Transcription
Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Um, every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lakeoint YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now, enjoy this Bible teaching.
>> Come on, man. Amen. Welcome, Lake Point family, man. Good to see you guys. This is my uh my first time seeing you from this vantage point um since Thanksgiving. So, I want to say merry Christmas. You can do this. If you could turn to the person next to you, tell them Merry Christmas. Do that real quick. That's great, man. And then, uh if you can do this, um turn to the other person, one you were trying to avoid, and tell them the greatest thing you can hear after Thanksgiving. Tell them you look thinner today. Tell them that. That's awesome. [snorts] That's great, man. That's great. That's great.
Well, hey, um I do want to do this. We're in Luke chapter 2 today. Uh and man, I'm I'm really really excited about this message. I just tell you, my heart's really full. Um I I do want to do this. Um before we move forward, I want to honor backwards. Um because if you're new to Lake Point, you just need to know, man, just real deep belief that we we refuse to treat holy things as if they're common. And so when the Lord does something that's unique and set apart, we we want to celebrate that because what what you celebrate, you cultivate. What you fail to celebrate will eventually leave your life. And so, uh, man, last week we had, uh, one week to kick off the the Christmas series of Christmas at the movies. And, um, man, I I just want to celebrate a couple things last week. Number one, um, it was by far the largest weekend we've ever had at Lake Point. We crammed a little over 33,000 people in person into our campuses last week, which was awesome. That's great. Um, and we are I do, you know, we give thanks for that. But honestly, that's honestly not the thing that that I'm I'm really excited about because we're not called to make crowds. We're called to make disciples. And so the number that like really really gets me excited is last week in one weekend 692 people uh indicated a first-time decision of Christ in one weekend. Come on man, let's celebrate that. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
And I just I just want to say if you were one of those people, um what I want to say is, hey man, welcome to team Jesus. Uh this thing's awesome. You just put a miracle in motion. That that was the that was the uh the starting line, not the ending line. And so you just keep hanging out with us and you see you see what happens. Um and then last thing I I do want to celebrate is man uh I I just want to say this over and over. Um you guys see because of what I do, you guys see what I do in in the church um every week, but but every week there are thousands of people who are putting a serving towel over their arm and blessing people without any recognition. And uh last week we had um and this happens every weekend, but last weekend uh I'm not the hero. The these people are the heroes. We had over 5,000 people on our serve teams blessing people and making that possible. Can we honor all of our serve team members, man? Come on, thank them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you u for holding babies and holding doors and all the things.
All right. Well, here here we are today. Uh we are in week two of a series that we're just calling glad tidings we bring. Glad tidings we bring. Um and here's where this comes from. It's uh when uh the angels appear at the first Christmas to announce the coming of Jesus. They say four very specific things. And let me just say this. Doesn't matter what you've seen. Doesn't matter what you heard. Doesn't matter what you watched. Doesn't matter what you read. These four things are the purpose of Christmas. They announce four things. They say, "Fear not, good news, great joy, all people." Fear not, good news, great joy, all people. And those are the things. That's what Christmas was about in the incarnation. I'm going to explain that big word here in a second. In the incarnation of the firstborn son of God coming, fear not, good news, great joy, all people. So, today we're going to talk about fear not.
Now, here's what I [clears throat] know. Um, I just know this from praying with people in that lobby and just, you know, just watching life. Fear it is a baseline emotion. Fear may drive more parts of people's lives than any other emotion rivaled maybe only by love. It's is fear and love. And uh and what I've learned even as a dad is that yeah it's like it's a lot of those fears they bubble to the surface especially around Christmas. I'm going to give an example of this. A couple years ago, um I took our to uh our kids. Santa came and visited our neighborhood and we took our kids to see uh Santa uh for the first time a few years ago. And this was one of the pictures. Now, you you may see this this [clears throat] a couple years ago. You may see this and be like, "Man, I don't see any fear. What are you talking about fear?" Well, that's not the whole picture. Let me show you the whole picture. This is the whole picture. Yeah, that's it. And uh and it I love I I try to show a picture every year and and you just see this is that fear. it is is his baseline emotion.
Let me put this in perspective. We live right now in one of the most anxious times among the most anxious people that may have ever existed. Seven out of 10 kids under the age of 21 in our culture right now report problems with their mental health. The two most prescribed medications in our society right now are antacids and anti-depressants. [snorts] Okay. Not good. Not good, man.
