If you have your Bibles with you, turn over to Luke chapter two.

No surprise there as we're dealing with the Christmas narrative.

We've done that in Matthew, and now we're taking a closer look at the book of Luke and his birth narrative.

We've been in a series called Inconceivable.

The point we've tried to make is that most humans live with this illusion that we have an absolute or exhaustive understanding of the universe and our lives, and the reality tells us that we just don't.

We would never admit that openly.

But the reality is most of us think we have a pretty good hold on life, how it works.

And even with the reality is that we think we have a pretty good understanding of how God works in almost every situation.

And again, life...

proves otherwise.

And there's an arrogance that comes or it's associated with our humanity.

One of the reasons we began this series with a quote from Hard Science Magazine is to remind us that not only do we not have a complete exhaustive understanding of everyday life and especially not of God, and we would only understand that part of God that God has chosen to reveal himself and he has revealed himself through the person of Jesus Christ.

But we started this series, we titled it Inconceivable, to show that we just don't have that much knowledge or information about anything.

We are totally reliant, dependent, contingent on God, His revelation to us and His activity in our lives.

So we started with this quote out of hard science that tells us that everything we know, everything we see, is just 5% of everything in the universe.

And we talked about how 95% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy.

The problem is scientists tell us we don't really know what those are.

We can't define them.

And then I read the quote, and I do it again.

In many ways, we are still novices playing with toy models seeking to understand the stars.

The remaining 95% of the universe is stuff that we can't see, don't yet understand.

An extraordinarily vast portion of the cosmos is still unknown.

Every time I read that, and I've done that over the course of the past few weeks, I remember that Job told God that if he had a complete and exhaustive understanding of his pain, of why he's suffering, that somehow he would be able to accept it.

And if I could paraphrase, God's response was basically this.

Dude, you don't know how much of this universe operates, why it operates the way that it does, why it functions the way that it does, and yet you readily accept it every single day.

Your struggles and your pain are no different.

You are finite, I'm infinite.

There's a point at which you stop and I begin.

And when you think about even the created order, there are depths of the ocean that we've not yet discovered.

There's the vastness of the universe, places that we've never been and will never go.

There are parts unknown.

So if you apply our lack of knowledge to the physical universe, you have to apply that same lack of knowledge to what we call the supernatural world.

And we've said that once you assume God, all things are possible.

That includes the virgin birth, a Christmas star, and God coming to earth to reach down to us in order to offer us salvation.

So that is the Christmas story.

It's inconceivable until you recognize that God exists and there's a point at which your knowledge stops, his knowledge begins.

In that light, everything is possible.

A virgin birth, the Christmas story, and salvation.

God offering himself to mankind in order that we who are far from God can come near.

Now, we've also talked about in this series how Matthew records his birth narrative with Jews specifically in mind to show them how Yeshua fulfilled the role of Messiahship according to the prophecies that we find in the Old Testament.

And we said that he tries to show the Jews that Jesus or Yeshua is the ultimate fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy and every Old Testament hero.

He's the ultimate Joseph.

He's betrayed by his brothers and yet saves his brothers from extinction.

He's the ultimate Abraham.

His descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, the sand on the seashore.

He's the ultimate Moses and he leads us to the ultimate promised land.

He's the ultimate Samson.

He uses his strength to destroy the enemy and then gives his own life in order to save the lives of his own people.

And he's the ultimate King David.

He will usher in a new kingdom one day where there will be no more crying, mourning, or pain.

So Matthew's theme, whom the world rejects, Jesus brings in.

But then Luke's theme is a very interesting theme.

And I want to focus in on this idea of inconceivable because we would never conceive it in our minds.

And yet this is exactly what Luke's overarching theme communicates.

And it's this, that Jesus, Yeshua, came to earth to be rejected.

That Jesus Yeshua came to earth.

And we need to remember that around the Christmas story because it looks so benign with the stars in the sky and the wise men following the star to discover the Christ child, the quietness, the lowliness of the manger.

But in reality, all the events around the events of the birth of Christ, all of those events revealed to us an overarching message.

And that is Jesus came to be rejected.

Let me read to you in Luke chapter 2, verse 4 through 7.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house in the line of David.

He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn son.

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.

Or you and I are used to the King James translation.

There was no room for them in the inn.

