 15 years ago, Jacob and I met a couple, and they became fast friends. They had moved from Californ, came to our church, and we hung out with them. And this. This woman, she was. She was really fun. But she said, I often, like, romanticize things in my head.
[00:00:43] She was like, I'll romanticize these things with my kids, and I have one way of how it's going to look, and then we go, and it's an absolute disaster.
[00:00:53] And so she said, I just. I don't want to romanticize things anymore.
[00:00:58] And they told us the story of their engagement. Now, this couple was kind of fun because she was never really interested in him. So he had to pursue this girl. Okay? He pursued her.
[00:01:13] And year after year of putting him in the friend zone, he just showed up. Okay, some of you men know what I'm talking about. He showed up. He did not give up. And eventually she fell madly in love with him. And so when he was proposing to her, he found their favorite spot on the beach. He had, like, family there. He had it all set up perfectly. And they were telling us a story, and it sounded great. You're in California.
[00:01:40] And the problem was he put the ring loose in his pocket, not in a box.
[00:01:47] And somewhere between the car to proposing, the ring was missing.
[00:01:54] So he gets down on his knee and he goes in his pocket, and there's nothing there.
[00:02:02] And sheer panic hits. And they said it was not at all what we expected to be. It was not the picture he had in his head. And so for the rest of the night, they went and bought metal detectors and searched the beach for this ring.
[00:02:18] They eventually found it.
[00:02:20] But I was just thinking about how often in our life things are not as we pictured it.
[00:02:30] Things aren't the way we thought it was going to be.
[00:02:36] Can I get an amen in this room tonight?
[00:02:40] Okay.
[00:02:41] We have an idea or we have expectations of how God's going to show up in this relationship, and then the relationship ends.
[00:02:52] We have expectations and ideas of what life might look like in a career.
[00:02:58] And once you get it, it's not what you expected.
[00:03:04] We have ideas of what our financial life might look like. And it's not hidden. It's not financing.
[00:03:14] The money's not moneying.
[00:03:19] And I was thinking about Christmas. I've grown up with this Christmas story my entire life.
[00:03:25] And I just think so often it becomes a storybook that I read as a kid.
[00:03:35] It becomes something that we see little kids put on a pageant and sing Joy to the world.
[00:03:43] And I'm a preacher. I work at this church. I love God, and I don't want it to be that for me. But year after year, I find it just as a reality.
[00:03:52] So that's super ugly to admit.
[00:03:54] Any real people in the room tonight?
[00:03:57] Like we say, we want it to touch our life, but it's not touching our life personally.
[00:04:10] And as I looked through this story, I prayed to God that I could see something I'd never seen, that I could see it fresh, that I could see it in the kind of way that I felt it.
[00:04:34] And it was cool because I was tired one night, you can hear my breathing in this mic, and it's annoying.
[00:04:42] Can we fix that, Jer?
[00:04:45] Like that?
[00:04:49] I have add, so it's very hard for me to focus.
[00:04:52] So it was cool. I was watching this show, and in it, it was talking about maybe the way we have pictured the story.
[00:05:06] Isn't the way it really was.
[00:05:09] And so I started reading in scripture, and I started looking up archeology, and I started looking up what did the Eastern culture look like at that time? What did homes in Bethlehem even look like?
[00:05:27] And I started living in this story in a new way. And as I thought about Mary, she wasn't a little figurine in a white dress with a blue robe, you know what I'm saying? That just stepped out of Sephora. Okay, I see this teenage girl who was poor but who loved God with all her heart.
[00:05:55] I saw a little girl who trusted in a way that many of us couldn't.
[00:06:07] You see, I think she had an idea of what her life might have looked like.
[00:06:13] And one night, all of that changed.
[00:06:17] One night, an angel appeared to her. And we make this a story. But in scriptures, what angels looked like, they were. They were messengers of God.
