Luke 2:1–7Scripture
I remember my grandfather on Christmas Eve when I was a young man, we would have all the family gathered, and after dinner and before we exchanged gifts with the family, he would read this chapter, and we loved, I love this, I love the story. I'm not going to read the whole chapter this morning, i'm only going to read seven verses at the very beginning. I think that there are some truths in here that might be relevant for us today. Of course all the truths in the Word are relevant for us today, but particularly in this season, maybe some things for us to consider as we reflect over the next couple of days. How many of you have ever experienced some problems? How many of you have ever experienced the fact that oftentimes christmas seems to exacerbate those problems, right? And whenever we come into a season like Christmas, things that we have experienced through the year, like death in our family, like hardships we have gone through, like loss of job or broken
Point 1God uses problems to move you to promise
Relationships, things of that nature, seem to be, I don't know, exacerbated, if you will, during the Christmas season. I want to encourage you today, because oftentimes God uses problems to get you to what he's promised. More specifically,
God uses problems to get you to the promise.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:38
Oftentimes we think that the promise is what's coming to us, but oftentimes it's what's coming through us. And your situations don't necessarily dictate how God functions and what he's trying to accomplish, but God will move you with problems. I found often in my life that I'd get comfortable in situations and I would tend to stay somewhere longer than God intended, and to get me to the place that he has designed for me, or to the situation, or to the location, specifically the place that he wants for me, he often has to send a problem to get me to move out of where I'm at. Some of you might be thinking location-wise, but sometimes it's as simple as an attitude. You're stuck in a rut, or an attitude, or a behavior that you continue in that you've grown uncomfortable existing this way for a while. We tend to think that problems are a result that God is displeased with us, it is a way that he punishes us, or maybe that God has forgotten us, or maybe that problems are straight from the devil, but they could not be from God. But oftentimes God uses problems to get us to his promise. We see that in the story when we look at Mary and Joseph. We see that not only does he use a problem to get them to where he wants them to be, but that problem doesn't just affect them. How many of you know, the longer that we kind of are on this journey as a church, we understand that we are a part of a family of families, and the longer that you are a part of a family or in a relationship, how many of you remember the first time you met that person who just seemed like they were going to be the greatest friend ever, and then you knew them for six months and you realized they had some things that annoyed you, they had some problems? And it's amazing how in relationships like that, the longer you're in relationship with somebody, the more you realize they have problems, but you almost get to a place where you forget that you have some too. So relationships and family problems are going to be present, but it's amazing, because we read things in the Bible and we quote it and we're happy for it until it happens to us, like "iron sharpens iron," but we don't really get to a place where we like to quote that when we want someone else to endure our problems. We don't like to endure that, nor do we quote that when we have to endure someone else's. But oftentimes God uses problems to take off the rough edges of our lives to get us to where he wants us to be. And let's read a story, and I want you to look at this. I want you to look for several things. I want you to look for the problems that Mary and Joseph are facing. I want you to consider how God might be using and may have sent these problems, it's God's business, and then I want you to consider the promise that this problem produces. All right, Luke 2:1–7 says this: "In those days a decree," let me do this, we all have ESV so you can read it in your ESV, I want to read it from the King James version, and then we want, because it words differently, and then we'll talk about why the wording is different. But I like the way the King James says it, because the point of what the census was for, it takes a census, or asks for everybody to be registered, the whole point of the registration that they're acquiring here, Caesar is acquiring here, is that they might be taxed, that everybody that's registered might be taxed. So they had to go back to their home to be registered so that he could tax them. So we're going to read King James because it says "tax." And I think that's, how many of you are really super excited about tax season? You love it's your favorite time of the year, you can't wait. As a matter of fact, you're not somebody who waits till April to file your taxes, you do it in January, you're so excited about it, you can't wait. All right, Luke 2:1, let me read it from King James: "And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." Now we know here it's referring to all of Palestine, but you get the point, right? "And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. And all went to be taxed," who went? All. Who were taxed? Everyone. No man is an
Point 2Your life affects everyone connected to you
Island. When you pray for God to do something in your life, it affects everyone connected to you. When you pray, do you consider how the answer to your prayer might affect everyone else, or do you only consider you? We do not live in a world where we function all by ourselves. Our prayers only affect us, our choices only affect us, our life only affects us, our words only affect us, it's only about us. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you think, every way you act affects everyone around you. Consider that this Christmas when you break bread, when you choose your words around the table. People understand that your life affects all that you touch. It is an amazing thing to consider that your choices affect the direction of other people, that when God is trying to do something to you and through you, it affects not just you, it affects everyone. "And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem." How do you know that? In the Old Testament it prophesied that Christ, the Messiah, would come from the house of David, which is in judea, which is in Bethlehem. "To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child." Notice here that Mary and Joseph are in Galilee, nothing good comes from there, and God moves them to where the Bible prophesied the Messiah will come from, and the way he moves them to the place, a promise is through a problem. See, some of you think if you're facing a problem that you're not on the path to what God has promised, but oftentimes problems are a sign that you're headed toward the promise. And in our culture, particularly in America, we see problems as the antithesis of God's pathway, but sometimes it is the path. The path to the cross, the Christ was called the Way. The way for you to enter into salvation or have received salvation or be saved from your sin is through Christ. That pathway was problematic for Christ, it provided great provision for you, which we celebrate today, but know that it came with a high cost. And I want you to understand, parents, how many of you know that your children are benefactors of the price you've paid? To believe that you are a Christian, or the point you become a Christian, that then everything is going to be rosy, and the effectiveness of your life and the extent of your life is about joy and peace, and it is, though there are moments of that.
