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With angelic hosts proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord. Behold Him come, offspring of a virgin's womb. Healed in flesh the Godhead see, Healed incarnate Deity, pleased as man with men to dwell. Jesus our Emmanuel, Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Hail the hand born Prince of Peace, Hail the Son of righteousness, Light and life to all He brings. In His wings, Mildly lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die, Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth. Hark! The herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Come, desire of nations come, Fix in us thy humble home, Rise, the woman's call, great sea, Bruise in us the serpent's hand. Now we face, step right image in its place, Second adult from above, Reinstate us in thy love. Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King. Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this day, and just thank you to be able to celebrate the birth of your son Jesus Christ at church today. What a blessing that is. Lord, I pray that we would all focus on what this holiday means, and not just think about all the things that we can get. I pray that we would just worship you from our hearts this morning. We love you and thank you very much in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, for our second song, you should have in your bulletins a handout of O Holy Night. If you do not have one, go ahead and raise your hand and an usher will bring you one. We have plenty. If the ushers could bring that up here for people that need it. O Holy Night. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. So if you have any prayer requests that you would like added to the bulletin, you can put them on a communication card, put them in our offering plate, or you can email them to us. And we try to update this every week. So if you have a continual prayer request, try to continually send that in with updates for us. On the back is just a section for notes. So that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements are concerned. If we want to go to our psalm books, Psalm 147, it's our separate handout. Psalm 147. Again, that's Psalm 147. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. O Holy Night. Let's sing it out nice and loud. His name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her purification, according to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against, yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Assar. She was of a great age and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow of about four score and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own city Nazareth. And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Was she not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, in heaven I pray, Lord, that you would help us to remember the unspeakable gift of salvation today and that we would emphasize, Lord, the gift of eternal life and remember the fact that it was offered to us freely through the blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that you would bless the sermon, fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit now, and in Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Let's look back at verse number six where the Bible reads, And so it was that while they were there the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And the title of my sermon is actually coming from verse number seven this morning where the Bible describes Jesus Christ being laid in a manger. And I believe that there's a lot of lessons and examples and things that we can learn simply from Christ's birth and it foreshadows a lot about Christ's earthly ministry and why he came here. And so the title of my sermon this morning is Lessons from the Manger. Lessons from the Manger. Of course, Mary and Joseph are not rich. They're not well-to-do. Additionally, they're having to travel into a strange land. And because they're strangers in this area, they don't necessarily have an obvious place to stay. According to the scripture, no one would let them stay in the inn, which is similar to what we think of as a hotel or some kind of a motel type option. And it's packed. And obviously this is because everyone's having to travel back into town for this taxing purpose and so it's drawing a lot of people into the city. And Mary and Joseph just don't have the option of staying with friends or staying with anybody. And so they have to stay where they're kind of in a barn, as it were. And the Bible describes that they don't have a nice cradle to put Jesus Christ in. He wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but rather he's laid in a manger. And what is a manger? If you look up the definition of a manger, according to the dictionary, it says a trough or an open box in which feed for livestock is placed. You know, I typically would summarize as just being a feeding trough. And so animals, sheep, oxen, different kinds of cattle, would simply have grain or oats or barley or wheat put into just a wooden box and then they would come and they would eat out of a trough. Now, if you have ever been on a farm or you've raised livestock or anything like this, you know, troughs are not necessarily very clean. They're not necessarily very well made or constructed. I mean, it just kind of gets the job done. It essentially is holding food and animals are getting in there and slobbering all over it and eating in it. And this is what Mary has to put her newborn baby in, is this manger. And what I believe this illustrates, or a lesson we can learn from this, is we see the humility of Christ. We see the humility of Christ being born into the world and choosing of all places to be born and laid a manger. A very humble sight, one that shows that Christ didn't come to be ministered unto, but rather to minister. And the Bible makes it very clear that the Lord Jesus Christ is not coming in all of his glory when he came about 2,000 years ago. Go over to Philippians chapter number 2, Philippians chapter number 2, and we're going to see some more verses on this. But the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus Christ humbled himself and we can learn humility from Christ. Now, what is humility? Well, it's a lowering of yourself and, of course, to humble in some cases can simply even just mean to kneel. It could be a physical act. If someone was humbled, it could simply mean that they were brought down physically. A lot of times we think of it metaphorically when we talk about someone being humbled in the sense that, you know, they are brought lower in someone's mind, brought lower in the eyes of the public, brought lower in all kinds of different accolades, that would be humbled. We talk about sports. You know, a lot of people love sports and they're going to watch sports today. Sometimes a team will talk like they're going to win the game or they're the best team. But then when they lose, another way you could work that is they got humbled and that just means that they were brought lower. They weren't the top of the list. They weren't the best. They became somewhat lower. So when we talk about humility, it's talking about a lowering. You're at one point, you're at some place, you're at some prestige, and then you're brought to a lower level of prestige, glory, honor, or even just physically standing and then you bring yourself down lower. That's a picture of humility. That's what that word means. Now, Philippians chapter 2, look at verse number 5. The Bible says this, Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The word even means specifically. Why is it that the Lord Jesus Christ was born a man? Why is it that God in heaven decided to come down and to be born into human flesh, to become a baby, grow up to be a man? It was for one purpose. It was so that he could die. Because, of course, God himself is immortal. He can't kill God, so Jesus Christ had to take flesh upon himself so that he would have