[SPEAKER_00]: Greetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Dr. Darrell Hall, and I want to welcome you to the Way Community Church podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're going to conclude our conversation in Luke chapter 2, looking at the birth narrative of our Savior Jesus Christ, and we will appreciate that even as a baby in the manger, Jesus was still the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can follow along the notes of this message in this transcript of the podcast or you can follow the notes in the Bible app.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's study
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have everybody who wants you to join me in the book of Luke, chapter 2, is where we're going to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to continue the conversation we've started a few weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke chapter 2, if you yet to read the entirety of this chapter, I want to encourage you to do it before Christmas morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We started a few weeks ago, earlier in the chapter, we looked at how we're on the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then last week, we looked at how obstacles can't get in the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I want us to read one verse together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke 2, verse number 16.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find these notes in the Bible out there for you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke chapter 2, verse number 16, let's read it together on the count of three.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, two, three.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in the manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a reader again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, and they came in a hurry and found what church their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he did what y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: laying in a manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, I want to conclude our Christmas conversation with this thought in mind, the way in a manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may be seated in the presence of the living God, the way in a manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever been going somewhere, and you've never been there before, and even though
[SPEAKER_00]: the people in the car with you, let you know that they were not confident in your abilities and navigators.
[SPEAKER_00]: Passing your seat and back seat drivers were waiting to list good and dark to ask you if you know the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's one thing to be doubted by the people who are writing with you, but it's a whole another thing to start to doubt yourself
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I really know the way?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I know what I'm doing in this season of my life?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I know what decision to make?
[SPEAKER_00]: When I get to forks in the road, do I really know to go left or right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I may be young, but all my friends look up to me, but deep inside, I don't even know what I do and don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of a story, some years ago, everything I would drive them with the boys down to Motry, Jorigio.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't know where it is, don't worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've been there before.
[SPEAKER_00]: And with all due respect to people from that neck of the woods, all I want to say is when we got off of 75 South, and we started our trek through those back byways and highways, and the streetlights stop at the highway,
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the darkest darkness that had ever darked.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I ain't need Ebony in my ear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Deep in my soul, I knew I'd do not know the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was the darkness that terrified me, not just the unfamiliarity with what lay a hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a hoping side that this journey I had started with these lives in my hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: with in somewhere safely and securely.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, we all have this filling in the pit of our stomachs.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we're trying to navigate through darkness, that causes us to fear that our worst nightmares were coming to pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all worshiping together today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every generation is present.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got newborn babies, and we've got our oldest living member.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the truth is this,
[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless of your age and stage, all of us can be scared of the dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: How it blinds us, disoriented our faculties, confuses our sense of right and wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Causes us emotionally to get so overwhelmed that we can't quiet our souls to navigate safely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you find yourself in a season where you are afraid of the dark,
[SPEAKER_00]: Scared of what may happen that you're in the same place that the people in this text were in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that you are scared of the dark on your journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are afraid that the people who love you most won't live long enough to see you at your best.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they held you down in some of your lowest moments and you won't them to still be around in the lower changes your reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you are navigating darkness and you are afraid on your journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: As every day you turn on the TV or you scroll on social media and you see how the politics in this nation are knowing at the threads of an already tattered tapestry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you're afraid that as the new year comes around, you've got to put on a fake face like it's really a happy new year.
[SPEAKER_00]: When deep down inside, your anxious about the fact that stuff you hope to be have achieved two, three years ago has yet to come to pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this fear in the pit of your stomach if this will be another year of disappointment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to tell you, life can be dark for us all, but let us not like these shepherds get so used to the dark that we are afraid of the light.
[SPEAKER_00]: These shepherds, the Bible says on Luke chapter 2 verse 8 through 10, in the same region, there was some shepherd staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock, wind church, and night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the angel of the Lord, suddenly,
[SPEAKER_00]: and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were what y'all terribly frightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the angels said to them, do not be afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were so used to navigating the darkness that now the light was scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were so used to functioning when the sun went down that when glory showed up, their immediate emotional reaction was fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know you're afraid of the light if you ever fear your past catching up with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that you are afraid of the light, if there's some things you're shameful about, that you hope other people don't find out about because you know they might look at you differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know you're afraid of delight if you've songs some seeds in private that you pray to God don't reap a harvest in public.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've come to date to encourage you with these two words and that is this fear not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got good news for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the similar two of those angels and Luke chapter two who brought news to those shepherds while they were navigating darkness, I just came to date to give you some good news.
