Let's go to the Gospel of Luke
and read a few passages of Scripture. Luke chapter 2, beginning with
verse 6. So it was that while they were
there, the days were accomplished, that she should be delivered.
She brought forth her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling
clothes, laid Him in a manger because there was no room for
them in the inn. And there were in the same country
shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about
them, and they were sore afraid. But they didn't have anything
to be afraid of. This wasn't bad news. They were
about to hear the best news that anyone can ever hear. And the
angel said unto them, fear not. Oh, how many times we find that
in Scripture. Don't be afraid. If you're a
Christian and you're going to a church that makes you afraid,
more than likely it's preaching law. do's and don'ts. The gospel never
makes us afraid. It's good news. It's glad tidings. Fear not. You're not under law. You are under grace, which is
God's unmerited favor. You have nothing to fear. This
is not by works of righteousness which we have done. Fear not. For behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." Somehow or
another, we've lost the glory of it and the wonder of it. Joy. The joy of the Lord is our
strength. Not the fear of the law, not
mundane religion, but the joy of the Lord. Joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8, 10. God, the psalmist
said, my exceeding joy. The apostle Paul in the Roman
letters said, we joy in God. We're glad there's a God. The
kingdom of God is joy. Again in Romans, Jude speaks
of exceeding joy. Not just joy, ho-hum, but exceeding
joy. This is to be the life of the
Christian. And so will it be if you sit
under the Gospel. When you see what you were and
what you are by nature, by choice, and by practice, and then have
a clear understanding that it was amazing grace that set you
free, there will be joy. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. God fill you with joy in believing,
the Apostle said. So, we joy in God. It's not a
fearful message. Great joy. For unto you is born
this day in the city of David a Savior. A Savior? That must be just what you needed. Well, why would you need a Savior?
Because you are a... sinner. When I always talk of
sin, I think of a snake. You ever seen a snake? Snake. You're a sinner. So, you need
a Savior. Hey, a Savior has come. And this
Savior came to seek and to save that which was lost. Isn't that good? You were lost
To everything. Lost to yourself. You didn't
even know who you were. That's why you were down in Lodibar.
That's why you were in the hood. That's why you were shooting
up. Some of you hiding in church, all camouflaged. You know the
best place to hide from God is in church. There's thousands
of people out there right now, while we're here, that are all
cuddled up, camouflaged. Hiding from God. Because they
know they're mess-ups. They know there's a God. And
there is a knowledge of sinnership to some degree. Alright. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ, Messiah, the
Lord. Oh, who is this Savior? He's
not little Jesus boy. Don't spend too much time seeing
Him in a manger. Right now, He's sitting on a
throne. High and lifted up. He's King of kings and Lord of
lords and none can stay His hand nor say unto Him, what doest
thou? He's Lord. Somebody said, you
know, I accept Jesus as my personal Savior and then ten years later
I made Him Lord. God beat you to it. God made
him Lord already. And by the way, if you ever get
saved, it's because of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And, just so
you know, Saul of Tarsus was sitting on that donkey, or whatever
he was sitting on. You know, he's riding down the
road with papers in his hand to kill Christians in Damascus. And somebody knocked him on his
duck. Listen, if you don't get knocked on your duck, you've
never been saved. If you still think you're something
special on the end of a stick, you've never been born again.
Because the first thing the Lord does is let you know what you
are. And that He doesn't need you,
you need Him. He's not in trouble. He doesn't
need a Xanax. He's not pacing the corridors
of heaven wringing His hands hoping somebody will give Him
a try. Try Jesus. No, He comes to us. Isn't that true? He comes to
us. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. Watch
this. And this shall be a sign, verse
12, unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped
in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. And suddenly, There
was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God. Oh, heaven was excited about
this. This had been a long-awaited event. This started way back
in the book of Genesis. And this was building. This is
the mystery that the apostles talk about in the New Testament. The mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
the Apostle Paul said. Long time coming. But over there
in the book of Genesis, right after Adam and Eve messed up,
and we in them messed up, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and God said something like this to Adam and Eve and to the devil
and to all who were listening, And I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. He shall
bruise thy head." Satan, you're going to get a good stomping.