the capability of dying. And, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ truly died. That's the essence of the Gospel, and what gets us saved is the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the only way for him to go through that experience, the only way for him to die, was to humble himself and become a man, and to lower himself. Because being God in heaven is different than being a man on the earth. That was a humbling, where he went from a high position into a low position. Also, the Bible says that he made himself of no reputation. No reputation. Of course, God has a great reputation. He has a name above every name, and we all worship God. So, he went from the highest reputation, the greatest reputation, down to a point where he's in a manger. No one even knows who he is. He'd think that if they had knocked on the end door and said, hey, God's going to come here today, they would have been like, oh, we don't have any room. No, it's because he made himself of no reputation. They didn't know who they were rejecting. They didn't know who they were deciding not to have come into the end. And we see the humility of Christ making it clear he doesn't have to push around his weight and push around his name drop. Oh, you know who my dad is? God the Father. He didn't have to tell everybody who he is or where he's from or the name drop. They simply were just humble and just accepted whatever provision was given to them. He didn't have to seek for some kind of a lofty, elevated position of power. He wasn't born in the richest family. He wasn't born in the most powerful family. He was born in a humble family, just two people that love God. They're taxed like everybody else, and when they travel, they don't even know where they're going to stay at night. If you think about that, they had to travel into town not even knowing where they're going to stay, trying to stay in some kind of inn, not even being able to afford it or get in, and they simply have to go to a barn and have a child. Think about this, because we often think, well, it was busy and stuff, but if you go to a subway or you go on a train or you're in a public place, most people will accommodate a pregnant lady. It's just kind of a common courtesy. People think of, hey, you know what? I was sitting. Let me stand, and I'll let this lady sit. Think about this. Mary is obviously pregnant because he's about to be delivered, and they rejected her. I mean, for them to have rejected her kind of shows that Mary and Joseph had almost zero reputation themselves, because if someone is pregnant and you know them, you would try to make accommodations, you would try to help them. But even this pregnant lady coming into town was still rejected, still not welcomed in, still not given any kind of preferential treatment, almost signifying that Mary and Joseph are kind of the bottom of the totem pole. In society, they're bottom of the totem pole financially. They're the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to virtually every single perspective except one, that's spiritually. Of course, Mary and Joseph were great Christians. They were saved. They were people that loved the Lord, and they were separated into God. But you know what? When it came to the world, the world didn't care about them. The world wanted nothing to do with them, yet God wanted something to do with them to give unto them the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ as a baby to raise. Anybody in here that has children, it's hard. They got to raise Jesus. That must have been pretty easy. I mean, if you think about it, my kids seem more like the Antichrist than Christ. They're running around screaming and yelling and having all kinds of problems, and you have to constantly discipline them. I mean, can you imagine the second child after Jesus? It's like, why can't you be like your brother Jesus? But that would have been a great treasure, a great gift to raise God in the flesh. They got to spend so much time with Jesus Christ. I mean, Mary was truly blessed to have raised the Son of God, to have raised the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sure she even learned a lot of things from her son. I mean, the Bible in this chapter is talking about him being 12, he's asking questions, he already can stump the smartest minds on the planet. You don't think that Jesus was helpful around the house? You don't think that Jesus Christ gave his mother any kind of wisdom or any kind of benefit to being her son? And of course, that also still just illustrates the point, though, that spiritual things are the only things that matter in this life. And Christ didn't come to make a great show in the flesh, but rather to make a great show spiritually. And because he was of no reputation, yet became the most popular person in human history, goes to show that it doesn't really matter where you start in life. You can start in the most humble means, you can start in the most lowly family, and you can elevate to a position where you're the most honored and the most glorified person if you serve God and you put God first. And of course, that's why the Lord Jesus Christ was so popular, that's why he was the most recognized person to ever live. Because he's God in the flesh, and he was spiritually more significant than any person that's ever lived. I mean, the Bible says that God the Father gave him the Spirit beyond measure, where no person's ever had an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He's literally the Word of God. Everything he said was great. Not everything I say is great, not everything you say is great, but everything. I mean, can you imagine hearing a sermon from someone where every word is perfect? Where every word is the Word of God always in context, always perfectly illustrated. I mean, you think someone could give a good commentary on the Bible, it's probably Jesus, since he's the Word literally. And go to Hebrews chapter 2, I want to go there for another minute, but a lesson from the manger is to elevate spiritual truths over the carnal things in this life, and to humble ourselves, and to not worry so much about the physical, and worry about the carnal. What are we constantly pressured to worry about? Our reputation, our finances, our status in life, where we're going to sleep at night. That's got to be a worrisome thing if you're traveling somewhere and you don't know where you're going to stay at night. I know that my wife would be constantly asking me, so did you book a hotel? Where are we going? Hey, they got a nice barn for us, baby. What am I going to put my pregnant baby in? Well, there's a manger. I mean, you think Joseph's probably looking around like, so we got a manger. I can't even imagine my wife being that pregnant and me being like, so we got the barn, and she's like, what are we going to put our baby in? You know, a manger also goes to show that these people were pretty, they had low expectations even. I mean, for them to go through these experiences and go through this life, they were obviously pretty humble people where they just kind of accept whatever they have, and they just take the best that they can get. You know, sometimes you go through life always being disappointed, and it's because you always have the wrong expectations. If you always have no expectations, you're not ever going to be disappointed. You're always going to be pleased. You know, somebody could look at the manger and say, oh, wow, this is terrible. But another person could look at it as a great blessing because you didn't have anywhere to lay your child. I mean, if you have nowhere to lay your child, that would be not as much fun as being able to at least lay it in the manger, get a little bit of rest, have somewhere to set it. You don't have to necessarily hold it 24-7 because obviously a woman going through birth, there's a lot of physical trauma, it's difficult, they lose a lot of energy, a lot of blood, there's a lot of things going on. And having just even a manger to put them in could be a blessing. And I think sometimes we always look at it as like, oh, man, this is just so terrible, the circumstances I have, the manger that God has set before me. But you know what? It was a blessing. And it was a blessing and it showed the humility of Christ. And sometimes there's things in our lives that are going to humble us and we have to look at it as a blessing rather than, oh, well, why am I dealt this hand? Why am I given this situation? Why am I stuck in this problematic area of my life? But maybe God's using that to humble you. And maybe God's using that to help you realize it's not about the carnal, it's not about the physical, it's about the spiritual anyways. And they had everything they needed spiritually here. They're not lacking spiritually, they're only lacking physically, even if you could say that. But of course, God's going to provide all their needs. The Lord Jesus Christ, though, you have to realize He very much humbled Himself in a way that none of us could truly appreciate. Look at Hebrews chapter 2 verse 6. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honor, and then has set him over the works of thine hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. So the Bible makes it clear that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all mankind. He's the Creator of all mankind. He's the Savior of all mankind. The Lord Jesus Christ tasted death for Judas Iscariot. The Lord Jesus Christ tasted death for all of the Pharisees and all of the Jews that rejected him. And for every person that's ever existed and ever will exist, Jesus Christ tasted death for them. But he had to humble himself and put on a completely different form. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He had to go through the human experience and go through the death so that we could have life and so that we could have salvation. And through his humbling, it gives us glory. It gives us honor. You know, if you're standing around people and you get on your knees, you're going to elevate them even though they don't move. Why? Because that's the same picture of what Christ did, where we're standing and he humbled himself so low so that we could be standing above him. So that we could be brethren with him. So that we could go to heaven. So that God could reconcile us. He had to make himself an off-scoring of the world. Now, I want you to go to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. The manger just signifies so much of the humility of Christ and we'll never understand it because he has so much more glory and so much more prestige and so much more honor than any of us. And so for him to lower himself down to a human is a humbling that we could never experience. We could never truly go that low. We could obviously humble ourselves in some ways, but never to the extremity that Christ did. Now, let's talk about a way that we could humble ourselves or give ourselves some semblance of what this could look like. I believe that a picture of this is having fellowship with people that are undeserving of your fellowship. Perhaps it could be a family member, a friend, children, or even strangers, where intellectually they're inferior. Where financially they're inferior. Where spiritually they're inferior. And we can humble ourselves and have fellowship with these people and lower ourselves and befriend those who may be lower than us or maybe not have as much money or intelligence or wisdom or spirituality as us. And we can lower ourselves so as to elevate them. Our children are probably the most important aspect of this application. A baby knows nothing. A baby is intellectually inferior. It's financially inferior. All it does is cost money. It doesn't bring any money in. When it comes to spirituality, they're born unsaved, folks. They're not born being saved already. We have to get them saved. We have to preach them the gospel. We have to give our children the gospel and to get them saved. So you're taking someone who's unsaved, who just cost you money, and intellectually it can be very frustrating to deal with children. Because they don't get things, they don't understand, they don't like the same things as adults. And so as a parent, we need to humble ourselves and lower ourselves and condescend them in a low estate, condescend them down to our children, so that we can build them up and we can give them more honor and more glory. By me teaching my children things from the Bible. By my wife sitting down and teaching my children how to read, she's building them up and lowering herself. You don't think that my wife knows the alphabet? Yet singing it with the children a hundred thousand times, sorry that might have been a low estimate, no I'm just kidding, is not really intellectually challenging to my wife. You know, her teaching them basic phonics, her teaching them how to read things. It can be one of the most infuriating things you've ever experienced. I know because sometimes I have to substitute teach and it's rough, okay? And then I'm just thinking like, what's wrong with my children? But it's just the reality that we have to lower ourselves and we have to slow down and we all started there. We all started where we couldn't read. We all started where we couldn't speak. We all started at a low place and we have to condescend and lower ourselves and humble ourselves so as to elevate them. And if you think it's difficult to try and teach a child how to read, think how difficult it was for Jesus Christ to come down here and talk to us. I mean if you think talking to a child is difficult, you think explaining things to children is difficult, how much more is Jesus Christ talking to us? And our intellect is so inferior to the Lord Jesus Christ, you don't think it was frustrating for him? It was obviously frustrating for him. Think about how many times Jesus Christ is explaining something to his disciples and he's like, do you still not understand? And I mean he would talk to Nicodemus and he's telling Nicodemus he had to be born again. Nicodemus is saying, how do I go into my mother's womb again? Think about how stupid of a question that is. Think about infuriating that would be to have to talk to somebody and this was not just a flat earther. Nicodemus is arguably one of the smartest people, at least supposedly, at this time. I mean he's in a high position of authority, he's a master in Israel. He's saying like, how does the master not understand these things? How does the guy that's supposed to be the most learned, most educated person, not even comprehend the most basic fundamental truths of God's Word? It's because man is so much inferior to God, you can't even express it truly. And for Jesus Christ to humble himself and to become a man and to talk with us and to share with us is really such a monumental humbling that we should never, ever look down upon people that are lower than us and think, well, how can I talk to you? How can I spend time with you? How can I explain that you don't know this? How can you not understand this already? I mean that would be to spit in the face of God considering how much time and energy and effort he had to spend for us and all the gifts that he gave for us. And of course, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ spent almost all of his time just ministering to people. I mean the majority of Christ's life, he's just always talking to his disciples, he's sharing with them, he's constantly preaching the Bible to large crowds, he's ministering to men, women, and children. I mean he has all the little children sitting on his lap and he's ministering unto them. If Jesus Christ can minister unto the little children, how come we can't? Jesus Christ humbled himself so much, he washed his own disciples' feet. You know, the manger just foreshadows his whole life, his whole ministry was just that of being humble, of lowering himself constantly and getting to a point where he's going to be the offscoring of all men. I mean no one wants him around. I mean this is their own creator, their own savior, and they can't even stand him. Financially speaking, I mean Jesus Christ never went around in a Lamborghini. He never went around with rich clothing except for maybe when they mocked him and they put a purple robe on him just to mock him. But virtually speaking, Jesus Christ isn't walking around in a thousand dollar Italian suit. That might be, you know, inflation, sorry. They just passed another 1.7 trillion or something, so a ten thousand dollar Italian suit or whatever it is. Jesus Christ isn't going around on a fancy camel. He's not going around on a chariot. He's not flying around in his private jet. Of course he's just simply walking to and fro, ministering unto people, not having tons of money. And look what the Bible says even about his financial situation. Look at chapter 17 verse 5. I'm going to get there in a minute, but his glory specifically. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. You know, Jesus Christ had so much prestige and so much glory and so much pomp being in heaven. I mean the Bible talks about God when he travels. I mean he just has all these angels surrounding him. And he just has this great host and he has all this glory. And Jesus is saying, I have all that glory too. But he doesn't now. He doesn't have it while he's on the earth. He doesn't have the same entourage. Peter, James, and John don't look as cool as all those different angels following him around. Go over to 2 Corinthians chapter number 8, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Of course part of that glory is just financially speaking. You know, when someone rich enters into a situation publicly, a lot of people just instantly just like the person or want to be around the person or just think of them as being so wonderful just because they have money. And if someone has a lot of money or a lot of prestige, people just act like a completely different person around them. It's like they're just a normal person and then all of a sudden they're around some celebrity or a rich person or whatever and they just flip on a dime, they switch, a lot of flattery, they're not genuine anymore. And people just treat you differently when you're rich. But the Lord Jesus Christ didn't come to be treated with a bunch of flattery and be around a lot of vain and light treacherous persons, but rather became poor. Look at what it says in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse number 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. That is a proof text proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ was not rich. I have heard televangelists, people in this area, preachers will get up and say Jesus Christ was rich in his earthly ministry. And they'll say, oh yeah, because at his birth they're giving him gold and frankincense and myrrh and Jesus Christ has all these goods. I'm just thinking like, what planet are you living on to twist the Bible so much and suggest that Jesus Christ was rich in his earthly ministry? That he somehow had a lot of money or a lot of fame from riches? The opposite is true. The Bible makes it very clear that he was poor, he was rich, sure he was rich when he was in heaven. He wasn't rich at his birth, he was rich when he was with God the Father and they had to cattle upon a thousand hills. But at the same time, he then became poor where he has no means physically. He doesn't have a credit card, he doesn't have the black Amex or whatever it is. He simply had just to eat the fish, I mean if you're eating fish you're poor. I mean that's just basically usually a signal that you don't have any money, you're just having to eat fish. That's why we're having brisket for lunch. Welcome to Texas, the land that flows with milk and honey. And you know what doesn't flow with milk? It's fish. I don't know, whales I guess maybe breastfeed their young but I've never heard anybody drinking whale's milk. You're drinking cow's milk, right? Because cows signify riches and money and wealth and things going well with you. And of course eating just some mangy tuna or trout or whatever it is that you caught in the sea that are free. I mean you can just go into the ocean and just get fish for free. Think about this, you can't just go into someone's land and take their cattle. I mean in Texas that's a hanging offense. But you know what, in all over the world you can just go and get as many fish as you want. People are just like, okay, I mean the government has started putting fishing licenses out there because they'll tax anything. But generally speaking you don't have to buy it from typically anyone. You can just go out there and just get whatever. But where do you see just ranging free cattle? Let's just go to this area, there's lots of free cattle, we'll just get all of them. Look, all the cattle are owned. All the fish are just like, you want them, you know, have them. Just have as much as you want. You know, endless supply of fish and of course that's to signify just the fact that Jesus Christ isn't going around dining, this fine dining on a regular basis. The Lord Jesus Christ isn't living it up. He said he had nowhere to lay his head. This is all foreshadowed by the manger. The manger is a picture of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't come here to just live it up and to party and have so much fun. But rather that he was going to humble himself in every area of his life. Go if you would to John chapter number 1, John chapter number 1. So the first point that I have this morning is the humility is what we learn from the manger. But here's a second thing that we can learn from the manger. Is the fact that since there was no room for them in the inn, we see the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see his rejection because they weren't welcomed into the inn. There was no room for them. They were refused and that's why he was laid in the manger is because they had been rejected. And it foreshadows the rejection of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. We sing the great hymn, no room in the inn. And it's to picture the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be rejected of men. John chapter 1, look at verse number 10. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not. A lot of people think that Jesus Christ was just loved of everybody. The world just loved him and embraced him. You see a lot of celebrities sometimes convert to Christianity and say, I want to be like Christ. Well you better get ready to be hated of the world. You better get ready to lose your celebrity status. You better get ready to lose all your fame and your wealth and all these things that you desire so greatly. That's why it's a joke when all of these celebrities always are like, oh I'm following Christ. They're not following Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ was rejected of men. He was despised. He came here in a humble state and then was rejected. I've thought about this a lot, but I've thought a lot about our church specifically as a whole. If we're going to follow Christ's model, then we should be a church that's going to be humbled and we should be a church that's going to be rejected. Frankly speaking, when you look at this area, Watauga specifically, it has rejected our church in almost every way you can think of. I mean all kinds of people have just decided that they just don't like us. They don't even know anything about us. The other businesses around here don't want us to be here. Obviously the people across the street just don't want us to even exist. I've done soul winning for the past six, seven, eight months. I can't remember exactly how long I've been here. This is a blur. I've been soul winning out here on a regular basis, every Wednesday virtually speaking. It's been one of the most unreceptive areas I've ever been in preaching the gospel. People, and not just they don't want to get saved. I mean slamming the door, screaming at you, obscenities, cursing you, calling the cops and lying about you, saying you're doing