Now, let me do a quick um theology of fear real quick and then I want to get right into the passage. Here's what you need to know before I say anything else. Um, there's a difference between scared, feelings of being scared and what the Bible's going to call fear when it commands us. By the way, when the Bible says this, it does not give it as a suggestion. It doesn't give it as encouragement. It gives disciples of Jesus a command. Fear not. Fear not. Now, but there's a difference between feelings of fear or being scared and fear. Okay? Scared's a feeling. Scared's a normal. Scared's natural. God wired that into you. And scared, like, that keeps you alive. Scared is what keeps you from jumping off of tall buildings. Keeps you from walking out in the middle of a highway. Scared is what keeps you from believing the Cowboys are going to make the playoffs. Scared is all the things. That's a joke. That's a joke, man. I got to get that in. I'm coming back [clears throat] to you Cowboys fans. Scared is the thing that protects you from things that can harm you. Okay, that's fine. But watch this. Fear is different. Fear in the Bible is a spirit. Paul tells Timothy, "For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind." Fear is a spirit. Okay?
Now, now check this out. Here's why I need you to understand because you need to understand the origin point of your fear. Here's why this is the thing. What we know is the Bible says we have a Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He or the second person of the Trinity. The the Holy Spirit is an internal presence of God that indwells the people of God to preach inside the heart of the people of God. The word of God that was offer authored by the spirit of God. So what the Holy Spirit does is he brings the presence of the prince of peace into the hearts of the people of God and he functions like a true prophet that prophesies true wonderful beautiful things about your future. He speaks the blessing of God over your life on the inside. He's the one on the inside assuring you of the promises of God. Assuring you that God knows the plans he has for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. That's the Holy Spirit.
But then theologically, what we know is we don't just have a Holy Spirit speaking true prophecy. We There is an unholy spirit. The Bible calls Satan. He is the god of this world. And the Bible says that his primary weapon is not like a AK-47, a 15. His primary weapon is lies. And so where the Holy Spirit prophesies true blessing into your heart, the unholy spirit, Satan, he prophesies doom, gloom, destruction, steal, kill, destroy, and their lives. This is why, stop and think about this. And bro, I'm in this with you. This is why 95% of the things that we lay awake at night fearing, 95% of them never happen because they come from the father of lies. speaking lies into you. So I in fact I'm going to give you a um an acronym at the beginning of the sermon and then I'm going to come back at the end and I'm going to give you a different acronym. What I just said is why many people they they've called fear this. They've said that fear is false events appearing real. And I want you to get that in your head. False events appearing real.
Now here's how I know this is a thing. Okay. Check this out. So, in prep of this sermon, I came across a list of the 10 top fears of people in America right now. 10 top fears. Okay, you ready for this? Here we go. There are loved ones dying, loved ones becoming seriously ill, mass shootings, not having enough money for retirement, terrorism, government corruption, becoming terminally ill, hate crimes, high medical bills, widespread civil unrest, and then a close number 11 was the Lakeoint Church parking lot after the 11:00 service. Those are the those are the 10 top fears of people in America. Okay. Now, do you know what that's evidence of to me? That list is evidence of to me that cable news and online news sort of factories and accounts, that is evidence to me that what they're doing is from the father of lies. They are pumping fear. They just pump fear and division. Fear and division. Fear and division. You have an iV drip into your brain from your screen to here that is pumping false events appearing real. Fear and division into your brain. Here's the reason I know that they're pumping this because eight years before that survey, the exact same people conducted the exact same survey. And the top three fears eight years prior were speaking in public, heights, and spiders. Okay? People are still speaking in public. There are still heights. There are still spiders. But when you go to your favorite news account online, they're not pumping spider stories because fear drives click clicks. And listen, you need to understand this. You got me all riled up. Listen, fear drives clicks. When you're watching news or you're clicking through little news stories, listen, if it's quote unquote free, listen, you're not the customer, you're the product. And what they're doing is they're delivering your brain to other people. And what they know is that fear drives clicks. And so they're pumping fear and division, fear and division, fear and division. But the prince of peace comes and he brings love and unity. Love and unity. Love and unity. That's what he does. Okay.
So then what we need to understand is okay let's get our eyes off that and how does the coming of Jesus separate us from our fears. Now this is Luke chapter 2. Let me read it real quick. This is our passage for the day. Then we got to move. It says and there were shepherds. Bookmark that in your head. We're coming back to it. Living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night. It says at night. Bookmark that in your head. It's going to be important in a second. Verse 9. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. Some uh your of your Bible translations will say they were filled with great fear. The Greek is literally megasphobiious. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people. For today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah. He is the Lord. Christ the Lord." This will be a sign to you. you will find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger. And suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those on whom his favor rest." And all God's people said, "Amen."
