The Christmas story is one of the most important accounts in all of scripture. Every year during this time, we take some time to determine and to figure out its implications. Its implications not only for us as individuals, but also for us, rather not only for us in the world, but also for us as individuals and how it holds value in our lives. As we do every year, we set out to learn something about the Christmas story. This year, as I studied the Christmas story, I was struck by something that’s in this account, one of the themes, and something that I believe is relevant for our lives. This morning, I’d like to talk about something coming through the Christmas story and to try to give you some tools to deal with something that all of us deal with, and it’s simply this. How do we make sense of life when things don’t make sense? I think it’s true for you. It’s definitely true for me. All of us want to make sense of our lives. We want to make sense of all the puzzle pieces that God has given us and try to fit them into a picture that clearly depicts a life that seems like it’s well-lived.
We don’t want our lives to feel like they’re random. We don’t want our lives to feel like they’re just happenstance. Instead, we want to be purpose. We want a purpose life. We want a meaningful life. We want a well-designed life. Every time life hands us something else, a new experience, all of us wonder, where does this fit into the tapestry that is our lives? In fact, this is so much a part of human nature that we’ve come up with words to use to describe these things. Terminologies we use to talk about these things. You say this, people say this, everything happens for a reason. You say this? Everything happens. You missed that parking spot. Everything happens for a reason. I say that. You say that. We all said that. We say other things. We say, Hey, by the way, there are no coincidences. That situation happened. You got pulled over by the cop. Just so you know, there are no coincidences. You could have gotten to a car accident a couple of miles ahead. It’s a good thing because everything happens for a reason and there are no coincidences. We say these things. We say, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.
We tried a lot of things. We tried to buy something on our credit card, and for some reason, our credit card gets denied and we say, Oh, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. These phrases that we use almost flippantly give us a good indication of how all of us think, because in our hearts of hearts and in our minds, there is something that says, Everything in life must make sense. Now, these things are easy to say when something is mildly challenging. It’s easy to say it when you get a ticket. Hey, everything happens for a reason. It’s easy to say it when your alarm doesn’t go off and you miss an appointment. Well, there are no coincidences. Or when you’re cooking and you ruin a dish. Well, that wasn’t really meant to be. Now it’s time for us to go out and eat. But every once in a while, and for some of us more often than others, we are given something that even the most optimistic, even the most hopeful person can’t just declare this was meant to be. Like when something really hard happens or something really confusing happens, these answers don’t really work.
When you lose a job and you can’t pay your bills, when you lose a parent, when your health suffers, when your heart is broken, when you’re deceived by someone you love, and in those moments when you say or when people say to you, Hey, there’s no coincidences. That stuff doesn’t really provide any relief, does it? In fact, what it provides is a desire for you to karate chop them in the throat if someone says that to you. That’s what actually it produces in you. In those times, those really hard times, those confusing times, instead of having the assurance that your life is well designed, all of us are tempted instead to replace our faith in God and His good design with some questions about our designer. We ask the questions why? Why did you allow this to happen? Why do you allow so much pain to happen? Why do you allow so much hurt to happen? Why do you allow this? We ask these questions because, and here’s the most challenging piece of this, we ask these questions because we know if we are believers this morning, that the Bible actually teaches us that God is the designer.
We read passages like this, Isaiah 46:10, I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come? God is speaking and saying that everything that happens in your life is accounted for. Every step, every walk, every sway, every heartbreak, every blessing, all of it is accounted for in a masterful, purpose-filled plan. If that’s true, if that’s true that God is a good designer, the questions we begin to ask are actually even harder to swallow. Because how can it make sense that I’m going through something traumatic if God is a good designer? Now, all of this collides with the Christmas story because the Christmas story is in some ways the preeminent example of God taking heartbreak and taking chaos and taking confusion and simply reminding the world of this truth, that chaos doesn’t derail God’s good design. That, in fact, God can take all of the pieces, even the stuff that looks terrible and build something that will literally save the world. Today, this lesson is for all of us to help us have some confidence that God knows exactly what he’s doing, even when it looks like life is a bit out of control.
It’s for us to believe and have some confidence that he is a way maker. But it’s especially for you, those of you who are going through something. You’re going through something that’s just a bit confusing. I hope that this lesson will be a great encouragement for you, especially during this Christmas season. Let’s start together. We’re going to look at Luke 1. If you have a Bible, you can join me in Luke 1. Otherwise, don’t worry, the scriptures that we’re going to read this morning will be up on the screen. The account of Jesus’s birth is actually a collection of stories that takes place over the course of about three years. We’re going to hit most of the highlights, but we’re going to begin with Luke 1, starting at verse 26. It says this, in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, Elizabeth is Mary’s, who is Jesus’ mother’s relative. God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. We don’t know a lot about Mary at this point, but what we do know is that she is a teenager.
