God chooses real people to do things we never thought possible in ways we never considered.
Faith is the belief that God is who he says He is and will do everything He has promised to do.
The belief I’m good enough (qualified) and I can do (solution) and will do (ability) everything that needs to be done.
I wonder if there are two kinds of faith.
Faith that saves us.
Faith for the battle at hand.
#alivewesleyanchurch
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God chooses real people to do things we never thought possible in ways we never considered.
Faith is the belief that God is who he says He is and will do everything He has promised to do.
The belief I’m good enough (qualified) and I can do (solution) and will do (ability) everything that needs to be done.
I wonder if there are two kinds of faith.
Faith that saves us.
Faith for the battle at hand.
#alivewesleyanchurch
For the latest sermons, stories, & training: https://alivewesleyan.com/sermons/
STAY CONNECTED:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ALIVEWesleyan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ALIVEwesleyan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alivewesleyan/
Website: https://alivewesleyan.com
Newsletter: https://alivewesleyan.info/weeklyupdate
So let me have a word of prayer with you and I'll share with you what I have on my heart today. Oh Jesus, thank you so much. These beautiful people, man. Lord, just just looked down. Just take a moment and I don't know if you look down, but just look lord and see that all of us are prepping our homes and, and even prepping are what goes into a tree and prepping celebration. So many of us are doing it. Why we're celebrating you and I know that there's all kinds of flaws when humans trying to bring glory to you, but that's kind of what you like. You like us giving you the what we have and I am grateful, Lord, for this time of year. I'm grateful for these people. They're part of my celebration every year as we think about the significance of you coming. And so I prayed for the next few moments that you would fill our hearts with what we need. This is a stressful time of year. It's confusing time of year for some of us. It's a lonely time a year. So Lord just fill us with what you need and learning. We leave this place and we're all driving down that hill or whenever we're, what we're watching online, whatever's going on. Um, may we finished this moment and say, this is what, this is what God wants me to do, or this is who God wants me to be, to be more like him because that's what we want. We just want to be a little more like you. So for some of us, that'll be a real simple thing. For others of us, it might be a little bit of an overhaul, but either way we just, we just want to be more like you. So have your way in the next few moments I pray and we will give you great praise the Lord North that to happen, man, you gotta hide me behind you. We don't want to be more like me wondering like you and so, so uses and covers in your cross, in your name. Amen. Well, let me, well, I did this this morning already and here's what I've sort of learned. Um, I think I'm going to depress you people over the next few moments, but I hope it will be a good depression. And when we get done you'll say, wow, that was a depressing message I've ever heard. So, you know, I don't know how you're gonna react to it, so we'll just have to see. But it's not your typical kind of Christmas message. So stay with me and if you feel like I'm discouraged, just gimme a smile is something. Okay. So let me see where this go. See, this series is basically trying to challenge a false conclusion that I think many of us have sort of made kind of when it comes to people read about in scripture and so we're sort of guilty of establishing this line of separation between real people and Bible people. So like there's me and you and most of us are what we call real people. And then there's these Bible people when we read stories about, you know, and so we read some level of devotion of people in scripture like the lady who pours out a whole bunch of expensive perfume on Jesus' feet. Well, I think that's a bible person that's not like what real people do or, or when read about some risks people took when they believed, you know, like, like when Peter stood up before the violent mob who had just crucified Jesus and he said to them, Hey, guess what? Y'All just killed the messiah when he did that. We think, wow, that's a bible person. That's not a real person who had the courage to do that or read about some of the amazing ways that God showed up or used people in Bible stories like when the little dude packed little lunch of fish and bread and that's all they had. And then Jesus Fed 5,000 people with it. What we think, well, he's the little kids, just not real people. He's a Bible people or person. And then there's us, there's like this divide. In fact, it's so challenging us that we place sort of Bible people in this other category, almost like it's a nursery rhyme. Those are people who do not live in our neighborhoods or whose kids are not playing the same ball teams our kids play on and and we conclude that Bible people and real people like us actually have very little in Common Bible. People are special people. They're people with Halos is kind of what we think, who walked around