Where It All Began

Well, hey, welcome everybody. I wanna welcome everybody to all of our locations and all of you who are joining us online. Thanks for being with us today. If you are here to support a friend or family member that's being baptized, I wanna give you a very special welcome and just say way to go. Way to be here to celebrate this person that you care about. We're gonna do baptisms here in just a moment. But before we do, I wanna have a word of prayer and then I wanna share some things with you from God's word. And this is my friend, Grayson. And Grayson is in the fourth grade. He's a football player, he's the quarterback. And he's gonna be praying for us today. And as we prepare for him to pray, perhaps you'd be willing there in your seat, there's something we do as a church, just to turn your palms up. If you're new, you don't wanna do that, that's okay. It's something we do, cause this is a posture of receiving. It's us physically saying, God, I wanna receive whatever you have for me today. So Grayson, will you pray for us? Thanks buddy. All right. Please Lord, please can you guide us into the path that you want us to be in.

Please can you protect us and we hope that you can help us in life. And we hope that you can love us forever in Jesus name, amen. Amen. Thanks buddy. Good job. Good, thank you. Over the past few years, every Christmas, we have been receiving a special offering to reduce the cost of camp. And we have been so generous as a church. You guys have been so generous. This year, our goal is to send 5,000 kids to camp. So that is elementary age school kids, as well as students, teenagers. This year, what I wanna encourage you to do, if you wanna get involved in that, just give to the general fund at your campus. The truth is the more of us that give regularly, the more those things are possible. It takes about a million bucks to reduce the cost for those 5,000 kids. And so if you wanna get involved, just give to the general fund. But we have kids pray because they're not just the church of the future. They're also the church today. And it also helps us pray. Sometimes we get intimidated by prayer

and you don't have to be, just talk to your heavenly father who loves you. We are starting a brand new series today called the Spirit of Christmas. And today and over the next few weeks, we're gonna look at the Holy Spirit's work at Christmastime. I don't know if you've ever thought about this before, but Christmas is possible because of the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit. Now I'm gonna keep it real with you. We're gonna read part of the Christmas account today. The story is the same this year, as it's been for the last 2000 years. And I tend to say this every Christmas. For years and years and years, when I was a younger pastor, I've gotten older here. Not sure how that happened, but it's happened. But for years and years and years, I would think, oh man, I gotta come up with something creative this year, right? Because it's another Christmas and here we go. But here's what I've learned as I've gotten older. God gave us the Christmas account for a reason. And there are things here that he wants us to see each and every year. There are things he wants to bring us back to. And so today and over the next few weeks, we're just gonna talk about the spirit of Christmas.

And as we say the spirit of Christmas, we're talking about the Holy Spirit. So before we dive in, let me just ask you this question. How's your life going? Is there any pain? Is there any discomfort? Is there any confusion? Are there opportunities right now that you didn't know you were gonna have? Are there challenges that you have right now that you didn't know you were gonna have? I don't know about you, but God many times interrupts my life or allows interruptions into my life. If you can relate to that, like right now, if you've got an interruption of some sort going on, positive, negative, somewhere in the middle, can you just give me one of these, help a brother out? Yeah. Before we look into this account today, I wanna give you this big idea and then we're gonna unpack it over the next few minutes and then we'll celebrate baptisms together. Those interruptions that come in life are often God's invitations to something greater. I'm gonna say that three times, that was once. Those interruptions that come in life are often God's invitations to something greater. I'm gonna say it one more time, just let it sink in.

These interruptions that come in life are oftentimes God's invitations. to something greater. Could it be that there's a challenge that you're facing in life that God wants to use to actually help you grow, to help you change? And if you and I were to choose to follow him and trust him through it, he actually will lead us to something better than we otherwise would have experienced. Pick up with me here in the Christmas account. We're gonna be in Matthew chapter one, and we're gonna pick up at verse 18. Now, many of us know this account and what happened with Joseph and Mary, and we hear it every year, and we see the nativity scenes, but you gotta realize this was a massive, this was a massive interruption in their life. This was a disruption to their plans. Pick up with me here. Matthew chapter one, beginning in verse 18. Here's what the Bible says. You can follow along with me and your Bible are on the screen. It says, this is how Jesus the Messiah was born. Quickly, the word Messiah, there are 300 distinct prophecies in your Old Testament about the coming Messiah, the coming Savior.

