Good News of Great Joy
First B Jackson
2017-12-17

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Welcome. Merry Christmas. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad I'm standing somewhere where it won't buzz. Welcome.

Would you stand up and we're gonna sing some Christmas songs this morning. Go Tell It On The Mountain. How how about we start off with? This is one of my think of as an ending song because after you've heard the message, go tell it. Go tell it on the mountain but here we go together, would you?

Hymn number two fifty eight. Go tell it on the mountain over the hills and everywhere go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born while shepherds kept their watching or silent flocks by night behold go tell Amen. I'm going to sing the first Noel and there are a lot of verses. To maintain our intensity through the lot of verses, I'm going to need your help. Okay?

There are lot of verses, but they're good. They're all good. All of them that come up on that wall, we're going to sing. Alright? We agreed?

Are y'all tired? The first service was tired when they got here, and they're really tired when they left. Are y'all okay? Alright. First, Noel, here we go.

We didn't sing nearly as many as I have written in front of me. Alright. Let's let's just say the last one. How about that? Then let us all with one accord sing praises to our heavenly lord that hath made heaven and earth of naught and with his blood, mankind hath sought.

No well, no well, no well, born is Amen. Thank you. Y'all can have a seat. I've got a few announcements here, and it looks like I'm being preemptive. Am I?

Hi.

My name is Todd Lampa, and I'm on the elder board here, and kind of an impromptu announcement here. It's a follow-up to an email that went out. You guys might have gotten that, but we we have awesome staff here, and I think you guys would all agree. And and part of a way we can count on for for an amen, but a way we can bless them is during this Christmas season is to, give them a love gift. And so there's an email that was sent out that, explained how that, could be given.

And and so I just wanted to I know Ray wasn't gonna make this announcement. So I felt like we need to come up and and just, you know, let let you guys know there's an opportunity to bless our staff who've given their lives to serve us and to lead people for Christ. And and so I think that's a noble thing that that we should honor them. So we're hoping to have, what you can do is if you write a check, just make it in the memo that, it's for the staff love offering, staff Christmas gifts, something to that effect, and, we'll get it to them. And we're hoping to have this all in by, next Sunday, Christmas Eve.

So there's still time if you didn't come prepared today. So thank you.

You wanna do the rest of announcements? No, just kidding. Thank you. And thank you for not telling me. Angel Tree.

Y'all know what goes on here. Most of y'all know what goes on here. There's a those two mounts, the cardboard mounts on the wall and the tree have little tags hanging off of them, and Tanya, my wife, administrates that, and she lists specific ages of little kids, mostly some for parents, and a specific gift. And if you would like to help with that, you can. It's not any pressure at all, but if you'd like to, there are a few more tags out there, And we have I think 25 families this year that have come through the process of their families that are in need.

And if you want to, you're welcome to. I wanted to give you the shot at that. There's a lot of that going on right now. Next week, we are having one service. It'll be at 10AM, so if you get here next week at this time, you'll be late.

Okay? It's just one service for Christmas Eve morning. Christmas Eve, we have two services in the evening already at 04:30 and six, and we have child care for the 04:30 completely covered. We're looking for another volunteer, maybe two, for the 06:00 service. So if you would like to help with that, you can contact Bailey Larson at baileyklarsongmail dot com.

There is a snowmobile retreat. It's earlier than it usually is. It's about a month earlier than it usually is. They say the snow should be better at this time. So snowmobile retreat, January 26 through the twenty eighth.

If you would like to go on that, you can see Kyle Knutson or several of the guys are gonna know the information, but Kyle is the one who's trying to organize. If you would call him today and let him know you wanna rent a sled, he's trying to get a group price on the sled. So January twenty sixth to twenty eighth, a little over a month away. That is up at Old Faithful Christian Ranch will be where we lodge, and we'll be riding around there. Monday nights at First B is happening every Monday night.

It is happening this Monday night, meal music and a message, and Carl will be bringing the message. That is a fun time. And for any other announcements, you can check your bulletin. I do have one more that's not up here on a slide. If you look in your paper bulletin, you'll see one that's about Christmas cookies.