Okay, let me let's let's roll real quick. Number one, three reasons that the coming of Christ is separates us from our fears. Number one, we do not fear because God is for us. God is for us. Okay. Now, I need you to track with me. We're going to do a little a little uh we're going to Bible nerd out for a second here. Okay. So, this passage says, "Unto you unto you is born this day in the city of David." And then it says, "A savior." Okay. Now, here's what's interesting. If you go read Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 2, what you find out is that Mary and Joseph were not permitted by God to name their son Jesus. God was like, "Uh-uh. I'm the dad. I get to do the naming." And so God commanded that his name in your English translation of the Bible would be Jesus. And that's who we worship in English. We call him Jesus. But actually the English name that we pronounce Jesus is what's called a transliteration of the Greek name Easus. Greek is the language the New Testament is written in. And so it's a transliteration of the Greek name Easus. Here's the problem. Jesus didn't grow up in a Greekeaking culture. He didn't speak Greek. Jesus spoke Aramaic. So when Jesus was walking around, what people called Jesus was not Jesus or Yesus. What they called him was Yeshua. They called him Yeshua. Now, here's what's interesting. Aramaic is a derivative language from the Hebrew language that the Old Testament is written in. And the name Yeshua comes from the Hebrew verb Yasha that means to rescue or to save. Jesus name literally means rescuer or I came to save.
Now let's go a layer deeper. Here's a question. It's not just what he came to do. How did he come to accomplish it? Now Romans 3 says this. This is how Jesus came to save. It says God presented Christ as a sacrifice of and I want you to say this big word out loud like you're awake and you're excited about it. Okay? God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. Good job, man. Y'all beat the Saturday night. That was way better. Okay? atonement through the shedding of his blood. Now, I want you to see this word atonement. Big theological word, atonement. I'm going to come back to this. Now, uh whenever I toss a big theological word up on the screen like that, um what people will typically say is, "Oh, Josh, you're not supposed to do that." That's that's kind of the vibe when I was learning to be a pastor. What what people told me is the way to grow a church was like, "Hey, man, [clears throat] you got to dumb everything down. Never preach above a sixth grade level. Don't use big theological words in church because it it turns people off and they run away. I completely reject all of that. I'm I'm I totally out. Okay. And here's why I say this. Okay. The reason I say that is the same dude that's going to complain about me using the word atonement in my sermon after the after the church service, he's going to walk over to Starbucks and order like a venty caramel macchiato unicorn frappuccino. And he knows exactly what he's talking about. So, let me just I say this all the Here's my deal. Uh, if you can learn the language to order a Starbucks, I can use theological language in church. Okay, so that's how we're going to roll. This a Bible word. It's a word atonement. Okay, now let's go a layer deeper.
I need you to stick with me and Bible nerd out for a second. Here's the question, class. Pop quiz. Why is it that when the angels come, they announce the coming of Jesus? Not to a king, not to a mil military leader, not even to a religious leader. Why do they announce it to shepherds? If you didn't know this, shepherds in the New Testament era, shepherds were like the lowest of the low, capital L losers. Like, dude, if if somebody like if [clears throat] somebody literally couldn't do anything else with their life, they were like, "Stick them over there, make them babysit some sheep." That's if you dropped out of community college to smoke weed on your mom's couch, you became a shepherd. Okay, so these are these guys. Uh they were considered like just rough rough bluecollar, just gritty. Uh they were they were uh just considered liars. Shepherd's testimonies were literally not admissible in first century Roman courts. These are the guys who drink, smoke, cuss, fight you at the drop of a hat. Your average Philadelphia Eagles fan. That's the shepherd. Okay, now I got to I had to make it up to the Cowboys fans is what I had to do. Now, [clears throat] so that's a question. Let me ask you another question. Point this out. This says that when the angels appear, the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks. I told you to look at it by night. Now, here's what's really interesting. We know first century shepherds, they were not, you always see your nativity scene is out in the winter. We know that shepherds in the first century, they didn't sleep out in the fields with their flocks at night except during the summer. So, the birth of Jesus almost certainly happened during sort of the Israeli Judean area summer. Okay. So, I asked I I got a little help again. A little little AI image generation for a a a historically accurate nativity scene. This is what it gave me. It's really helpful. That's right. Now, I just want to point this out. I don't know why it put a kangaroo in there. It just did. I don't know what to do with that. Take that down. That's real distracting. [clears throat] So, and then here's the third data point is these shepherds. They're in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is only it's about 5 miles. If you go with me, I'll show you. It's only about 5 miles from Jerusalem. Now watch this. Where the day of atonement would happen at the temple once a year. All right. Now I've just set the stage for what I'm about to do in the next 2 minutes. Okay. So here's what I need. I need you to put on your Bible nerd hat for a second and stay with me for 2 minutes. The payoff is really big. Our question we're trying to answer is why did God announce the coming of Jesus originally to the shepherds?
