Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
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connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.
Merry Christmas to you all. Is this your first time at
Riverbend? Welcome.
Thank you so much for choosing to be with us.
Hey, listen, we would love to connect with you, love to
connect you with some other people, maybe similar age and
stage of life. Probably the easiest way for
that to happen is through that connect card.
So like I said, if you're new with us, again, thank you so
much for choosing to spend your Sunday morning with us.
We would just ask that you take that connect card out.
Whatever info you feel comfortable passing on on that
connect card, you'll just drop it into the giving stations on
your way out. And we look forward to
connecting with you. It also and lets us know where
to ship a small thank you gift out into the mail to you if we
haven't had the chance to meet yet.
My name is Ben. Get to serve as the lead pastor
here. Love this season, absolutely
love this season. Have a lot going on.
I'm sure all of us do This morning.
We have already had the opportunity to worship with with
families here at the 8:00 service.
We'll get to worship with some more families here at the 11:00
service. One of the things that I'm
excited about this morning is being able to worship with our
kids. Our kids are are in here
worshiping with us. Just kind of one of the quick
shout outs to the kids. If you're a kid in here, you're
normally in River Kids, but you are in here with us now.
Here's your chance to make some noise.
So when I count to three, let me hear you.
Kids 123. They're all over here.
All right, good job. Hey, also, if you're a kid, I
hope that you got one of the packets on the way in that has
kind of an activity sheet. That activity sheet will kind of
help you kind of follow along with where we're going this
morning. It on the back of it has a
pretty cool scavenger hunt. Dads, leave your kids scavenger
hunt alone. Don't take it from them.
Get your own. But that scavenger hunt, one of
the things that you're you'll be doing is kind of listening out.
If I say a word, you'll be able to color in that space or cross
it off or however you want to mark it.
So for example, if I say the word angels, you would go ahead
and mark that one off. So now everybody has a freebie.
So adults, you get a note sheet. But anyway, it is so good just
being able to to worship with you.
Just kind of as a quick note is we're going to be able to come
back in here on Wednesday night, Christmas Eve from 5:00 to about
5:45, just being able to just celebrate Jesus together.
So you don't have to sign up. You don't need to register, just
show up. Great opportunity to come.
So this is something that we're new that we're doing this year.
So look forward to being able to worship with you.
But here we are in our Christmas series called presents called
Presents. And I think that this season, if
we could, for many of us, if we could kind of tack on one word
and we weren't kind of trying to impress church people, we would
use the word overwhelming, wouldn't we?
Overwhelming in, in, in so many different regards.
A lot of times it's just overwhelming.
I was reading this past week. In the 1600's the Puritans
actually took the stance and took the step to ban Christmas
for a series of years. They began to get so frustrated
with all the busyness, with all the hurry with with with all the
distractions of Christmas that they just chose to ban it.
For that reason. If you parts of England and
parts of colonial America in the 1600s, if you were caught
celebrating Christmas decorations, parties, gifts,
festivities during the season, you could actually be fined.
Churches went on normal services, businesses, shops were
open normal hours. It's just that Christmas was
banned. No decorations, no gifts, no
festivities. Now I know that some of the
parents in here, you threaten to do the same thing with your
kids. When your kids are all hyped up
on Pixie sticks and Mountain Dew, you threaten them that
Christmas ain't coming. I think that we would.
However, we would all agree that the problem, the problem was
never Christmas. The problem is what people made
Christmas into. And the same thing is true for
us now, right? The problem like the sense of
overwhelm and busyness and, and, and always being rushed and
stressed out and anxiety and all the above.
The problem is not Christmas. The problem is, is, is kind of
us. And isn't it ironic that the
time and the season that is meant for us to really focus in
on the fact that Christmas is really about Jesus, God with us
is the very season that we make, make it all make it seem like it
all depends or it all rides on us.
And because of that, we're, we're in the season, many of us,
we, we are experiencing, experiencing a sense of
overwhelm. And I'm not going to ask that
you raise your hand or anything like that.