[00:06:27] And I heard someone say, and I don't know who it was, and I don't remember who he quoted, so someone else said this. But you have to pick your miracle, because a lot of people believe. In Christians, we believe in this virgin birth that Mary gave birth to the Son of God. But people who are materialists, they believe that all of this came from absolutely nothing.
[00:06:49] And so choose your miracle.
[00:06:52] Did everything we exist and see and can't see and don't know? I'll take A handheld mic. Honestly, does it annoy you as much as it annoys me?
[00:07:04] No. Should I just keep reaching?
[00:07:07] Is this on?
[00:07:09] Okay.
[00:07:10] Help me, babe.
[00:07:12] Sorry the ADD is so bad. You should see me at home. The kids. Really, it's bad.
[00:07:18] Okay.
[00:07:19] It's okay.
[00:07:26] This is not the way. This is not the picture I had in my head.
[00:07:31] I saw this going very differently.
[00:07:34] Thank you.
[00:07:39] I saw this young girl who. Who trusted in God in a way that I couldn't understand. And this was an angel of God. They would be a messenger who had been mighty. Men would fall in their presence.
[00:07:55] And now this young teenage girl, she's.
[00:08:01] I don't know. I don't know what she's doing, but she's an angel. Appears to her.
[00:08:11] And after the angel leaves, he says, you're going to have a son, and his name will be Jesus, and he will be the Savior. And he says these beautiful things, but Mary doesn't say, you know what? Let me take some time to pray about this for all of us Christians that don't want to say no, but we're like, we'll pray about that.
[00:08:30] I see you. I'm like, trust me, God wants you to. Tyler Sturgeon.
[00:08:37] I asked him to do something with me.
[00:08:40] Just threw you under the bus?
[00:08:45] No. I think, though she didn't ask for time.
[00:08:52] She said, let it be to me, as you have said, because I am your servant.
[00:08:58] And this word, servant, in ancient time, this was an idea of a bondservant.
[00:09:03] And the picture is that what she was saying is, I willingly submit. I willingly follow you.
[00:09:12] This might not be the picture that I have had for my life, but I willingly trust and submit and follow you as my God.
[00:09:25] And I think some of us, we have these moments of life where this isn't what we saw for our life. This is not what we thought.
[00:09:36] But God is asking us to trust him in the kind of way where it says, this is your will, not mine.
[00:09:46] And I think about Joseph, and I think about this man who. Who we don't hear much about him, but every single thing we hear about him is awesome.
[00:10:01] And that's rare. The Bible. That's very rare. That's one of the reasons I love this book so much, is because if you were writing a book to convince people that was fake, you wouldn't put all the bad stuff.
[00:10:14] And you get this image of Joseph, and he is a man with integrity, and he is a man with loyalty. And he finds out Mary's pregnant, and he wants her to divorce her quietly.
[00:10:31] Now, they weren't married. But in ancient times, to be engaged was a legal.
[00:10:36] It was a legal ceremony.
[00:10:39] There would often be passing of money or dowry. And so it was as legal as it is for us for marriage.
[00:10:47] And so when he found out she was pregnant, he could have made a huge deal about it and humiliated her.
[00:10:54] He could have made her small and little, but he didn't.
[00:10:58] He wanted to do it quietly, but in a very private way. God came to him in a dream.
[00:11:11] Now, I don't know about you, I've had dreams before where I'm like, what did I just dream?
[00:11:17] I've had dreams before where I was like, what was that dream?
[00:11:23] And to think that God came to you in a dream and told you, you can marry her. It's not another man's baby, it's God's baby. Do you think he woke up at any point and was like, was that real?
[00:11:37] Do you think at any point in his life he wondered?
[00:11:44] And then I imagine him taking her to Bethlehem because they were Roman occupied, they were not a free people.
[00:11:55] They were on their way for a census because Caesar Augustus commonly would do censuses and it would count the people because he wanted his taxes.
