SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with pastor teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: So what is this?
SPEAKER_01: What is this great mystery that Jesus, holy God, holy man, what did he give us becoming a human wife?
SPEAKER_01: What historians and scholars have believed for centuries is that he gave us something of the privileges of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He gave something of the rewards of heaven, and he became human.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have your Bibles or laptop or phone or whatever you use, look at Matthew 1.
SPEAKER_01: Would you guys look at Matthew 1?
SPEAKER_01: I want to look at an obscure Christmas passage that's not often used.
SPEAKER_01: And look at Matthew 1, and then we're going to flip to Philippians 2.
SPEAKER_01: So put your finger in Philippians 2.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to Matthew chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: I think it can be lost on us how controversial the birth of Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you imagine your fiance saying, I'm pregnant because of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could say, well, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I've heard a lot of excuses, but that's a new one.
SPEAKER_01: Now you couldn't do it now because it's already been used.
SPEAKER_01: But at the time it was just, you know, it was controversial.
SPEAKER_01: And probably Nazareth was about 500 people.
SPEAKER_01: We believe it was 500 or less people in Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: And so everybody knew about it.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knew what was going on with Mary and Joseph.
SPEAKER_01: Joseph had to have been confused.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have been confused by something you did not expect this past year?
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of you are liars because you know you have.
SPEAKER_01: And 2020 is going to have a lot of things and a lot of events and a lot of people in your life that are going to surprise you.
SPEAKER_01: And so prepare and even expect the unexpected, because it's coming.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the situation here.
SPEAKER_01: And so an angel shows up to give Joseph some instruction, and he says some interesting things.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.
SPEAKER_01: After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Then Joseph, her husband, being a just and righteous man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.
SPEAKER_01: But while he thought about these things, so he's pondering what to do, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
SPEAKER_01: So all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, and this is a quote from Isaiah, some a thousand years before, Isaiah 7:14, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, God with us.
SPEAKER_01: So holy God did the unmentionable, impossible thing, and became a man.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, you may remember his earlier name, Saul, who hated Christianity, hated the way, but got supernaturally converted to Christ, wrote a letter to the Philippians, and so look in your Bible to Philippians 2.
SPEAKER_01: And in Philippians 2, Paul does as good a job as any place in the New Testament in describing what this phrase means, he shall be called Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.
SPEAKER_01: Paul Reese, a great historian, said, This passage is oceanic, for the fathoms are countless and the tides are measureless, and we enter into its depths.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: I could spend a month verse by verse, almost word by word, in what you're about to read, is so phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.
SPEAKER_01: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, of those on earth, and of those under the earth, meaning those even who are in hell.
SPEAKER_01: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: F.
SPEAKER_01: B.
SPEAKER_01: Meyer says of this passage, it is almost unapproachable in its unexampled majesty.
SPEAKER_01: Well, church, you stare at this first.
SPEAKER_01: You stare at this passage.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say read it.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about it on Christmas morning with your family.
SPEAKER_01: It is so powerful, and there's probably 25 points here.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you three.
SPEAKER_01: I see three key issues here that share the essence, the sine qua non of the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_01: Three things are found here.
SPEAKER_01: The first is that Christ abandoned his sovereign place of majesty.
SPEAKER_01: He left heaven and he entered into our world as a human being.
SPEAKER_01: It says here, who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.
SPEAKER_01: Being in form.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you have blonde hair, and some of you have gray hair, and some of you have gray hair, but you've dyed it red.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all look different, but in our being we're human.
SPEAKER_01: The humanness of heart, soul, mind, strength, legs, you are human.
SPEAKER_01: You are in your being human.
SPEAKER_01: God sent his son in human flesh, but in his being, he was divine.
SPEAKER_01: And he never lost his divinity.
SPEAKER_01: He never lost the divinity of who he was at his very essence, even though he took on human flesh.
SPEAKER_01: And so sinless in his being, entering sinful the human race, he became a man.