Now, here's what we're going to do. In order for us to understand uh uh if we're going to solve fear, we have to figure out where it came from. So, what we need to do in the Bible is go back to the origin point of fear because if we don't know where it broke, we won't know where to fix it. Now, here's what you get in the Bible. In the Bible, Adam and Eve were created out of the dust of the ground by God in the image of God to live in a face-to-face relationship of intimacy with the Father. That's how you were created to live. We were so awesome as mankind that we maintained that sinless perfection. It goes great for about half of one page in the Bible. That's how awesome we were. Then Adam and Eve rebel against God. And here's your origin point of fear. As soon as they rebel against God, Genesis 3:10 gives us the origin point of fear. The first time fear is ever mentioned in the Bible, Genesis 3:10, they were naked and ashamed. And it says, "I was afraid and I hid."
Now, watch this. Here's we go. Buckle up real quick. What God immediately does is the origin point of fear is mankind's alienation from God. We have been separated from our source. That's the origin point of all fear. So what God does in Genesis 3 is he sticks he gets on his coo or his sika gear and he goes and he he kills an innocent animal. We don't know what the animal was. I have a very strong suspicion what he did is he went and found an innocent spotless lamb. And watch this. mankind sinned, but God kills the innocent spotless lamb. And then he takes uh the skins of the spotless lamb and he goes and he covers sinful Adam and Eve with the skins of the slain spotless lamb. Is any of this sounding familiar?
Now, fast forward just a little farther in the Bible a few hundred years. God finds this dude named Abraham. Abraham. Abraham didn't worship God, love God, nothing like that. He just picks Abraham sovereignly because he loves Abraham and he makes what the Bible calls a covenant with Abraham. Eventually Abraham has a son named Isaac. And Abraham will call his son Isaac, his firstborn son, his only son, his beloved son that he loved. Now God comes to Abraham and he tells Abraham, "Take your son, your only son. Watch this. Watch. Put wood on his back." And then Abraham puts wood on the back of his only beloved son. And his son carries wood up a hill on his back on Mount Mariah in order for him to be sacrificed for sins. Is this sounding familiar? And then as Abraham crested the top of the mountain, his son Isaac with the wood on his back at the top of the hill looks at dad and goes, "Dad, where's the sacrifice?" And Abraham goes, "Rut." And he goes, "Son, you're the sacrifice." Now, exactly at the moment when Abraham is getting ready to sacrifice his son for sins, they hear something at a little thicket over here. They look over and once again, there's an innocent, spotless animal that God has provided. Watch this, to be a substitutionary sacrifice so that Isaac will go free, but the innocent animal will be sacrificed and its blood will be spilled instead of Isaac. Is this sounding familiar?
Now, fast forward just a few years. Eventually, the descendants of Abraham are in Egypt in slavery. The children of Israel are there. You've done the whole thing. You saw Prince of Egypt, all the 10 plagues. You saw all the things. The 10th plague, God tells the children of Israel that an angel of death is going to come through the entire nation of Egypt. And everywhere there is sin, the angel of death is going to visit the sins of the household. listen on the firstborn son that's still alive in the house. And everywhere that firstborn son is, the firstborn son will die except God gives one exception. He tells the fathers in Israel, "If you will find, listen, an innocent, spotless lamb, and I want you to slay the lamb." And then he gave very specific instructions. I want you to take a plant called hissup, dip it in the blood of the slain lamb, and I want you to put it on the doorpost and the lentil of your home. Now, I want you to think about this. What Bible scholars tell us is these ancient Israelite dads who in faith slayed these lambs, they would have dipped this hissup in the blood and watch this. Watch my hands. They would have taken the blood and they would have gone up to the top of the door over to this lentil, over the to this lentil. And what Bible scholars say is that if you were there 2500 years ago that night when the angel of death passed through as you walked through the part of Egypt where the Israelites were, what you would have seen is bloody crosses on every door thousands of years before Jesus. And anywhere the angel of death saw a bloody cross, slain lamb, it passed over that house and it did not visit the sins of the house on the house. Is this making sense?