So I don't know if y'all know Gretchen Palmquist or not, she's been coming to church here for some time. She usually comes to the first service, but Gretchen has kind of organized for this Friday a Christmas play that's happening at the Live In Center, and it's gonna be fun. So at the Livin Center to bless the staff and the residents, if y'all would like to, I didn't make this in the first service announcement, she said you may just overwhelm the place. We sent 80 people. 80 people went Christmas caroling there last weekend, but they are organizing sort of like a vacation Bible school, but it's an elderly care Bible school where you go in and have cards and gifts.

And this afternoon here, Gretchen will be here and making cards for the residents and things like that. If you want to be a part of Ask Gretchen this afternoon after this service, she should be around. So that ought to be fun. And I think that's the last announcement that I have, but we have Advent. This is the third Sunday of Advent, so I'm gonna invite up.

There you go. The Davises. Here we go. When Todd stepped up, he was the family this morning. His family was the family this morning.

I thought he was gonna light that candle. So there's the mic.

Today, we light the fourth candle on our advent wreath, the candle of love. God's inexpressible love was demonstrated in the sending of his son. We his love has led to our salvation. We respond by loving and living for him.

John three sixteen and seventeen. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Thank you. Katie and Jeff and Annabelle Sage, thank you very much. Would you stand and greet one another? We'll bring you back together with another Christmas tune. Amen.

Hymn number two sixty seven. I this was a poem put to music, and I love this song. It has five verses, and I think we have all five of them. I get the frontline team to come forward. I'm actually going to invite up Kyler Areola also and Judy is going to play.

Kyler's going to sing. Would you pray with me? God, I pray that those bells ringing out would herald the good news of great joy of a savior who has come. And Lord, I pray that we as Christians would be lights in this world, Lord, in the darkness, that we would live out our faith, that we would continue, Lord, to continue telling this message, The message of the birth of Jesus, the emptying of himself as he left the glories of heaven and came to live in humility among us, to walk a perfect life, to live a perfect sacrificial death on the cross. And by the power of God, you exalted him in due time.

You revived and resurrected him. Lord, and he has finished his work. But our work continues. God, would you carry your message forward? We pray that the offerings and the tithes that are placed in these plates, Lord, would be used for the advance of your gospel, the message not only of the birth of Christ, but of the death, burial, resurrection, and session of Christ.

In Jesus name, Lord, we ask you to multiply these gifts to do your kingdom's work, to care for people, temporally and eternally. Amen. In Jesus name, amen. Good news of great joy. I've talked a lot in the past.

I actually went back and listened to all my own Christmas messages over the past week, partially because it's it is a bit of a struggle, the struggle. I wanted to mention this to begin with. It's a bit of a struggle for me because I want to bring you something new. I want to bring you something that you haven't heard or thought of that way before so that it can help, that some nugget you can hold on to. When you get to Christmas, y'all have all heard this story many, many times.

You might not have read Philippians two in a while, but every year of your whole life, you have heard the Christmas story. I will not be introducing a new character into the story this morning. I probably won't hit anything that you haven't heard before, and for me, that's a little bit hard. I don't know why. There's another thing in Philippians two where he says, and he humbled himself, and he was found in appearance as a man.

I did that last week. I hit that one last week. That would have been a great place in Philippians to do a Christmas message. And so I started with that theme and adding from Galatians four and from Hebrews one and two and from all over the New Testament. I was bringing stuff in, and I was trying.

It was like birth pangs. It was like labor trying to birth a baby of a sermon from Philippians toward Christmas this morning, and I got to about Wednesday and decided if it's not ready by next Sunday, we'll induce. Okay? But this Sunday, I'm gonna tell you the Christmas story. Okay?

And I was struggling, and sometimes when I'm struggling, y'all text, and I like that. And there's a guy who goes to church here for this service. He's from Darien, Georgia. He's here in the summertime mostly, sits in the back corner, back there or back somewhere, right there around where Rich is today. And I said I said he said, what can we do for you?

Just out of the blue texted. I said, you can pray for me. I'm trying to preach on Christmas this week, and I I want for it to be really good. And he goes, well, Ray, it's so simple. Jesus came to Earth so we can go to heaven.

Let's go eat. That's it. He texted me again this morning. He said, I'm praying for you. I want you to know that but I want to amend my statement.

Jesus came to live like us so that we may live like him. That's even better. In our temporal existence, this is good for our eternal existence. I thought, man, thank you, Sam. That grounds me a little bit.