So right from the get-go, Luke tells us that Jesus was shut out, that he was rejected.

Then later on, we meet Simeon that we've talked about over the past few weeks, who was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

He had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had held the Christ child in his arms.

He does exactly that.

He takes the Christ child, places him in his arms, and then the Bible tells us he praises God saying these words in Luke 2, 29.

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

Dismiss, diminis is the Latin.

You may now dismiss your servant in peace, for I have seen the Lord's salvation.

But then, look at what Simeon says after that.

He says, this child is destined to cause the falling and raising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

Now, stay with me on a little journey here.

Again, it's Christmas, Christmas Eve, and we're trying to ask the question about this overarching story of the birth of the Christ child that seems so inconceivable to us, and yet when God is allowed back in, we know that all things are not only conceivable but are possible.

But the story that Luke seems intent on telling us is not so much to prove the possibility of the virgin birth, but to remind us that Jesus came.

to be rejected.

We've got a huge revival happening here at our church among our young adults.

It's called YA.

Don't call it YA or you'll get in trouble very quickly.

This past Tuesday, one of the speakers, Marissa, spoke and she asked the congregation a question.

She talked about love notes and she said, did you ever pass love notes around to boys or girls in your classroom and you put circle yes or no and then she was going to take that illustration.

and apply it to how we say yes or no to God every day of our lives.

Just circle one, not maybe, but yes, no, one or the other.

I thought about that story and I remembered when I was growing up, I didn't want to risk rejection.

So I basically sent a love note to every girl in the class.

I thought that was a good idea.

I figured if I sent a love note to every girl in the class and said, check one, yes or no, somebody would be desperate enough to check yes.

And then I asked them to put their names on the card and they would send the card back to me and I just threw the nose away.

And then if they said yes, I gave them a once over.

Usually I looked once and it was over.

But sometimes there was always...

someone who was as desperate as I was, I just needed to know that someone was attracted to me.

I needed to know I wasn't rejected by everyone.

There are people who are suspicious that everybody rejects them.

Then there's a whole nother crowd of people.

They seek rejection.

Have you ever met those people?

They actually want to be rejected because it makes them feel special.

I know that seems like an oxymoron, but I had an older brother that was super religious and he needed to be rejected because it made him feel unique.

So he was extremely legalistic.

He had no idea about grace and in his mind, you earned your way into heaven.

So if you did all the right things and believed all the right things and you never did evil and you always did good, then...

You deserve to go to heaven.

And I tried to have a conversation with him.

This is a long time ago.

We're good now.

But a long time ago, I tried to explain to him the doctrine of grace.

And after it was over, rather than commenting on the doctrine of grace that I thought I had done an extremely good job of reiterating out of the book of Romans, he just simply looked at me and said these words.

Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

So he was glad that I was rejecting him because if I rejected him, Christ received him.

And blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness.

When I learned that, I said to him, dude, I know what your premise is.

And there is a point of truth that if you're a Christ follower, it might be that you will be rejected and you will consider it joy when you're rejected because of righteousness.

But brother, you're not rejected because of righteousness.

You're being rejected because you're just being a jerk.

An arrogant, self-righteous, religious punk who actually believes he deserves salvation because he's better than everyone else.

True salvation always catalyzes humility.

Never arrogance.

Confident?

Yes.

Arrogance?

No.

I also read the story of a young man that was going to counseling.

And he passed under this construction ladder and there were two workers hammering away way up high.

And he ran immediately to his counselor and he said, look, I got to tell you, I walked under a scaffolding.

There were two construction workers hammering away.

And one of them, I stared up and one of them called me a paranoid little weirdo.

And the counselor said, how could you hear that from that far distance?

He goes, they were hammering it in Morse code.

Some people seek rejection.

Others are paranoid that everybody rejects them.

I start that way because the Christmas story tells us that Jesus came not seeking rejection, but knowing he would be rejected and yet embraced rejection.

Let me say that again.

Jesus came not seeking rejection, but knowing he would be rejected and yet embraced rejection.

And I want to go through these three because as we concentrate on the overarching message of the Christmas story, it's important that you know how Jesus was first received or rejected in order that you and I at Christmas time might take a good look at our lives and ask the question, what box are we checking?

Are we receiving him or are we rejecting him?

So first of all...