Messiah is Hebrew. You would say the same term in Greek. You would say it this way, Christ. Christ and Messiah mean the same thing. Christ is Greek, Messiah is Hebrew. The end of your Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi. The first book in the New Testament is Matthew. There's a 400-year gap between when those two books were written, and for 400 years, God has been silent, but there's 300 distinct prophecies that have been written about the coming Messiah, and so as Matthew writes this, he's saying that the birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of those prophecies. Jesus is the Messiah. This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother Mary was engaged to be married to Joseph, but before the marriage took place, notice the details, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. The spirit of Christmas that we're gonna talk about today and over the next few weeks is the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly. Now, let me give you a little bit of cultural teaching here. When people in this day and time got engaged, it was a legal contract, and once you were engaged, it was like being married,

so even though you're not married yet, even though there would be no physical intimacy between the two of you, legally, contractually, you are already married, and so here's what we've got. Joseph and Mary are contractually married. They're just in this season of engagement. They would not have been physically intimate together, but in essence, they're married by law, so think about this for a minute. When Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant, it's as if she's committed adultery, and what we just read is he's a righteous man, and what's amazing about that statement is it really gives us the heart of Joseph because he would have been deeply disrespected by this. This would be an insult to him. This would be embarrassing to him and to his family. If cancel culture existed and this got out on social media, it would be over for Joseph and his reputation. Now, as the law would have it in this day and time, the Mosaic law that came from Moses, once people found out that Mary was pregnant and not by Joseph, although if it were Joseph, that would be scandalous enough, but from someone else, the religious punishment over her would be severe. This gives us insight into the heart of Joseph because catch this, his righteousness exceeds the rules. Now, there's a lesson here for all of us.

I'm gonna dive back in here in just a second. Joseph's righteousness exceeds the rules. Anytime you and I say, what does the love of God require of me? More than we say, what are the rules? We should punish somebody, we should condemn somebody, we should rip somebody, we should trash somebody. Anytime we rise above that and say, what does the love of God require of me? What would it mean to love this person who we all know has done wrong? What would it mean to love this person who we all know is guilty? What would it mean to love this person even though they know and we know they are outside of God's plan? Anytime we practice that kind of love, that kind of love and that kind of righteousness actually exceeds, is more powerful, is more righteous in the sight of God. So let's sink in for a minute. That's gonna require a little bit of wisdom. Right now, if you're going, what are you saying, Chad? I'm saying there's a type of righteousness that exceeds the rules. It's the kind of righteousness God has. Because when all of us were found guilty and when all of us were sinners and when all of us deserve to be condemned, God in love and mercy and grace

through the power of the Holy Spirit came into the world to rescue and save us even though we were found in our sin. Gives you some insight into the heart of Joseph, doesn't it? He's a religious man. He's a righteous man. But he's a man with a soft heart towards God. And he obviously genuinely loved Mary. So he's thinking, how do I break this off? But I don't want to disgrace her publicly. And how do I handle this? He's kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. So he wants to break off the engagement. He wants to do something different. He doesn't trust Mary like he once did. But at the same time, he doesn't want to disgrace her. Verse 20, as he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. The angel speaks, Joseph, son of David, the angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. It's the spirit of Christmas. If you're new to church and you're new to the Bible, the Bible teaches that God is one God and yet three persons. We call this the doctrine of the Trinity. You have God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons and yet one God. And I always get asked, can you explain that, Pastor Chad?