Now, fast forward just a little farther. Eventually, the children of Israel, Just Stick with me, bro. The payoff's big. Eventually, the children of Israel, they're wandering through the wilderness, and God commands them to create what he called a tabernacle. Check this out. Watch a tabernacle. Inside of the tabernacle, there was a place called the Holy of Holies. It was like a room inside of a room inside of a room. Inside the uh Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant. And this was the place where God had chosen for the manifest presence of God to dwell in its highest density on earth. Now, here's the problem. The people of God were separated from the presence of God because God made a command. He commanded, and this is going to be important, bookmark this in your head. He commanded for a curtain to be woven that was as thick as a man's hand and for that curtain to separate the Holy of Holies from the people of Israel. So that the presence of God was separated from the people of God. Why? because of our sin and our alienation from God. But God made a provision for there to be one way and only one way for a person of God to enter into the presence of God. Once a year on a day called the day of atonement that happened at the end of modern day September, beginning of October. Once a year on the day of atonement, only one dude, the high priest, he had to go through these all these rituals and he would take, watch this, two innocent, spotless animals. He would slay one of them as a sin offering and then he would place his hands on the head of the other one and he would confess not only his sins but all the sins of the people of Israel as if to transfer them onto the head of this innocent animal and then he would send it away into the wilderness. And it was God's way of communicating, I'm taking your sins. I'm placing them on the head of this slain animal and then your sin is being removed from you. And then and only then this one guy, high priest, he would literally tie a rope around his ankle lest he walked into the Holy of Holies with unconfessed sin. And God said, "If you do that, you will die." And so they literally tied a rope around his ankle lest that guy died while he was in there and they could pull him out and then one day a year he could pass through the veil and the people of God could intercede in the presence of God.
Now then we get to Luke chapter 2. Keep going with me. Luke chapter 2 right here. I'm going to skip it and come back to it. Luke chapter 2, we got these shepherds. Now, skip forward. When John the Baptist sees Jesus for the first time, do you remember what he says? He looks at Jesus and he cries out, "Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world." He looks at Jesus and he goes, "You're the innocent animal. You're the one who's come for us. You're the one on whom the sin will be transferred. Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world."
Now, skip forward 3 years after the moment when John the Baptist says this. Jesus is there. He's at the uh the the last supper. That's a little painting with all the dudes on the same side of the table. He's at the last supper. If you read your Bible very carefully, it's interesting. Every element of a normal Last Supper or Passover meal is mentioned except one. They mention the spices. They mention the wine. They mention the bread. They mention all the things. There's one thing that was supposed to be on the table that is never mentioned at the table at Jesus Last Supper. It's the lamb. There was supposed to be a slain lamb that they had there to eat. Do you know why the slain lamb wasn't on the table? Because the lamb of God was sitting at the table. He was the one who would take away the sins of the world.
Now, let's go a layer deeper. Right after the last supper, Jesus goes to the cross. The Bible tells us that from the sixth hour to the 9inth hour when Jesus was on the cross, it says that a darkness began to cover the land. And Jesus for the first time he cries out in pain, Eloy, Eloy, Lama Sabakani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Let me ask this question. Why does Jesus cry out in pain for the first time when the darkness descends on the land? Jesus never cries out in pain when they're uh whipping him with a cat of nine. Jesus was a dude. He could take some pain. They didn't He didn't cry out in pain when they whipped him with a cat of ninetailes. He never cries out in pain when they ra the flesh off of his the back of his rib cage. He has not recorded his crying out in pain when they took a roughshot splinterful crossbeam and stuck it on the exposed nerve endings of the back of his rib cage. He is not recorded as crying out in pain when they pulled his beard out of the flesh of his face. He never cries out in pain. There is one time and one time only when Jesus is recorded as crying out in pain. When darkness descends on the land, he cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Why? Because Jesus had lived his entire life in a face-to-face intimacy with the father. And in that moment, the father was turning his back on the son. Why? So that he could turn his face towards you. And Jesus had lived in such intimacy with the father that pain didn't bother Jesus. But one second separated from the presence of the father causes him to cry out in pain. Eloy, Eloy, lama, sabakan, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Now, let's go one last layer deeper. The Bible says that Jesus cried out and he gave up his spirit. The Bible says at the 9th hour. That was a first century Judaistic way of saying 300 p.m. This is super meta. This is amazing. Guess what time of day they were supposed to take an innocent, spotless lamb and slay the lamb for the Passover meal on the day of atonement? 300 p.m. At the exact hour when Jesus dies is the exact hour when the lamb was supposed to be slain for the sin of the people. Now, what the Bible says is the second Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That curtain I mentioned to you that separated the presence of God from the people of God, thick as a dude's hand. The Bible says at that very second, the veil that separated the Holy of Holies, the presence of God from the people of God, it says it was torn in from top to bottom, not bottom to top, top to bottom, knowing that God did it. Here's why. Because the second the true lamb of God was slain for the sins of the world, the thing that alienated you and me, separated you and me from God had been removed on his head. And now we can be adopted by God and we can walk right into the presence of God because the lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world. That's the message of the entire Bible.