[SPEAKER_00]: to mediate the glory of God in your life as it shines brightly to upset your normalcy in nighttime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Luke chapter two is a necessary story at the beginning of this book, which helps us appreciate that long before we can get to Jesus in a dope form.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to first appreciate the fact that he was born as a little baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I stated before in the first week, we looked at how we are all on the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in this chapter, people had to move from various regions and Palestinian territory to go to their specific city.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're all on the way somewhere, it's like traveling during the holidays.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then when we're all on the way to truth is, there are sometimes obstacles we'll get in the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you can take your journey, get what God told you to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find out when you arrive, there's no space for you here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're forced in a moment to try to make something out of nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: To try to turn scraps into swatling claws and a manger into a basket.
[SPEAKER_00]: But today, we can appreciate through these angels that the way indeed lay in a manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as we prepare for Christmas, that's one question I have for you as your pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: One question, and that is this, do you know the way?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know the way?
[SPEAKER_00]: In order to answer that question, honestly, there are two introspective questions you've got to act yourself privately, and the first is this, has Jesus been revealed to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the church say revelation,
[SPEAKER_00]: Revelation is a scary word in our faith's tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: For two reasons, number one, it feels spooky when you say it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then number two, there's a book name revelation that we will avoid at all costs.
[SPEAKER_00]: For some of us, you read Genesis, the Jew then go back to Genesis.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to know what's in Revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the term revelation is not a spooky term.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's all that simply means, if God don't show it to me, I can't see it on my own.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shepherds are navigating the darkness in their normal routine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anjil shows up and reveals good news to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The angel says in verse number 11, for today, in the city of David, there has been born for you, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one verse is good news to those shepherds and to us too, because in that one simple verse, there are layers to this baby in the manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that this baby was born,
[SPEAKER_00]: Savior, who is what church, Christ, what church, the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meaning they're layers to Jesus' true nature and identity he was born as Savior, and Christ and Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of those together are good news if you take any one of them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The news ain't as good as it could be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I mean, he was born.
[SPEAKER_00]: This means that God became human.
[SPEAKER_00]: The infinite, chose, finiteness.
[SPEAKER_00]: The inimitable, put on limits.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that when we prayed at him, we were talking to somebody who is touched with the fillings of I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes, so yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: God became human.
[SPEAKER_00]: But not just what he borne, he was borne to be our savior that term savior reflects his given name, Jesus, which is a translation of the Greek, translation of the Hebrew name, Yeshua.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means God saved salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It could be translated Joshua.
[SPEAKER_00]: God told Joseph, call him Jesus because he's gonna save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means he's our deliverer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's our risk skewer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's our hero.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not just born, God became human.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not just saved your our hero to snatch us out of sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's also Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: That Christ is not His last name.
[SPEAKER_00]: His name is not Jesus Christ, Mary Christ, Joseph Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the Christ family.
[SPEAKER_00]: that Christ is just one of his many appropriate titles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, the Christ, it means Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we now, who is God, the Son, and the Son of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one prophesied to have come has indeed come.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then he's also Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord means that He presides over all that belongs to Him, and His Lordship is good for everything He lords over.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when it comes to the true nature of Jesus, you can't pick two out of the four and claim you know the real biblical Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you only want him to be born, and you only want him to be saved, but you don't acknowledge him as Christ and Lord, you know, uh, Jesus, but you don't know the.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gotten to be all four before he's either one.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph, believe about the nature of Jesus is all or nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why some of the faiths or beliefs might say, yeah, Jesus was born, but wanting knowledge and save your Christ or Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we can acknowledge the history of a man who lived between 4 BC and 30 AD, but unless his true nature and save your Christ and Lord is revealed to me, then I'll only know of him, I won't ever truly know him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So has Jesus' nature been revealed to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all I read.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Jesus' nature been revealed to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been coming to this church listening to you or whoever feels and for you, preach for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell you, I can do all the explaining, I can preach it on blue and the face, but unless the Holy Spirit is speaking, while I'm talking, then all of this is for not.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I can't explain some to you that only the Holy Spirit can reveal to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there anybody in the house who can give God a place for the fact that the Holy Spirit has opened your eyes?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's shown light in your darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Has Jesus been revealed to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you hear me?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know this holiday season, what you do not have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if Jesus has been revealed to you, consider yourself blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hit me what I say.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are people in this world who have what you think you do not have, who do not have what you take for granted that you have everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: These people in this world who got the stuff, but don't have to save you.