No, not really. I usually give the same answer. Don't think addition. One plus one plus one equals three. Think multiplication. One times one times one equals one. One God, three distinct persons. The Holy Spirit is God. And he's a distinct person within that Trinitarian fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Verse 21, so this baby is conceived. It's a miraculous thing. There was no physical contact between Mary and God. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in her womb. Verse 21, and she will have a son. And you are to name him, say the name with me, Jesus. The name is important. It means something. You are to name him Jesus, why? For he will save his people from their sins. And all of this occurred to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet, at least 300 distinct prophecies in the Old Testament. This prophecy was written 800 years earlier. Verse 23, look, the virgin will conceive a child. She will give birth to a son and they will call him, let's say that name together, they will call him what? Emmanuel, which means God is with us. And a word from God, a word from God takes Joseph's confusion to a place of calling.

God speaks to him in this dream. Joseph hears him and the confusion moves into this calling on Joseph's life. A couple of things here in your notes, if you're taking notes, you can download the Sun Valley app for free on your mobile device if you wanna do that. The name Jesus, why is he named Jesus? The name Jesus is about what he does. Jesus is his name in Greek. In Hebrew, you would say Yeshua. In English, we would say Joshua. Yeshua, Joshua, Jesus. Do you wanna know what that name means? Here's what it means, the Lord saves. The name Jesus is about what he does. What does he do? He saves. This is what makes Christianity different than every other faith in the history of mankind. Every other faith is about you and I working our way to God. Christianity is different. Christianity is about God working his way to us. That's what Christmas is all about. When you and I couldn't get to God, God in love and mercy and grace came down to us and into the person of Jesus. Jesus is about what he would do. Jesus is about what he does.

The Lord saves. saves. Religions are about we save ourselves. This is what you have to do to work your way up to God. But Christianity is about a savior. This is what God has done to work his way down to you. Do you see the difference? And just a moment when people are baptized, they're not being baptized because they've earned anything. They're not trying to get brownie points with God. This is not a religious hoop that they are jumping through. Baptism is a public profession of their personal trust in Jesus. It's symbolic. This was the old person. This person lived for themselves, trusted in themselves. That person is trusted in Jesus, been washed in his love and mercy and grace. And now there's a brand new person and this person follows Jesus as leader and Lord of their life. The name Jesus is about what he does. He's a savior here in your notes. The name of Manuel is about who he is, who is he? He's God with us. He's God with us. Here's what Christmas is about. And remember this all the way through. You ready? Christmas is about God's desire to be with you. That's it. God's desire to be with you. I'm going to pick on church culture for a little bit. So if you're not a church person, you'll like this. If you are a church person, I'm going to pick on us for a second. Have you ever heard this statement? He is the reason for the season. How many of you have heard that before? Okay. He's the reason for the season. That's true. But let me expand that for a moment and give you a thought you've never thought about before. Maybe Jesus is the reason for everything. Colossians chapter one says that flat out. Everything was made by him and for him. He's not just the reason for the season. He's the reason for the whole thing. Does that make sense? Which begs the question. Okay, so everything is about Jesus. What is the reason for the season? God wants to be with you. It was already about Jesus. He was there in the beginning. He'll be there in the end. He's the alpha and the omega, the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, sovereign over all things. But Christmas is Emmanuel, God with us. Listen to me close, especially if you're visiting today. Here's what this means. God loves you. God cares for you. No matter where you've been, what you've done or what's been done to you. And he's made a way for you in and through the person of Jesus. Jesus is about what he does. Emmanuel is about who he is. God with us. Religion. This is what you got to do to work your way up to God. Biblical Christianity. This is what God has done to work his way down to

you. Will you receive him? Will you trust him? He wants to be with you. Will you choose to be with him? Christianity is something different. There's not another faith like it in the history of mankind. Verse 24, when Joseph woke up, so he's had this encounter with the angel, right? And the angel says, this is a miracle that's happened in Mary's womb. Your name, this boy, Jesus, he's going to be God with us. Verse 24. When Joseph woke up, here's the most important thing about Joseph in this whole passage. When Joseph woke up, he, what's the next word? That's really important. All locations. He, what he, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded. He didn't just hear about it. He didn't just know it. He heard the command and he, what he did it. He did as the angel of the Lord commanded, took Mary as his wife. Verse 25, but he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And you were like, so Mary and Joseph later on. Yeah, they actually had other kids. Their names are mentioned in the new Testament. Jesus had half brothers and sisters and Joseph named him Jesus. Three things here for all of us. So this is the practical side of it. I kind of gave you some big theological stuff there. Three things here. Number one in your notes, the spirit's interruptions are an invitation to something greater. The spirit's interruptions are an invitation to something greater. Um, right now, if you're taking notes out to the side, write this down, especially if you're in a season of interruption in your life, God's interruptions are not random. If we trust him, they will be redemptive. We write that down. God's interruptions are not random. If we choose to trust him. but they will be redemptive. I'm gonna give you a testimony of mine quickly, and then I wanna get you to think through a few things. I've been at Sun Valley now for 21 years. July, it'll be 22 years. And so years and years ago, I was, before I came to Sun Valley, I was working for a missions agency to the Spanish-speaking world. It was kind of a middle job.