all the time quoting scripture and never have a bad day and all the watches, the hallmark channel and they had ever have doubts or fears and the smell like incense all the time. That's Bible people and then there's us and there's this big divide. If we start drinking that Koolaid, that Bible, people belong in the other category, the implications of this are actually are massive. If we buy into this idea, this is a huge, huge deal because if Bible people belong in the other category, if they're different from us, they're not the same. It's like God angels, Bible People, and Tom, you know, and that's Kinda how we think. Well, then what that means is when I read stories about people in the Bible, I don't have to be challenged by the devotion of a Joseph who gets a dream and says, Hey, guess what? Your girlfriend, who's soon to be wife, she's she's pregnant, but it's okay. It's by the son of God and we think, well, that's a bible person or we don't have to be kind of moved by, by or inspired by a faith that we see in Mary who's just a little girls is guess what? You're pregnant. You've never been with a man before, but it's okay. It's from the Holy Spirit. Anything, well, that's Bible person. That's not real people or we are. We don't have to kind of be inspired or challenged or believe in angels maybe like the shepherds did or we don't have to be driven with a purpose like the wise men who wouldn't stop and traveled for years to try to actually see baby Jesus. We conclude they're special people. There are other people, they're not like us and we come to a room like this and we listened about those special people. Well, the broken halo series we've been doing, and we're going to finish in the next week, that broken halos series is actually designed to get rid of the Halos because everything you read, there are no categories of Bible people and real people. God just made all people. He didn't make Bible people and then the rest of us, they're just real people. When you read scripture, everything that you read, those are just people like me and like you. Yeah, they lived a while ago, but there are no different than other people that lived awhile ago. They're just people and any halos that we have going on or anybody's had. Those are. Those are broken halos. They're not intact. Z. All of humanity knows what it's like to kind of run into a wall or or be confronted with a disappointment or or with a despair to be broken by relationships or by disease and so everybody in this room, we all have these moments or days or weeks or months and even seasons of our lives when things don't go our way, it's like you get up and you get knocked down again. Get up and you get knocked down again and if nothing else this year, but what I've taken away from the Christmas story, and again, maybe it's because of where I am, but the Christmas store in certainly a story of a bunch of people, ordinary people and nothing went according to their plans and I connect to that.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 1:This is the point. You can either give me a nod or this either one. I don't care. Which. Okay. You with me. Some of you good. See in my life and in your life when things don't go according to plan. Well, I think we asked the same questions. Bible people ask isn't a true. We sort of say, well, how'd this happen? That's the first question. Whether you get diagnosed with something or you know whether you have a relationship fall apart or whether your kids sort of reject you or whether you were parents. Reject the kid. I don't know. Whatever we have going on. If there's an accident, the first question we asked is how in the world did this happen? And then the second question, once we get to that one kind of resolved, at some level we say, well now what are we going to do? Or where do we go from here? What do I do now? That's kind of normal, ordinary human experience. But in the midst of those moments that happen when we're asking how did this happen, they're weighing honest, are crushing us. This message of Christmas apparently this year, and I don't know if it's because mom passed away this year. I'm really not sure what it is, but for this Christmas, it's really blaring through for me, just just kind of different than I've ever seen it before. Because if, if, if the message of Christmas was actually true for the ordinary cast of Christmas characters, well then maybe it's true for me and maybe it's true for you. Whatever it is, you're grinding on whatever you got going on in your life. And this is sort of where I've settled for this series. He, God chooses real people, not special people, real ordinary people, just ordinary people to do things that none of us would think would be possible. And he does it in ways that we've never even considered. That's what God does. He chooses ordinary, normal tom and you ordinary people, not perfect people, not people that never have a bad day or say the wrong word at the wrong time. Just ordinary people and real people to do things that nobody ever considered or thought possible in ways that we've never considered that. That's kind of what Christmas is saying. So, you know, I asked myself, who's going to make these things happen? Who's going to heal relationships or help pick up pieces or restore my beliefs that have lost or, or heal disease or help people