We’re told that she’s from a small town in Nazareth, which is just to the southwest of a place called the Sea of Galilee, and we’re told that she has pledged to be married to a man named Joseph. Verse 28, The angel went to her and said, ‘Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you. We’ll come back to that a little bit later. Mary was troubled at his words and wondered what greeting this might be. Verse 30, this is what it says, But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. Okay, sweet. Right? Awesome. But what are you going to do? What I’ve learned and what you probably know, is that if God ever calls you to do something, He pulls you way out of your comfort zone. This is what’s about to happen to Mary. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son of the most high, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever.
His kingdom will never end. She’s told by the angel that she is going to have a baby, and that the baby is going to be the son of God, that he’s going to be a king, that he’s going to be a transformative figure in the history of Israel. But there is one issue, and you find the issue in verse 34. Sorry, verse 34, I was right. How will this be? Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin? Good question. The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you, so the holy one born will be called the Son of God. Then the angel concludes with this final thought, it says this, For no word from God will ever fail. That’s a reminder for her and for all of us that, hey, don’t worry, this is a good design. This baby will be the king. This baby will be called the Son of God. In fact, all of this happens. You know the story? Today we’re sitting in a room talking about this baby born in Bethlehem. Two thousand years later, he, in fact, did become a king.
He is the son of God. People are gathered in his name this morning to worship him. Amen. Great. It’s true. Yeah, no word from God ever failed. But that’s like the picture on the front of the puzzle. You know this? That’s the completed image. That’s the beautiful image. That’s the done image. That’s the image that like, okay, that all makes sense now. But when Mary received these words, what Mary had no idea, and really what we have no idea about in our own life is that getting to the end would be quite confusing. What she doesn’t know when she gets this message and what we know when we’re called into confusing times is this, to get to where everything is made right, there’s going to be a moment. There’s going to be moments that feel very wrong. You felt this before? Let me tell you what happens in the story. Here’s how the story plays out. Hey, you’re going to give birth to the son of God. You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Fantastic. And then the angel leaves her. And from what we’re told, the angel Gabriel never comes back. I bet you there were times, though, that Mary wished the angel would have come back, because all of a sudden her life gets very complicated.
She is a pregnant teenage girl with no explanation as to why she is pregnant. How do you tell people that you’ve been impregnated by the Holy Spirit? That’s not excuse I would accept from anybody. Hey, just want to let you know the Holy Spirit gave me this baby. Sure, he did. I’m sure there were times when Mary just wished, angel, angel, angel, where are you? Could you come and explain this to my mom? Angel, would you come explain this to my dad? Angel, would you come explain this to my fiancé? He actually does that. She has to tell her fiancé. Her fiancé doesn’t believe her and threatens to break up with her. Then Joseph, her fiancé, has a dream, and God tells him everything he told Mary, and all is good for a moment, but then the situation continues to deteriorate. In fact, several months go by, and then some Roman politicians decide that they want to raise taxes. The only way you can raise taxes is by taking a census, and so everybody has to return to their ancestral roots to take part in the census. Now, Mary is pregnant, quite pregnant, in fact, and she has to hop on a donkey and travel 100 miles to a place called Bethlehem.
While she’s there, she goes into labor. Because she has no family in this town, she can’t find a place to actually give birth to her baby. Now, Miss highly favored, the Lord is with you, is looking for a room. She needs to give birth to the baby that will be the son of God. You know how the story goes. There’s no room in the inn. At this point, Mary must be confused. Hey, God, you said you were with me. This doesn’t feel like you’re with me. You couldn’t even make a room reservation. How can it feel like you’re with me if I have to struggle this bad carrying the son of God? How does this make any sense? You know the story, she ends up in a stable. Childbirth is hard. I mean, I’ve never experienced it, but I’ve watched it being experienced. Childbirth is anxiety-producing. Here there’s no doula, there’s no hospital, there’s no help. She’s just told, Give birth and God is with you. She ends up giving birth in a barn and wrapping her baby in linen and putting them in a feeding trough. You’ve seen these nice, major scenes, these beautiful pictures of the donkeys wearing halos and the beautiful straw bassinets.