But here we go. What I'm planning on doing is like this says, I'm gonna talk about the shepherds, the message they received and what they did with it. Mary, the message she received and what she did with it, and then you, the message you're receiving and what you will do with it. So that's that's our scheme. I'm gonna talk about the shepherds, then Mary.

Actually, the other way around. Mary, then the shepherds shepherd's response, Mary's response, and then you. So here we go. Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, greetings, favored one.

If you look at the Greek on that, greetings is grace, cheris. Favored one has a root at the root is grace. Grace, you who have been ingraced by God. The Lord is with you, but she was very perplexed at this statement. I think she was perplexed at the statement because he said, grace of God to you.

Grace of God to you. Grace of God to you, and it's the unmerited favor of God. It's not merited favor. If you're translating the Latin in your head while he was singing, you might find it a slightly different. Beautifully done, by the way.

Greetings, grace, you who have been graced, the Lord is gracing you. And she was perplexed at this statement, and she kept pondering what kind of a salutation this was. Well, it was a graceful one and a gracious one. The angel said to her, don't be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor, you have found God's grace and behold, you will conceive in your womb and you'll bear a son and you shall name him Jesus which means, by the way, Matthew tells us, he will save his people from their sins. He will save his people.

He will be great and will be called the son of the most high, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. And Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I am a virgin? And the angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy child shall be called the son of God. And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month of pregnancy, for nothing will be impossible with God.

And Mary said I'll wait on the response of Mary. We're gonna move on. This is a painting of Bethlehem by Vasily Polonov in 1882, and that you can see it's a hillside town. If you're looking for the topography of the region, Jerusalem is also a hillside town, but Bethlehem is up about a 100 feet taller, four miles away from Jerusalem. It's the city of David where he was born, and it was rural.

It was not urban. Now if you're looking at it in the eighteen hundreds, there are streets and they're cobbled and there are merchants and that sort of thing, and it is more of a city in the eighteen hundreds. That is a picture of Bethlehem in 1898 on Christmas day. I don't know if these people always dress like that or if they're in a Christmas play. But that is Bethlehem, Christmas day 1898.

That is a washed out picture of Africa that you can barely see, but up at the top, this is Morocco and Western Sahara right there. If you go all the way across right over here, you see this is where Bethlehem is on the other side of the Mediterranean. In 2010, while we were out here as interns, so I served here as an intern in 2010, 2011 part time, and then 2012, God called us here. Y'all called us here. And some of y'all helped send us to Spain and Morocco on a trip.

That's where we thought we would be. That's where we thought we were gonna be serving God right now actually. So we flew over. We were staying right there for a day. And then we came across, we saw the marketplace in Old Tangier.

We sent some photographs and souvenirs. But anyway, we wandered down from there. We took the Marrakesh Express down to Marrakesh, and we were there at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, are right along in here. They're not the Tetons, but they're mountains, you know, and they're about the same height actually as the Tetons. We came and met up with our friend and guide who was a believer outside of Marrakech in a little town called Amazmij, and just outside of town, this is what it looks like.

It's sparse. The topography is almost exactly the same as that of The Holy Land. The hills and valleys are very similar. The wilderness beyond is kind of a badlands type. There are some very fertile places, and there are some that aren't so fertile, but there are hill towns, and you can see some of them in these pictures.

We met up at the souk, and the souk is the market day on a Tuesday. We met up with our guide there, and that's the parking lot. Pack mules out there. That was the primary way of getting around for the people who lived up in the villages, and we were carrying a message to the people of the villages. This was a preparatory trip in preparation for possibly moving back to minister to these people.

That is Mohammed. It's a guy who's riding a mule in front of another mule carrying water and food for us. We got around this way. We walked because there were some roads, but eventually no roads that were traveled by cars. And so we walked and most of us walked.

We looked down upon olive groves and other crops, but it's very similar to the topography and the it's straight across basically from there. And we, most of us walked. One of us got to ride. That's Pascal, five years old, riding up behind Muhammad on her mule. We saw that's a well with a sycamore fig tree right there, and then down below, you could turn on water to watery mules, animals.