Remember, peace doesn't happen absent of problem, peace comes in the midst of problem.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:35
How can you even, why do you even need peace if there is no problem to have peace in? If everything's peaceful, it's not a big deal that you have peace. And so when we think of the Christmas story, we need to begin to understand, listen, we see these angels and we see these wonderful things and great tidings of wonderful joy and peace for all the world, and then we look at our life and we go, well, why are there so many problems when the Bible talks about Christmas as being so peaceful and wonderful and joyful and cute and neat and great? My life's problematic. Guys, it was problematic, in case you didn't know, she was fully pregnant, traveling on a donkey to get to a location that was opposite of the location so she could be taxed. Sounds wonderful, Merry christmas.
Let us not too quickly forget that promises are often found in the midst of our greatest struggles.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 11:37
"And so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered." Great, couldn't even make it back home. Great, couldn't even get a hotel.
"And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes," stinky swaddling clothes, "and laid him in a manger," a poopy manger. Sounds awesome. Merry Christmas. "Because there was no room for them in the inn." Every single Sunday, and when you open your Bible, when you go through your week, your perspective is based oftentimes on your needs. Some of you will leave here today and you will call him a healer because you came here sick and you need him to heal you. Others will leave here today calling him a deliverer because you came here bound up with all kinds of addictions or problems or issues and you need him to deliver you. Others will leave here calling him a way maker because you came and there's some roadblocks in your life that you can't seem to overcome and you need him to make a way where there seems to be no way. And although there are several different people in here that see God several different ways, does not mean there are multiple gods. It doesn't mean there are three gods in the building this morning. It means that your situation often determines your illumination.
Your situation often affects how you see God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:32
So then it is important this Christmas when we hear the story to understand that the situation is not so wonderful as you might have pictured, but it's very problematic, and in the midst of the problems, in the midst of the opposition, in the midst of all the things going on, the tribulation and the trouble that is happening, God is at work. I don't know if that gives you hope today, but in your greatest trouble, God is at work. I read this week and I love it. An index, an index in a book is at the very back of the book, and it has a bunch of words in there, and those words describe things that were happening in the book. And there's somebody who has been quoted as saying, "The greater the index, the better the book. The more comprehensive the index, the better the book." And then the writer begins to go on and says, "An index to a man's life is not determined by his successes, but it is determined rather by his tribulation." If you want to understand what you will accomplish in life, don't look at your successes, those things done oftentimes according to human ingenuity and strength and wit. If you want to understand what you will accomplish in life, look closely at your adversities.
The greater the calling, the greater the trouble.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:26
And what a calling that was on Mary's life and Joseph's life. Have you ever noticed that you can lose everything and still find yourself there? I lost everything close to me, but i'm still here. I lost my husband or my wife, but no matter what I've lost, I'm still here. I lost my job. There are those who over the last couple of years you've lost your job, you've lost your house, you've lost your savings, but even though you've lost all those things, you still find yourself here. If that's you've been wondering, maybe God wasn't trying to do something with your friends. Maybe God was not dependent upon your husband or your wife. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe what God wanted to do with you wasn't dependent upon your house or your money or your situation, but maybe what God was trying to do with you is not dependent on all those things that you've fallen in love with and you've lost hope over losing.
But because the only thing that's left is you, maybe that's enough.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:54
Maybe God is trying to do something with you, and I think that's important today, right? It's important because in a season where we make it all about what we get, it's important for us to remember that's not what's most important to God. At the end of the time, it says that everything that you accumulate in life will fade away, but guess what won't?