I was a youth pastor, I worked for a local church, and some things kind of went down and I'm gonna tell you this story quickly, I'm gonna make a long story medium, okay? So some things kind of went down and I got hurt and I was like, I don't know if I wanna do this church thing anymore. I got church hurt. Anybody ever been church hurt? Yeah, it happens. You wanna know why that happens? Because the church is full of people and people are people everywhere you go. And so I got hurt and I was like, I don't know if I wanna do the church thing anymore, but I know God's called me to ministry, I don't know what that looks like. And so I was working for this missions agency. Fast forward, I met a young woman, we got married, fast forward, we had our first child. And I felt like I had done just about all I could do at this missions agency that I was working for. I had several different jobs. I got to be the assistant to the president and director of development, so I was raising money. And I just had this moment where I like, I think I've done all that I can do here. At the same time, I bought a used Honda Accord. And the guy that I bought the Honda Accord from was a vice president for a recruiting company.

And they were headhunters for people in the medical field. Literally, they were recruiters of surgeons. And so he and I kind of built a friendship in the course of me buying his car. And we called and had a couple of other conversations. And I didn't realize it, but those conversations, he was actually trying to recruit me. And he was interviewing me. And on one particular day, I got this phone call. He said, hey, would you have lunch with me? And I said, why? He said, well, here's what I do for a living. I'm a vice president of this, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. I think you would be really great at this job. I know that you raise money for a living. I know that you do this other thing. He said, you're just really suited for this. And I want to talk to you about it and see if you would be interested. I said, yeah, I don't know if I have any interest. He said, the base salary is 150,000 a year. And then you make commission on top of that. And at that time, I didn't make a third of that. And I was like, yeah, I'm interested. Let's have lunch, right? And so I meet him at the Galleria Mall in Dallas. If you've ever been there, there's an ice skating rink at the Galleria Mall. There's a Mexican restaurant there next to the ice skating rink.

And so we're sitting in a booth next to the ice skating rink and people are skating by. And he's telling me about this job. And he said, Chad, if you're interested, I'm interested in you. And this is the process that we'll need to go through. He said, you'll have base salary the first year. He said, after that, you're gonna be more commissioned. That base salary will be cut in half. He goes, but you'll probably double the amount of money you make in your second year. And so I'm driving home that day going, ching, ch-ch-ching, ching, ch-ch-ching, ching, ching in my head to our dumpy little house in Mesquite, Texas, where we're barely making ends meet. At the same time that week, I got two phone calls from two different churches. And one of them was this church called Sun Valley out in Gilbert, Arizona. And so I'm wrestling for the next couple of weeks because I have this opportunity to make some money. And then a local church thing, I don't know. And I talked to a friend of mine and he gave me some advice. But here's what I want you to hear in this moment. This was a huge disruption in my life. Because in my head already, I'm gonna leave where I'm at. I might as well make as much money as I can because I'm trying to build a family here. And then all of a sudden I got these church opportunities and one of them's in Arizona.

