SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, God came.
SPEAKER_00: And he brought a breakthrough into our society and into our culture and into our world that has changed a lot.
SPEAKER_00: There's never been a breakthrough like this.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever you are in your journey, it might be financially stressful.
SPEAKER_00: It might be tremendous problems within your job.
SPEAKER_00: There could be issues in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would say to us today, look at my story.
SPEAKER_00: I bring miracles where you need miracles.
SPEAKER_01: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We are celebrating the birth of Christ, and probably one of the biggest struggles in our celebration of the birth of Christ is that we've got such a sanitized view of the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, kind of the manger scene.
SPEAKER_00: We have a manger scene in our house.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the simpage dolls?
SPEAKER_00: So we have this simpage manger scene, and so Joseph's like, and you know, and Mary's like, and it's just everybody's just like so cleaned up, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we got a guy down the road, this guy's got like a hundred manger scenes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this guy's got a million manger scenes in his yard.
SPEAKER_00: They're everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: There's little manger scenes this high, you know.
SPEAKER_00: There's a pink, there's a pink Joseph, and there's a red Jesus, and there's a yellow Mary.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and there's a light coming out from them and all that.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look at the the whole manger scene, the whole first Christmas, maybe more from the perspective of how Mary would have remembered it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not quite as sanitized, it's actually a little more earthy and a little more gritty.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bible, look at Luke chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We just read it.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have your Bible, I'm gonna read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go verse by verse.
SPEAKER_00: But the story begins with a guy that none of you would know anything about unless you were a history major in college, except that he came to rulership in the time of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, and it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, the second Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: So there was Julius Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 B.C.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know the story.
SPEAKER_00: And he had three men that he gave power to within the Roman Empire, and over the next few years there was a battle between these three men about who would take charge.
SPEAKER_00: His real name was not Caesar Augustus, that was his title.
SPEAKER_00: His real name was Gaius Octavaus.
SPEAKER_00: And Gaius came into power because he was able to wrest control from a guy you may have heard of named Mark Anthony.
SPEAKER_00: Mark Anthony had an affair with Cleopatra, so he was able to recruit the troops from Egypt, and there was a great battle, actually a sea battle and a land battle, and Gaius Octavius took over.
SPEAKER_00: And in 27 B.C., the Senate in Rome gave him control of what he called the Principate, which was the idea of one emperor.
SPEAKER_00: So he became the principal emperor, and that ruled Rome for the next 300 years.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good information, right?
SPEAKER_00: But you'd never have heard of the guy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you'd have read this in any other condom, it was Julius, I mean, you just say, like Caesar's pizza.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it means nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's only a footnote in history, gang, if it hadn't been for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So we've had President Bush.
SPEAKER_00: And we've had President Obama, and now we have President Trump.
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, they are a footnote in history.
SPEAKER_00: They're a pawn in the system of something greater that God's doing called the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the great drama of the ages.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that what's happening in this room is more important in God's heart than anything happening in Washington, D.C., because he cares about you.
SPEAKER_00: So Luke, the great historian who wrote the book of Luke, gives us a footnote.
SPEAKER_00: He says, A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
SPEAKER_00: Or some of your Bibles say, taxed.
SPEAKER_00: This census took place while Corinius was governing Syria.
SPEAKER_00: So in 27 BC, the Senate gave all power to Octavius, who became Augustus Caesar, the second Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: And then for the first time in his reign that year, he decided to tax Palestine.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 3, all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.
SPEAKER_00: So Joseph, men and women, was from the city of David.
SPEAKER_00: His background was David.
SPEAKER_00: That was his lineage for hundreds of years before that.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.
SPEAKER_00: So some of you have been to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: I've been to Israel a couple times, and you know that the distance from Galilee, or we'll just say Nazareth to Jerusalem, and then Bethlehem, is about 70 miles as the crow flies.
SPEAKER_00: And the way it worked back then is there was a roadway.
SPEAKER_00: There was a roadway that went down along the Jordan River that connected the two.
SPEAKER_00: And in that 70 miles, there was no police.
SPEAKER_00: This is Roman-controlled territory.
SPEAKER_00: And the Romans didn't really care about the people, they cared about safety and peace as it related to them and them only.
SPEAKER_00: So if it didn't affect them, they weren't policing it.
SPEAKER_00: So here's Mary, probably in her third trimester, not riding on a donkey, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody here rode on a donkey before?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So I think there was one hand that went up in the last service.