And maybe you're you're, you're like this with this online to
where if you feel overwhelmed during this Christmas season,
chances are pretty good that you came into this Christmas season
with a sense of overwhelm. So here's the question before
us. How in the world do we navigate?
How do we navigate Christmas and how do we navigate the remainder
of the Christmas season with feeling so overwhelmed?
And I think it really starts with us coming back to a bedrock
foundational truth about Christmas about this time of the
year. And if you're taking notes with
us, this bedrock foundational truth actually serves as our big
idea. And here it is.
Christmas isn't just the story of Jesus's birth.
It's the story of God's heart. Christmas is not just the story
of Jesus birth. It isn't simply just a story of
Jesus birth, as incredible and miraculous and earth shattering
as that is. It's not simply about Jesus
birth. It's really it's the story of
God's heart. It's the story of God's heart.
And like we talked about last week, I think that we would do
really well to understand what God desires for us.
Every single one of us in the room online, every single one of
us. If you're new to church, if you,
if you're a veteran to church, you're in church all the time.
Maybe you're just coming back to church for the first time in a
long time. God's desire for you is not that
you would look back in, in a couple weeks and go, I had a
Merry Christmas and a happy New year.
God's, God's greatest desire for us is that we would discover and
maybe even rediscover God's heart for us, God's heart for
us. So where do we discover and
sometimes rediscover his heart for us?
We discover it in his Word to us.
So if you have a Bible with you, I would invite you to find Luke
chapter 2. Luke chapter 2 with me this
morning. And it's going to be a pretty
popular passage around the Christmas time.
If you don't have a Bible, no worries.
The passage is on the screen in front of us.
And what we're going to be reading is we're going to start
to read and we're going to start to see the ways in which we can
so easily become overwhelmed. But more importantly, the hope
that we have you. You see none of us in this room.
This is not about like, hey, you're Mary and you're Joseph,
all, all of us in this room. You are you.
I am. I am me, but we still serve the
same God in the same God that was with Mary and Joseph then is
the same God that's with us now. So if you have Luke chapter 1,
let's pick it up in verse one. It says in those days the decree
went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be
registered. This was the first registration
when Quinarius was governor of Syria and all went to be
registered each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from
Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of
David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and
lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his
betrothed. Don't miss this last phrase.
Who was with child? Who was with child?
So here's what I want to do if you're taking notes with us.
I want to look at 3 common reasons that you and I can so
easily become overwhelmed. Here's the first one.
If you're taking notes with us, It's when we feel unprepared.
It's when we feel unprepared again, if we look back at, at,
at Mary and Joseph, there is so much stress packed into those 5
verses, isn't there? There's so much stress packed
into those 5 verses here. Here you have a, a, a, a young
woman by the name of Mary that very few, if any people don't
consider a liar because she is bold enough to say I'm pregnant,
but I'm carrying the, the, the Messiah.
I'm still a virgin, but I, I, I conceived by the through the
power of the Holy Spirit. And people are like, yeah,
right. So you got a young woman that
that very few, if any don't consider a liar.
You got a young man and Joseph that very few if any don't
consider an idiot. They go, Joseph, are you really
buying that? Come on, man, come on.
And they're, they're expecting their first time parents.
You, you remember, if you're, if you're a mom or a dad, you
remember, you remember that, that, that, that first baby, you
remember everything that goes along with it.
Oh, and, and by the way, they had to pack for a trip.
They had to pack for a trip that was go to going to pay taxes.
Is there any one of us that would raise your hand and go?
I love to pay taxes. As a matter of fact, I love it
so much. I want to pay more taxes.
And I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll be honest with you.
I love how my tax money is being spent.
Can I get an Amen? No, no.
Now multiply that out by about 100, if not 1000.
And Mary and Joseph had to make this trip because the Roman
Emperor Augustus Caesar, Caesar Augustus was declaring that
every single man and his family had to return to their own, to
their hometown to be counted for the purposes of taxation.