The first reason he was rejected was because he didn't meet the world's standard for Messiah, king, and leader.

Nothing about Jesus met the requirements of a king, at least by the standards of the world.

He came from an impoverished family.

If you look at verse 24, when Mary and Joseph came to dedicate Jesus at the temple, they brought a pair of doves or pigeons.

You only did this in cases of extreme poverty.

Usually something much more was required.

Jesus came from a very menial profession.

He was a son of a carpenter, and obviously his carpenter shop, his father's carpenter shop, wasn't doing very well.

He also came from the other side of the tracks.

He was from a town called Nazareth.

People had repeated a common phrase, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

I think it was Philip or Andrew who said that very phrase.

In modern lingo, it would be like Jesus was straight out of Compton.

This is not the type of setting from which a king is supposed to come.

There's something else, by the way.

If you look at the Old Testament, King Saul, David, Solomon, Joseph, all of those Old Testament characters had something in common.

You know what it was?

They were extremely good looking.

Saul was described as being head and shoulders above the rest.

David was so handsome that he decided to dance in the middle of the street in his fruit of the looms and nobody complained.

Joseph was so handsome that Mrs.

Potiphar could not keep her hands off him.

And yet we seldom read what Isaiah said about Yeshua, Jesus, in Isaiah 53.

He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of a dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.

Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain.

like one from whom people hide their faces.

He was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Now, this is not the resume of a king, a poor family, wrong side of the tracks, socially marginalized, no connections, no handsomeness.

This is opposite to our world then and now concerning what a king should look like.

Now, I want you to think for a moment.

Think about modern-day celebrities who were idolized.

They are so put together on the outside, even when the inside is a mess.

Their talents, their looks, get them a long way.

But later in life, with a little help from plastic surgery, they prolong the illusion, but make no mistake, reality soon sets in.

And we find so many people who've been in the limelight.

who protected the exterior internally were a mess.

And that's why, as I continue to say, you find so many suicides from places like great athletes and people who are in the limelight, great celebrities, because when that time comes to an end where you can no longer maintain the illusion of the external, who you really are on the inside comes to light.

Alternatively, while we worship and idolize celebrities because we think they're so put together on the outside, Alternatively, people who are strong in character and integrity and transparency, but dowdy, not celebrity material, we don't respect them.

Isn't it amazing?

We idolize the external, but the internal has gotten to the point where it means very little to us.

We're not attracted to it.

But Jesus comes along 2,000 years ago and destroys that.

If you know the Old Testament story about Samuel, he's looking for the next king of Israel.

He sees Jesse's oldest son, tall and handsome, and he says to himself, surely this is God's next king.

This is the one.

Surely he's the anointed one.

And God speaks to him and says, oh, no.

No, you didn't.

You ought to know by now.

You're looking at the outside, but God sees the heart.

You know what Christmas means?

Christmas means the end of snobbery.

It means that we're supposed to care more about character and nobility and integrity than what we see on the outside.

One of the things that I'm a little concerned with, you might have noticed I'm dressing a little bit differently these days, and I like it.

It's comfortable, and I definitely don't want to do anything to separate myself from the next generation.

I know that.

But the thing that intrigues me is this generation claims that they are attracted to transparency and honesty.

I'm trying to put that together with the fact that they seem to be head over heels in love with rockstar pastors.

They seem to be attracted to the guy who has the right look, the haircut, the body, all of that.

And I'm trying to get my head around, you said that you were really interested in transparency and honesty, yet you're attracted to the external.

And we're living in a time when there are many Christian pastors who are falling by the wayside.

And the reason is, is they look great on the external, but internally they're a mess.

And ultimately that internal mess will come forth.

Even the Bible says, be sure your sins will find you out.

But more than that, I'm afraid that far too many of us are unimpressed with the ordinariness of Jesus.

I want to tell you right now, if Jesus came to our world, this generation would reject him.

He's not handsome.

He's not rock star.

He's not from the right side of the tracks.

He doesn't have the right dress code.

He doesn't speak the right lingo.

He would be rejected again because of the ordinariness that he portrayed.

I don't know if you saw the classic Jesus Christ superstar, but in that great film, Pilate says to Jesus, prove to me that you're no fool, walk across my swimming pool.

In other words, let me see something miraculous.

Herod did the same thing to Jesus.