[00:12:08] And so this isn't a leisurely journey. This isn't like, we'll take our time. They had to do this. And it could not have been a more inconvenient time in the entire world.
[00:12:18] And I was reading about what this road would have looked like. It would have been 90 miles and Bethlehem was higher in elevation, so it would have been rocky and it would have been high, and it would have taken four up to four days.
[00:12:35] And they said that the streets would be dangerous because of animals and they would be dangerous because of bandits. And I think in my mind, I always imagined, like, her on a donkey. Bible doesn't say that. So I don't even know if she was. I just imagined just the two of them walking this road. But most likely in this time, you would go with groups of people.
[00:12:57] And then this is where it got interesting for me. And my dad and I were on the phone for like an hour last night talking about this. My dad's my mentor and I trust him. And so we were just like, going through, like, the historical facts and the artifacts that they have found. And what's interesting is I always pictured Mary going to an inn, which would be like a hotel. Like, I'm picturing her, like old school Motel 6, you know what I'm saying?
[00:13:24] And I found out that the original word for inn in Luke is The word for guest room.
[00:13:32] And you only see it one other time in the book of Luke. And it's talking about the room that they use for the Passover. It's the upper room.
[00:13:42] And so when I have been picturing this, I've been picturing an inn, and there's no room, and she's going from place to place and they're like, no inn, no room, no room, no room. I've made it a cartoon in my head.
[00:13:53] But what it most likely was was a home of somebody. It could have been a relative, it could have been a strange. But it was most likely a room that they would have had for guests. And it makes sense for this Eastern culture to carry this rhythm of taking people in.
[00:14:12] And there was no room because everyone had come for the census. And so when I pictured this no room, no room, no room, it really more authentically was probably someone's home.
[00:14:27] And now dad and I talked for a long time on this one and there's interesting ideas. When I thought about where she gave birth, I put my Western culture spin on it. And it was like a shed in the back. Do you know what I'm saying?
[00:14:46] Like a shed in the back. Nobody else.
[00:14:51] That's what I pictured.
[00:14:53] Or like the Nativity scene.
[00:14:56] And scholars differ on this big time.
[00:15:02] Some believe that it was like a lean to that would have been on the side of the house that they would have put animals in and it would be right next to the house. Some people believe that they've actually found artifacts of 1st century homes in Bethlehem that would have mangers on the first floor.
[00:15:23] And what they thought was that there would be guest rooms for people in these houses. And then on the first floor they would bring the animals in when it got too cold. So the precious animals, they would bring them into their home. And they have found mangers made out of stone in these homes, which is super cool. I had no idea.
[00:15:43] And then some scholars believe that in Bethlehem they would have caves kind of in the side of the houses, and they would put their sheep and stuff, goats in these caves.
[00:15:59] And so it's an interesting thought because I never thought about it before. I thought about it as a shed in the back.
[00:16:05] And it just, it started me thinking, what must have they experienced?
[00:16:17] And then she gives birth, and there's shepherds in a field nearby.
[00:16:27] And there is an idea about these sheep, that these shepherds were watching over these sheep.
[00:16:33] And I've always thought about these angels as like women in white gowns.
[00:16:38] These women in white gowns. I Don't know why they're women, but that's how I just see it. A woman floating out of the sky.
[00:16:47] And I don't think that's the image that God wants us to see here.
[00:16:56] I don't think it's a choir of children singing in white robes. I think heaven met earth that night and heaven declared something beautiful was here.
[00:17:09] And the angels were singing, glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men.
[00:17:18] And he said something awesome. And I want to read it because this is everything to me. This is what got me.
[00:17:34] For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
[00:17:40] For unto you is born this day in the city of David, time split, quite literally. Everything was before Jesus birth or after. And they can try to change it, but that is the history of this time split that we know today.
[00:17:57] Everything changed when heaven came that day.
[00:18:03] And what gets me good is that God showed up personally to each of those people.
[00:18:17] I don't think it was the picture they expected for their life.