things that you're not. And just causing all kinds of problems and all kinds of issues. I mean the police department has been evident in the fact that they don't want to be on our side. They don't want to enforce the law. One of the police officers in Watauga is an open sodomite who's in the protest group. You think that he had any bias when it came to enforcing the rules of law and being in this area? But I thought about this because not only are we being rejected in this area by and large, not everybody, but by and large, it's kind of a humbling experience. And I've always wondered what's the point of this or why do we have to go through this experience so much? But if we didn't have all of this public infamy, we didn't have all this slander, we didn't have all the people protesting us on a regular basis. You know, our church would be a lot different right now. And what I mean by that is we had a much beautiful, in my opinion, a much more beautiful building with a much cheaper rent. And we had a lot of money already saved. And at this point in time, with all the money that we were raising and saving, we could have possibly even bought a really beautiful building and possibly been in a really nice area. And if we didn't lose all of our YouTube channels and we didn't lose all of our online platform, I mean, we had over 10,000 subs approximately before we got nuked the first time on YouTube. And this was like years and years and years ago. I mean, if we hadn't been just constantly censored and blocked and protested and all these hate articles and going to all these legal fees and all these legal issues, I believe that our church would be meeting in a much nicer building, we'd have more people here, we'd have more money, but what would that do? What would it do if we had a bigger building, more people, and more money? It certainly wouldn't humble us. It would probably give us pride, wouldn't it? And of course, there's a lot of churches today, they're not even open. They won't even preach the Bible, they're not even open on Christmas Day. Think about their priorities. I mean, it's Christmas Day and you aren't even open for the Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas morning. But you'll let your wife preach the Bible. I mean, where are these people's priorities? Not the Bible. And so because there's so many people just not even willing to preach the Bible, and even if the people that will preach it will only preach like some parts, they're not being really engaging. Our preaching actually attracts a lot of people, and it's different and it's unique. You know, a lot of people will ask me questions about our church, and they're surprised that our church is filled with people that don't live five minutes from the building. Because what is every other church? It's filled with people that live five minutes from the building. Why is there a church on every corner? It's because people prioritize location over the quality of the service, over the quality of the preaching. And frankly speaking, no one, no one in my mind, personal opinion, in my personal opinion, preaches the Bible like some of our friends. Like people like Pastor Steven Anderson, like Pastor Roger Jimenez. I mean, they'll preach the whole Bible, dynamic sermons, great applications. I mean, you listen to the sermons and it just blows your mind away from a spiritual perspective. You know, I've never heard preaching like theirs, and it ruins all other preaching. And it's so attractive. Why do you think there's been so many people that have come and visited? I mean, for a while Pastor Anderson had somebody visit his church from like a foreign country for like years. Every service there's a brand new person visiting from a foreign country just because he's reaching so many people with his preaching. And so when you're having such a great impact and you're doing a lot of good things, and of course there's nothing really, in my opinion, there's nothing special about me from a physical sense. I mean, I'm not that great looking. I'm not tall. I'm not that much stronger than other men. I don't have the greatest speaking voice. I haven't been educated beyond what very many people have been educated with. So, physically speaking, there's a lot of pastors out there that have so much more going for them, physically speaking. But here's the difference between me and them. I'm willing to preach the Bible. And because I'm willing to preach the Bible, there's just so much glory that comes from the Word of God. And it changes so many people's hearts and minds that I believe our church could be running thousands if going unchecked. Not because we would be doing anything differently. Just simply because we don't have psychopaths outside screaming and yelling and all the heat and all the infamy. I mean, there's not as much prestige going to Steadfast Baptist Church. But at the same time, you know what? I believe it makes us better people. Would I rather go to a church where we have more money, better building, more people, and be prideful? Or go to a place where I'm in a smaller building, a little bit more humble of an experience, and be a better person? And be more humble about myself? You know, think about this. If our preaching was just heard by everybody, and just everybody starts coming, and the whole town's just like, man, you gotta hear this guy preach. What do you think they would do to me as a preacher? What do you think they would do to us as a church? We would think, oh, we're so much better than everybody else, and we're so much greater than everybody else, and it could cause us to be elevated. You know, the apostle Paul talks about how God sent him a messenger of Satan to buffet him. A thorn in the flesh. And is it any coincidence that the psychopaths outside, they literally describe themselves, they say, we are Pastor Shelley's biggest thorn. And I'm like, yes you are. You don't even understand. Like, they just quote the Bible all the time. They'll be like, you reap what you sow. And I'm like, are you sure about that? You know, they're constantly preaching the Bible without even realizing it. And they don't understand that they are living the Bible. They are the physical embodiment of the Bible. And here's what I have to say about it. Just like the manger was actually a blessing on the Lord Jesus Christ, they are a blessing unto us. They make me a better person. They humble me and they humble my church. They also keep my church from having a lot of bad people in it. Because when things are going well, and we're just attracting a lot of people, you attract a lot of trash and a lot of people that are just weirdos and all kinds of bad people. And when you have this constantly going on, you see what's really going on in people's hearts. The bad people start getting exposed. You know, it makes me think of, there's a friend of mine, pastor, great guy. You know, he just started getting protested and now like half of his church wants to leave. And it's like, those people are trash. Those people, just scummy people. Not just that they want to leave. They want to just destroy the church. And they want to just, they're basically just attacking the pastor, lying about the pastor, trying to draw people out of the church, trying to destroy the church. And of course, that's what you get. When you're having no restriction, no one's going against you, then weeds grow. And of course, our church has stayed really lean. But man, it's great because everybody in here is virtually just an on-fire, sold-out Christian that loves soul-winning, loves all the right doctrines. You're not squeamish about having sodomite deception on the cabinet over here. People actually believe the Bible here. They like the Bible. They bring up the Bible. And yeah, more people show up when I serve brisket, but at the end of the day, it's still good people here. It's still great people here. And you have to realize, they are blessing us by humbling us and getting our priorities straight and helping to realize, you