SPEAKER_00: People don't ride donkeys.
SPEAKER_00: Not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have ridden horses?
SPEAKER_00: All right, lots of us.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So a woman in her third trimester is not going to be riding a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't even ride the donkey if she wasn't in her third trimester.
SPEAKER_00: And you can make more ground, you can actually go faster walking than you can walk or riding on a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: So probably going it at two and a half miles an hour, probably a little bit less because she's pregnant and needs rest.
SPEAKER_00: Seven to ten days.
SPEAKER_00: Seven to ten days moving through some arduous territory.
SPEAKER_00: These are complex times under Augustus Caesar and under Quinius the governor, under Herod.
SPEAKER_00: Because half of Rome was slaves.
SPEAKER_00: So slavery ruled.
SPEAKER_00: People didn't care.
SPEAKER_00: It was ruthless.
SPEAKER_00: And Joseph is leaving his hometown, which is Nazareth, and he's a carpenter.
SPEAKER_00: So he's leaving his livelihood.
SPEAKER_00: He's leaving everybody that he knows.
SPEAKER_00: So he's financially strained.
SPEAKER_00: This has all happened pretty quickly, as far as we know.
SPEAKER_00: Seven to ten day journey.
SPEAKER_00: Arduous and difficult.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, so she's pregnant with child.
SPEAKER_00: But they're not officially married while she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: So it was a lot of shame.
SPEAKER_00: My grandmother was divorced in 1937 in a small town called Whitsit, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00: She's dead now.
SPEAKER_00: But to hear her tell the story of what it was like to be a divorced woman in the 1930s in the South, a lot of shame, she said the question was, why couldn't you keep your man?
SPEAKER_00: And she came from a very well-known family in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00: And she carried that with her her whole life.
SPEAKER_00: So Mary, at a time, I mean, you think seriously, Mary, you're pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: Well, see, this angel came, Gabriel, and he said, the Holy Spirit's gonna come upon me, and I'm gonna become pregnant with the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Umbody believes that.
SPEAKER_00: Even Joseph didn't believe that.
SPEAKER_00: It had to be a dream that came from God to keep Joseph from divorcing or breaking off the relationship with Mary.
SPEAKER_00: So shame.
SPEAKER_00: She carries shame with her.
SPEAKER_00: They go to a place they don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Financially, they've got to be totally stressed out.
SPEAKER_00: Only a little bit of money that Joseph could could put together was gonna keep them intact.
SPEAKER_00: They had he had no way, probably didn't have the ability to take his tools with him.
SPEAKER_00: So no financial means.
SPEAKER_00: So while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered.
SPEAKER_00: And she brought forth her firstborn son, she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the kataluma or in the inn.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the holiday inn.
SPEAKER_00: A kataluma at that time was a place where caravans came and someone had created rooms through stone walls in the back of their house.
SPEAKER_00: So what you had, if you had enough land, and a lot of people did have a little bit of land, is where they kept the animals, they had taken stones and created these small stone walls about Yee High, and that was a room.
SPEAKER_00: No roof, that was your room, and you paid for that.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of in the stalls near the animals.
SPEAKER_00: No room.
SPEAKER_00: So not even any room in the Cotaluma because Bethlehem, historians say, had grown from about 600 to maybe 20,000 because of the taxation and registration that was happening.
SPEAKER_00: So even though Joseph was from Bethlehem, it appears either he didn't have family there that he was close to, or there was no room, or they didn't expect him to come.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line is no place to stay.
SPEAKER_00: Financially stressed, relationally disconnected, in a ruthless society where half of the culture and half of society are slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Under Augustus Caesar, a ruthless dictator, and now homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Mary homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Joseph, homeless.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have probably been homeless before.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us haven't, but some of us have.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a scary feeling to have no place to go.
SPEAKER_00: And I think when Mary and Joseph looked back in the years as their son was growing up, this was no manger scene.
SPEAKER_00: There was probably something in their gut, as she pondered these things in her heart, like, what was this all about?
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, God came and he brought a breakthrough into our society and into our culture and into our world that has changed the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's never been a breakthrough like this.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever you are in your journey, it might be financially stressful, it might be tremendous problems within your job, there could be issues in your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of you are carrying shame.