And by the way, it was June. And so I have an older friend and I ask him for advice. And here's kind of the bottom line here. But he said, Chad, if you take money off the table, what do you wanna do? At the end of your life, when you look back over your life, what do you wanna see? And when you think about that and what you wanna see, of the three opportunities you have, what's most attractive to you? What's God telling you? What's in your gut? What's the Spirit saying? Take money off the table, what would you wanna do? So I think I wanna go out there to that church in Arizona. And that was 21 and a half years ago. It could be right now you've got something in your life and you're measuring and you're looking and you're writing out the lists. What does God want you to do? What's God's plan for your life? It feels like a disruption and you're not sure and there's this and that and you've got options. But when you get to the end of your life and you look back over your life, what is it that you want to see? It could be right now you're like, no man, my disruption is pain, confusion, problems. Let me give you a quick rundown of where problems come from. We live in a broken world, have you noticed?

Weather's broken, government's broken. I always get an amen on that one. I'll say it, government's broken. All right, well, we're working on it. I'm broken. I can't live up to my own standard, much less God's. So we live in a broken world and so things are going to be broken. And a ton of our problems come from this reality, we reap what we sow. And some of us are going, why God? But if you look back over all the dumb decisions you've made, it kind of led up to this point and God's going, that wasn't me. You reap what you sow, here's the other thing, you reap what other people sow. Some of us are going through a painful time or a difficult time because of decisions other people have made. Welcome to the human race. You reap what you sow, you reap what other people sow, the question is, will you choose to grow? Because even those interruptions are opportunities for God to do something redemptive and rewarding in your life if you'll let him. Interruptions come in all different ways, shapes and forms, but listen, if we'll trust God, they're often invitations to something greater. And it could be, well, I've been praying for something greater, it's a process.

There are seasons. Remember when I said, you reap what you sow, there's always a process in that. If I plant seeds tomorrow, I don't have a garden the next day. It takes a while for it to show fruit. But here's the principle, no matter what form it's coming in, oftentimes interruptions are God's invitations to something greater. If we'll choose to trust him. That was the bulk of the sermon, let me give you two more thoughts. Second one, we are responsible for obedience and God is responsible for outcome. We are responsible for obedience and God is responsible for outcome. There's this tricky thing here, because in church we say dumb stuff all the time and we don't know what we're talking about. Here's one of the dumb things that we say. I'm trusting God for fill in the blank. Which means I'm trusting God's gonna do what I want, what I want, what I really, really want, fill in the blank. The power of faith is not how much you have. The power of faith is what your faith is in. Think with me. The worth of faith is based on the worthiness of the object of it. I'm gonna say it again.

The worth of faith is based on the worthiness of the object of it. What does that mean? What's the object of your faith? If your faith is whatever is in the blank, you may or may not be greatly disappointed. But if the object of your faith is God, who loves you no matter what, then what's in the blank won't matter as much. The object of my faith. We put our faith in God, who he is, whether it goes our way or not. Whether it's changed or not. Who he is is what we trust. Our faith is in God, not in what God will or will not do. Do you see the difference? Many people get so disillusioned because of I'm trusting God for this. No, you trust God. You trust the heart of God, who loves you, who gave himself for you on the cross. The work of the Spirit, Jesus entered into the world. Jesus, the Lord saves. Emmanuel, God with us. When it comes to this God who loves you and cares for you, in the end, every little thing is gonna be all right. If it's not good, God's not done. You can trust him. Which brings us to number three. It is in obeying God's plans that we find peace.

When you look back over your life, when it's all said and done, what do you wanna see? Go with God. Joseph did what was commanded. Do you and I do what is commanded? Our journey with God, it's as simple as your next step of obedience. So in the disruptions, what would it mean to trust him? To trust God means you do what he says. And so trust him. Let's pray together. God loves you. God cares for you. And everything he says, whether you understand it or not, is for your good. So where in your life are you not obeying him? His invitation to obedience is to something greater. Where in your life are you disobeying him? To disobey is to go in the opposite direction of blessing. And so trust God. Choose right now, whatever it is, to do what he says. He loves you. He cares for you. In Jesus name, he's our savior and he is with us, Emmanuel. Holy Spirit, give us wisdom of these things. I pray for all of us right now. There's something that came to mind and I pray we would do as Joseph did. We would just do what you command because many times those interruptions are an invitation to something greater. Teach us, we pray, in Jesus name, amen.