So then, bro, listen. If you go all the way back to Luke 2 and it's like why does God announce the coming of Jesus to these shepherds? Well, here's why. They were in the summer they were raising sacrifices, lambs for the people to use as sacrifices at the day of atonement. And God is announcing you're not going to be needing these anymore. I'm going to give you a sacrifice to end all sacrifices. So listen, what you need to know number one, I got to do the others faster. What you need to know, number one, is that what separates you from God has been removed. And now you can have no condemnation, only love from the father because he's adopted you as a child. Is that good news, church family? Come on, man. That's good news. Okay, let's do the other two faster.
Here we go. Number two, we do not fear because not just because God's for us, but because he's with us, y'all. Because God is with us. So it says, "And this will be a sign to you. you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And then Matthew 1:23, it looks at it from a different angle and it says this, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him, what is it? They will call him what? They will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Okay. Now, this is what theologians call the incarnation of Jesus. Big theological word, incarnation. It comes from a Latin word. The Latin word is carne, which means flesh. So like when you go to a Mexican restaurant and you order chili concarnne, you are literally ordering chili with flesh. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. You think about that every time from now on. So what the Bible saying is that Jesus was God concarn. Jesus was God with flesh. He was he was simultaneously, watch this, 100% man and 100% God. If you've ever wondered, I wonder what God's personality is like. Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus. In fact, one of the greatest hymns ever written. Top three hymn we sing at Christmas. What do we sing? Veiled in flesh, the Godhead sea. Hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell. Jesus Christ Emmanuel. It means God is with us.
Now, let me just This is the end of our fears is when you begin to understand. Man, listen. When we start to understand God is with us, that changes everything, man. When you start to like genuinely believe like God's with you. So, just check. I don't have time for this. We go into this deeper on the podcast. 366 times in the Bible, there is some form of a command to fear not. Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. But here's a question. Why? Why fear not? In Joshua chapter 1, Joshua has taken over Israel from Moses. And God three times tells Josh, "Be strong and courageous. Strong and courageous, strong and courageous." And here's what he doesn't say. The reason for that is because Josh felt weak and afraid. Weak and afraid. Weak and afraid. But the reason that he tells Joshua not to be afraid. He doesn't say, you know, because you're good enough and you're smart enough and dog gone it, people like you. He doesn't say that. He says, "Fear not." Why? For I am with you. When you start to understand that God's with you, it changes everything, man.
So, I got a u I showed him earlier. I got a six-year-old son named Hudson. And Hudson's like he's he's 100% boy 100% of the time. Uh it was few a few months ago, Hudson on Netflix, he saw this little preview. They'll just do a little preview without you wanting him to. He saw this little preview of a cartoon zombie thing and it kind of freaked him out. So me and Hudson one night were taking out the little trash cans and it's dark outside and Hudson gets nervous and he looks up at me and he goes, "Dad, what do we do if there's zombies out here?" Right? And I was like, I told him what everybody told their son. I said, "Buddy, everybody knows what to do. Two in the chest, one in the face. Everybody knows what to do. There's a zombie man. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that." No, that's not what I told him. Not what I told him. We'll get there when he's older. [clears throat] We'll get there when he's older. No. No. Here's what I said. Now, listen. Here's what I didn't say. I didn't say, "Oh, buddy, there's no scary things in the dark." Because, hey, guys, understand this. We actually live in a world where there actually is real evil. There are real dark things. There's a real enemy. There's a real Satan. there are real dark things. And what I want to do is I don't want to teach my kids there aren't dark things. I want to raise kids who are are children of courage and conviction full of the light of the father that they get raised up and they actually vanquish dark things. So I don't want to tell them there's no dark things. So So here's why I told Hudson. I'm like, "Hey buddy, so here's the deal. Here's the deal, bud. Number one, dad's here. I'm going to stay with you the whole time and I can take any zombie. I'm good, bro. I got any zombie." And then I'm like, and buddy, when we get back to the garage, we can turn on the lights. And as soon as we turn on the lights, the darkness has to flee. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? This is what the Bible says about you. It says that God is with you. And listen, if God is with you, if God is for you, who can be against you? Greater is he that is in you than he is he that is in the world. And whenever the light comes, the darkness has to flee. He's going to do that in your life.