Now, you may or may not know this, but in that time the Roman
Empire was occupying, they were the, they were the occupying
force over the nation of Israel. They were kind of like the, the,
the, the ones that conquered the nation of Israel.
So Mary and Joseph are having to make this trip to pay taxes.
And that tax money they know is going to pay the salaries of the
Roman officials and the Roman soldiers that are there
occupying them. I can't think of anything
anybody thinking I want to sign up for that.
So here they are from Nazareth having to go to Bethlehem
packing for a trip. Now look not to like start a
fight within husbands and wives and and and and moms and dads.
But remember when you were packing for for vacation, maybe
this summer and remember kind of that that stressful time of, of
just the packing. And then you're always
wondering, did I forget something?
Did we forget something? Did, did did you remember to
bring this? Or did you remember to lock the
doors? Or Are you sure that you turn
the oven off? Or you know, did did you are you
made sure that that you know you, you locked you locked the
doors? Imagine that with Mary and
Joseph. They still have that same
feeling. And oh, by the way, not only is
Mary pregnant, she's pregnant with the Son of God, the
long-awaited Messiah. How in the world do you prepare
to be the mom and the mother figure of the Son of God?
How in the world do you even begin to feel prepared to be the
earthly father figure for the Son of God?
So no wonder they felt such a deep sense of overwhelm.
Now, even though we can't really identify with Mary and Joseph, I
think that a lot of times we get so overwhelmed because we feel
unprepared as well. Let me give you an example.
Maybe you're a, maybe you're a young family and maybe you have
a little baby in your home. So you, you kind of know kind of
that sense of unpreparedness. Nothing prepares you for a baby
like actually having a baby or, or, or maybe the, the, the
season, the, the demands of the season, relational and emotional
and financial. They, they've come really,
really fast and really, really hard to where you, you've have
felt unprepared for this season. Maybe you feel unprepared for
that sense of exhaustion that has set in and looks like it's
here to stay as a result of you running so hard and so fast for
so long. You just feel unprepared.
And because you feel so unprepared, you feel really,
really overwhelmed. Listen, one of the one of the
main reasons that we start to feel overwhelmed is a sense of
being unprepared. But there's another reason I
believe that we can so easily become overwhelmed and I want to
look at it with you back in Luke chapter 2.
Let's pick it up in verse 6. While they, Mary and Joseph were
there, they finally made it to Bethlehem.
The time came for her to give birth and she gave birth to her
first born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid
him in a Manger because there was no place for them in the
end. So I think that the second
reason that we start to feel so overwhelmed is we experience the
unexpected. We experienced the unexpected.
I want to just make a, a quick educated guess with you this
morning. I don't think, I don't think
that Mary's contractions, her labor started once they hit the
Bethlehem city limits. I think that Mary's contractions
probably started on that journey before they got to Bethlehem.
Here you have a man and a woman, Mary and Joseph, They know that
they have to travel somewhere between some scholars say 7 to 9
days, that slow, arduous journey.
Somewhere along that journey, she feels the first contraction.
She starts to panic. She's experiencing the
unexpected. And you know, Joseph, if you're,
if you're a dad in here, you know, it's all unexpected to US
dads and US men. You can, you can just imagine
that Joseph trying, trying to, trying to help his wife and, and
calm his wife's nerves. Be like, Mary, it's going to be
OK. We're, we're, we're going to be
there soon. Once we get to Bethlehem.
That was kind of the theme of the last leg of the journey.
And you can just imagine they kind of like dream together.
Once we get to Bethlehem, You know, we, we, we can, we can get
you a room and you can lay down in a bed and, and we'll get you
some, we'll get some medical help.
And once, once we get to Bethlehem, you know, our, our,
our baby boy is, is going to be born and it's going to be great.
And you'll be able to rest just once we get to Bethlehem.
Yep, when they got to Bethlehem in after, in after in no
vacancy, I don't think that the innkeepers and I don't think
that the that the, the hotel desk workers, I don't think that
they were being jerks by denying them.