This is not the end of the story. The war is not over yet. Satan's head's going to be stomped. Whoever this he is, somebody's
coming. That's what God said. Somebody's
coming that's going to stomp Satan's head and get his heel
crushed in the process. Think about this. It's in the
book of Micah. In the book of Micah, chapter
5 and verse 2. Listen to this. Years before. Years and years before. Micah
5, verse 2. But thou Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of
thee shall he come forth." He. Oh, there's a he all through
the Old Testament. That's what the Old Testament says. Somebody's
coming. Somebody's coming. Somebody's
coming. When that lamb was slain in the
book of Exodus for the Passover, and the blood applied to the
two sides of the door handle, Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. Somebody's coming who's going
to shed His blood for the remission of sin. That's why old John the
Baptist said, Behold! Oh, there's a lot of beholds
in the Bible when the Lord shows up. Really, I think that's what's
missing in our churches. The beholds. We need to do a
lot of beholding in the lamentation When Christ was hanging on the
cross and it was being talked about there, it says something
like this, Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? All ye
that pass by, is it nothing to you? And I would ask you this
morning, is it nothing to you that in Bethlehem's manger God
condescended into the world not to spy out our sins but to deliver
us from our sins? Somebody ought to say hallelujah. God has come to earth, and His
name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Prince
of Peace, Everlasting Father, Lily of the Valley, Tears to
Ten Thousand, Author and Finisher of our faith, Alpha and Omega,
Beginning and the End, the Door, the Truth, the Life has come
to earth for you and I. Behold! That's what ought to
be happening. Lot of behold. Why, John said,
Behold! What manner of love is this?
What manner of love is this? You know what? This is our kind
of love. You send me a Christmas card
this year, I save your address and I send you one next year.
You get me something for my birthday, I get you something for your
birthday. That's kind of the way we work.
But God loved the ungodly. So much that He came down here.
And we ought to be excited about that. Behold! Behold! Yes. And so, anyway, suddenly there
was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising
God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth.
Peace! Goodwill toward men! Goodwill! You know God doesn't abuse His
children? I want to say it to every child of God here. I know
you've messed up. You say, well, how do you know
that? Because I have. You're no better than your preacher,
and your preacher is no better than you. But I'm going to tell
you this. God doesn't beat His kids. God
doesn't abuse His kids. I don't serve God like this.
Don't hurt me! Because He works all things for
my good and His own glory. Why shouldn't there be great
joy in the house today? God is on your side. God's not
working against you. And if God be for us, who can
be against us? Glory to God in the highest.
Verse 15, And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away
from them in heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now
go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing. You ever heard about something
and say, I want to see that? I want to see that. Let's go see this
thing. I don't know what exactly the
word thing in the Greek is, but it's a reverential thing, whatever
it is. Let's go see this thing which
has come to pass. Come to pass? Come to pass? Oh yeah, somebody was coming.
And He came. It came to pass. As it was predicted. You remember old brother Simeon?
Holy Spirit said, old brother Simeon, now I want you to go
hang out up at the temple. Because you're not going to die
till your eyes have seen your salvation. So old brother Simeon
goes up there, he's hanging out. And lo and behold, Joseph, Mary
and the baby come to the temple. And he's led to the baby and
he picks the baby up and says, let thy servant now depart in
peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. You know salvation
is of the Lord, don't you, church? It's God's salvation. Some people
misquote that Psalm. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. That's what it really says. It
doesn't say restore unto me the joy of my salvation. You know
why? Because it's not your salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is something God did and does. God invaded history. God came
down to this earth in time. And really, all of us, even though
this is a pagan season, all of us, you know what you ought to
do? Chew on the meat and spit out the bones. I don't worship
the tree. I think the lights and all that
stuff's okay. It's pretty. It's pretty. But you know that
crazy thing dies in about 12 days. You have to take it down,
do it again or get you an artificial one. I'm kind of bah humbug about
all that. But it's okay. But what I celebrate
and what I'm celebrating this morning is this fact. God has
come to earth. And I'm rejoicing in that. I'm
happy about that. And did you note this? I hope
you note this. Do you know all of God's children
have revelation? There is no truth apart from
it being revealed to you. All truth is revealed truth.