And I'm afraid that too many of us are looking for a thundering Messiah rather than a suffering servant.

You want the fireball in the sky.

You want someone to do everything you want them to do and do dramatic acts in your life, all your life.

But you have to understand that won't save you.

That will make you dependent on the miraculous.

Jesus wants to transform you like the seed that breaks through the concrete, slowly but powerfully.

Now, stay with me on this first point.

The other two go much quicker.

But in World War II, there was a man by the name of John Blanchard.

He was a lieutenant in the Navy.

On one occasion, he had the chance to, a couple of days off, probably a pass somewhere, he had the opportunity to go into the library, and he found a book, started reading it, but discovered that it belonged to somebody else.

He liked the book, but what he really liked were the notes written in the book.

He was intrigued by the wisdom and the beauty that someone had written in the margins.

And he was attracted to this woman he had never met.

Her name was actually on the inside of the book and her parcel address in New York City.

So he began to write letters, a little bit of effort.

He found her full address, began to write her letters.

Her name was Hollis Manel, and they wrote each other during wartime.

They had a wonderful correspondence going on with each other.

At one point, John is so attracted to her that he asked for a photo.

And she never responded.

And he thought to himself, I wonder why, I wonder what she meant by that.

But they kept corresponding month after month.

Finally, the war's over and they're going, they've decided to meet at Grand Central Station, but neither knew what the other looked like.

So they came up with a plan.

Hollis Manel said, I'll tell you what, let's meet at Grand Central Station at 7 p.m.

I'll be wearing a big red rose on my lapel.

And as he disembarks from the train, he walks toward the place they were supposed to meet.

And he saw two women.

One was beautiful, attractive, gorgeous.

The other, not so much.

And as he approached the two women, the beautiful woman walked away.

But the other dowdy woman looked as though that she was waiting to meet somebody.

Let me read you how the story finishes.

I felt choked up by the bitterness of my disappointment.

But so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had companioned me and upheld me during my time at war that I thought, well, this won't be love and romance, but it could be something so precious, maybe a friendship for which I would always be grateful.

So he summed up his courage, swallowed hard and said, hello, I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard.

You must be Hollis.

I am so glad to meet you.

May I take you to dinner?

And of course, this lady smiled at him and said, son, I have no idea who you are or what this is about.

But the young lady who was standing here beside me that walked away said I should wear this red rose on my lapel.

And only if you were to ask me to dinner, I should tell you that she's waiting for you in that restaurant across the street.

Great story.

of what we tend to value over and above everything else.

Can I tell you something?

Many today continue to reject Jesus because we can't get past his ordinary, albeit supernatural work in our lives.

We want a thundering Messiah.

We want someone that wants to party all the time.

We want somebody who looks the look.

And we want somebody to do what we want them to do at every moment in our lives.

We don't want a suffering servant.

But the thing we don't realize, the suffering servant is the thing we need.

Because only through the suffering servant can we come into proximity with God.

And by the way, we're told that when you meet Jesus in eternity, the veil will come off.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.

You need a savior, not a celebrity.

And Jesus is rejected by the world because he does not meet their standards.

Once you realize that, you should never be fooled by the external again.

So he's rejected because he doesn't fit the role of king.

Second, he's rejected because he will reveal the hearts of many.

This is an amazing statement by Simeon and one that you and I need to take close to heart.

Simeon says the hearts of many will be revealed.

The thing about Jesus is when you come into contact with Jesus, he shows you who you really are.

And many will not like that, period.

The theology of the Gospels found in Romans tells us that we all know that God is real.

We know that we're sinners.

We all know we need God.

But when anyone tells us that, it will either do one of two things.

It will humble you and you will repent, or you're really going to get angry.

A couple of years ago, I took my study break in the nation, not the state, of Georgia, just adjacent to Armenia.

And I discovered that Stalin was actually born in Georgia, not the Soviet Union.

And so I found out that his home was in a place called Gori.

And I looked on my daughter's map of the things we'd be doing while we were in Georgia.

And frankly, one of them was visit the little town of Georgia, a very small town.

I was surprised that there was a museum dedicated to Stalin in Gori, Georgia.

And as you go into the museum, it is a museum dedicated to the strength of his visionary ability.

And it talks about what a great leader he was.

If there's ever a museum that suppressed what was hard to believe, it's this museum.