through a battle with disease? Who's going to fill the emptiness? And, and every time I get to that point that there's two options, it's either nobody or God. And so god is kind of faith is this. It's the belief that God is who he says he is. He's gonna, do everything he promises to do. Now all that to say this, that's all kind of the professional belief system. It's what I get paid to tell you people. But if you'll allow me, this isn't the definition of faith that I normally default to, I'm supposed to, I know that, but I don't always do this very well. In fact, sometimes my definition of faith looks different. I mean this is good for like a blend of mother goose and Jesus and I believe this to be true, but it also sounds a little bit like and they lived happily ever after. So this is the definition of faith that I think I default to at least right now and where I'm at, where I am, the definition of faith I have is the belief that I'm good enough and I can do and will do everything that needs to be done. That's my definition of faith. Am I alone? Come on. Are you with me a little bit? So, so let me be. Let me put it like this. The belief that I'm good enough. In other words, if I'm good enough, I will be qualified. Okay, I'll be qualified to handle this and I will do other words. I'll have the ability and, and, and do everything that will need to be done. I got a solution, I got an ability and I'm qualified and I love this definition of faith. You know why? Because I'm the one in control. I love that. Wouldn't it be great if Tom was in control of everything and you're like, oh Lord, help us. You know, I know. No, no. Yeah, I know. I got people in my house. I feel the exact same. In fact, I feel the same way, but here's the problem for me with this definition of faith and I hope some of you are with me. If this is true, and if you're actually can get to a point of honest confession and thank you. Have Tom. Sometimes. That's what I think I have my faith into. The problem is this, I'm, I'm getting old, not real old. I mean, but um, I figured I'm halfway through and, and this, this other definition just works really good when I'm 20 nowhere, no offense to anybody who was 20, but it worked great for me for a number of years. But then I realized a couple of things. I've never this, I've never been good enough. Whatever that is, I never feel like I'm good enough for whatever you know. I never think I'm good enough that I don't mean suddenly making decisions for the whole planet and I've had enough relationships where I get wounded or our wound are there people or I reject you. They reject her or I've been confronted with far too many situations that I can't fix her. Come on you with me where this definition doesn't work. It doesn't work and just pastoring our church and the number of situations that you and I are sort of caring together as you talk to me as we head out the door, I hear about something going on or you hear about what's going on in my life and you can't fix it either. It says cold, hard reality that my definition of faiths things. I think there are sort of two kinds of faith. There's one kind of faith that I would call saving faith. This is where I kind of realized that I'm a sinner and I need Jesus to save me and a good man vision. This room would say, you know, Tom, I think I got that one. I think I do too. I really believe in that one, but it's the second kind of faith that I wrestle with. It's the faith that God is actually going to show up when I'm hurting or said another way, the faith that God is going to help with the battle that's at hand. So maybe many of us in the room have faith that will be saved, you know, ask God to forgive us and we live in that and that's a good thing. But when it comes to the battle at hand, we're like, I wonder what I can control or fixing help. Faith saves me, but it's that second faith that's a challenge to me. And that second kind of faith, faith for the battle of hand. That's what I have seen in excess in the Christmas story this year. This second faith is the one that's sort of been light me up. Everything I've been reading this year and the Christmas story for has been read through that lens and that's lack of this second kind of faith. If you got this one but this one you're wrestling with, well then you get stuck in a Rut like I do and you live with this lamp and you get cynical in doubt and and you'll believe it's ever going to get better because you got the first faith, but maybe you struggle with the second one like I do. Let me really depressed us and then see if I can pull us out of the hole here. See, I think life is sort of this way. Everybody in the room, you're either getting ready for in the middle of or coming out of a time or season of life where you are going to have to say, I got to trust God or I'm gonna. Have to trust myself. Everybody. We're all living in those moments and to trust in myself is to believe that I can actually control things. I can actually fix this and heal this, or we surrender to God and have faith for the. He'll handle the bat. What Hand Mary has an angel say, Hey, guess what? You're pregnant, but it's okay. It's the son of God.
Speaker 3:That's a difficult day. Some might even say that's a bad day, but you know the thing that's bothered me this year, things are actually going to get worse for Mary.