Now, some of you you'll hear that and like this part part of the sermon, you'll hear that and you're like, you're going through some things and you're like, "Yeah, but I can't see that God is with me right now. I don't see it." Here's what I need you to understand. It's way easier to see how God was with you when you're looking backwards through the rearview mirror than when you're looking forward through the windshield. You're going to notice this in your life. It's like, man, like, think about you. you had that experience like you're in high school and it's like the thing you want more than anything else. You're just asking out girl after girl after girl. You're getting shot down and you get in that spot in your high school and you're like, "God, where are you?" You see the same girl 30 years later, you're like, "You were with me. That's it, man. You that's it. God was with me. It's just easier. It's easier to see through the I get, [clears throat] if I'm serious, man, if I I get I get very very emotional when I look back on my life and I see all the ways that God was with me throughout my life. I I I remember, man, it was like, man, when uh when Jana Jan and I were 22 years old when we got married, like 6 8 months after we get married, Jana gets a biopsy. Biopsy comes back and it's an aggressive melanoma. It's a skin cancer right over one of her lymph nodes. Okay, don't do tanning beds, ladies and gentlemen. And she she did that deal. And so there was like two weeks where I'm like thinking about, okay, man, am I going to be like we're waiting for these results to come back? I'm like, am I going to be like a 22-year-old widowerower? And I'm thinking about all the things that are happen. I'm like, God, will you please be with me? Please be with me. Please be with me. And I look back, I couldn't see how he was with me then. But I look back now and God was with us and he protected us and he protected Janet and she just celebrated 20 years cancer-free. Come on, man. 20 years God was with me. I can see how he was with me.
I look back at my life and I I remember Janet and I getting married and we we were like we immediately start trying to have kids. Be fruitful and multiply. We were like we're going to obey, you know, and we're in man. We start trying to have kids and weeks turn into months, months turn into years and all of a sudden we're like, God, where are you? Are you with us? We go into all the tests and it's like I' I've told the story, we we get diagnosed with unexplained infertility. That's exactly as helpful as as it sounds. You look good and she looks good, but y'all can have kids. We don't know why. And we're like, man, God, where are you? But then you fast forward a few years. And I remember this moment where I walked into a little tiny office in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and I'm standing there as like a 25, 28-year-old guy, and somebody puts a little Gerber baby about the size of a large burrito in my hands. And I'm holding for the first time my firstborn daughter, Elelliana. And the name, we named her Elelliana because her name means God has answered. And I look back now and I'm like, God, you were with us. And now I didn't just adopt once, we adopted twice, we adopted three times. And I know God was with us because, man, I got three adopted kids. I wouldn't trade them for any biological kids in the whole world. I got God was with us.
I look back, man. I look back, some some of you guys were here. It It was 7 years ago this month that I preached my first ever sermon at Lake Point Church. But dude, I listen, I was I'm glad you were clapping. I was just nervous, man. I listen, I walked out and I was like, "Man, how's this going to go?" And then God called us to come here. And I remember like, "Man, God, you got to be with me." And I was like, "God, are you going to be with me?" And I remember January the next year, I remember walking out that little door right back there. I walked out to walk around to pray with people in the lobby. There were two ladies coming out of their life group room and they didn't know I could hear them. And I remember walking out, I'm full of insecurity. I think this is going to go bad. And I'm walking out and I hear them right in front of me saying, "He's just not Steve. I'm for real. He knows Steve. It's not going to be the same. He's fine, but he's just not as talented." I thought, "My God, they're thinking what I'm thinking." That's [laughter] what I thought, man. Done. But and I look back, but here's what I've learned. Looking back on these seven years, I've seen God has been with us. And I've seen that man, one man planted, another man watered. But all the time it's God who gives the growth. God is the one who's with us. Man, I look back at COVID and anxiety attacks, all these things, and I look back and I'm like, man, God was with me. And listen, here's what you need to know. Someday I will be on my deathbed and I will be surrounded by family members and they will be praying for God to heal me and he won't. And there will come a moment where I breathe my last and then I will step into heaven and God will be with me forever. God is with us. God is with us. And when you understand that, it eliminates your fear.