Because Stalin is responsible for the deaths of nine million people.

That's what we all tend to do.

We don't really want to be reminded of the truth.

And the truth about Stalin is he was an atheist.

He was actually a seminary student, became a Marxist, then a disciple of Lenin.

He ultimately ended up denying God, denied any kind of morality.

He believed in absolute power and corruption and that they were necessary to achieve his own ends.

On his deathbed, his daughter tells the story that just before Stalin died, his last act was to raise himself up in bed and shake his fists into heavens and say, you still will not have me.

And then he breathed his last and died.

Now, I've always wondered if Stalin is an atheist, who's he talking to?

How can you be angry with someone who does not exist?

And this is the point Romans makes.

You do know deep inside that God exists, no matter how much you try to deny it.

We choose not to seek him.

We choose to reject someone who comes and tells us about him.

It's not a matter of the lack of evidence, folks.

It's a matter of suppressing whatever it is that convicts us.

Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy at the University of New York, said this, and I quote this because at least he's being honest.

And here's what he said.

I want atheism to be true and to be made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are not intelligent enough to be called atheists.

are religious believers in God.

It isn't just that I don't believe in God and naturally hope there is no God.

I don't want there to be a God.

I don't want the universe to be like that.

At least he's honest.

The thing about admitting that God exists means that you'll be held accountable for the life that you've lived.

And when somebody tells you that, you're either gonna respond in humility and receive God's free gift of salvation, or you're gonna be angry.

and lash out.

That's why Paul says in Romans 8, people suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

And so think about the reasons that people rejected Jesus when he first appeared.

And you'll find this overarching, this is the overarching part of even Matthew's story and birth narrative to a degree, but certainly, most certainly Luke's story.

One, Herod, rejected Jesus because he didn't want to be reminded that he's not the supreme king.

There's another king greater than he.

The priest did not want to be reminded.

Because they didn't want to be reminded that rituals and religion could never save anybody.

And if it was true that rituals and religion could not save anybody, and you came to God through grace and faith, then they would be out of a job.

They would lose their power, authority, and control.

Think about the Romans.

They did not want to be reminded that no matter how powerful or glory-filled their kingdom was, it, like all other kingdoms, will fade away and end up on the ash heap of history.

Don't you realize this is so important, don't you?

I know it's Christmas, Christmas Eve.

This is the best time to confront ourselves with the reality of the birth narrative and what it teaches.

Do you realize that when Jesus comes to you, do you know what he's saying to you?

He's saying, you're not the real king.

It's not all about you and your empire.

It's not about your glory.

It's not about how good you think you are.

You are not your own.

Everything you are and have is a gift from God.

Submit your life to him.

And the irony, of course, is this.

He who loses his life finds it.

Then I should also remind us that you and I, when you and I follow Jesus, there will not be a lot of room in an awful lot of ends for us.

Our righteousness will attract many, but it will repel many others.

I've often talked about my experience when I went to Tennessee Tech University to try to make it to the next level of professional basketball.

And I was only there a day until I realized that I just didn't have what it takes.

I was a big fish, small pond.

One of the parts of the story I didn't tell you is that, just to be honest, there were probably three to four, maybe five at the most, white guys in this camp.

And we were all trying to vie for positions.

And on the first half of the day, I really thought, hey man, I got a good chance because I'm the best white guy here.

And then the afternoon of the first day, I was introduced to an incredible athlete, incredible shooter, incredible athlete.

And I remember what I was thinking on the sidelines as I watched him.

Part of me had a great respect for him because I could see the talent and ability that he had, but another part of me hated him.

I hated him because he exposed my weakness, that I really wasn't that good.

And this is what a professional athlete looks like.

In one respect, you have to understand that the more we become like Jesus, the more we will not be invited in to the ends of this world.

Our presence shines light in the darkness, which means that we can hope to bring hope to the hurting, yes.

But as we're doing that, we're also going to unintentionally expose unrighteousness just by our presence.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a room with a friend of mine, and I was like, Michael, my co-pastor and I headed over to Bel Air.

We were gonna speak, we're gonna actually speak the gospel at a somewhat secular event.

And I was told that there was a young man seated behind us that as soon as I got up to speak, just got up and walked out and said something like, you know, another middle-aged white man telling us how to live.