How do you know He's come? Because it's been revealed to
me. The Apostle Paul in the Galatian letter said, flesh and blood
didn't reveal it to me. In fact, the Lord Jesus said
to Simon Peter, the loudmouth, Always talking. Whom do men say
they are? Well, some say you're John the
Baptist. Some say you're Isaiah. Who do you say I am? Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God, which should come into the
world. Well, Peter, flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. All of them will be
taught of God. Do you know if you're a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, listen, this is a miracle thing. Salvation
is an absolute miracle thing. You didn't have your fingers
in the pie. Well, you know, God did all He
could and left one little bit up to me. Oh, God isn't counting
on you. God's not counting on you. I've
noticed that people love to elevate their free will. The only problem
with that is there's no such thing. Your will is enslaved
to your nature. And you have a hog's nature.
That's why you love the mud hole. That's why you love the crack
house and you use heroin and you do this. Sin is not so much
what you do, it's what you are. You don't really have a pornography
problem. It's much deeper than that. It's
your old flesh. It's your nature. And by the
way, I'm going to say it again because until you get this, you'll
never be too happy as a child of God. Your flesh is as wicked
as it was when you were born. You came out of the oven lying. And you're still lying. You didn't
wet your diapers. You was trying to deceive Mom
when you cried. Before you could even talk, you
were lying. Oh, that precious little angel. It won't take you long to find
out that precious little angel came out of you and acts just
like you and Dad. Am I right about that? Of course
I'm right about that. No precious little angels. Just
little demons that have to be born again. I
spoke about this on radio. This is several years ago on
WMUZ. And I got a call from an errate
mother. I'll have you know that my baby
is not a little demon. She's a little angel. I'd like
to talk to that lady today because that little angel is about 16
years old. Sin is what we are. And God had
to come because He was the only one that could save us. And so,
when we gather together with our families this Christmas season,
let us recall with an awe-like spirit, a spirit of wonder, God,
love me before there was a world. and planned this whole thing
out. He actually chose me before I
was a gleam in Daddy's eye. Before that sperm ever hit that
egg, my name was already written down in the book. And God watched as you moved
around and did all of your stupid stuff. God saw you down the hood. God saw you with a needle in
your arm. God saw you sniffing that stuff. God saw it. God saw
you in church. You're a deacon. You're a preacher.
But you're mean as hell on the inside. You've never been washed
in the blood of Jesus Christ. You're self-righteous. You think
yourself better than other people. Boy, I've had some new and fresh
lessons about religious folks. You know, religious folks are
no good. You know, it wasn't the whores that nailed Christ
to the cross. It was those nice, church-going,
religious, Bible-quoting Pharisees that said, Kill Him! Oh, yeah. Yeah. Christ came to
save sinners. That's really why A lot of folks
don't want to hang out with us here. They're too good for us.
They think it may rub off. They don't know it's already
in them. It doesn't rub off. It's already
there. And it takes the power of God. Let me tell you this. I know
we talk a lot about the crack house and this and that around
here. But if God saved you out of church, You have more to praise
Him for than the crack addict. You know why? Because we know
what a crack addict is. But you get hid down and hunkered
down in religion, where you think you've hid from God and yours
doesn't stink, and you feel real comfortable there, and God the
Holy Spirit comes in there and knocks you off your high horse
and shows you what you are. Yeah. In most churches, they're
too sophisticated to lift up their hands and say, Thank you,
Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me salvation so rich and free. Thank you! You heard the story
about the guy who got saved, and he was so excited, and he
went into one of these highbrow churches, and the preacher mentioned
Christ a few times, and he kind of got happy. He said, Hallelujah! Pretty soon he said, Amen. Thank
you, Jesus. One of the ushers tapped him
on the shoulder and said, you can't do that here. He said,
but I got the Spirit. And the usher said, you didn't
get it here. I can tell Pam and Amber are
looking at me right now. He's told that 10,000 times.
But it's so good, I just wanted to tell it one more time. I tell
the same old stories over because most of the time it's true, right?
In most churches, it's like spooky Halloween music and you don't
breathe. Somebody ought to be happy in God's house. Somebody
ought to be happy when they hear the gospel. There ought to be
joy in the house when the gospel is heard. And what are we going to do throughout
eternity? Listen, we need to start practicing.