I think they just had literally no room to put them.
And yet in the midst of going from place to place and no
vacancy to no vacancy, Mary's contractions start to intensify
and they start to come closer together.
And the only place that Joseph could find for his wife to give
birth wasn't in a hotel room. It wasn't in a hospital,
certainly wasn't in a palace. It was in a stable or a cave
where animals slept and ate. So through screaming and tears,
Mary delivers her baby boy in no way that in that she had ever
dreamed of. And instead of wrapping the Son
of God, Emmanuel, God with us, this little baby boy and clean
birthing blankets, I think that Joseph just pulled out some of
the clothes that they had packed with them that probably weren't
very clean and certainly weren't sterilized.
And that's what they wrapped Jesus in and laid him.
There's no crib. They laid him in a feeding
through for the animals. In no way, shape or form did
that night turn out the way that they thought that it would.
You got to believe that they felt such a deep sense of
overwhelm. I think for us that that deep
sense of overwhelm because we experienced the unexpected.
Maybe there's some of us in here this morning that have just come
out of the last few days or last couple weeks.
Or maybe we're in a season to where we feel that our world is
rocked because we've been experiencing the unexpected.
Maybe there's a relationship that was once close that now
it's distant and silent, and now there's tension and conflict in.
It's completely. Unexpected.
Maybe there was a a medical diagnosis that was told to you
by by your doctor, or maybe a close friend of yours or
somebody that you deeply care about or love opened up their
patient portal and they got some some news.
It's a diagnosis. It's an.
Unexpected diagnosis that seems to have rocked your world and
now it's overwhelmed you. There's a million and eight
different things that we can face this unexpected in our
lives that bring us to a sense of overwhelm.
But then there's a third way that I think that we can so
easily get overwhelmed. And this third one, I, I think
this is the most important in a lot of ways, but it's, it's,
it's beyond positive. The first, the first 2, not so
much, but this third one is beyond positive.
And it kind of set the stage for this third way that we can get
overwhelmed. I want to bring us back to Luke
chapter 2. The night is the same, yet the
setting kind of shifts a little bit outside of the city limits
of Bethlehem. In verse 8 it says in the same
region there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over
their flock by night, and an Angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were
filled with great fear. And the Angel said to them, fear
not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will
be for all people. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord, and this
will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in
swaddling clothes and lying in a Manger.
And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the
heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the
highest and on earth, peace among those with whom he is
pleased. When the angels went away from
them into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, Let's go
over to Bethlehem and see this thing that's happened which the
Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste, and
found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a Manger.
And when they saw it, they made known the word saying, made
known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherd's told them.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her
heart. And the shepherd's return,
glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as
it had been told them. I think the third way that you
and I can experience a sense of overwhelm, be overwhelmed during
the season is this when we're confronted directly with the
overwhelming. We can.
Experience a sense of overwhelm when we're confronted directly
with the overwhelming. It would be such a gross
understatement to say that the shepherds that night, the
shepherds in the field that night, were confronted directly
with the overwhelming. Here's what you, you, you need
to know. And maybe you already knew this,
maybe you didn't. But here's something that we
need to know and need to remember about the Shepherds.
No. Kid in that day and age grew up
wanting to be a shepherd. That was not the desired career
path. As a matter of fact, if you were
a shepherd, it was for one of two reasons.
It was because A you couldn't do anything else because you
weren't skilled enough, whether that was socially or manually or
or or or or whatever. You couldn't do anything else
because you weren't skilled enough or B, nobody would hire
you because of your previous record.
You see, these were the unskilled laborers, laborers.
These were the outcast of society.
These were where the violent offenders.
Once they served their time either officially or by
reputation, they became shepherds.
Outside of the lepers of Jesus day, which at least had the pity
of people, shepherds were considered to be the lowest of
the lowest rung of the social pecking order.
And you know who knew this most about shepherds?