Speaker 1:I mean she hears this was a bad day. You're pregnant and you would think, well, get that behind you and then everything else is going to be up and to the right and the roses are going to be beautiful. No, in fact, I might even suggest this is the beginning of a day in which marriage is going to suffer the rest of her life. I love that song. Mary did, you know, but almost I always have this argument with the radio when it plays it because I'm like, well, what about this? What about this? You know, married and you know, and it sounds so beautiful. I just want to add some verses, you know? Did you know that Mary, that Joseph's been thinking about divorce in you when you tell him you're pregnant by God, did you know that Maria? Do you know? And where's that verse? How about this one married? Did you know that you're going to be ridiculed by everybody in town for the rest of your life? Oh, there's Mary, but she got pregnant by God knew they needed to change the theme of that song and you'd be one of those angry rock songs. You know, that kind of thing. I can kind of get married. Did you know that you'd have to fly to Egypt because some insane king is going to kill all the two year old boys because of your baby. How'd you like to live with that guilt? Mom's.
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker 1:Mary. Did you know that some of your other children are not going to believe Jesus is who he says he is, so some of your other children are going to sit around the dinner room, dining room table, the dinner room table, the dining room table, and they're going to be fighting at their table. That part we all get, but what they're going to be fighting about is Jesus. You're not the son of God and mom, who is Jesus? His Dad. My table's looking pretty good right now. That's what they're going to be fighting
Speaker 3:about. Hey Mary, did you know that some of the people who
Speaker 1:ended up believing your son is who he says he is? You and your son are actually gonna Watch, die.
Speaker 3:That's what happened. Christmas, Tommy, and he can get medication. I know, I know, I know, I know. I get it, but just let me show you where the sentence and in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree census to be taken entire Roman world. Everybody went to their town to register. So Mary gets the Angel and Joseph and Mary says yes, and then don't get easier.
Speaker 1:Now Mary's nine months pregnant and she has to ride this donkey. Just so we're clear. I mean most of us have this image that it's just kind of writing down the church aisle. Right? You know, that's how far it was. Actually. Mary had to ride nine months pregnant on a donkey for 80 to 90 miles. No wonder she gave birth when she got there. I mean, of course she did 90 miles riding on a donkey, nine months pregnant and the poor dog. That's probably not relevant. But anyway, I'm just saying that's not no sanity. Now and the reason they're actually being, they're using are actually going to Bethlehem. Let me get clear. This isn't like to go and everybody's going to celebrate Jesus and watch a parade and Santa Claus. That's not what's happening. They're actually going to be counted. Why? Because Rome wants to tax the fool out of him. It's oppression. That's why this is taking place. So nine months pregnant, Mary hops on the donkey. He goes riding into Jerusalem and Bethlehem so she can be counted so that they can be taxed more. So Joseph also went up to the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David because he belonged to house line Atlanta Davis, where he had to go kind of like voting polling stations. This is where he had to go. He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married. Expect your child,
Speaker 2:normal people
Speaker 1:and incredible circumstances. How did this happen? Now what am I going to do? What I do next for Mary and Joseph? They wrestled down the first question. Now I'm not saying it was a great answer. How did this happen? Oh, let me tell you, the Holy Spirit's going to come on you and you're going to get pregnant with that. That's how it's going to happen. So Mary and Joseph are ordinary people like me, and you're like, that makes no sense, but at least it's a how. So once you get the how thing answered, what they do next is what blows my mind. If they're ordinary people, real people like Tom, if we would grow up in the same house, their trust and their faithful and they're obedient and I guess that's sort of people do. When we can't trust in our own abilities, we just sorta surrender, but it's okay because they're following God and following God naturally means everybody's going to be comfortable and the story going to end and everybody lives happily ever after, but not necessarily for six. While they're there, times come for baby to be born and she gives birth to her first born son, wrapped him in cloths, placed him in a manger and that little thing at the end because there wasn't any room for them anywhere else. Why did they put that in there? The mother of the son of God who said, yeah, I'll follow you. I'll surrender. I'll ponder these things. What scripture says, I'll ponder these things in my heart. I'll trust has her first
Speaker 3:baby that God gave her in a barn because there wasn't any place for them to sleep once they got the town. Let me say if there's a, if these are real people and this was me and this is you, wouldn't it be a part of you little maybe or maybe a huge part of you who would say, God, uh, I did what you told me to do. Here. You see where I'm going.