Those are ancient boundary posts, stacks of rocks to say this is the extent of this person's land. It's very biblical. When you're you're walking around out there, I know that The Holy Land, I've never been to The Holy Land, but I know people that have and they say it's just a different thing. Well, if we get out of our mindset of sliding our car into a parallel parking space in Jackson, and we put down our cell phone and we take the time to just walk 15 or 16 miles, it has a tendency to slow your life down and get you back into the rhythm of life back then. There are some black cows on the hillside.

That looks kinda like Bethlehem. The stacks of rocks mudded together, the sticks for the roofs with mud thatch on the top of it, that's a lot what like what Bethlehem would have looked like. And we walked past several little villages like that. That's inside. That animal right there is inside the house.

We're walking by outside of the house. He's sticking his nose out, and this brings you to the place of thinking about there's no room in the inn, you know, there's no room in the upper room, but there's room in the stable that is soot all over the outside of the building because they would build a little fire here up underneath, and they had a shelf in there that was a warm place in the winter. That is a stable inside of the house, which would be very much like the one that it seems is indicated in the Gospels. Chickens, cows, if you can see that. It's not the greatest.

Maybe it's better over here. There's a rabbit in the fireplace right there. They had pigeons and doves. We stayed with this family a couple of nights. We slept in the upper slept on the roof, really.

It was hot. Pascal enjoyed the manger scene. This young girl is about 13 or 14, would have been about the same age as Mary at that announcement. We stayed up on top of the roof there. I just wanted to do this before I got you to, that's a rabbit.

Cooking on an open fire. I know we're not that far removed from it here, but that was in the middle of the heat of the summer, 115 degrees, and then warming up your fire over the mud stove there. This is where we slept and looked down on other places. So here we are at Loop 2. I just wanted to get you in the frame for this.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields. We saw these two guys on our journey up, and they look pretty laid back. They're literally laid back, but they are watching over their flocks. They're keeping watch over their flock. Now the biblical story says they're keeping watch over their flock by night.

Those guys are resting in the daytime because they have to watch their flocks at night too. They're keeping watch. That word is fulazantest. Fulazantest is it's a participle. This is what it means, fulazzo, the verb means to guard or to watch, to keep watch.

To guard says it over and over, watch, have an eye upon, to guard a person or a thing that they may remain safe, to protect, to protect, to keep, to preserve as safe, to guard, to guard, to observe, carefully observe for the for the well-being. Okay? Do you get that? That's fulazzo. That's what it means.

Now that form, fulazzo test, is only used twice in the New Testament. Whenever I see that, I always go, I wonder what the other place is. I'm an inquisitive guy. Wonder what the other place is. So the end of the sermon, I'm gonna get back to the other time that it's used in this form.

The verb is used all the time in different forms because it's about shepherding, and there are lots of analogies to shepherds, but this particular form's only used twice. Keeping, guarding, protecting, observing carefully for the sake of well-being. So here is another shepherd we saw along our way. Can you see him? He's right there.

He's right there. And these are sheep, and he's standing on a ridge line that has a fairly steep precipice on the backside, and he's keeping safe, his sheep. He's keeping a watch over them. These are not boundary lines, I was told. These are hedges of protection.

They're made out of flat rocks standing up, dig a little trench, put the rock in it, stand it back up, and they are to guard from places that would hurt the sheep. These are steep precipices or they have something that would break legs or cause harm to the sheep, and so the shepherds have come along in an observing way. This is dangerous. I would like to protect the sheep from it. I'm keeping my sheep by protecting them from stuff like this.

So it's not all laying on the side of the road. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shown round about them and they were greatly afraid. In the middle of the night, you know how a long watch is and to see a bright light, the angel said to them, do not be afraid, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. Good news of great joy. Do y'all remember in the choir?

Have y'all sung that before? Good news of great joy. I love that song. We sang it in the first service this morning. Good news of great joy for every woman, every man.

This will be a sign to you. A baby born in Bethlehem. Come and worship. Do not be afraid a company of angels it says it right here that one angel says this there's born to you this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord And this will be a sign to you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

That over there in the corner of that room is a manger. It's the place where the animals feed. Now that's an unusual place to put a baby because usually you don't keep your brand new newborn baby in the in the stable nor in the garage, but this is the place where Jesus was placed, and that would be assigned to them to them. That's their message, to you. The authentication of this message is you'll find a baby and he'll be wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.