You. You will always be around, and the place of your destiny is determined by what you cherish. Oh, that's important for this season, isn't it? Because if all that you cherish is what fades away, then your eternal destiny is not filled with hope and love, but it is headed toward an eternal hell, and that is not what this season is about. And this season is trying to divorce us from stuff and connect us to the source of that stuff, which is Christ. Because at the end of the day, everything fades away that you put your hope in. So change where you put your hope in and find your hope in Christ. In Christ. I really do believe that oftentimes problems come to take away the things that have stood in place of
Point 3Your trials show the depth of your life
God.
Indexes let you know the worth of a book. Great books have big indexes because they have dealt with many things.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:05
How many things have you dealt with?
Just think about it for a second, just think how many things have you gone through, how many pains.
See, pain, that's in my index. Is it in your index? Hurt, that's in my index. Tribulation, yep, that's in there, i've gone through that. Poverty, 100%, 100%. How many of you went to school when you were an adult? How many of you ever did that? There's a few of you actually, there's some in the house. How many of you know there wasn't much money for food, at least it wasn't for me. I mean, we had beans and then we had refried beans and then we had triple refried beans. We had chili, then we had chili mac, and then we had chili sandwiches, because you just try to figure out how to repurpose what you got, because poverty, that's in my index. Do you know that all of these things, sickness, that's still in my index. I even know, I pass kidney stones like a factory. I am a kidney stone producing machine. I literally just recently passed the 53rd kidney stone. After the 20th I stopped naming them. Ouch, oh my, oopsy daisy, I want my mommy. I named each of them, put them in a jar, and I quit naming them because it was, but sickness, that's in my index, it won't go away no matter how hard I pray, it won't go away. You would not believe the intimacy I have with the Lord and calling out for him when I'm in a fetal position. It's in my index, and God's okay with it remaining there. I don't understand it, I've tried to pray it away. Why would he allow that to remain? Because the worth of a book is based on the index. Sometimes God allows things, let me give you an example. Paul prayed three times, I prayed more than that for my kidney stones, that this thorn would pass away. I truly believe it was kidney stones, and it did not pass, right? Did not, right? I don't think it's that, but I just, I tell a joke, and it did not pass, and he said, "My grace is sufficient for you." And I'm going to leave it there, because what it accomplishes in you is greater than what would happen if I removed it. In other words,
I'm okay with pain producing what I promised would come through you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:04
I'm okay with that. And see, we spend so much time being burdened with this idea that we can pray something off of us that God has ordained to be there. Now some of you were like, now Shawn, God healed everyone. Well, actually, when he went to the pool of Bethesda, he healed one of thousands and he left thousands at the pool. Need I go on? There were many people God passed by. What about the lady with the issue of blood? We celebrate the fact that he healed her. What about all the other people touching him, because everyone was touching him, but she was healed and they were not? Why? We only celebrate the deliverance from sickness as a God movement, and we deny that the same God who said, "I'll leave the thorn in your flesh," that's him at work just as well. But this Christmas story is not a story where all problems are removed. It is a story where God sends problems to get people to the place of promise. You're like, Shawn, I brought my family here today, this is not the Christmas message that will inspire and encourage and help people turn to God.
I'm sorry about preaching messages about a false god that you've contrived and worship, but the God of the Bible has no problem using tribulation to accomplish his purposes, and if you come to him, tribulation may be your recourse, it may be your path. To say that a life without tribulation exists, whether you're without Christ or with Christ, would be amiss, because oftentimes he wields it sovereignly for his purposes. So sickness, some of you, death is in your index, some of you, persecution or discarded, that's in your index. The index implies that you're not just nobody, some nobody who showed up yesterday. This is what the book said, I love this, that there's some worth in your life. I love this, there is some depth in your life. You aren't some shallow puddle, baby, that's what it said, you're a river of great depth waiting to burst forth when God moves. He often moves you with problems.
At this time with Mary and Joseph, God is about to do something in the world, but for him to do what he needs to do, he needs to get a girl, and it said the only thing special about Mary, because that's who he chose, is that she was the one chosen among many other women just like her. And we tend to try to make Mary this special thing, she must have been really special and unique, she must have been a really chosen so then we look at the story and we go, what do I need to do to be special like Mary? And so we strive to be special, we strive to be
Point 4Mary was favored because she was chosen
Someone that God would choose, but
She is not chosen because she is special, she is special because she is chosen, and that's the gospel.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:14
It says she found favor with God. I got in an argument this week with somebody talking about favor, but let me break it down for you the way that I broke it down for my friend.