Shepherds. They knew it about themselves.
So Can you imagine the sense of overwhelm that of everybody in
the world, they were the first to receive the birth
announcement of the long-awaited Messiah.
An Angel showed up in the field, and that Angel began to tell
them that on this day, tonight, the Savior has come, the Messiah
has been born, and this is how you will be able to recognize
him, and we'll tell you where to find him.
And then the sky begins to light up with thousands upon thousands
of angels all singing and unison, glory and praise to God.
And then the sky goes dark and they go on to Bethlehem.
They were 1000% overwhelmed by the overwhelming.
I think that there are certain times and moments in our lives
that you and I, we can be, we can be overwhelmed by the
overwhelming. Maybe you're in the room with
us, or maybe you're online. Can you think back to a time to
where you experienced mercy? You were given mercy even though
you didn't deserve it and you were given grace.
You, you, you were given grace when you didn't deserve it.
With. Mercy you receive.
You didn't receive what you did deserve with grace.
You received something that you didn't deserve.
Or maybe have you ever been at a point in time in your life to
where you've experienced somebody actually loving you
when you yourself saw yourself as so unlovable?
You've been so overwhelmed by the by the overwhelming and it's
that sense of awe and wonder and overwhelmed that can drive us
into the season and can drive us closer to the heart of God.
You know, I don't, I don't know everybody's story in the room or
online. You may be going through a deep
overwhelming season right now. Or maybe if it's not you, maybe
you know somebody that you're near and dear to, that you're
very close to, that you love, that you care a lot about.
That's being greatly overwhelmed this season.
I want to give you a word of hope.
And. Then in the remainder of our
time, I want to give us some handles to hold on to in this
season as we navigate the sense of overwhelm.
Here's the word of hope that I want to give you.
And if you're taking notes with us, encourage you to jot it
down. Even though it may not feel like
it, God still got you. And even though it may not feel
like it, even though it may feel like it, God's not finished with
you. I think there's some of us this
morning again, whether you're live with us in the room or live
with us online or watching this all back online, wherever you
may be, that you are convinced that God doesn't have you
anymore, that you're too far gone from God, let me assure you
word of hope throughout this season.
This is the word of hope for Christmas for you.
Even though it may not feel like it.
Listen, God still got you. God's still got you.
And even though it may feel like it, there's some of us in the
room and some of us online that feel like God is finished with
us. That, you know, God is like kind
of like a three strikes and we're out.
And you know, we've already used up all the strikes that God's
already finished with us. Let me assure you that's not the
case at all. The message of Christmas is
this. Even though it may not feel like
it, God has got you. And even though it may feel like
it, God is not finished with you.
So how can we remind ourselves what are?
What are three handles that we can hold on to during the latter
part of this Christmas season? What are three handles of hope?
How can we fight for peace? How can we have peace when life
begins to feel heavy? If you're taking notes with us,
here's the first way #1 reminding ourselves that God has
already given me everything that I will need to follow Him today.
God has given me everything that I will need to follow him today.
Again, let's go back to the picture of, of Mary and Joseph
and the two of them kind of getting ready for that journey
ahead, that 7 to 9 day journey from time to time.
You, you got to know that Mary, she wanted to help pack, but
Joseph kept telling her, Mary, you need to sit down.
You need to take it easy. They had 7 to 9 days ahead of
them and they were worried about like, do we pack this?
Do we pack that? You know, should we leave the
toaster and the and the coffee maker at home or surely the
hotel will have one when we get there?
And, and, and, and their mind is just running wild with all the
with all the what ifs and they feel so unprepared.
And you know, I don't know if they gave voice to it to one
another, but you know that deep down within each of them, they
had to think, I can't let Mary know that I'm thinking this.
And she probably thought, I can't let Joseph know that I'm
thinking this. But what in the world are we
going to do with a baby? How, how, how in the world we
don't know what we're doing that that was that was Mary and
Joseph. But did you know at no point in
time to God ever look at Mary and Joseph and wonder if he made
a mistake? Did you know at no point in time
did God ever look at Mary and Joseph and go not sure if those
two crazy kids are going to make it?