That's a weird place for a baby. And suddenly, there was with an angel, with that angel, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, the song goes on. A company of angels glory in the highest, and on earth peace among. And I'll change back right here. This is the New King James version of this, and I'll come back to this at the end of the sermon too.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace goodwill toward men. That's the message that we get. It's toward men. God, the sovereign God of the universe has a plan, and his plan is for peace on earth and goodwill, and it's toward men in God's sovereignty. He has thrust it out.

He's done it by angelic messengers, and we'll see the response of the shepherds to that message. He's done it through a message to Mary. So what was the shepherd's response? And so it was when the angels had gone away. So angel means messenger.

Angel means messenger, heavenly or otherwise, but this was a heavenly messenger. So it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that the shepherds said to one another, let us now go to Bethlehem. That's the city of David that the the angel had said. Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that had come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. Did you hear the to you, to you, and then to us right there?

That was the message to them, and their response is this, let's go. Check this out. See this thing that's come to pass which the Lord has made known to us, and they came with haste immediately and found Mary and Joseph, and they found that babe lying in a manger. The message that God had said was you will find a baby lying in a manger. And what did they do?

They responded by going, and they found a baby where? Lying in a manger. And when they had seen him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this child. There were a lot of secondhand witnesses, but these were the first hand witnesses, and they faithfully transmitted the message to the people around them. When they had said, I like this.

Literally, this is what it says, and having seen, they made it known. Confirmation of what God said, they saw it, they experienced it, and they expressed it to other people. And all of those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and she pondered them in her heart. Now Mary's message had preceded the shepherd's message by nine months plus a little.

Can you imagine how confirming it was to have those shepherds show up for Mary after she had just given birth and put Jesus over in the manger? I can't believe I'm putting my baby in a manger. Shepherds come in and say, an angel told us we're gonna find a baby in a manger. Oh, man. God is so good.

All those heard it marveled at the things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and she pondered them in her heart. I had this thought this week. I'm 46 years old. Mary was 13, 14 years old when this announcement was made and when she had Jesus.

Fast forward thirty years, thirty three years. Mary was younger than me at the crucifixion. That might not be hard to believe, the gray hair, you know, but to me, that was something that I had not considered. Prayerfully and hopefully, I still have a long life in front of me. Mary at the crucifixion was still pondering these things in her heart.

And when Luke asked her to tell him all about it because of his orderly record that he wanted to get out the message. He wants to get the message out. He went to her as a witness. Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, and they returned how?

Glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen just as it was told them. That was about the message. They carried the message, glorifying and praising God. So what was told to them? Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.

I used that translation. That's from the King James or New King James version of the Bible. The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God. So this is from 135. This is Mary's response.

Okay? I told you I'd come back to Mary's response later. You see I have highlighted, and Mary said, this was after the announcement. What was Mary's response to the angel Gabriel? In one thirty eight, she said, I am the Lord's servant.

May it be unto me just as you have said. I am willing for it to be exactly as you have told me. I am the Lord's servant. In humility, she said, may it be to me just as you have said. So her response to the message was may it be so.

Yes and amen, basically. Now I'm skipping the the other struggle with Christmas is I want to tell the whole story of Jesus from the time he was born till the time he was resurrected. I can't do that, so I'm skipping the story about Elizabeth in there. But this is Mary's song. When she goes and has her confirmation, now the shepherds have the confirmation of the baby being in the manger.

Mary, I think also had that confirmation at that time, but earlier when she went to be with Elizabeth, it says she made haste and ran to be with Elizabeth. That's like 75 miles away. And she went to be with Elizabeth, and when she saw that Elizabeth was pregnant, that was her confirmation. And so this is the song that she broke out in, Already having been willing, but now seeing this, she was overcome with joy. It's good news of great joy, and she says, and my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my savior, for he has regarded the lowly humble estate of his maidservant.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. And y'all can see that that is true. You see Mary in niches all over the world, and you see her in, I say, jail behind bars. In places like this, you see Mary holding a little baby Jesus. I think it would embarrass Mary to hear that, to see that.