That’s not what it was like. This is a feeding trough that Jesus was placed inside of. Animals are gross. I mean, well, most animals are gross. That’s where she lays her baby in the place where animals eat. It’s hard to be a mom in ideal situations. It’s hard to go in labor in modern America. I imagine all of this must have been overwhelming. I want you to imagine, you’re Mary, what might you be thinking? How can God be with me? How could this be a good design? If I’m giving birth to the king, why am I suffering? Why, if I’m called to do something great, why is it so hard? Why is it so hard? Many of us deal with this all the time. I’m trying to be righteous. Why then is it so hard to overcome my sin? I’m trying to be godly. Why then is it so hard for me to break my vices? Why is it so hard to be courageous? Why is it so hard? But the story gets even more bizarre. Matthew gives us a bit more information about what the child represents. This is Matthew 1:22. It says this, All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the Prophet.
The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. This child is somehow supposed to be an incarnation of the presence of God. This child is supposed to be a representation that God is with you. By extension, the child is supposed to show God or show her that, look, God is so close to you and so intimate with you and so connected with you, which makes this story even more bizarre. Because all of us assume that when God is with us, when God has given us a task, when God has given us a purpose, then things should at least be a little bit easier. But Mary, what she finds is that things go from really hard to just straight horrifying. Matthew 2, we pick up the story, Jesus is about two years old. The Magi have come to visit him, and this is after they’ve come to visit him. When they had gone, again, that’s the Magi, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.
Here you are caring for the son of God, and an angel comes to you, you’re raising the king, right? You are highly favored. The Lord is with you. And a dream comes to you and now says that, hey, there are some guards marching because this king of Judea, a man named Herod, who is a paranoid tyrant, wants to kill your baby. You have to flee, leaving everything in the middle of the night, traveling 300 miles through the desert to Egypt. On the way, you get a report. What’s the report? Well, in the middle of the night, your whole community, your little town, everyone was waking up. What they saw was that there were guards outside stealing children from their home. Two years and under, all the male children, ripping them out of their hands and slaughtering them in a random, senseless, purposesless expression of evil. That’s terror. That’s evil. That’s the evil that we still see today. It’s confusing. It’s overwhelming. Who would blame anyone for saying, I just don’t get it. How could this be a good design? Where is God? I wonder why are these stories included in this account, especially after the proclamation that God is with us?
I think it’s because this passage speaks to the idea of evil. It’s the evil that’s ever-present in our world. When tragedy and suffering and fear and trials and disappointment rain down on our world, and it even penetrates the things that we thought were going to give us hope, it can feel a bit like God has abandoned us. I think this is exactly what’s in focus in a story like this. How can something like this be a part of God’s good design? Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to say God causes the evil, but the point is that he’s not derailed by the evil either. I’m just going to warn you, but what I’m about to say is probably the most challenging part of this whole thing. It’s what undergirds this truth. In fact, the normal Christian, evangelical on TikTok, the influencer, that influencer mindset thing, there is a myth that’s being propagated, and it’s this myth. It’s that if you follow God, everything will be good. I just want to just let you know that this story takes aim at that idea. See, there is a belief that when God calls you to do something and He purposes something in your life, that everything is going to be fine.
Not made good, but will just be good. With good intentions, people say, come to Jesus and all the challenges of your life will go away. Just come to Jesus. You’re depressed? Just come to Jesus and God will heal your depression. Just come to Jesus and your family will be immediately restored and all your financial problems will go away. Give us $5 and God will give you $5 million. It’s this incredible thing. Just come to Jesus. You’ll meet the perfect guy. You haven’t met the perfect guy because you haven’t been at church. But if you walk in church, you’re going to meet the perfect guy. I promise you there is no perfect guy in this room or any other room. If you’re a Christian, even for a moment, what you know is that that’s not how any of this works. In fact, here’s the obvious thing, and here’s my Christmas gift to you. Ready? Life is hard. It’s really hard. If you’re a Christian or you’re not a Christian, life is really hard. It’s just really, really hard. There’s evil that happens in our world that you are going to be the victim of. It’s terrible.