Speaker 1:I did exactly what you told me to do. By the way, not easy. It may have been the son of God, but he's a heavy little son of God. Okay? Nine months riding on a donkey, 90 miles, and here I am. You couldn't provide a bed for us. Really God in there, part of you. I mean, if you could do it without getting hit by lightning and stuff in there, part of you, because that's exactly where I would go. Now again, I haven't been pregnant with the son of God. I get all that, but, but haven't you uttered some version of a prayer like this?
Speaker 3:Why God?
Speaker 1:Why is this happening to me? Why is this pain in my life? Why is this rejection part of my life? Why is this confusion part of my life and sometimes in these moments of challenge or trial or my perspective gets challenged because God enters the world in a very human way. In fact, God entered the world the same way. Everybody in this room entered the world. Then if you don't know that you ask your mom on the way home, okay? Because that's where you get that information, but that's how God entered the world. God entered the world like that, and when the first announcements were made, they were made with not, oh, it's a boy. It wasn't that. It was. Don't be afraid.
Speaker 3:If anything, the past two years taught me is that I can live with fear, not when it comes to my salvation and where I spend eternity, but it is difficult for me to live with fear not in the manger. In the hospital, in the counseling office, in the funeral home, in the courtroom. Now here is the stunner of all this. If you've been able to track in the midst of the trials that Mary and Joseph are going through, that we celebrate every year in the midst of no place. For you to have a baby in the midst of your pregnant can be ridiculed the rest of your life and the Mr Joseph going to quietly divorce. Nope, you got to keep her in the midst of all that. Get this. God was actually being good. He was actually being good and keeping his promises to the world that were made hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of years before. Yeah. My notes say I should say right now there's a pastoral lesson, but I don't even mean it as a pastoral lesson as much as just a dude lesson for me. Sometimes you follow Jesus and it gets harder. People not easier in a short time. As I mentioned, an insecure king. This is the one that is going to feel threatened and he's going to sign a death squad to go through the town and just kill babies. Mary and her new husband and their new baby are going to have to hit the road again and go from all the way up here. If you ever, ever seen a map all the way down to here, to Egypt
Speaker 2:to flee
Speaker 3:while all these babies are killed because of their baby, how do you live with that for the rest of Mary's life? Even when Mary is able to return back home, she will walk to the marketplace and she will hear the whispers. Well, there goes Jesus the carpenter's son. I wonder if Mary had any close friends, so all this to say this. Why did God choose this way? I mean, I've got like, I'm not even that bright and I got like two or three better ideas than this one.
Speaker 1:Why did he choose it this way? I mean, he could've had Jesus born to a family of political power and Rome and transferred Rome from the top down,
Speaker 3:trickle down salvation. That's what he could've done
Speaker 1:or or he could've had Jesus born into Jerusalem family that was part of the religious establishment and sort of changed it from within,
Speaker 3:but he didn't.
Speaker 1:It's almost like God had Jesus born into the most difficult circumstances possible and my question is why would he do it like that?
Speaker 3:Let me ask you a question. Your current life, the real life, not the face group, facebook, instagram, snapchat thing. Not all that. Just your real life. Not like everything's wonderful. Not that the real life and the things that you battle with or have battled with this year. Let me ask you, what kind of God would you be looking for in your real life?