know, Christianity is real. This is a real fight that we're in. This is a real experience that we're having. And just the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ coming in the manger can be applied to us in the sense that, you know, when we have to go through an experience that may not be the most desirable, may not be the most ideal, we might be rejected and have to go somewhere that we didn't want to go. You know, that can be a huge blessing unto us to keep us in the right mindset and focus on the things that really matter, which are spiritual things, not the carnal things anyways. There are a lot of churches today where it would be gorgeous to be in church this morning. I mean, I've seen churches and it's amazing. Their choir is amazing. Their instruments are amazing. The building is just decorated like an inside Christmas present. I mean, it's just so wonderful. And you know, I'm not against those things. Those things are wonderful. God willing, we could do that one time or we could get to that point. I'm not against that. But at the same time, they have all that and then it's spiritually dead. They're going to get up and the pastor's going to mince words about the gospel and not even like, you know, because a lot of people preach the gospel on a Sunday morning. You know, all of you guys are saved, okay? So, I don't necessarily need to preach you all the gospel this morning, but they're going to preach the gospel and a lot of them won't even give a right answer. They'll just be like, hey, if you need to be saved, raise your hand. Be on Team Jesus. I've been in the service and I'm thinking like, wow. You know, that's a shame that you have this great facility. You brought in all these visitors. You have such a great opportunity to get people saved or preach them a spiritual truth and you end up just squandering it because you don't want to offend people. And of course, that's why a lot of these big churches exist is because they seek to not offend and they seek not to rub people the wrong way. They don't have the weird protesters, you know, with their Christmas tree, okay? Go if you went to Mark chapter number 8. Mark chapter 8. And you say, well, I don't like that. I want to go to the church where everybody likes it. Where everybody likes us and we're a pillar in the community. Everybody looks at us and they're like, we all love this church. Well, that's not very realistic. You know, maybe if you lived in a smaller community where there was a lot of just saved people in that community, you could possibly have a little bit of a public persona that's positive. But just generally speaking, especially in an area the size of ours, we're never going to be loved by the community. We're never going to be loved by this great multitude of people. People aren't going to look at our church and be like, that's the most loving and caring church. You know, it's just the sweetest church, even though we are a very sweet church and we are a very caring church and we do a lot of good ministry. But of course they're going to misalign us, mal-align us and slander us and libel us just like they did the Lord Jesus Christ. Look what it says in Mark chapter 8 verse 31. Mark chapter 8 verse 31, the Bible says, And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. Now, people will be like, why don't you be more like Christ? But if you realize this, the more you're like Christ, the more you're going to be hated. The more you're going to be despised. Because Jesus Christ never did anything wrong. Why is it that Jesus was hated? Because he was good. Why is it that Jesus was hated? Because he preached the truth unapologetically. He wasn't even nice about it at times. Sometimes he was gentle, depending on his audience. Other times he was very harsh and rebuked very sternly. And of course that's what made him hated is he preached the truth, he didn't care about carnal things, he couldn't be bribed, he couldn't be persuaded, so the only option left was to kill him. And of course that's what usually happens when you get great men of God throughout history that are making a big impact and they don't care. They're not going to be persuaded through finance, money, all these different things. Their only option is to kill them and to turn and there's going to be great persecution against the church. Historically speaking, many great men of the Bible have always been persecuted, always been hated, always been lied about and slandered and attacked. I've only learned so much more about this in studying the King James Bible. Just so many great men that we look up to, just how hated they were and despised of everyone. John Wycliffe was so hated of the Catholic church for having translated the Bible into English that they dug up his bones after he had died and just burned them publicly, just to show how much they hated him. And William Tyndale, being hunted down constantly, constantly on the run, and then his best friend, or one of his friends, said, hey, why don't you come out here with me and take a walk? And then all of a sudden an ambush jumps out, grabs him, and they publicly strangled him and burned him with fire. His own friend betrayed him, just like Judas Iscariot did to Jesus Christ. You learn about King James. King James was attacked and under heavy pressure for having produced the King James Bible and wanting to change the church and reform the church. And so there was this big ploy to blow up government, to blow up the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's where you get the Guy Fawkes. And you have all kinds of people throughout history going through legal battles and legal issues, people trying to print the Bible, constantly going through lawsuits and legal issues and they're trying to hurt them and cause them all kinds of pain. The devil is real, folks. And if the devil is real, who do you think the devil is going to attack the most? The devil always attacks those who are serving God the greatest, the most. And he'll, you know, share the love, of course. It's not always just one person, but he is going to try and find those that are doing the greatest things for God and attack them. So you should expect whoever is doing the greatest work for God is going to have a lot of resistance. A lot of people are going to hate him. A lot of people are going to go against him because the world killed Jesus just like it hates us. Go to chapter 12 and look at verse 10. Chapter 12 and look at verse 10. Mark 12 verse 10. And have you not read the scripture? The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. So again, he's going to be rejected. Go to Luke 17. Let me explain something to you. If Jesus Christ showed up on the earth today, just like he did in his earthly ministry, he wouldn't be welcome at the church across the street. He wouldn't be welcome at the Nazarene church. He wouldn't be welcome at the Catholic church. Of course, if he showed up in his glory and said, I'm Jesus, they would all say, like, come on in. But if he came in his humble state and started saying the things that he was saying back then, then, you know what it is? This. If he just started saying what the King James Bible says, they would throw him out. Jesus Christ, even if he entered in their building, which he probably wouldn't, he would have to whip and chase the money of them out for selling and buying in the house of God. I mean, what do you think? I mean, it's like, oh, they have this idea of Jesus and then you read the Bible. Jesus. What is Jesus like in the church? Whipping people and chasing them out, rebuking all the leaders, getting mad at them. You know, even myself included, I would be nervous if Jesus Christ came to visit that we're doing something wrong. You know, that we're not doing everything up to par, how he sees fit. Of course, we should all be terrified by the Lord visiting us. He's a terrible God in the sense that he strikes terror in the hearts of men. But I'm telling you, many people think, like, oh, but Christianity is so prevalent in