SPEAKER_00: Brene Brown, in her books, many books that she's written that are, you know, some of my favorites.
SPEAKER_00: If you come to the roads, you hear me talk about Brene Brown a lot.
SPEAKER_00: She says everybody carries shame.
SPEAKER_00: And the people who don't think they carry shame have got it the worst.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've all been hurt and we've all been betrayed and we've all been ripped off, some worse than others.
SPEAKER_00: But Mary carried that shame because God wants to say to you here today, if you're carrying shame, and you're on that journey of wondering where in the world is God in my life, Jesus would say to us today, look at my story.
SPEAKER_00: I bring miracles where you need miracles.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize miracles don't happen if you don't need them?
SPEAKER_00: Miracles happen when we need them.
SPEAKER_00: And Christ can break through in any of our lives, in any of our situations.
SPEAKER_00: And our theme for this church in 2018 is breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to bring breakthrough in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to start today.
SPEAKER_00: A breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting that the word here for swaddling clothes in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm going to read the rest with the shepherds, and then I want to explain a speculative theory that I have.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Now there were in the same country shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone before them, and they were greatly afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people.
SPEAKER_00: For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And this will be the sign to you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the key word, that's the operative word.
SPEAKER_00: This will be a sign to you.
SPEAKER_00: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you read all of Luke 1 and into Luke 2, the way the story goes is that when Mary was encountered by Gabriel, and he told her that she was going to conceive and bear a child, she then went to Elizabeth, who was a relative of hers, who was probably around 70 years old, who had become pregnant because the angel of the Lord had come to a priest named Zachariah.
SPEAKER_00: So that means that Zechariah and Elizabeth lived near or in Jerusalem, where the temple was.
SPEAKER_00: When she meets Mary, the baby leaps in her room.
SPEAKER_00: Two things are happening.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's a confirmation to Elizabeth that the Messiah is going to be born through Mary, and it's a confirmation to Mary that she really did see the angel.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what happened next?
SPEAKER_00: Now we're moving into speculation.
SPEAKER_00: Zachariah's a priest.
SPEAKER_00: And the custom of the temple was that the high priest as well as the other priests would take their robes and they would shred those robes for the Passover.
SPEAKER_00: They were given to the unblemished lamb.
SPEAKER_00: So in Bethlehem is where the shepherds hung out.
SPEAKER_00: And the shepherds, their main job there in Bethlehem was to raise the sheep that would be sacrificed in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And they were always looking for the unblemished lamb, the perfect lamb.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody been around sheep?
SPEAKER_00: Sheep are nasty, they're dumb, and they can be mean.
SPEAKER_00: Not the little ones that you nurse and everything.
SPEAKER_00: But like when they grow up and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're looking for an unblemished lamb.
SPEAKER_00: That means it's perfect.
SPEAKER_00: And when they found the unblemished lamb gang, they had to, they needed to sequester it away because sheep bite each other and kick each other, and it's not unblemished anymore.
SPEAKER_00: So you know what the custom was?
SPEAKER_00: They take the unblemished lamb and they'd wrap it in the priestly garments.
SPEAKER_00: They'd wrap the unblemished lamb in priestly garments and lay it in a two by two foot manger.
SPEAKER_00: That was the unblemished lamb.
SPEAKER_00: So you know what Zechariah did to Elizabeth and to Mary?
SPEAKER_00: That's the promised one.
SPEAKER_00: That's the unblemished lamb that we've prophetically been worshiping and celebrating now for hundreds of years, has come.
SPEAKER_00: That's the prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the garments.
SPEAKER_00: And so Zachariah, possibly, again, it's speculation, gave the garments to Elizabeth to give to Mary.
SPEAKER_00: Mary brings the garments with her, and she wraps the babe in swaddling clothes, priestly garments.
SPEAKER_00: And so it says here, that shall be assigned to you.
SPEAKER_00: Those shepherds in Bethlehem see this, see this host of angels saying, Look, this is how you know the Messiah has come.
SPEAKER_00: You will find a babe, an unblemished lamb, in a manger, wrapped in priestly garments.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's the king of kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: These shepherds in verse 10 were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And then God said, I bring you great joy.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, you need great joy this year, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody go like this if you need a little more joy.
SPEAKER_00: Great joy.
SPEAKER_00: We need joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's the breakthrough, is joy.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, I want to just remind us this year is a year of breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_01: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.