God knew what He was doing when He called Mary and Joseph, when
He selected Mary and Joseph. Can I give you the same word of
encouragement? At no point in time, no matter
how overwhelmed you may feel by life.
Due to. Whatever factors, at no point in
time does God ever look at you and think he made he made a
mistake when he made you. At no point in time does God
ever look at you and go man, don't know if that crazy kids
ever going to make it. God loves.
You God loves you so much. He loves you so much that He
does promise to consistently and to constantly and to faithfully
provide everything that He knows that we will need for the day
ahead. That's a word of encouragement,
but that's also a word of frustration.
Here's why I say that. It's a word of frustration.
I want God to unroll for me a 10 year road map of my life.
I'll settle for for three, but I'd really like 5.
Has God quick survey in here? Has God ever sat any of us down
and said, hey, hold on, buckle up.
I'm about to roll out the five year road map of your life.
Anybody in here? All right, good.
We're in good company. He doesn't do that, does he?
Anybody else get frustrated by that?
I do, and then I'm reminded God never promises to roll out the
three, the five, the 10 year road map of my life ahead of me.
But what He does promise is to faithfully, consistently and
constantly provide what He knows, that I will need to be
faithful and to follow Him for the day ahead.
I believe that's what the prophet Jeremiah meant when he
wrote this in the book of Lamentations.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
Check out the beginning of verse 23.
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O
God. The Lord is my portion, says my
soul. Therefore I will hope in Him.
That meant that when you and I, when we woke up today, there are
some parts of today that we knew that we're going to be
happening. We had a pretty good idea that
would be happening. There are other parts of the day
that we have no idea, but God does.
It means that when every single 1 is when we woke up today, we
woke up with a perfectly proportioned amount of
everything that God knew that we would need for today.
And guess what? When we go to sleep tonight, we
can lay our heads down on our pillows and go to sleep in peace
knowing that when we wake up in the morning, God knows
everything that I will need to be faithful and obedient to Him
in the morning. And guess what?
It will be perfectly portioned out for me in the morning.
The great word of hope and encouragement is this is that
God already knows exactly. He's already given me everything
that I will need to follow Him today.
That also means second handle. God has already gone before me
beyond my unexpected. God has already gone before me
beyond my unexpected. Let me kind of spend a little
bit of time sitting down on that and I'm packing that for a
second. Remember Mary and Joseph along
this seven and nine day journey. Nothing went right once they
went. Once they got to Bethlehem,
nothing went their way. No room, no hotel, no bed, no
medical help, just the two of them.
They had no idea what they were doing and they were having to
give birth to their son, who, oh by the way, is the Son of God,
the long prophesied Messiah, in either a stable or a cave,
either way a place to where animals eat and sleep.
There was no crib for him. They laid Jesus into in a
Manger. I'm.
Convinced. I'm convinced that it wasn't so
much the innkeepers and the and the front desk clerks at these
Inns and hotels just being jerks to Mary and Joseph going, hey,
sorry, no room in the inn, no room in the inn, no room in the
inn. I think that it was God's
guiding hand because he wanted his Son to come into this world
being born in a stable. Make no mistake about it.
If God wanted his son to be born in a hospital, it would be no
big thing for Jesus to be born in a hospital.
If God wanted his son to be born in a hotel, he could have
created a hotel. He could have if the God that
made all the universe made everything.
That is. He could have saved a room for
Mary and Joseph. No big deal to God.
If God wanted Jesus to be born in a palace ballroom, he would
have been born in a palace ballroom.
Yet God wanted his only son to come into this world, being born
in a stable, laid in a feeding through for an animal.
Why? Because God wanted us to know
that none of us have to clean ourselves up in order to come to
Jesus. None of us have to get our act
together. None of us have to make special
reservations. We come as we are.
Jesus came into the mess for our mess.
