So our church is uh almost three years old, somewhere around three years old.
Um at first there were eight of us.
We sat around a kitchen table and talked about what perhaps our church could be like or look like or what a church would be like that we might be interested in being a part of.
And so there were eight of us, and then there were six of us.
So it wasn't a great start.
You know, the church growth statistics were not the best there at the beginning.
Uh so we went from eight to six, and now there's a few more of us.
But one one of our first loyal, um, at first kind of just cheerleaders for us, and then uh a tender and eventual uh members uh was a good friend named Stuart Sims.
And we lost Stuart uh in our first year as a church.
And I I think about him a lot, and and I mentioned him, uh I mentioned him this afternoon because uh when he died, a friend of mine did something for me.
So we were in Florida, my family we were in Florida, it was spring break, and I get the phone call that Stuart had passed, a very sudden, tragic death, and so I get the phone call that Stuart had died, and and so I I'm a little unsure, you know, I it was about five o'clock, and we're planning on coming home the next day, and like you know, so you're going, okay, do I do I wait or do I not?
Do I come home now?
And you know, what's the situation?
And so I get off the phone and then I call my friend Jim.
A lot of y'all have met Jim.
He's he's come and he's he shared about what he's doing in Cuba through a ministry.
Anyway, so so I call my friend Jim.
I say, Jim, you know, here's the situation, here's going on.
You know, uh what do I do?
You know, I don't know, I don't know what I should do.
Do I need to drive through the night, or can I just can I wait and the girls can sleep, and then uh we wake up in the morning, and he says, No, you you you need to drive through the night.
And so so we packed our bags and uh we we packed the car and we get the girls loaded up in the car and we drive through the night and we get home.
And at 8 30 the next morning, Jim's at my house.
At my house at 8 30 the next morning, and he drives me to Stuart's law firm where he uh worked, and I give a devotional and I pray for the people, and Jim, Jim drives me, walks with me, stands beside me.
Um I don't I don't know if he talked, to be honest.
I think he was just there.
Like he was just he was just with me, is what he was.
Uh and I've walked and I did the thing that I was asked to do, and he was just always beside me.
He was just ready.
If I needed anything, he was he was there.
Uh two days later, the the day of the funeral, same thing.
Jim shows up at my house that morning.
He drives me.
Drives me to the church.
He's just kind of beside me the whole day.
He walks with me.
Wherever I walk, he walked with me.
Now I'm walking back, talk to the family.
I'm walking over to get a microphone, I'm walking everywhere, and he's walking.
Let's be honest, he had other places he could have been.
Like, he's a pastor, also.
Like, he's got his own stuff to deal with.
Like he has his own things to do.
He made sacrifices to be there and to be with me and to do this, to be with me.
He didn't have to do that, right?
Like he didn't have to come into that mess.
Like, that's a mess.
That's a mess of suffering.
And he didn't have to be my driver, he didn't have to be my companion for two days, but he was willing.
He was willing just to be with me.
And here's what we know.
We know that when some when you know someone's with you and for you, it changes everything.
Doesn't it?
I mean, you maybe you've had that experience where somebody, you just know somebody's been with you and for you in a difficult time, in a suffering situation, maybe at a time where you weren't at your prettiest or your best, and maybe you had fallen and you've messed up and screwed up, but somebody was with you.
So we have this Christmas story.
And the Christmas story, Matthew, uh, it what it reminds us of, it reminds us of that that Mary was legally pledged to Joseph.
And then Mary becomes pregnant as a virgin by the Holy Spirit.
And so you're going, oh, that's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy.
You're right.
It's very crazy.
So hang with me.
So Joseph decides, he hears this, and he decides, well, I'm I'm out.
Like, like I am not going to come into this scandal.
Like, this is something I'm not interested.
This is not what I signed up for when I was going after Mary.
And so he says, I'm I'm out of this, but then an angel comes to him in a dream, and here's what the angel says, chapter one of Matthew, starting about halfway through verse 20.
Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
Emmanuel.
Or maybe more correctly, with us is God.
Not God's against us.
That could have been easy because we weren't exactly at this point in history or at any point in any of our personal histories exactly perfect in how we are for God, but he's for us, and not God's sorta for us.
That's pretty fantastic, you know, that he's not sorta for us.
And what's also not what's also fantastic is that it's not like he's for you once you're really for him.
Like like he's playing it safe, and then once you're really for him, like, okay, you're a little for him, he's not sure, but then when you're really for him, like you did something really passionate, and then he's for you.
Like that's not what it is.
He's just he's with you, he's for you.
Because he comes into the mess.
He comes into the mess of being born into a barn.
And so the name speaks of his nature of grace with us.
The name speaks of the incarnate Christ amongst us.
That's kind of a big word, incarnation.
You probably maybe you've heard this.
I mean, when I told the gym story just a second ago, that's a story of incarnation.
Incarnation is a big church word, just it means to be with someone.
And this is about God breaking into the physical world as a human being.
It is God revealing himself.
This is what Christmas is: God revealing himself to us so we will know once and for all how he regards us.
And this isn't the beginning of the existence of Jesus.
