Gateway Church's Podcast
Christmas Was Just The Beginning
All right, if you've got a Bible, I want you to turn to two passages as we customarily do here at Gateway Church, Philippians chapter 2 and Luke chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2 and Luke chapter 2. The title of this morning's message is Christmas was just the beginning. And this morning, we're going to view the Christmas story through the eyes of some unknowns. You know, we always tell the story through the eyes of Joseph and Mary and sometimes even baby Jesus. Maybe every once in a while, like every 10 years from the perspective of the donkey and the stable. But this year, I want to cover the Christmas story from a different perspective, the perspective of the shepherds. And I believe there is a theme all throughout the Christmas story. And as I was reading several months ago through the book of Philippians, a passage just jumped out at me relating to Christmas. But it's not a passage that we hear very often around Christmas time. And I don't understand why, but I'm going to read it to you and it's going to give us kind of the theme that is pervasive in the Christmas story. So look in Philippians chapter 2. I'll be reading out of the new living translation today, if that's not the translation you use and you want to read what I'm reading, you can look on the screen or you can just read in your translation right there in front of you. Luke chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2, I'm sorry, verse 6. Though he was God talking about Jesus, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges. He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, in some versions say, and being formed in the fashion of a man, he humbled himself in obedience to God, in obedience to God, and died of criminals death on a cross. Two biggest days we celebrate in church, Christmas and Easter. We love to celebrate Easter because of the benefits that come from his death in the beating he took. And we love to celebrate Easter because of the victory that comes from what happened through Christ's resurrection. We love to celebrate Christmas because it is the birthday of Jesus. But I would submit to you that there would be no cross without Christmas and no Christmas without Christ's obedience. The story of Christmas is not just about Christ's birth, it's about his obedience. So this morning, we're going to talk about obedience. Very, very simple message this morning. Three simple points because obedience is simple. This word obedience, the Greek word that's used for obedience is the word hupakuo. And it means this, to be under the one you hear. Now, there's a word picture tied to this word hupakuo. Here's the picture. It's the picture of someone under authority, receiving an order and carrying the order out. So, let's talk about obedience. I bet you're wondering. Now, how does obedience fit in to the Christmas story? How does it fit into the shepherds? Well, number one, obedience fits into every area of life, every story of life, obedience, or disobedience fits in. And if you think about this message, this is not only the Christmas message, but this is also the last message of 2009. And at this time of the year, typically, people are trying to set or establish New Year's resolutions. I'm going to suggest a better option than a resolution for 2010. And it involves our obedience. But if we're to walk in obedience, there are three things we have to do to walk in obedience. Here's the first, submit. The first element or action of obedience is submission. Now, truth be told, if we were to all be honest, the number one thing we think about when we hear the word submission is what? Ladies, be honest with me, don't come on. The ladies are like, this is church and it's Christmas. I'm not going to go there. Come on, you know, you think when you hear the word submission, why submit to your husband, right? That's what most of us think. We forget that there are at least five other areas where God says in His Word that we're to submit, children submit to your parents. We're to submit to governmental authority. We're to submit to pastoral authority. Submission is all throughout the Bible, but here's what concerns me about this word submission. The first thing we all think about is wives and husbands. That's sad to me, not because of us, but because the enemy has taken a beautiful word like submission and made it ugly. Submission is beautiful and it works. The word submission literally means in the Greek to voluntarily bend your will unto that of another. Now that's a definition. To voluntarily bend your will unto that of another. We see this in John chapter 6, verse 38, Jesus says, "I didn't come from heaven to do my own will. I came from heaven to do the will of God who sent me." He came to do God's will, not his own. He was submitted from before day one. Now, at our house we have lots of rules. And I don't know if you saw, but my oldest son was the one that I call many me. He's the one with the curly hair and he's just like me in many, many