I’m a warning. Here’s, again, my Christmas gift to you, a reminder for next year. Life is really hard and people are going to do evil to you. As a Christian, the only thing that makes us a little bit different is that we have some tools to deal with it. The question we are left with is can evil fit into God’s good design? Then here’s the next text in Matthew Chapter 2. It’s so beautiful. He got up, that’s Joseph, took the child and the mother during the night and they left for Egypt where they stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, Out of Egypt, I call my son. Now, let’s stop for a moment because we have to do a little bit of Bible study. The last part of this verse comes from the Book of Hosea. Hosea, Chapter 11, written about 800 years before the birth of Jesus. Hosea says, When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. Matthew Chapter 2 is a reference to Hosea Chapter 11, and Hosea Chapter 11 is a reference to the story of the Book of exodus.
You might know that story. The story of the Book of exodus tells us about Moses and about Pharaoh. Here’s a quick synopsis of the story. God brings his people to avoid a famine to Egypt, but while they’re there, an evil man enslaves the whole nation. The people cry out to God, God hears their cry, and so sends a deliverer to free them from evil. Now, what does this have to do with anything that Joseph and Mary are dealing with? Well, the prophet Hosea is poetically recalling the story of Moses, and Matthew is trying to use that reflection to prove a point. What’s the point? That when God hears His people calling, He saves them. That’s the point. Look, you have to catch this idea because Matthew wants us to see something that’s so important. Really, I’m telling you, if you missed everything I have said, just listen to this. He wants us to see that this isn’t the first time that an evil man has tried to thwart God’s purposes, and it won’t be the last time. It’s not the first time and it’s not the last time. You have to remember the story of the Book of exodus.
You have to remember the promises of God, the faithfulness of God in order to bring yourself to the place where you can actually think this, that God brings purpose out of terrible situations. That’s what you’re supposed to feel. He’s trying to catch you and me before we fall into the trap or we go, Bad means, not of God. He’s trying to catch you before you think, Wow, good means in God’s plan and bad means out of God’s design. I want you to take a moment, and this is the idea. The writers of the Gospel of Matthew are trying to ask you to take a moment to reflect on the Israel’s history and the history of the birth of Jesus. Then you’ll remember that there has never been, never, ever, ever been a tragedy of life that was beyond the reach of God’s sovereign hand. That even when there’s torture involved, God can still bring something along that looks beautiful. To even the midst of the most horrific situation, God is not surprised or caught off guard by the evil of man. God will bring it to a concluding point that actually is beautiful. But here’s what makes this really hard.
This is what makes it hard for you and hard for me. You don’t get to know how or when. That’s what makes it hard, right? Because if you could just know how God makes it all beautiful, you might go, I can stick this out. But you don’t get to know how and you don’t get to know when. You don’t get answers. Instead, the Bible tells us that you’re called to grow in a tool to deal with that confusion. That tool is what the Christian faith is all about faith. Christianity is trust in God and trust in Jesus’ plan. Christianity is about this idea. This is what our religion is. It’s that we believe that God has good plans. We believe first that God is the planner and that God has good plans. And so rather than wanting to take control of our own lives, what we do as Christians is we relinquish control and allow the good designer to lead the way. We don’t become anxious when things get a little rocky because we think to ourselves, You know what? I have faith that God knows what he’s doing. This is how we’re supposed to live.
This is how Christians for thousands of years have lived. This is, in fact, how Mary lived. Because for years, Mary would not ever know how this story ends. In fact, the story would become even more difficult for Mary. The most unimaginable pain Mary would go through and the most unimaginable sorrow a mother could ever experience, because 30 years later, she stood outside a courtyard and heard her first son born beat. She saw the gore. She saw them put a crown of thorns on his head, dragged him out into the street and hung him on a cross to die an unimaginable death. She saw it there and she watched it. Yet, even in that, God was in total control. In fact, in that moment, it looked like God was out of control, but it was the moment that defined our faith forever. Mary would have never understood how it all fit. Where does the death of your son fit in a good design? She wouldn’t have understood until three days later when Christ rose from the grave. In that moment, she finally saw what all the suffering was about. You know, when I may not ever see in our lifetime what the suffering was about.
But on Christmas, we are reminded that even when it seems random, even when it seems purposely, even when it feels like it’s no good, even when you hear that it’s an incurable illness or you have a death handed to you or a job loss or a situation in your marriage, and it looks like nothing good can come from it, at Christmas, we’re reminded that everything happens for a reason, that there are no coincidences and that God is in control. About 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the apostle Paul, with the vantage of hindsight, would look back at all of this, and he would write this in the book of Ephesians. He writes this, In him, we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him, who works out everything in conformity with the purposes of his will. I want you to notice the main word there. He works out everything. Do you know what everything means? Everything. God works out everything. Mary didn’t say it exactly like this. It wasn’t so technical. But when the angel finished, and I left this part out when we first read it, before she knew anything about the donkey ride and Herod and the slaughter and the crucifixion of her son and the resurrection, before she knew any of that, this is what she said.