How many of you this afternoon or this morning, when you heard him start off on Ave Maria and Judy playing, you thought, I thought this was a Baptist church. I know Kyler's home from college, but did he ask Ray if he could sing this in this Baptist church? Did I wander into a Catholic church this morning? This is why all generations will call her blessed, and this is what Mary says from her own from her own mouth, her own song, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. So she, if you look back, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, for he has regarded the lowliest state, humility, for behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

For he is mighty. He's done great things, and holy is his name. She does not take the position of being elevated. She takes a humble position. And for that reason, like we saw last week, Jesus humbled himself, he emptied himself, he came, and for that reason he was elevated.

His name is above all other names. And I think to honor Mary with an Ave Maria is fine, the song here. I think to get it out of whack is bad. I also want to say this. I think it would embarrass Mary.

I think it would embarrass Paul. I love Paul, and I love to kind of transmit the message that Paul was transmitting. I like that, I think it embarrassed Paul if he knew how high of a pedestal we put him on because he calls himself the chief of sinners, and he really feels it, and he really believes it, I think. I mentioned this morning, and this I'm not the first person to say this, but I thought of it this morning I'm gonna share it with y'all too. Paul was just a rabbi, conquered people living under oppression from someone else's rule, got to meet Jesus, and became who we know to be the apostle Paul, and Nero was the emperor under which Paul suffered martyrdom.

Nero was the emperor of the Roman Empire, the most powerful guy in the world at his time as far as politics goes, and Paul was beaten, flogged, shipwrecked, all these things. He humbled himself to carry the message. Nero literally set Rome on fire, blamed the Christians for doing it, used to light his garden with Christians, impaled on poles, and lit them to light his parties. Bad dude. Paul is what people name their firstborn, and Nero is what they call their dogs.

I like that. There is a great reversal that goes on. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and God will elevate you in due time. He will lift you up. Luke eleven twenty seven.

I said I was gonna come back to the other use of the Fulassan test, that other use of keeping or guarding, and here it is. At the end or further down, it was after Jesus in 951 turned his face and set it like flint toward Jerusalem. He's walking towards the cross. He's transmitted that message to his disciples and Luke's gospel gains speed at nine fifty one. It is a prologue to the cross.

And in 11, the crowds are thronging around him, and they're all happy to see him, and he's doing some pretty magnificent things. He's carrying the message forward of redemption, of hope, healing. And it happened that as he spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast which nurtured you. That's Mary. Right?

And Jesus said, but oh, but he said, more than that. More than that. Can you imagine more than that? Mary was blessed. She she did find favor with God.

He did grace her but Jesus says more than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. That's the same word. That's great. That's good news of great joy right there. Keep it.

Fulassantes. Keeping, guarding, protecting the word of God that you've been given. Whatever message that God has transmitted to us, keeping that, holding on to that, it's not the law. It didn't say the law, which the law is actually that hedge of protection. Did you see the well, here it is.

Fulas untest to guard, to keep watch, to guard something so that it may remain safe, to protect, to keep, to preserve, to guard, guard, guard, to observe. This guy's watching out for those sheep, and he set these hedge of protection, and the law is kind of like that. It is a hedge to keep us from things that are dangerous. But hearing the word of God, the whole council, old and new testaments, the word of God, the the word that has become flesh that we celebrate this time of year and keeping it is a good thing. That guy's job is that field.

He was taking care of it. Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shown around them and they were greatly afraid. It can be scary to receive a message from the Lord. It can be. Then the angel said to them, though, do not be afraid for this message is one of good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.

Now, Jesus said that I will build my church. He's got a plan for how he's gonna do it. If you remember at the end of Matthew's gospel, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, and I say to you therefore, go into all the world. This will be a message to all people. It will be good news of great joy for all the people.

Do not be afraid. For behold, bring you good times of great joy, which will be to all people. Now for them, it was there was born to those shepherds. This day, they knew exactly where it was, when it was, for to you this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ's lord, and this will be the sign to you. Now that's them.

The manger is what they were looking for. This is where I want to go back to our translation. Now y'all know, and I know, I love grammar, and I've said this to you before. I actually did this a few years ago. I brought this particular deal up.

There is a persistent question. There are those who believe this is the perfect translation, and there are folks who think that another translation might be better, and it is based on one little squiggly. This. A sigma like that at the end of a word. Actually, can get there.

Right there. So if you look at that, that form is one way, and then if you erase that, it's the other way. And when there are persistent theological questions, usually it's because both of them are true. If they're persistent. Not always the case, but usually if they're persistent questions, it's because it's a truth that can be found otherwise throughout scripture.