ways and I love it. Even the, you know, what some of you would call bad, I just celebrate, you know. My parents will see him do things and they'll say, "That is so like you." And I'll go, "Isn't it great?" But we have several rules in our home and one of the rules we have is, at nighttime, you don't get out of bed. Now, see, we try and make simple rules so everyone in the house can understand them. At nighttime, we don't get out of bed. The reason is because it's dark and we can't always see well and we can get hurt. Now, does that make sense to most of us? Yeah, that's a good rule. I gave this rule to my daughter. She never got out of bed. In fact, the only time she gets out of bed to this day is to come tell me that the boys are doing something they're not supposed to do. But before they were born, even at an early age, she was not getting out of bed. I thought, "Hey, my rules work." Until I had two sons. I sat Tyler, my firstborn son, down and I said, "Son, here's the rule. We don't get out of bed at night. You can get hurt." Yes, sir. That very night, the child is running laps inside of my house. Helicopters, I hear all noises in my living room. I had to sit them down and explain the rules again. "Son, is the sun up?" No, sir. "Is it dark outside?" "Yes, sir. Where should you be, bed?" Where's our problem then? I wanted to say to him, "Son, I think we have what I would call a communication problem. You see, my lips moving, but I'm not sure you can hear me." So he kept testing the limits in one night, several months ago. I hear this loud thud from that end of the house. Wasn't a crash. It wasn't a break. It was just thud. It was loud, heavy. And it was just before midnight, and my wife heard it as well, and I said, "Honey, did you hear that?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you think it's the kids?" And like any tired parents would do, she said, "I don't hear any crying or screaming, so surely it's not the kids." So we roll over and go back to bed. Not ten minutes later, I hear screaming from my daughter at the top of her lungs, "Daddy, come quick!" I jump out of bed, you never want to hear that in the middle of the night, let alone any other time of day. I rush down the hall, and here is my three-year-old son covered in blood. The gash on his forehead that's just letting blood all over his clothes, the floor, his bed, and he's not crying. I'm still convinced that he wasn't crying because he thought he was going to get into trouble. That's a tough kid. He's bleeding out of his forehead crazy. [laughter] I said, "Tyler, what's the problem? What happened?" He takes me into his room and he points up to his closet, and up at the top of his closet, the top shelf, there was one of those old-school desktop calculators, you know, the kind of size of like a typewriter? And it had a plug the size of our parking lot out there. And he had pulled on the wire, and the plug came down, pronged in first, and just went, and slid his forehead open. Take him to the emergency room, we're sitting there waiting for the doctor. It's like 2.30 in the morning now. And with as little I told you so spirit as I could possibly muster in this fleshly body. [laughter] I said innocently, sweetly even. Maybe with a touch of sarcasm. [laughter] Tyler, do you remember Daddy's rule about getting up at night time? Yes, sir. And Tyler, do you remember the reason Daddy gave that rule? It's because you can get hurt? Yes, sir? Took a little blood off his forehead. Tyler, this is the reason I established this rule. [laughter] And that night, I'm convinced, even at 3 years old, my son will learn something, because he hasn't done it since. He learned that submission to Daddy will save him pain. But it's my desire as his father to help him understand that not only submission to Daddy will save him pain, but submission to God will save his life. Do you understand that your submission to God is one of the ways God protects you? If we would just submit to him. Now look at the shepherds in Luke chapter 2. I mean, this is just an awesome story, and we don't hear this story much, starting in verse 8. That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified. But the angel reassured them, "Don't be afraid," he said, "I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior, yes, the Messiah, the Lord, has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David." And you will recognize him by this sign, you will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth lying in a manger. Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased." When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, "Let's go to Bethlehem. Let's see this thing that has happened," which the Lord has told us about. They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger. And here the shepherds out watching over their sheep, they're tending to their flocks, and the angel of the Lord comes to them and just knocks them in the face, just, "Here I am. Check me out. Be terribly afraid." And they got scared. The angel says, "Hey, don't worry about it. It's okay." Now listen, they had at that moment, they had two options. Turn and run, or stay and submit. They could have bolted. They were afraid. You know, we read the story, we just think, "Oh, it'll be awesome to see an angel." It scared them. And rather than run, they stayed. I wonder how many times, because we're afraid of submission to God, we run when we should stay. The shepherds stayed. Because they stayed, they received an order, and they were there when the Christ child was born. You see in their response, they emphatically say, "Let's go together. Listen to me, submission is not just an act. It's an attitude." And I want to talk to a particular type of person, because there are three kinds of people when we talk about submission. They're those that submit, they're those that don't, and then they're those that do out of obligation. If your submission is out of obligation, the first time your will does it line up with the one you're submitted to, you will rebel. Let me say it in a more concise way. The spirit of obligation gives birth to rebellion. If you feel obligated to do anything, there's a good chance you'll rebel. If you feel obligated to stay married, there's a good chance you'll rebel. If you feel obligated to read your Bible, there's a good chance you'll rebel. If you feel obligated to do anything, there's a good chance you'll rebel. The shepherds stayed put. No matter how afraid they were, they submit it. Here's the second element of obedience. Here. If we're going to carry out an order, we have to receive an order. We have to be able to hear God's voice. Now, in this story, the shepherds, hey, it's easy. The angel of the Lord comes to him, and then the whole heavenly choir comes to confirm that this is the Lord. I don't know when the last time the heavenly choir showed up at your house. But it hadn't happened in quite, it's probably been two or three weeks since that happened to me. I mean, if we're talking about hearing God speak, if an angel came to me every time I needed to hear the Lord speak, it would be easy. But we all know it doesn't always happen that way. And it may not ever for some of us. How do we hear God's voice? One of the top things that we hear as pastors is this, I just don't hear God like you do. Or I don't hear God like Pastor Robert does. God doesn't speak to me like he does to Pastor Robert. If God spoke to me the way he does to Pastor Robert, I wouldn't have half the problems I have. And every time I hear something like that, it's like fingernails on a chalkboard. Because here's the reality, you do hear God's voice. Do you remember the story of the young boy Samuel? He's in bed one night, middle of the night, someone calls his name, Samuel. Samuel's living in the temple at the time, he rushes in to Eli, the priest, he says Eli. Yes, sir, what do you need? Eli says, I didn't call your name, go back to bed. Samuel goes back to bed, he hears his name again, Samuel. Now he rushes in because he thinks, okay, something's going on. Yes, sir, Eli, what do you need? Samuel, I don't know if you've ever been woken up in the middle of the night when you were in a dead sleep, but usually most of us were not very chipper. I don't imagine Eli being in the Christmas spirit at this time. Samuel, go back to bed, I did not call your name. Third time, Samuel. Now I don't think Samuel is rushing into Eli's bedroom. Yes, sir, what do you need? The Bible says in 1 Samuel 3 that Eli recognized or realized that it was the voice of the Lord speaking to him and he says, go back to your bed. And if spoken to again, just simply say, speak Lord for your servant is listening. Now in 1 Samuel 3 verse 7 we read something very interesting about Samuel. It says that he did not yet know the Lord, but he heard God's voice, but he didn't know the Lord, but he heard God's voice. So what was the problem? Here's the problem for most people when it comes to hearing God's voice, hearing is not usually the problem, recognition is. You hear God's voice, you just may not recognize it all the time. Several weeks ago on a Tuesday night after a service, I came home and I was kind of in a fog of exhaustion, like I usually am after Tuesday night, just tired. I went in and I laid down in my daughter Riley's bed and we're just talking and, you know, like any six-year-old girl will do, she is telling me about the last five minutes of her life and it's taking 50 minutes long. So I'm just listening, soaking it up, and out of nowhere she just gets deep. She says, Daddy, this guy talked to you. I said, yeah, baby, he does, he talks to you too. She said, how do you know? This is a terribly deep theological question. I begin thinking about all the ways I've been trained to answer this question. I think back to my college days when they trained me to answer this question, I think about the way I've been trained here at Gateway to answer this question. I think about all the pastors and mentors in my past who have taught me how to answer this difficult question that many believers ask and tons of lost people who just get saved ask. Now my six-year-old is asking me and I don't know how to give her the right answer where she can understand. So I said to the Holy Spirit, how do I answer this question where she can get it? Here's what the Holy Spirit says. Romans 10 verse 17. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing comes from the Word of God. Have you ever wondered what that means? Here's what it means. Every time you get into God's Word, you are learning to recognize God's voice. Well, God doesn't speak audibly to me. He doesn't mean either. So then how do you hear God speak? Well, He speaks to all of us number one. So we all hear Him. Even lost people hear God's voice. He's drawing them to Himself. You may be here today and you don't know Jesus. I promise you. He's been talking to you. He may be talking to you right now. Here's why. He loves to talk. He'll tell you about the last five minutes of your life and it'll take 50 minutes. That's the way I like it. Hearing isn't the issue recognition is. When we get into God's Word, we learn to recognize what God sounds like. Here's the second thing the Holy Spirit told me to do. Teach my children to hear God on paper. Here's the second thing. Hear God in person. Do you understand that every time you come to church and thank God we're at a church like Gateway and there are many all over the country and all over the world where God speaks every weekend. Every time you come to church, every time your children go into the children's ministry, they are hearing God in person. And the more my children hear God in person, the more they learn to recognize His voice. And if we're going to walk in obedience, we can't just hear His voice. We have to be able to recognize it. Here's the third thing. If we're going to walk in obedience, we first must submit. Second, we have to hear. Thirdly, we must do whatever He tells you to do. You have to do whatever He tells you to do to walk in obedience. This doesn't come naturally, does it? We don't like to be told what to do. I mean, try this. As you're walking out in the hallways and you see children that are friends of your family, just try this. Tell them something to do and watch how they respond. You're going to get responses like this. Don't tell me what to do. You might get that from a child or two. You might get my favorite response. You're not the boss of me. That's usually the girls. Ladies, can I ask you a question? How did girls at four years old know how to do this whole thing? I mean, really? Is it just instinct? Or are you at home teaching them? I don't know. You're not the boss of me. Our flesh doesn't want to be told what to do. We don't like to be told what to do, but listen, we have to get over that. Because His way is the best way. Our way doesn't work. Here's something I learned early on in ministry that the Lord gave me because I would get intimidated by certain people. And here's what He said, "Every person you meet with and every person you see at church has one thing in common with you. That's this. Their way doesn't work." So when they come in with you, understand, no matter how successful they are, no matter how much money they're worth, their way doesn't work. Now, I don't know about you, but that's freeing to me because I have a tendency to work too hard at making my way work. But do you understand how simple obedience is? It's as simple as do whatever He tells you to do, and it's on Him. Listen, I learned something early on. You can't make everyone happy, but you can walk in obedience. You can walk in obedience. And when I walk in obedience, it's on Him to do the work. I just do whatever He tells me to do. John chapter 2, there's an awesome story about Christ's first miracle. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. If not, you can just listen. It's the story of His first miracle, turning water into wine. Starting in verse 1 of John chapter 2, "The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Kaina in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother told them they have no more wine. Now watch how verse 4 is translated in the new living. I love it. Dear woman, that's not our problem. That's what I'm talking about, Jesus just tell her. My time has not yet come. Watch how the mother gets him back in verse 5. But his mother told the servants, "Do whatever He tells you." Mama's no best. Oh mother, it's not my time. It's not our problem. She stops looking at Jesus. She looks at the servants and she says, "Do whatever He says." Look what happens. We all know the rest of the story. Jesus takes six water pots, turns it into wine. Everyone at the party is just loving Jesus. Look at verse 11. This miraculous sign at Kaina in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed His glory. Mary had a revelation of obedience, and when she put that together with the servants' actual obedience, they received the first revelation of Christ's glory. I have a question for you. What will your revelation of obedience put together with your actual obedience cause you to receive? I'll tell you, Deuteronomy chapter 28. Profound promise from the Lord that comes with obedience. Starting in verse 1, "If you fully obey the Lord your God, and carefully keep all His commands that I'm giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God. Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They'll attack you from one direction, and they will scatter from you in seven. The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land He is giving you. I want to remind you where these blessings come from. Go back to verse 2. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God. I want to know something. Do you want to be blessed like that? I want to be so blessed that my breadboard is blessed. I want to walk down 1709 with my breadboard on a chain around my neck going, check me out. My breadboard is blessed. This is the blessing that comes with obedience. Let me tell you something. God doesn't just bless us for our own sake. He blesses you for your children's children's children. Let me tell you something. You didn't get saved just so you could get out of hell. You got saved to establish a heritage. And when you got saved, it immediately affected your children's children's children's children. So question, what kind of inheritance do you want to leave behind? One of obedience and the blessings that come with it are one of disobedience and the curses that follow. Thirty years from now, if you choose today and every day of your life to trade in disobedience for obedience, 30 years from now, you might find one of your grandchildren sitting in your lap saying, "Grandma, grandpa, daddy says we're the most blessed family in the whole world. How come?" And probably with a few tears in your eyes, you will look at her and say, "Well, honey, 30 years ago, at this time, at Christmas time, grandpa stopped walking in disobedience and traded a disobedient past in for an overwhelmingly obedient future. And sweetheart, everything you see, I just want you to know Christmas was just the beginning. I want you to bow your heads and close your ass. At this point of the message, every week Pastor Robert asked the same question, and it is a profound one. What is the Holy Spirit saying to you? Well, I'm going to twist that question this weekend and here's the question, what is the Holy Spirit telling you to do? Listen, our tendency at this time of year, the last week of the year, heading into a new year, is to look for things that we can establish as resolutions. And our resolutions, it originated from the word resolve, but it's turned into something that it never should have been. Our resolutions have turned into our greatest attempt to fix our greatest problems. But for 2010, may I make a suggestion that instead of setting a resolution, you simply listen to the Holy Spirit and you receive God's solution for your greatest problem. Because when he tells us what to do, he gets behind whatever he says. But when I tell him what to do, he rarely gets behind it. This year, don't establish a resolution. Just obey. Do whatever he tells you to do. In a moment, I'm going to ask everyone to stand when I'm done praying. I'm going to have our Altar Ministry team come forward. And if right now the Holy Spirit is convicting you, and whatever it is, maybe it's to stop drinking, or stop smoking, or stop running, or start reading your Bible, or start tithing, or whatever it is, whatever the Holy Spirit is telling you to do, please, I've tried it both ways, and disobedience is not worth it. Do whatever he tells you to do. If the Holy Spirit is working on your heart right now, there are going to be people down here at the altar that would love to pray with you. They'd love to watch you leave a disobedient past at this altar so that you might walk into an obedient future. Holy Spirit, I ask right now that you'd give every person that needs to come forward and do business with you, courage and boldness, to lay down a disobedient past or a disobedient area of their lives so that they might run into an obedient future full of all of your blessings. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Would you stand? As you're standing, Altar Ministry team, if you'd go ahead and slide out of your row, come forward. Maybe over this Christmas weekend you've been with family and extended family, and there's a huge need that's come up in your family. And you just want to pray with someone. Come down and pray with someone here at the altar. Don't go home frustrated or disappointed or confused. Go home encouraged with your faith increased. That's why they're here. It's Christmas. Take your time and receive the ministry God wants to give you. And please make a commitment to God. We all need to make the commitment that we will walk in obedience each and every day of our lives. And I'm telling you right now, if we commit to do that, God's blessings will overwhelm you in such a way you'll wake up every morning for the rest of your life laughing because you'll never imagine you could live this way. Let's live obediently. [BLANK_AUDIO]