Speaker 1:Because I've really had to mind down on this this year. So I was thinking, what kind of God would I trust? Would it be a controlling god? Okay, Tom, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go up here. Can Hang right, hang a left. I'm going to give you a flower. You can take a flyer here, can give it that lady there. She a really bad day. You just have to kind of think you want that kind of controlling God, a God that makes you do what he wants you to do. How about this? How about a faraway God? Okay. God gives me breath and then you stay out of the way. Just let things happen. What about a commander? God Harding Front Center. This is what I'm wanting to do today and don't screw up. Is that what you want? What about a meet God? Oh, I don't know Tom. Whatever you'd like to do today. It would be great. Let's sit down and watch hallmark together when. That'd be wonderful. I don't know what it looks like. That's the best I could come up with. How about a week? God, man, I really like to help you and your situation, but
Speaker 2:fat, not able just to week
Speaker 1:or. How about a dd that you have no relationship with at all?
Speaker 3:Can't even relate to
Speaker 1:y'all remember more from work and do you remember when he'd go into that little closet come in or is it you remember that kind of thing? We have no emotional attachment. Orson, we can't relate to them. You know that we can't relate to that God no idea, and I don't know if he's got enough, but it can't relate to it. What if that was the god that we're here to celebrate today
Speaker 2:or
Speaker 3:would it be helpful? Would it be intriguing to hear to approach a God who hears your prayers that says life is really hard and sort of crappy right now and that you are struggling and you're afraid and as you pray your fears and thoughts and worries to God, God says,
Speaker 2:yeah, me too.
Speaker 3:I know what it is to question how in the world you got to a point like this. I know what it is, the question where in the world you go from here, I know what it is to face the literal crisis for my life and asked God for help and God says
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:So I went onto face across.
Speaker 2:See
Speaker 3:if that kind of God is real and I believe he is, then that kind of God gets me, but more importantly I feel like I get him. Hebrews book in the New Testament says this, we don't have a high priest. That's someone who intervene between us and God.
Speaker 1:We don't have someone to talk to God or mediate for us who is unable to sympathize. That word sympathize. It means to share someone's feelings, to have compassion, to comfort because you understand the feelings. We don't have a God who are high priest is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, our maladies, our frailties, our feebleness Jesus wasn't born so that if we're good enough, we can have a nice house, a nice happy family, a picket fence, and a designer dog.
Speaker 3:You're ready for the weirdest phrasiology of the good news of Christmas. Maybe you'll ever hear.
Speaker 1:The good news is that God actually came to suffer with us,
Speaker 3:right? Here's what I mean. Lord, this has been my prayer this year. Hey man, mom passed this year. I lost somebody I love very much, and God says, yeah, Tom, me too. I've lost someone I love very much to let me tell you about my friend Lazarus. Let me tell, at the time I was preaching and I got word that my good friend, my cousin John The baptist, had his head chopped off because he believed in me. I get it, Lord. I got people in my family that hit me. Let me tell you about my conversations. Growing up as a boy, I died with half my brothers and sisters not believing us who I said it was. I get it, Lauren. I'm suffering because of a friendship. Let me tell you, me too, Lord,
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know this or not, but I'm actually suffering because I'm doing the right kind of thing, the right thing, and she just like, let's swap notes on that one. Bad boy, you know, tell you what I suffered for doing the right thing.
Speaker 3:Done. I'm hungry, destitute. I went 40 days one time without food. I get it. I grew up pretty poor. I get it all done. So lonely right now.
Speaker 2:Ah,
Speaker 3:one time I was teaching and everybody didn't like what I said. So they all left me one time. I was fighting in the moment of my life. I was hurting, in fact, I was praying so hard. I was bleeding when I prayed I was sweating,
Speaker 1:but I took my three closest friends with me, the kind like the come over and watch ballgames and eat chicken wings together and I brought them with me and they stayed at one spot and I want to hear and I just was having that with God. I felt so lonely, but I came back to my buddies.
Speaker 3:They were all sleeping
Speaker 2:and I was never felt more alone than in that moment.
Speaker 3:God, I'm, I'm, I'm just sad all the time. Now I know what it is to be sad. I know what it is to grieve, Lord. I'm not sure what the future holds. I know what it is to have an uncertain future. Lord, someone I love very much betrayed me. Yeah. Let me tell you about my friend Judas. I Love Judas. We had some great times together. God's told me, no. Yeah, he told me no to. Sometimes I cry out to God and I wonder where in the heck he is. Jesus says,
Speaker 2:yeah, me too. In fact,
Speaker 3:I was hanging on a cross
Speaker 2:and I cried out
Speaker 3:Eloy, Eloy Lama, Sabachthani, which means
Speaker 2:God, where in the heck are you?