Now this one is about the sovereignty of God. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men, and that is true because God in his greatness and in his majesty, he has a plan and he has transmitted that plan. He did it through angelic messengers, shepherds, wise men, through history. He's done it through Christian after Christian after Christian who has bowed the knee toward men. It is the outgoing message.

And the King James says glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill to men. And any songs that were written during the time of the King James Bible, usually that's what they say. We sing it over and over. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. That's based on the Texas receptors.

Glory to God. This is the King James purple edition. Glory to God. Everywhere it mentions God, it does it in purple. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.

And that's true because it is God's sovereignty that pushes this along. Jesus said, I will build my church. But the other way is this, and every other modern translation will be this way. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth. Peace to those on whom his favor rest and I stopped singing this song because this song says this, my soul, my soul magnifies the Lord, my soul magnifies the Lord.

He has done great things for me, great things for me. It says, company of angels, glory in the highest, and on the earth peace among those on whom his favor rests. That sounds a little weird after you've sung it, glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace goodwill toward men, like I heard the bells on Christmas day says. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests. That's the NIV.

The ESV, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is pleased. That seems like a different wrinkle but it's not. Is God pleased when you accept his message? Absolutely, he is. Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to those with whom God has pleased.

NLT, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom he has pleased, NASB. Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace on earth to people he favors. Oh, that one's a little uncomfortable, isn't it? Does he favor some people more than others? He favors people who receive the message.

There's no secret there. It's an open invitation to whosoever will. It's peace toward men. If you accept it, he's pleased, and you are favored. Do you get that?

I believe I get some people mad saying this. I believe that Mary had the option of saying, no. No. I believe that Jesus had the option. This is also something that makes people upset.

He had to have the choice. He emptied himself of all of his divine rights, and he came. The reason he is the son of God is because he walked that perfect line. He lived that perfect life. He was without sin, but he had the option.

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors. I got a lot of these. Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased. I like that one.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men on whom his favor rests. I like that one too because it sits and rests. We are secure because of what Christ has done. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased. I like this one too.

Institute for scripture research. Esteem to Elohim in the in the highest and on earth. Peace among men with whom he is pleased. Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to people who enjoy his favor. Amen.

Do you enjoy his favor? All right. So those are the two, and the persistent question is because of the sovereignty of God, it's peace toward men, and because of the responsibility of man is to accept that good message that you have now heard. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men. That one can't be.

That one's grammatically impossible. Sorry. Not a good translation. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, good pleasure in men. Nope.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men of goodwill. Do men of goodwill really exist without God? They don't. The whole story of the whole Bible is we cannot earn it. So this is what we're left with.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Good translation. Glory to God in the highest heaven and on the earth peace to those on whom his favor rests. Good translation. The difference is a squiggly.

Both of them are true from different places. There's not a point of theology that hangs on this squiggly. What will your response be? Because you got two options. You've got this one.

My soul magnifies the Lord. I'm so thankful that he saved me, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior, because I understand it's not about me. He is regarded the lowliest state with humility. You've received the message of his servant. He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

That's one response, and I pray that's the one you'll have. But the other response is this, no thanks. That's hard. Did everybody accept Jesus in his day? No.

I pray it's this one. So that's the end of the message. I think that's the end of the slides. Yep. Emmanuel.

God with us. God among us. Jesus said, more blessed are you if you hear the word of God and keep it. Observe it. Protect it.

Hold on to it. And I would say just like Mary did and just like the shepherds did, when they heard the message, they told the message. When she heard it, she pondered it, and she told it. Luke, when he heard it from her, pondered it, wrote it down, sent it on. God is with us.

Amen. Amen. Would you stand with me and we'll sing Emmanuel. May I pray for us before I send you out with a benediction? God, would you, Lord, now that you've entrusted the message with us, Lord, would you plant it so deep in our heart and just let it overflow?

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Lord, would you bring us to the place of understanding our good news that it would flow forth in great joy. By the way we live our lives and the way we use our words, in Jesus' name, would you convince us, Lord, of that which we already believe, in Jesus' name. Amen. So, Jesus answered, the work of God is this, to believe in the one that he has sent.

Amen.