Favor is not earned.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:39
When I ask you for a favor, I'm asking you for a favor because I don't deserve what I'm asking for. That's what makes it a favor. Are you with me? When you go at the end of your week and you get your pay, you used to actually have to pick it up from your mailbox at work, they used to have those, now they just get automatically deposited in your account, but when you go check your account to see if payroll has run and you received the money that was due you, it's not a favor, it's money paid for time served. You expect it. Why do you expect it? Because you worked and you deserve it. So Mary was highly favored. Why was she favored? She was favored not because of what she did. She was favored because God chose her. Favor emanates from access. You can't ask a favor of somebody that you're not close to. It says that she was in Galilee, there's a saying, "Can anything good come from Galilee?" I love that. And when people met Jesus, they thought he was from galilee, but actually Jesus was not from Galilee, because God moved Mary and Joseph with a problem.
God did not allow Jesus to be born there. One, it was not prophesied that they would be born there. Two, they were not from there. It said that they had to return from the land in which they came. Joseph came from Judah, that's where he came from, or in other words the house of David, because Christ would come from the lineage, in the line of David. All right, he is the promised one, the promised Messiah. And notice here, I want to say this, and I've been trying to think all week about whether I want to say this or not, and I'm going to say this: Jesus came to the world. How many of you know that's true? Came to the world. But let's not think of it that way this morning, let's just step away from that for a moment, and let's talk about how he came to the world.
He came through Mary. I think that's more important, because in a season we're considering what's coming to me, and we make it all about us, we fail to understand that the story, the narrative, the Christmas story, is about what came through Mary to the world, not what came to her.
The promise came through her, not to her.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:44
It came to her, but it came through her. Are you with me? So what do you think about in christmas? Are you anxious on Christmas morning because of what can come through you? Because that's how the promise comes, that's how the promise comes to the world, but how it comes through you. Believers in the house today, there are non-believers in the house today, and there are believers in the house today.
Believers in the house today, are you more concerned about what's coming to you this Christmas or what will come through you to the world? The Christmas story is about a promise that came through someone so that it could get to someone. When you're saved, when you believe in Christ, you put your faith in him, it says that the Spirit of God takes up residence in you, the promised one. How does it get to the world? Well, I just am glad that I got it. To me, it gets that promise, gets to the world going through
Point 5The promise comes through you, not just to you
You. So really the story of Christ is more about what comes through you than what comes to you. You're saying, well, Shawn, you don't understand, you don't understand my family, they're crazy, they drive me crazy. Some of you can't even agree with me now because they're here with you. But I got two good days in me and I can like everybody, but by the time we click past the second day and we hit into 49 hours, I'm done, I've had enough. My wife and I are locked up in a room talking about the craziness that is ensuing. See, when you enter Christmas that way, you're entering it from a mindset where you're concerned about what's coming to you, but as a believer you should be concerned about what comes through you to them. What are you allowing Christ to be through you this Christmas? Because the promise is not about what you get, the promise is about what others get because the promise comes through you to the world around you. I love that. So really the promise didn't come to Mary, the promise came through Mary. Are you with me today? And you are a benefactor because of what came through her, not what came to her. Now this is the antithesis of what we believe in the American culture, because it's all about what's coming to me. I'm going to get mine, I'm going to have mine, even when we think in the future about our retirement, and I'm not saying you should be unwise and you should not care about your future and invest and do those things, but it's all about what we get, but what comes through you, not what comes to you. God is about to do something in the world, but for him to do it he needs to get a girl. He gets a girl, he overshadows the girl, and the same God who overshadows this girl is small enough to dwell in the girl. That's amazing to me, that
We serve a God who's big enough to overshadow you but small enough to dwell in you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:35
That's good news. That's good news. It's kind of paradoxical to think of it that way, it becomes a confusion of terms.
It is so crazy that Mary says, "How can this thing be?" That the same God who overshadows me dwells in me, and God wants the only answer to your "how can this be?" To be only God, that there would be no way you or the people around you could take credit for what God is about to do. The problem is whenever God begins to deal with you, he doesn't just have to just deal with you, his dealing with you impacts everyone connected to you. She wondered how this thing would happen, and God was concerned about the place that it would happen. God uses problems to get you to the place of promise. We think problems are evidence that we might miss God, but problems can be the means by which God gets us to the place of promise. God taxed, it says, God sensed, he took a census, God checked to see who was a part of that home area that he might tax them. He did this to everyone because Mary was out of place to give birth to the promise. The number one thing you can think about in regards to your children raising them up is the answer to the question, are you out of place? Because being out of place doesn't just put a tax on you, it taxes everyone connected to you. Everyone.