SPEAKER_01: Changeless, innate.
SPEAKER_01: He was God.
SPEAKER_01: John Milton wrote, that glorious form, that light insufferable, he laid aside here with us to be forsaken and chose the darksome house of mortal clay.
SPEAKER_01: So what is this?
SPEAKER_01: What is this great mystery that Jesus, fully God, fully man, what did he give up by coming in human flesh?
SPEAKER_01: And what historians and scholars have believed for centuries is that he gave up something of the privileges of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He gave something of the rewards of heaven, and he became human.
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting, isn't it, that Christ never did any miracles.
SPEAKER_01: Christ never did any signs and wonders before his baptism.
SPEAKER_01: But he comes in his baptism, he comes to John, we believe to be his cousin, the son of Elizabeth.
SPEAKER_01: He has to be baptized, he's baptized.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says the Holy Spirit came upon Christ like a dove.
SPEAKER_01: And then he was sent by the Spirit into the wilderness, if you recall, and for 40 days and 40 nights he fasted.
SPEAKER_01: He was in relationship with his father, and Satan came, probably demons came.
SPEAKER_01: And he came out, it's interesting, it says he went in, being led by the Spirit, he came out of the desert, filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly he was cast into his ministry where he saw signs and wonders, and he rose people from the dead, and he healed the sick, and he cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: Probably if you could say one thing about Jesus that marked his ministry, is he cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever Christ went, he cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Is it because he was God?
SPEAKER_01: Or could it be that he was human, filled with the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01: Might it be, church, that God can use you in a similar manner?
SPEAKER_01: That the Christ who is fully tempted, like all of us, in human flesh, had to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That through his baptism into and his baptism of the Holy Spirit upon his life, he was able then, because he said, I can, this is the key to me, I can only do what I see the Father doing.
SPEAKER_01: And his divinity of his relationship with his father actually, through the filling of the Holy Spirit, empowered him to do the miraculous.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christ being in the form of God.
SPEAKER_01: So he never lost his divine essence.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, Christ humbled himself in order to set us free from sin.
SPEAKER_01: Christ humbled himself in order to set us free from sin.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: So God left his sovereign position, he became a man, and he humbled himself to set us free.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have ever heard of a radio commentator named Paul Harvey?
SPEAKER_01: Don't we miss Paul Harvey?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Remember that?
SPEAKER_01: Paul Harvey told a story many years ago.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's based on a true story of a man who lived in the Midwest, not a believer, considered himself an atheist.
SPEAKER_01: But his wife was a believer, and his kids were believers, and on Christmas Eve, one particular year, they all went to church in a nearby town, and he stayed and read the newspaper in front of the roaring fire.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe some of you guys will do that when you leave the service.
SPEAKER_01: You'll go get your newspaper and read it from no, you'll read your your uh iPad in front of a roaring fire.
SPEAKER_01: Quiet, nobody's there.
SPEAKER_01: Gradually he starts to hear the howl of the wind, and he looks out and he sees that a blizzard is coming.
SPEAKER_01: And snow is falling at an increasing rate moment by moment.
SPEAKER_01: And then he hears a knock at the door.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes and he opens the door and there's nobody there.
SPEAKER_01: So he closes the door, he goes back, sits down in front of the fire, and he hears another thump at the door.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes back and he opens the door again.
SPEAKER_01: Not only is there no one there, there's now snow on the ground and it's filling up fast and there's no steps.
SPEAKER_01: But then as he's standing at the door, he hears the thump again and again and again, and it's coming from the left side of the door in a large window.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a flock of birds that have lost their way in the blizzard, evidently seeing the light of the fire, knowing there's heat there, and they're trying to get through the window, and they're smashing into the window.
SPEAKER_01: So here's this man who has literally no compassion for the things of God, suddenly has a compassion for a flock of birds.
SPEAKER_01: So he gets on, puts on his boots, puts his coat on, and goes outside and begins to try to push the birds toward his barn.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know what barns are like in the Midwest?