And it's a beautiful thing when you start to realize that God
all along is setting the stage. For example, 730 years before
Jesus was born, God gave the word to the prophet Isaiah.
A virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and he shall be
called Emmanuel. God with us. 730 years before
Jesus was born. 1000 years before Jesus was born, God gave
King Solomon the words that Solomon wrote down, and we know
him as Psalm 72. Talking about kings from a
distant land would come and bring the Savior gifts from
afar. 700 years before Joseph and Mary made the journey from
Nazareth to Bethlehem, God gave the word to the prophet Micah in
Micah 52. The Messiah would come into the
world, be born into Bethlehem. Not only was that 700 years
before the birth of Jesus, it was literally centuries before
the Roman Empire was everything God prepared the way for Jesus.
Long before Jesus, long before Mary and Joseph ever hit the
road for the first time. He was before them.
He was with them. And guess what?
He was always going to be guiding them to His plans for
him. Here's the great hope.
God has already gone before me beyond my unexpected.
Got to see this play out this past week.
There's a lady in our church that I got to pray for before
they took her back into surgery. Got to pray.
That God would would. Guide the doctor's hands that
thank him for for gifting the the surgeons and the and the
nurses and the medical professionals in so many
different ways and just praying that God would enable them to do
what he had so gifted them to do but I remember.
Us. Us talking.
There was a sweeping piece that kind of fell over that room
because I looked. At her and I said you know I.
Don't say this flippantly, but did you know that years ago God
knew that we would be right here, right now, praying to Him
about this? God is already on the.
Other side of your surgery, the same God that has guided you
this far is the same God who's with us now, and he's the same
God that's already on the other side of it.
Let me give you a. Word of hope.
Church, I don't know what may be going on in your life right now.
I don't know all the insurance and outs and the details.
Here's where I would tell you. God's already, already on the
other side of that situation. And just as he has always been
faithful, just as He is faithful, he always will be
faithful. So when you find yourself kind
of sinking into that deep and being covered up with a deep
sense of overwhelm, remind yourself of God's faithfulness
and that he is already beyond the current situation.
There's a third way, third handle.
And I think that this is probably the most important for
us this morning. It's an encounter with God
always requires a personal response to God that.
Go back to Luke. Chapter 2 The shepherds no doubt
had an encounter with God forever changed their lives.
You know, I happen to believe that most, if not all of those
shepherds that night, you know what they did the following
night probably went out to that same field and shepherd
shepherded their flock. But you got to know that every
time that they went out into the field and they looked up into
the night sky, they never saw that night sky the same, did
they? You got to know.
From time to time, those. Shepherds would would have to go
back into town and and run errands and I think from time to
time they would probably pass that, that stable and they
passed that, that, that feeding through.
But it was not. It was never just a mere stable
and and feeding through to them ever again.
You see, we're we're. Recorded or we're given to us in
Luke chapter 2. We know that the shepherds
responded their response to the to the news that they had seen
and and heard. We know this because we can see
how it says let us go to Bethlehem.
See this thing that's happened which the Lord has made known to
us. When they saw it, they made
known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.
The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God all
for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them they
were never the same. When you and I have an
experience with God. We can never be the same.
There will always be a response required Required of us.
Now where? We are right now.
There's three possible responses whether you're in the room or
with us online. We will all fall into one of
three categories this morning when it comes to what we do, how
we respond to what we just heard.
Category 1 You are well within your rights to view everything
that we talked about as just a religious narrative and a
religious fairy tale, and in so doing, reject your only source,
your only hope for. Peace.
And love and forgiveness and purpose.
You can do that. Option two, you can chalk up
everything that we just talked about this morning as just a, a
warm fuzzy religious moment. It wasn't so good to come to
church this morning and talk about Jesus at church.
It was just a good, good warm fuzzy moment.
Can I tell you something as your pastor, warm fuzzy religious
moments don't really change anything.
Essentially a kind of worthless or we.