This is just, this is the revealing of Christ in physical form.
And it sounds crazy.
I mean, it's a crazy story.
Maybe you're here, you're from a different faith, maybe you're here and you're just like, I'm not sure about the Christian faith.
It sounds like a crazy story, but here's what I want to ask you is like, okay, if there's a God who doesn't desire to coerce with a strong hand, and if there's a God and he doesn't care to coerce forcefully and make you, and he's not force you to follow him, and if there's a God and he in fact loves you, what narrative do you want him to write?
To reveal this to you?
To explain his grace and love to you and his mercy to you while he remains just and holy?
What's the narrative you would like him to write into history for you to understand it?
So he says to us, I'm gonna be born.
I'm gonna, I'm going to incarnate myself.
I'm coming in.
Into your mess, I will come.
He says to you, he says to me, You, you, my child, you're never alone.
I am Emmanuel for you.
And he wanted to make it real clear.
So he takes Mary.
Mary's from a priestly class.
So a priestly class where everything is shaped around being clean and remaining clean and remaining clean ceremonial and what is clean and what is not, and how to keep yourself clean, how to get yourself clean again.
I mean, it's all around this.
And then you have the scandal because Mary's pregnant, that's not real clean, and so Mary's pregnant before marriage, and not real clean.
So you got all this going on, and now they're headed south, and they're scandalous, you know, compared to everybody else in the culture.
They are scandalous, and nobody wants to do anything for them.
They can't find anywhere to stay, there's no room in the inn, right?
We've heard that, and so they end up.
Where do they end up?
Stable, barn, right.
The animals, they're hanging out with the animals.
Unclean animals.
And all of this is saying something.
Here's what it's saying.
He's it's it's it's saying, I know you're more of a mess than you let on.
This is what God is saying in the story.
I know you're more of a mess than you let on.
And in that unclean, unholy place, I will meet you.
He could have been born anywhere.
I'll be with you and I will be for you.
A friend of mine, author David Zall, uh, he tells a story of the actor, all-around fun guy, Bill Murray.
Everybody loves Bill Murray.
You just can't hate Bill Murray, let's be honest.
I mean, everybody loves Bill Murray.
He's he actually owns a minor league baseball team in Charleston.
And I think his his title is like fun manager or something, like manager of fun.
Like that's that's his job, and he's a co-owner there.
And so um here's here's the story.
The story is that there was this guy in Charleston, and he had a fear of crowds, and I think that's agoraphobia.
Anybody?
Well, you're probably not here if you have it.
I recognize that.
So maybe none of us would know the name of it.
I think it's agoraphobia, maybe not.
Maybe that's spiders, who knows?
All right, so, anyways, I so whatever the phobia is, the guy is afraid of crowds, and maybe he's afraid of spiders too, that's possible.
And so he's there at the baseball game to kind of like face his fear.
Like, this is a big deal to this guy.
And so he's in the stands and it begins to rain.
And so you know what happens at a baseball game when it just starts to pour.
Everybody leaves the stands and they go and they they're huddled up in the kind of the where it's where it's covered, slammed together.
This guy's worst nightmare.
And so he stays in the stands, just sitting in the rain, all alone.
And Bill Murray from up in the owner's box, he sees it.
And he walks down and he sits next to the guy, and he just sits next to him in the rain.
He's just with him.
He chooses just to simply be with the man.
I what I know, because I'm like you, I'm no different, but what I know is there's a lot of days you feel stuck in your issues.
Like you feel stuck in your shame or your sin or that feeling like my life isn't just what I thought it would be, or like I as a person, I'm just not quite enough.
I just can't quite get my act together like I thought I should at the age of 15 or 25 or 45 or 75.
I just thought I'd be put more put together at this point.
And it can feel like hopelessly sitting in the rain, can't it?
And into that world, into your mess, into that brokenness, into that sin, into that shame, into that suffering, into that stable.
We get Amy and you well.
Verse 21, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
Here's the great news, this verse.
You and I, we were given a gift, but it is a hostile gift.
This is not just like Merry Christmas, like big bell on top.
I mean, this is a hostile gift.
Because the incarnate Christ, he says, I'm with you, I am for you, but it only makes sense when you are done trying to be your own Savior.
When you're done trying to justify your existence and justify your righteousness by your accomplishments and your religious record and your merit, he only makes sense when you're done.
And when we're done placing faith in ourselves, we can place faith in him and that righteous life that he lived, which we don't, gets put upon us as our sin is put upon him.
And that's what the cross is about.
See, Emmanuel is the good news that merit is never the way to life.
And never the way to relationship with God, but mercy and grace is.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you that you chose to pursue us while we did not pursue you, and just at the right time you came into this world.
While we were dead in our sin.
Thank you that you are Emmanuel.
You are with us, and you are for us.
Would you help us, so many of us, that are so much trying to save ourselves?
Would we recognize the exhaustion of our pursuit?
And would we receive the pursuit that you are on for our hearts and for our lives?
God, thank you for the incarnation.
That you're with us, that you're with us in the situation that we are in today.
Help us as we lack faith and lack trust.
Would you help us to place our faith and trust in you?
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.