See, Christmas is not just about you,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:42
and there are some of us in here today, you know you're out of place, you know it, you're at a place with your attitude, only God can help you with that, you're out of place, and it's taxing everyone around you. And until you get in place, not just you but everyone around you will be taxed. In other words, it's taxing to be out of place, and we think of that personally, but we don't think about that. This is weird, so we have several teenage girls, one, two, three, four, five, I can actually count, okay, so five teenage girls up here now. I would like to believe that because I'm a pastor, because my right life runs on a different realm than teenie boppers, you're young women now, but do you know what I mean, that I'm arm wrestling, they're not doing that. I'm only doing it because my son, because it breaks me every time I do it, but I'm hanging out with my son and I'm arm wrestling. When's the last time you guys went to an arm wrestling tournament with a bunch of people that look like they came out of a biker bar? Are you with me? They're crazy. It's crazy, I'm there, it's crazy. And so I go, that you wouldn't hang out in there, you have fun making fun of me on Instagram, but you wouldn't go there, and you guys are doing makeup and having slumber parties and doing things like that and taking selfies and stuff, and I like that stuff, and watching Percy Jackson. Actually I did like the Percy Jackson episode that just came out, by the way. I was watching one of them, they post about Percy Jackson, and that's one way we're connected because I like the Percy Jackson show that came out, by the way it was irritating because they didn't release the whole season, they only released one episode and I don't know what's up with that, what's up with that? Anyway, so that's one way. There are two episodes now? I missed it, she's telling me there's two, so that's what I'm going to do this christmas, and so I'm going to watch episode two. But other than that, we're not connected. So what happens then if over here and my arm wrestling, you know, beef-eating kind of life, right, hanging out with my son, I'm out of place with the Lord, that can't affect these ladies, we are in different worlds? That's not what the Bible says. If they're believers, and I think they are, and I'm a believer, the Bible says we are the body of Christ, and if the arm hurts, the big toe hurts, if the thumb hurts, the pinky toe hurts, it all hurts. Why? Because we're a part of the body, and if this hand is out of place, it affects the whole. How many of you know it would be weird if my finger is my foot, and if I'm trying to walk around with a peg leg, finger instead of a foot, that is out of place. Guess what, it don't just hurt the finger because you're trying to put weight, unnecessary weight. He hurt his finger, what if we move that finger that's hurt and put it on his foot and told him to walk home? That's out of place, it would hurt, it hurts the whole body. You say, well, we're not connected, we're in different worlds. When you're a part of the body of Christ, their world is your world. This isn't one of those things where you go home to your family for Christmas and I go home to my family for christmas and we are in separate worlds. If you're the body of Christ, we are the same world, and if someone over here is out of place and someone over here is out of place, everybody from every place will be taxed, because that's the way he designed it. To get one person to the place of promise, this is good stuff, this is crazy, right? One person, the whole world taxed. You have a duty, because the promise doesn't just come to you, the promise comes through you. Promise comes through you. Whenever God begins to deal with you, he doesn't just have to deal with you, his dealing with you impacts everyone connected to you, impacts everyone. I love this, and this is the final thing and I'm done. It says at the very end of this, "There was no place for them in the inn." You don't get to determine your place, and you can knock on this door and you can knock on that door and you can look and hope you can get into that door, but if it's not the place that God has chosen for you won't get in. Are you with me? And you can put a vote in and you can request it and you can ask them and you can knock all the day long, but if God has not ordained it, there will be no room for you where he has not prepared and designed for it to be the place. Some of you are thinking of things this Christmas, of places you want to go, of things you want to accomplish, but don't be ashamed if when you knock on that door the answer is, there's no room for you here.
Rejoice, because if it's not the place God designed, the fact that there's no room should bring you hope, because if God doesn't want you there won't be room for you there.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:10
That's good news. Now this is the antithesis of the kind of thing we talk about at Christmas, because we want to celebrate what we're going to accomplish and what we're going to achieve and what we're going to put our hands on. New Year's Eve is not about thinking backwards by index, it's about thinking forward of the greater things that we will receive.
But the worth of a man is not what you will accomplish, the worth of a man is what you've been through.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:50
Oftentimes the place of promise differs from where you would think, and the American culture helps keep you often from the place that God has promised. What do you serve, this culture or the God which is opposite of this culture?
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