[00:18:28] I came off this stage last week, one week ago today, and my husband told me the news that we lost one of our very good friends. He used to work here at the church over at our west campus.
[00:18:43] And it was like something that didn't process. He was 38 years old and when he said Tony had died, I.
[00:18:54] It didn't make sense to me.
[00:19:00] And all week we've been processing it as a staff and I just. It's not how it should be. It's not the picture I saw, it's not the story I saw for him and his beautiful wife and their two 4 year old twins, I never saw that.
[00:19:19] And when I spent all week just trying to like lift and love and help and encourage, I think I saw God for other people.
[00:19:35] I think my prayer was for Ashley and her girls and let her feel your strength and let her feel your love and bless the staff and help the church help us understand what we cannot understand.
[00:19:52] But what I realized was I wasn't letting God be my God.
[00:20:04] I was trying to hold it and carry it and make things better for everyone else.
[00:20:11] And if I can be totally honest, I've been a monster all day.
[00:20:16] I've like wanted to punch everything in my sight and I'm not even an angry person, but I feel so angry.
[00:20:31] And I've not let God be my God.
[00:20:40] When life does not go as planned, we have a God who is personal.
[00:20:49] In Matthew. When the angel shows up in this dream, he says, you will have a son and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people.
[00:21:06] And this word Jesus, it's the Hebrew equivalent of this idea that Yahweh saves.
[00:21:16] The meaning of Jesus name is the equivalent of Yahweh saves. And we hear that, but it doesn't really resonate like it would have resonated with the first century Jewish culture.
[00:21:28] Yahweh was a name they knew.
[00:21:31] Yahweh was a name for a God who was personal, who was close, who was a God of covenant and promise, who was a God who was faithful and trustworthy and a God of steadfast love.
[00:21:45] He was Yahweh. He was a God who was good.
[00:21:51] When they heard the name Jesus, Yahweh saves, there was something personal for them.
[00:21:57] It wasn't a distant God who watched from above and saw what we're doing and was looking to strike with lightning.
[00:22:06] It was a God who sees the brokenness of our heart, who knows the desire of how we're made and how we're hardwired. And he said, I see it and I am coming for you.
[00:22:19] Personally, I needed this.
[00:22:25] I needed to stop and I needed to sit and I needed to be with a God who loves me.
[00:22:32] Not just a God who loves a church and not just a God who loves the people in it, but a God who loves me.
[00:22:41] I needed to sit with Yahweh, a God who saves.
[00:22:51] When the story doesn't go as planned, there's a God who's personal.
[00:23:00] There is a God who came to save you.
[00:23:06] And this Christmas, that's what I want to sit in this Christmas, I don't want it to be a cute little story. I want it to be an okay, mighty God, full of power, full of love, full of trustworthiness, full of glory and honor.
[00:23:26] And I want to sit with him because he is our God.
[00:23:33] And he did not come to condemn. He came to save.
[00:23:38] And so wherever you're at in your story, wherever the pieces and the parts of your life have gone not the way you thought they would or should, there is a Yahweh who saves.
[00:23:55] And he broke through time and space for you.
[00:24:00] Let's pray.
[00:24:03] Dear Heavenly Father, you are a mighty God.
[00:24:11] My heart longs for you.
[00:24:15] I think so many times we can fill this longing with other things. But, Father, you are what the soul craves. You are what the soul needs.
[00:24:26] And so I pray that your grace, your love, your strength, everything that you have, Father, I pray that we can sense it.
[00:24:36] I pray that you can wrap us in your arms and we can believe it. Father, I pray that you will make the path straight. And as we trust in you and as we seek you, and as we know you, Father, that our lives will be something better and healthier.
[00:24:57] I thank you that you are a God who's in the message, that you are not a God who watches from above, but you enter the darkness, and in the darkness you bring a great light. And I thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ.
[00:25:14] I love you. And in your son's mighty name we pray. Amen.