Well, let me tell you something.

I've talked with enough agnostics and atheists to know that me being a middle-aged white man is not the real problem.

It's a smoke screen for something else.

There are those people that as soon as a pastor stands up to talk about Christ and talk about the gospel, that there's going to be such a sense of conviction in a life that they can't bear it.

And they're either going to humble themselves and repent, or they're going to flee or lash out in anger.

The Christmas story tells us that's the way it's going to be.

Now, However, yes, Jesus came to be rejected.

Yes, he's rejected because he doesn't fit the profile of a king or a celebrity.

And yes, when Jesus comes to us, he has this uncanny way of exposing who we really are.

That would be sad news if it were not for the final point.

And the final point is the reason Jesus was rejected is so that you and I could be accepted.

This is the beauty of the Christmas story.

Isaiah 53, watch this carefully.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

What does all that mean?

Now listen, this is the end, but take this journey.

In Micah chapter four, verse eight, the prophecy about the coming Messiah says, As for you, watch tower of the flock, stronghold of the daughter Zion.

The former dominion will be restored to you.

Kingship will come to daughter Jerusalem.

So, From this passage, we learn that the future king, Messiah, Yeshua, will be not just from the town of Bethlehem, but more specifically, the Tower of the Flock or Bethlehem Ephratheth.

Bethlehem Ephratheth is the agricultural zone in Migdal-Egdel.

That's what the Tower of the Flock means.

So historians and archaeologists tell us that Migdal-Egdel was located one Roman mile east of Bethlehem.

So one mile due east across the valley of Bethlehem, still today, we find the ruins of the Tower of the Flock mentioned by Micah.

You say, so what?

Well, what was the Tower of the Flock all about?

Why did Messiah need to be born in the agricultural zone of Bethlehem?

Well, because this particular location is also known as the Field of David.

David had purchased the land many years earlier because it was his goal and vision as the king of Israel to do something very special.

He wanted to bring the tabernacle and the temple back to Jerusalem.

So he purchased this land, not too far away, one mile due east.

He purchases this land in order to raise up the sacrificial flock for the priest during Passover.

So he gives his ancestral land to be dedicated to this very special flock.

And this flock must be looked after 24-7, I mean day and night.

So they would watch these sheep, not only hand-to-hand, not only on the fields, but they would have watchtowers.

And these shepherds' towers would give them the ability to watch where the sheep were at any time, any given moment.

Now, there are a lot of towers, and the reason there are so many towers is because they were not raising your average sheep.

These were very special lambs or sheep.

The sheep raised for Passover sacrifice to take away the sins of the people.

So the lamb had to be, if you know your Old Testament, without blemish.

So if the lamb had any kind of scar or blemish, then it was considered unclean and could not be used for sacrifice.

So these sheep had to be intentionally and diligently guarded.

Again, you needed shepherds and the watchtowers on guard 24-7.

Any attacks from predators would forfeit the lamb as a sacrifice to God.

They had to be protected from injury of any kind.

So now in Luke 2, these shepherds that the angels appeared to, in this particular field, the very same ones who had been placed in charge over the Passover lamb.

So these just weren't any isolated shepherds.

They were very specific shepherds.

And the Bible tells us they were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night, not just any flocks, the flocks associated with Passover.

The preparation of the lambs without blemish were spot.

The angels came to Migdal-Idel, the tower of the flock.

And then we're told in Luke 2, 6, while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.

And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.

So Jesus, the Son of God, Savior of the world, was placed in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Again, this is not just any random sight.

It's not just to show the humble entry of the Messiah into our world.

There's a foreshadowing at work here.

Those words in Luke's gospel spoken to the shepherds were bursting forth with deep meaning to Matthew and Luke's audience.

The rabbis tell us that the priests would come up every high holy day from Jerusalem to Migdal Adel to the priestly tower to inspect the flock or lamb before the big day.

Now listen to the procedure.

They would place the lamb in the manger.

That's right, a manger.

After the inspection, the lamb would be wrapped in swaddling cloth, then brought to Jerusalem for sacrifice.

Now you say, why did they wrap the lamb in cloth?

Because that would tie his hands.

It would ensure that the lamb could not get away from the priest, from the journey outside of Bethlehem until the time of sacrifice.