Can choose to. View what we just read together
in Luke chapter 2 and we can see the invitation of a loving God
that says, I love you so much. Come to me just as you are.
If you're new to church, or maybe you've been looking for
forgiveness and hope and love and mercy and grace and
forgiveness and purpose, Listen. You've been looking your entire.
Life you Here's where you'll find it.
By surrendering your life to. Jesus, which basically just
means God. I'm tired of going my own way.
I want to give you my life and I want to give you control of my
life. God, will you forgive me?
Will you change me? Will you guide me?
That's it. And the Bible says that if you
believe in your heart, you confess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord, That means that his boss of your life you will
be saved. And at that.
Moment you will experience. The forgiveness that you've been
looking for, and the grace and the mercy and the hope and the
love and the purpose that you've always been looking for.
Maybe you're here with us this morning and you've.
Already surrendered your life to Jesus, but there's something
that you're still holding on to. Maybe it's maybe you've come in
here. This morning, you're just
really, really overwhelmed out of the three reasons that we
talked about. Or maybe there's another reason
that you're just overwhelmed and maybe there's one of those
handles that you need to kind of grasp onto and hold onto by
faith this morning. Regardless of what it is.
Here's what I want to do is turn the corner and about to wind
down. I want to direct your attention
to that Connect card that you received on your way in.
On the front of that Connect card, there's three, there's
three boxes there. One is I'm new to Riverbend.
Another is I'm placing my faith in Jesus.
Another is I would like to be baptized if this.
Morning if this morning is the. 1st morning, first time that
you've ever realized I need to turn control of my life over to
Jesus or I want to find out more about what that means.
I just want to ask that you do something.
Just check that middle box. Check that middle box.
Make sure that you give us your name and best contact info.
And then as we leave in just a few moments, you'll slide that
into the slot of the any of the giving stations outside the
doors. And what that does is that lets
one of our pastors to know to to personally contact you to, to
help you in any way to help answer any questions that you
may have. Maybe it's something else going
on in your life that you want us to pray with you for.
Pray, pray, join you and praying over then the back.
Of that the the prayer. Request section on the back.
I would encourage you to to jot something down.
We love praying with you and for you and over you.
But here's how we're going to end this.
Morning. We're about to end with an
opportunity just to be able to sing one more time and there's a
song that we're going to be singing.
It's called Noel. It's called Noel.
Do you know what Noel means? I didn't.
Until I had to look it. Up.
It actually can mean several things in in French, it can mean
Merry Christmas. In Latin it.
Can mean birthday and I love what we're about to sing is
Christmas. Christmas is really all about
celebrating the birth of Jesus. So after I pray, I'm going to
encourage us to to stand and sing together.
But as you, as you stand and sing, I would just want to ask
to the very best of your ability to block out all the
distractions that may be going on around you, to block out all.
The thoughts of the. Places you got to go and the
things you got to do to just. Really.
Rest in. This moment to rest and reflect
in this moment about Jesus coming into this world for you.
God, we love you and we thank. You so much for.
Loving us first, God, Your love for us is clear in the sending
of Jesus into this world. God, we thank you for the
reminder of His coming during this season.
God, I pray that you would help us to understand that all the
different nuances and all the different details under which
your son came into this world. God, none of them were by
accident. None of them were by
coincidence, none of them were were forced by any type of
situation. God, they were all guided by
your hand and God, your hand directs us to your heart, and
your heart for us is to remind us that no.
One none. Of us have to clean ourselves up
to come to you. We don't have to get our act
together. We don't have to get our ducks
in a row. We don't have to do this or
that. We just simply come as we are.
So God, I pray that. We would do just that.
We would come as we come, as we are.
We'd respond to you the way that you're calling us, God that we
would lean into you, God that we would press into you, God, that
we would depend on you like never before for everything that
we're going through in this life and more.
And it's in Jesus name that we pray.
Amen. Thank you for listening to
Riverbend. Church's podcast.
To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,
connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.