[SPEAKER_00]: If the Savior has been revealed to you, you are in fat, wealthy beyond all means.
[SPEAKER_00]: First question has Jesus been revealed to me, number two, the only natural question after that is, have I responded to Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the light can be turned on, but you still got to walk in the light.
[SPEAKER_00]: The beautiful light, come with their due drops of mercy, shine bright shine, all around us
[SPEAKER_00]: the light of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: For 16 says, and they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as he lay in a manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their response to the revelation was let me hurry up and get closer to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know Jesus has really been revealed to you when you make quick work to get his close to him as you possibly can.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hadn't truly been introduced to the real Jesus if you see him and say, I'll catch up with him later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you came behold the glory and his melanated face and contrasted to the darkness of the life you live and choose that darkness in intelligence.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Jesus has been revealed, let me make light haste and get his close to him as I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting though is when you draw near to him, you might find something you didn't expect to see.
[SPEAKER_00]: There.
[SPEAKER_00]: The shepherds were told about a savior who was going to conquer, seeing, and they get to this little poor girl in this little poor boy who would be told to be married, and they say, let us see, let us see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they look in the manger, and he's sucking this down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mean to tell me, though one who's going to crush the head of the serpent,
[SPEAKER_00]: Snatch souls out of hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, the devil in the aisle and make every demon tremble at the sound of his name is just Google Gaga.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mean to tell me, the good news that's been prophesied from the garden until now, that there would be one who would deliver us from our human plight and proclivities, that there would be one who would give us the internal strength so that we live out the law by the spirit and don't need the law to tell us right from all.
[SPEAKER_00]: You mean to tell us that one?
[SPEAKER_00]: Got a little milk around his mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, Jesus in power is a paradox.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because his birth proves how he embrace weakness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let the church say weakness.
[SPEAKER_00]: In being born, Jesus proved his power by being willing to embrace weakness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's an entire world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world only thinks you're strong if you look strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why the world misses the truth when it's staring at them in the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says, if you got a worldly point of view of things and you think that you only strong, if you look strong, you're gonna miss me because I'm gonna be weak.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm gonna flip everything on his head so that it's only spiritually discerned by those who are humble and heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you mean, Ralph?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus embraced weakness by becoming human, though he was God.
[SPEAKER_00]: By experiencing poverty, though he was rich, by succumbing to death, though he was the sole giver of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus said, I'm gonna show you my true nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a embrace weakness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in my weakness, you will find all the strength you need for your words.
[SPEAKER_00]: So long before we can get to Jesus on the throne, long before we can get to the way on the throne, long before we can get to the way who died on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to all stop by the way in the manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because whenever in your life you meet Jesus, you have found your way to the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this story, there are two older people in the temple, Anna and Simeon, who had waited for the consolation of Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: God promised that they would live long enough to see his salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: They held this baby and knew he was the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Later on in Luke chapter 2, Jesus' little boy by now about 12 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stays back in the temple, his parents leave him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as they walk back home, they realize he's missing.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they get back, Jesus at 12 is having the conversation with all the teachers in the temple.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can tell by the manner of his dialogue as a 12-year-old.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether you meet Jesus as the man who died on a crossing out of front of the grave, as the little boy who
[SPEAKER_00]: Or as a little baby, laying in hay in a feeding trough the animals eat out of, you have met the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank God for Jesus, the way and the manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_00]: God and heaven, we honor you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we thank you for your love for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for how you have met us in the darkness.
[SPEAKER_00]: and allow your light to shine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray for those who are afraid of the light because they're so accustomed to the darkness that you God would allow glory to be revealed to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're predatory to give us the hearts we need to be open to receive the timeless gift of your Son Jesus, the way and the manger.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Jesus name, name, name.