Speaker 3:Why have you forsaken me? That's the God that we came to worship today. As difficult as that is to get our minds around, it almost would be easier if he was just a commanding God because then I wouldn't have to have any emotional attachment. I could keep the whole thing detached, and I think that's the god of the broken Halos. That's the power. When I hear that word, Emmanuel this year, that God is with us. It's not just that he's with us, but it is that he gets it. He, he understands what it is that I am experiencing in the moment a child is born, a child who will know joy and disappointment and suffering and exuberance and loss and gain and rejection and acceptance, and if all that is true, you make your own decision on that, but if that is true, I choose to believe it is then that God who chose to be part of this human experience make no mistake. He's a good God. Sometimes you and I were grinding on a certain thing and we feel like it's the end of the world, but all the while God is working over here to do something amazing. 18. Oh, nine. I'll give you example from history. Napoleon's fighting in Austria. It's bloodshed. All the papers are saying, this is kind of the end of things. This is the worst day of humanity, but all while that's going on in 18, oh, nine. William Gladstone is born that year and he's destined to become one of England's finest statesmen. That same year, l for tennis that is born to us,
Speaker 1:gear minister and his wife and that child one day greatly affect the literary world and a mark manner. That same year in American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not far away from that, and Boston. Edgar Allan Poe was born 18. Oh, nine. It's also the same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert in 18. Oh, nine. That same year the cries of a newborn baby or heard in a log cabin in Harden County, Kentucky, and that baby's name was Abraham Lincoln and there were broadcast all the time at that time of year, that year and certain words were heard. The destiny of the world is being shaped and an Austrian battlefield today,
Speaker 3:but you and I know today that actually history was being shaped by the cradles and what was being born in England and in America.
Speaker 1:Everybody's going to get taxed.
Speaker 3:Bad News, horrible news, but Jesus is born and this young Jewish woman created cradled the biggest news of all.
Speaker 2:Okay,
Speaker 3:a savior is born, so whatever it is you got that you're fighting. Whatever it is that I'm going through, whatever it is I'm praying about right now, I doubt it's the biggest news. Savior has been born. He is Christ the Lord and it gets me and he gets you, and so we don't have to do this alone. Jesus, thank you for your goodness to us. I'm grateful for saving faith. Hey listen,
Speaker 1:I don't know where you are. Don't have the honor and privilege of knowing you well, all of you,
Speaker 3:but I do want to say that if the saving faith thing is intriguing to you, maybe God is speaking to you. Maybe that's something you want to do
Speaker 1:and I'm not asking you to have the experience that everybody else you know knows had. I'm asking you to have your own experience and what does that look like? What to be honest with you, it's intensely personal at first. It's where you and God have some conversation and you don't have to use like Bible words. There aren't any Bible words are just words, Bible people, just people, and so you tell God that ice I need saving, and what that means is you're sort of aware of a darkness inside of you that you're not really lying. You don't lie. You pile up shame or hurt or guilt or whatever and you regret some things and the thought of doing life with all those things scares you, discourages you. Well, that's what we mean by saving. You can take all those things and tell God about them and ask if he'll save you. And he will, he does. It's what the Bible says he does
Speaker 2:and that that's a good faith to have.
Speaker 1:And maybe some of you, the faith that you actually need today for the battle at hand. You came in here with a good rock, solid saving faith. You're just not sure God knows what's going on right now in my. My suggestion is he does not. It does he know,
Speaker 2:but he gets you. He empathizes. He sympathizes. That's a. that's a pretty doggone good God. Ask Him, ask him.
Speaker 1:He'll give you faith for the ballot hand. Thank you lord, for your goodness to us that you never leave us, never forsake us. Thank you for being the savior of the world and your name.
Speaker 2:Amen.