SPEAKER_01: They're huge.
SPEAKER_01: And he had this huge, heated barn, and he opened up the door, knowing that if the birds would just fly into the barn, they could be saved from the freezing cold and the blizzard.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the birds aren't listening to him.
SPEAKER_01: So he takes kernels of corn, crushed corn, and begins to make a trail out to the barn, and the birds just continue to slam against the window.
SPEAKER_01: And he's getting more and more frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: They won't follow his directions.
SPEAKER_01: And then it dawns on him that if he could just become a bird, he could communicate to him that safety, security, and warmth is in the barn.
SPEAKER_01: And it hits him like a bombshell.
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what God the Father did for us.
SPEAKER_01: He sent his son to become like us to communicate to us that there's a way to safety.
SPEAKER_01: And as we continue to bang our heads against all the things we think will make us happy, he calls us to the comfort and the warmth and the security and the safety and the peace.
SPEAKER_01: It's only found in a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, Christ came, and he died a heinous, ugly, bloody death on a cross.
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't stay there.
SPEAKER_01: He died and he was buried, but on the third day, he rose again from the grave, conquering sin, conquering selfishness, conquering the bondage and the chains that hold us so tightly to despair and to loneliness and to depression and addictions in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: He set us free and rose again on that third day.
SPEAKER_01: So it's Christmas right now, but come April, Easter's are coming.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, Christ's humility always results in power.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.
SPEAKER_01: That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.
SPEAKER_01: Of those in heaven, those on earth, and even those under the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, whatever your religious background, whatever your faith or lack of faith or no faith, you will confess that Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_01: You will.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we looked at all the conversions and hands raised and all that that have happened in all the crusades in America, we have saved America about ten times over.
SPEAKER_01: But if we look at our culture and we look at our values and we look at the way we live, we are as far from being a Christian nation as we could possibly be.
SPEAKER_01: But God's coming with a great revival.
SPEAKER_01: God's coming with a great move of his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: 2020 could be the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_01: 2020 could be part of the climax of it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: No one does but God.
SPEAKER_01: But we do know that every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord at some point.
SPEAKER_01: Even demons will.
SPEAKER_01: Even those in hell will.
SPEAKER_01: So why not do it?
SPEAKER_01: Why not go for it?
SPEAKER_01: Over the years.
SPEAKER_01: I'm old enough now to have had tons of friends, so many friends that followed Christ at one point and then they just kind of went their own way.
SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Hundred percent, hundred percent don't do well.
SPEAKER_01: As you look at their lives and you look at the addictions, and you look at the frustrations that come and all of the bondages and chains of that.
SPEAKER_01: And then I look at those who truly are born again and they surrender everything to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's amazing: it has nothing to do with talent, it has nothing to do with money, it has nothing to do with anything that you kind of came into this life with or that maybe you've earned in your life.
SPEAKER_01: It has everything to do with the attitude of one's heart.
SPEAKER_01: That when we surrender everything to Christ, He takes over and He brings power through your humility.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that fun?
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: Through our humility, our surrender, our surrender, he comes in and he empowers you.
SPEAKER_01: And you're still the same person.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: I've never been good at math.
SPEAKER_01: And when I got saved and got born again, I was never good at math even then.
SPEAKER_01: So he doesn't change the natural you, he begins to change the heart of you.
SPEAKER_01: And all of us know, and all the studies that have been done, you change a person's heart, you change their future.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens, church, is that your background no longer defines your destiny.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what Christ does.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what that's what this whole story is about.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it's all about with this Mary, a poor gal from Nazareth and feeding trough, and a husband who's Totally distraught and doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: The first time he comes, he comes in humility.
SPEAKER_01: But men and women, the second time he comes, he's coming in power.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming in majesty.
SPEAKER_01: He became a bondservant that when he comes back, he'll be a majestic king.
SPEAKER_01: So confess.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to confess anyway.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.