So then here's where I want to land. Last thing, last thing is we do not fear because God is for us and with us and because God is over all things. He is over all things. So like I need you to see this in this passage. Number one, it says, "Unto you was born this day in the city of David, a savior." And it says, "Who is Christ the Lord?" It's like, you know, you just need to know Christ was not Jesus last name. It wasn't Joseph Christ and Mary Christ and our boy Jesus Christ. Christ was a title that means anointed one or Messiah. And then it says that he's Lord. And what that means is that there is not one square inch of the universe over which Jesus does not stand and cry mine. Mine. Okay. Now you can see it. I want you to think about this. So [clears throat] in this story, God moves in the heart of Caesar Augustus, the emperor of of Rome. He issues a decree for a national census to get Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem. [music] And because Joseph is of the house and lineage of David. So I want you to think about this. God moved the heart of the
Most powerful man alive to orchestrate a political census of the entire known world, just so he could get a blue-collar construction worker and his pregnant fiancée to a one-traffic-light hick town to fulfill his purposes and plan from before the foundations of the world. He needed to get them to Bethlehem. God was sovereign over everything that was happening, and it was in his control.
Now, here's why I say that. Because if you're married and you're 9 months pregnant and you hear a census is happening, and you've got to hop on a donkey at 9 months pregnant. We didn't do the pregnancy thing. I've heard the first, second, third trimester of the beast and false prophet, the Antichrist. I've heard it's rough. I've heard it's rough. She had to get on a donkey and go 95 miles to Bethlehem. I'm sure she was like, "I don't understand." But God was in control of all of it.
Okay, you have some things happening in your life you don't understand that are causing fear, and you need to understand that God is in control of all of them. So, in prep for this sermon years ago, I read a book called "The Hiding Place" to my kids, uh, in our living room. It's about Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsie, who during World War II, they were hiding Jews in their house, uh, because of their, uh, Christian convictions, and they were protecting them from the Nazis.
In that book, Corrie ten Boom, she tells a story about eventually their family gets arrested. They get put in a concentration camp, and then they get moved from one concentration camp to another one, and they get put in a new cell in this second concentration camp. And when they try to go to sleep, they realize they can't sleep because the new cell block 28 is infested with fleas. It's, it's rough, infested with fleas. [snorts] And that becomes Corrie's breaking point. She tells her older sister Betsie, like, "I can't, I can't do this anymore. I, I can't do it."
And her older sister Betsie, who ended up dying in the concentration camp, she records it saying, "Corrie, I, I know what to do. I read it in my Bible last night. 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances." And so she said, "Corrie, let's pause right now and give thanks. Let's give thanks for the guards and for the fact that we're in here with all these women, and we'll be able to tell them about Jesus. And let's give thanks for these beds that we're in." And then she said, "And, and, and Corrie, let's, let's give thanks for the fleas."
And Corrie was like, "Okay, I've got a breaking point. You know, I can give thanks for everything. I can't give thanks for the fleas." And she said, "No, no, Corrie, it said to give thanks in all circumstances. Let's, let's give thanks for the fleas." And so they did.
Well, over the next few months, Corrie and her sister Betsie, they began a Bible study in cell block 28. And it grew and it grew until they were gathering with all these people in cell block 28 to have worship services, which were illegal in Nazi concentration camps. And they always wondered, like, man, why are we able to do this? And guards never come in and stop our worship services. And they never found out the answer to that question until they were released from the concentration camp. And they asked one of the guards, and he told them that the guards wouldn't go in cell block 28 for one reason: the fleas. The fleas.
And listen, the thing that they most wanted God to take away was the thing that God used to lead the entire cell block to Christ. Can I listen? Can I, can I say this to you? You're going through some things and you're afraid. Can I tell you something? God is for you. God is with you. And God is working in all circumstances for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. All circumstances.
So, here's what I want to leave you with. I started giving you one acronym. You know, I said FEAR: False Events Appearing Real. From now on, when you begin to feel fear, I want, here's the acronym I want you to have in your head. Okay? FEAR. Our Father Eternal Almighty Reigns. How about that? Our Father Eternal Almighty Reigns. You're good, man.
And I want to do this right now. I want to pray this into your spirits. So, would you bow your heads and close your eyes? All of our campuses. And heavenly Father, Father, I trust people who are hurting and afraid to you. Lord, I pray that you would be near. Your word says that you are near to the brokenhearted and you save the crushed in spirit. So, Father, would you please speak a peace be still over the hearts of your servants? Father, if there's anybody who has not bent their knee to the lordship of Jesus, I pray that today they would trust the Lamb that was slain and they would give their life to you, and that they would have their sin removed from before you so they can be reunited with you in the name of Christ. And I pray that in his crucified and risen name, and all God's people said, "Amen." And amen. Amen.