She said this, I am the Lord’s servant. May it be according to your word. You know what the big takeaway for me is? It’s this. I don’t get to know how. I don’t get to know when. I don’t know what people have told you about faith. Maybe you grew up in a church context where you were taught that faith is about saying, God, I believe that I’m going to have this thing, and then you move God into your desires. Maybe that’s what you were taught. Maybe you were taught that faith is about convincing God to do something he wouldn’t have otherwise wanted to do. Maybe that’s what you thought it was about. But what I’ve learned is that the more mature you get, the less interested you are in moving God, and the more interested you are in trusting God when it feels like to you that he’s not moving. A mature faith goes, Look, don’t know what you’re doing here, God, but I want to trust you. Faith is when you’re handed a job loss or handed a divorce when it looks like life is just a disaster. Instead of going, God, if you just change this, my life would be fine.
You just go, Lord, whatever you’re doing here, I know will be brought for good in its right time. I am the Lord’s servant, may it be according to your will. In light of all that, here’s how I would like to close our time today. For some of you, I looked at some of you as I was talking, and I could see in your face, for some of you, you have been carrying something. Something’s hard. You got a piece given to you that feels confusing. For some of you, it might be attention to your marriage. You didn’t see it coming. It might be a health issue. It might be something with your children. It might be something with your parents. You got something that was challenging that was handed to you. You want to do what Mary did. You want to say, I am the Lord’s servant, may it be according to your will, but it’s just hard for you right now. I understand that. That makes sense. Here’s what I like to do in a minute, if that’s you, if you’re carrying something that’s confusing or hard and you don’t know what to do about it, in a minute, I’m going to ask you to do something that’s going to pull you out of your comfort zone.
Here’s what I’m going to ask you to do. In just a minute, I’m going to ask you if you’re going through something that’s hard, just to raise your hand. Just to raise your hand. Not now in a second, and then hold it up. Because I want you to know on this Christmas Eve morning that God is with you and that God has sent some representatives here on earth, people in this congregation to be with you, I’m going to ask if your hand is raised that someone else would come over to you and just say a prayer for you. I want someone to pray for you. If you’re close enough and you’re comfortable with it, maybe you can just put your hand on someone’s shoulder and you can say a basic prayer. Now, you don’t have to know their whole circumstances to pray a simple prayer like, Hey, God, would you give them the faith to trust you through whatever they’re going through right now? Then after you pray for a few seconds, I’ll close our time in prayer and communion. I want you to know you need prayer. I need prayer. If you would have the faith and the courage today to just raise your hand, if that’s you, you could put your hand up.
Anybody, yeah, there’s some people with their hands up. If that’s you, put your hands up. If anybody is willing to just see the people around you who are going through something, if you could put your hand on their shoulder and just say a short prayer for them, you could pray out loud, and then I’ll end our time with a prayer. Lord,
I know there are some people in this room who are going through really challenging times. They’re grieving over years of loss. They’re grieving over things that are confusing. I know there are people in this room who want to have faith, who want to say, God, I trust you through it, but are just finding it difficult to do it. God, I just pray that you would give them encouragement today. I pray for our brothers and sisters here in this room that you would remind them that you are with them. I pray that our praying for each other will be a representation to them that Lord, you are wanting to strengthen them. God, I just want to say thank you for Mary and her faith. I was so blown away by just how while she’s being visited by the angels and the shepherds that she said she treasures those things in her heart. That she could find joy even when it feels like it’s such a mess. God, I know for myself it’s so hard to do that. I pray God that you would allow us to have eyes that see your blessings, that you would allow us to have eyes that can see what you’re trying to do in the world, and that we would have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to accomplish, and that we would feel so confident in you that we would not try to push you to move to our will, but instead, Father, that we would be so excited to yield to you and allow you to lead our lives.
God, be with us as we try to be people of faith. Father, we just want to say thank you. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for his life, death and burial and resurrection. We pray for the bread that we eat that represents his body. We pray for the juice that we drink that represents his blood. We pray that as we take it that our consciousnesses will be clear, that we’ll take it with the right judgment in our hearts, God. We pray, Lord, that you would allow this holiday season to be transformative for us. We love you in Jesus name, Amen.