Because when we get to heaven, we're not going to be bashful.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, right? We're not going to have
a quiet little service. Now, that isn't in the bulletin,
so we can't do that this noon. We have to be out of here by
noon. And I say it's four minutes after twelve. It won't be like
that in heaven. A lot of freedom, a lot of shouting,
a lot of hallelujahs. A lot of praise God. A lot of
joy, that's right. So, somebody said, well, I don't
know, you know, that's just not in. Praise is always in with
God. And always will be. So, I told
you earlier, you know, we're going to change, but one thing
we're not going to change is when we get happy and we want
to shout, we're going to shout. We're going to clap. You know,
we're going to praise our God. We're going to lift our hands.
And for those of you who are, you know, you're not exactly
an outgoing person. I know this. You're like that
beautiful swan on the lake. But underneath, if you could
see underneath the water, that swan's going like this. So some of you are like that.
Some of you are not going to go, glory! But underneath, But
you won't mind us doing it either. You're not going to criticize
us because you're doing it quietly while we're doing it outwardly,
right? You won't criticize us if we get a little happy on the
outside and show it. Yep, we're all different. We
are. Our personalities are different.
You know, I always pick on Wanda, and I hope she never gets angry
at me, but somebody was visiting once. when Wanda got a little
overboard with her joy. Not overboard as far as I'm concerned.
Listen, always remember this. Remember this. This is for those
of you who come out of quiet churches. Remember this. I'm the pastor. And when Wanda
gets happy or anybody else, I watch them. And when it's time to stop,
I know how to do this. You know what I mean? You need
to know. It's alright. Or whoever it is that gets happy.
It's alright for you to get happy. And the Holy Spirit never disrupts
a service to the point that we don't see Christ. Right? The Holy Spirit always glorifies
Christ. So, somebody will fan Wanda.
I got a fanner sitting by Wanda right there. That's my fanner. And you know, here's what I tell
people, Wanda, when they say something about that. if you'd
been where she'd been? Yeah. The only reason you don't
shout is you haven't been where she's been. Yeah. Wanda, I'm feeling a little
edgy myself right now. I'm so glad you've been here
with us today. This is church where everybody is nobody and
Christ is all. We look to Christ. We trust Christ.
We elevate Christ. You know, I've been in this 50
years now. 50 years. He is more real. He walks with
me and talks with me. He is making Himself more manifest
to me. You know, I've been in religion
too. Most of you know my dad was a Baptist pastor. I've been
in church. And I can remember as a young
preacher in seminary, laying on the floor and banging my fists
on the floor saying, there's got to be more than this. There's
got to be more. I had a 7 o'clock Greek class and a Hebrew class. And I was,
there's got to be more than this. I heard a guy say once, I know
a little Hebrew and I know a little Greek. The Greek runs a Coney
Island and the Hebrew runs a laundry. That's me. I know a little Hebrew
and I know a little Greek. But this I do know. I know Jesus
Christ is Lord and Savior, Redeemer. And I hope you go home today,
all of this in the weeks here, the next three weeks. You know,
it's going to be more Christmassy, maybe a little snow-headed this
way, I understand, tomorrow or tonight. And people are going
to be getting in the mood and mode. And I want you to be thinking
about this. God has come to earth. And I
want you to smile about that. God has come to earth. And when
you see that little fat guy in that red suit, think this. He's
not real. God has come to earth. That's
right. God has come to earth. I said
that kind of quiet. Because some of you are still
30 and believe in Santa Claus. God has come to earth. I'm so
happy. I like this kind of season. It does something for the economy.
It definitely does something for Grace Centers of Hope. You
know, we're on track running for $1,500,000 in the next 15,
16 days. So I like when people get generous. And if that shakes them up, then
they're heathen to give. That's alright. God provides
our needs. I want you to trust Him. The
more we trust Him, the more we believe Him, the more you'll
see Him manifest Himself. It's true. Yeah. Lord, here's
the way I go. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. And we're seeing
miraculous things happen. You look at yourself. You're
a miracle. It took a miracle to hang the stars in space. But
when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it took a
miracle of love and grace. Isn't that true?