Because if the lamb somehow slipped away, got injured on the way, these years of protecting this unblemished lamb would be nothing, just like that.

Yeshua, Jesus, was born in the agricultural center as foretold by Micah because he was the Lamb of God who was going to take away the sins of the world.

He was wrapped in the same manner as these lambs, in swaddling cloths, laid in a manger, looked after by the same shepherds that raised and cared for the Passover and atonement sacrifices.

Why?

Because Jesus is the Lamb of God who was rejected and crucified, that he might take away the sins of the world.

And the question every person must ask at Christmas is a simple one.

Have you received the gift or have you rejected him?

That's the question.

You can talk about how cool the Christmas story is every year.

You can have soft music playing and you can have the little baby in the manger and never see him as the lamb of God.

And the wise men who come from a great distance to bring gifts to the king, you can be enamored with that.

And you can think, my, oh my, how cool the Christmas story is.

But let me tell you, if it never changes you, if you don't get the overarching story, then you continue to be lost in your sins, alienated from God, and this life will be a course of frustration.

But he who dies to himself will live for Christ.

And if you lose your life, ultimately you end up finding it.

And so the whole point of the Christmas story is to remind you that typically humanity will reject Jesus because he doesn't look the part, because he exposes who we really are.

But Jesus came to planet earth knowing that he'd be rejected for those reasons and still became available to the Father to be rejected and then to be slaughtered on a cross to be the sacrificial Passover lamb so that you and I could reject him in hopes that one day we would receive him and in doing so, salvation, good news, peace on earth, goodwill toward men would come to us.

So I ask you a simple question.

What are you doing with Jesus?

What have you done with him?

Is he just a good story?

To some of you, maybe a good myth?

Or did God reveal himself to us that the supernatural world became evident and the God who loves us so much came to us, Emmanuel, God with us, and did for us what we could not do for ourselves?

Now here's the beauty of the story.

According to Jesus, there are only two kinds of people on this planet.

A planet for which we have no exhaustive understanding.

No understanding unless God himself reveals it.

Two kinds of people.

The first kind.

They are angry when somebody like me comes and gives you the message of the good news of the gospel.

They lash out and they can't wait to get out of this auditorium or turn the television off or the computer off or the laptop or the iPhone, whatever it is.

because they want to go on with their life and they don't want to be held accountable for the reality that God has come near.

And then there's a whole new group of people.

They've heard the message now and they've realized my life, this life has nothing of substance, real substance to offer me.

And I've got to connect with this sense of beyond.

And this Christmas, I'm going to do exactly that.

I'm going to acknowledge that I know God knows who I am and so do I.

And I'm going to throw myself on the mercy of the cross of Jesus Christ, this lamb that was slain before the foundations of the world, and I'm going to give my life to him.

And here's the beauty of that.

The people who do that, we always say wise men still seek him, wise women, wise men.

When you seek him and he reveals himself to you, and the light comes on in the darkness of your life, it's supposed to spurn you toward humility and repentance.

And then at that point, you become a follower of Jesus.

Now, stay with me.

What does that mean?

Well, follower not only means that you're walking in the steps of Jesus, but it also means you're going to follow him right on into eternity.

Jesus was born, rejected, crucified.

And now he sits at the right hand of the Father.

And in Psalm 116 or Psalm 16, we're told that in the presence of the Father are blessings evermore.

But that's our journey.

For us, we've been born, we rejected, and we will be rejected.

And then at some point we're crucified.

Christians call that baptism.

We die to our old way of living arrogantly, and we become humble, and we're resurrected to live a new life that follows Jesus.

And for those who do that, here's the promise that we have.

We too will not die, but we will go into the presence of the Father, and in the presence of the Father are blessings evermore.

That is the story of Christmas.

And it's a story that every individual has to deal with.

And he who loses his life in Christ.

discovers it, finds it, and will experience blessings evermore.

Father, thank you for 2023 Christmas.

I pray that we would move beyond the lights, the trees, and all the beauty that exists this time, although it is so enjoyable.

We would move beyond that into the concept of truth.

Who is God?

Has he revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ?

And what is the message of that revelation?

And I pray that the Holy Spirit would open eyes.

And before we start, before we began another year, there would be hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions, who are far from God, who would come near because of the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

In his name we pray, Christ Jesus, Yeshua.

Amen.