America. Yeah, they would all kill Jesus again. They would all hate Jesus again. It's not like Judah was an atheistic culture. Jerusalem was filled with religion and they were filled with the Bible, but yet they all killed Jesus. Why? Because they were of the world and the world hates Jesus Christ, by and large. Look at Luke chapter 17 and look at verse number 25. This is in the context of his return, but it makes a good statement here. But first, must he suffer many things and be rejected of his generation? So he's saying, before I return again, I've got to do something. I have to suffer many things and be rejected of this generation. Look, Jesus Christ was not loved of his peers, of his world. He was rejected of his generation. Go to John chapter 12. I live in a culture where adultery is no problem, virtually speaking. People can commit fornication, no problem. People can not go to church and it's not even shameful. People can just be an atheist. People can be of all kinds of weird, satanic, religious practices and it's no problem in our society. When we have literal buildings in our city that, at least at one point in time, was murdering babies called Planned Parenthood. I mean, we live in a society where you can be a man and put on a dress and lipstick and walk around and people have to respect you. And people can't even say anything about you. When that is the culture, when that is the generation, when we have literal men in dresses running our government. In all kinds of high positions of power and authority. Why in the world would I want them to like me? Why in the world would I want this culture to say, you know what, we like you. You're nothing like the Bible. You're nothing like God's word. You know, you're the sinful and adulterous generation. And you know, we're supposed to be ashamed of that, not of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, when we're not like them, they will reject us. In Matthew 12, look at verse 46. I am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not. For I came not to judge the world but to save the world. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him. The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. So he said, just like people rejecting him as a person is the exact same as rejecting his words. And he said, even in the last day, you would receive the same punishment for having rejected the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh as having rejected his words. And let me tell you something, this is the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh today. I mean, we have the Bible, and God is the word, and so many people are rejecting this. They think, well, if Jesus was here, I would accept him. But he is here. You can open up the Bible, John chapter number 1, and start learning all about Jesus. And Jesus will speak to you. John 3.16 is Jesus. And when people reject the Bible, when they reject the word of God, they are rejecting Jesus. And, of course, a lot of people got saved. But, you know, that's like this. A lot of people got saved and then they just stopped following him, right? This is all the Christians that like John 3.16 and they don't like any other parts of the Bible. Isn't that common? There's so many Christians that are saved, they're going to heaven, and they love John 3.16. They love John 1.18. They love John, well, some parts of John, not John 6. John 5.24, right? I mean, they love Romans 6.23. They love Romans 10.9 and 10. And that's about it. Oh, Ephesians 2.8 and 9, yeah, that's a great one. But you know what? It's like virtually any of the rest of the Bible. And it's just like all the people in Jesus' day that came out, they got the meal, that was good. They liked the bread. And they liked getting saved. But then he started teaching them how to live their life and, boy, did they not like that. Boy, did they just run away screaming and not want anything to do with serving God, being his disciple, being a servant of God. And, of course, he was rejected of even his own disciples, in a sense. And whenever they came to arrest him, they all fled. I mean, the Lord Jesus Christ is basically by himself rejected of the whole world. And he was rejected of this generation. And when you reject the Bible, you're rejecting Jesus. And here's another thing. When you reject our words that are coming from the Bible, you're rejecting Jesus. And why is it that people don't like our church? Because of what we preach. Because of what we preach. I mean, you know, I got evicted from that previous building. The only thing they brought up in the lawsuit, the only thing they brought up in court, the only thing the judge heard was my words to preaching. That's it. They didn't say, this guy was late on his bill, this guy trashed the property, this guy was going around doing bad stuff. It was just like, this is what he said. And the lawyer said this, I think that he actually means it and isn't going to back down. Oh man, he actually meant what he said? I mean, that was the only thing brought against us. You know, why is it the whole world hates us? Did you hear what they preach? Did you hear what they said? That's the only thing they can bring. And let me tell you something, it's them hating Jesus. They don't really hate me. They don't really hate Dylan. They don't even know us. They might even like us. But you know what? Because we preach God's word, they hate us. They hate us so much. Go if you would to Mark chapter 20. Well, go to John 6 first, actually. Go to John chapter 6. Isaiah 53 says that he was rejected. And it was, of course, a prophetic semblance. So just like he was rejected at the end, he was rejected his whole life. Constantly, no room for him. No room for Jesus. And because they reject him, he's going to reject them back. If you don't accept Jesus Christ as your savior, you're going to hell. And of course, by putting your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what gives you eternal life. It's not the life that you live. It's not for having come to my church. It's just simply trusting in Christ one time that gets you saved. And yet the whole world rejects him. I mean, God couldn't have made it even simpler. I mean, Jesus Christ came. He fed people. He gave them the truth. And he gave them the easiest way to go to heaven, and they hated him. I mean, what could he have done to make it better? Hey, I'll take all of your sicknesses, all of your diseases. I'll heal, miraculously, people that were blind. I'll make the people in your town walk so they're not crippled and they're not hurting society. They're not even hurting themselves. I'll give you just free food. I'll preach you the Bible. I'll give you the greatest fellowship you've ever had, the greatest events that you've ever had. And then they killed him. And the same is going to be about Christians who go out and just love the community, preach the gospel, try to love on them, try to do right, and they're just going to hate them and want nothing to do with them. Here's the last point I want to make, and this is kind of an interesting point, but if you think about Jesus Christ being put in a feeding trough, what is the point of a feeding trough? It's to feed animals. It's food. It's food that's going to be consumed. And, of course, Jesus Christ is the food for us. He's what we are going to consume. And, of course, food itself, if you have, you know, the Bible teaches this in other places. I'm not going to go to all the places for sake of time. But food has to die for you to eat it. If it hasn't died yet, don't eat it, okay? It's weird. Except weird third world countries and the Chinese buffet, food that you eat has died. You know, the wheat had to die, the animals had to die, everything had to die, and then you eat it, and what does it give you? It gives you life. The same way the Lord Jesus Christ being put in the manger is a picture of how He's going to have to die, and through His death, He's going to give us life. Look at John chapter 6, verse 32. Then Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father gave you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. So, look, the Lord Jesus Christ had to come down from heaven and be the bread of life to give us life. Skip down to verse 35. I'm sorry, not 35. Yeah, verse 35. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And of course, He talks about Himself as being physical food, but it's a metaphor for the fact that He's the Word of God, and just in the same way that you eat food and it goes inside and gives you life, it's the same way you have to consume the words of God into your heart, and then when you believe them, you become saved. That's how you get saved. That's where you have the sower sowing the seed, and that's the Word of God. And when that seed gets into someone's heart and they believe it, that's that germination process, that's that fertilization process that gives them the new birth, that gives them that salvation. And Jesus Christ is comparing Himself to these things to show the spiritual truth that He had to die for our life. Look at verse 49. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. Look at verse 53. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. So the Lord Jesus Christ compares Himself to food that's being eaten and to drink that's being drunk and He's saying this is how you have salvation. He didn't say going to church. He didn't say turning from sin. He didn't say giving up your wicked lifestyle. He didn't say turning over a new leaf. He said eating Him. Just like the Passover where you just put the blood on the doorpost and you're saved. Just like Rahab the harlot who just set out the scarlet thread and is saved. And just like you eating food, this is what salvation is like. It's just accepting it. It's embracing it and taking the free salvation that's offered to us by putting faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the Catholics read this passage and you know what they're going to do this morning? They're going to eat crackers and eat juice and think that that gives them salvation. It's called transubstantiation. The Catholic is going to have everybody come down and he's going to give them a physical piece of bread and have them drink alcohol in many cases. And he's going to pretend like that's somehow the blood and body of Jesus Christ and people are going to die and go to hell today. They're going to go to church. There's going to be someone that goes to church today and gets physical communion and then die today and wake up in hell because they didn't understand the spiritual truth of the Lord Jesus Christ giving here. And of course he gave us his flesh and he gave us his blood, but it was a symbol of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That his death, burial, and resurrection give us salvation. And I don't care how many times they've done communion. I don't care how much they believe Jesus is the Lord. You have to accept the Gospel. You have to believe in the Gospel to be saved. That's how you get truly saved. Go over to Mark, I'm sorry, Matthew 20. Matthew chapter number 20. Jesus Christ truly is that manna from heaven. And more importantly physical food is spiritual food. You know man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God. And just the most important meal you'll ever have is the salvation meal. Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and getting saved. You know God didn't want us to just live our whole lives being starving. He wants us to constantly consume his word. And he is that sacrifice being put in the manger every day for us. And he wants us to constantly read the Bible and meditate upon his word and study the Bible on a regular basis. And constantly eat and constantly consume his flesh. That's how you abide with Christ. The only way for you to abide with Christ today is to open up your Bible. You know Jesus Christ isn't going to come down from heaven and sit down and hold your hand. He's not going to have tea with you. He's not going to have a coke with you. He's not going to do those things. But you know what he will do? You can open up the Bible and he'll talk with you. He'll comfort you. You know no matter what emotional state you're in the Bible has comfort in it. It has joy. It has peace. It has everything. It has every emotion. It has anger. It has every emotion that's needed. Every emotion that's justified. You know sometimes you want to be angry. Someone does something really bad or something really wicked. You know it's a time to be angry. You know the Lord Jesus Christ obviously was not enjoying people buying and selling in the house of God. And turning into a house of merchandise. And so of course that brought him a lot of anger and it brought him a lot of righteous anger. And of course through that anger he's able to clean the house of God and make it better. And for people to not abhor the offering of the Lord. And to not get ripped off in church. I mean not only are they buying and selling in church folks. They're ripping people off. You have Jews in there making merchandise of people. Making money in profit. You know putting unjust weights. Imagine someone seeking God to give them life and they're getting ripped off financially. That's just like the people that you go to these churches and you buy their book for 20 bucks. Getting ripped off. Because it was worthless anyways. And you know going to a church that's not even a real church and giving them money. Being lied to about it. Matthew chapter number 20 look at verse 28. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. What is the application that we can take from this? First of all obviously we need to get saved. What's another application we can take from this? We need to constantly read the word of God. But here's another application. We learned a lesson from the manger. Christ's humility. We learned about his rejection. But we also learned about this. His sacrifice. And just as Christ sacrificed himself for us. We too should be willing to sacrifice our lives for God. Go to Romans chapter number 12. Go to Romans chapter number 12. Jesus Christ was born a sacrifice. His whole life was pictured as a sacrifice. Being put in the trough is a picture of how he's going to die. And he's going to be sacrificed for us. And I think a lot of people will wonder this question. Why am I born? Or what purpose do I have on this earth? What is the goal of my life? And what God wants us to do is be saved and then be a sacrifice for him. You know a lot of people say I don't like that church because it's causing me to work and do these things. And they're putting pressure on me to make changes. You're supposed to be a living sacrifice. That's what the Bible clearly teaches. And it's all over the Bible. But Romans chapter number 12 gives us a good wording here. Verse 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. You know what's reasonable? It's for us to dedicate our entire life to God. You know, he didn't, I like this verse so much because you know what he didn't say? This is your extreme service. You have to be an extremist. You have to be crazy. You have to be, you know what? The church is reasonable. You know, it's not reasonable to have been saved by the God of heaven for him to die on the cross and to give you all the gifts and the talents that you have and then to just live selfishly. That's an extreme view of life. The reasonable view of life is to say, you know what? I'm going to serve you for this. I'm going to say thank you for this. You know, if someone feeds you a meal, you know what the reasonable thing is to do? Say thank you. You know what's the unreasonable thing is to not thank them. And no one would look at, you're such an extremist for saying thank you. You know, if your wife makes you a meal man, tell her thank you at the dinner table. That's your reasonable service. That's not you being a great husband. That's you being reasonable. You being a great husband is doing the dishes afterwards. Because that's not your reasonable service. That's extremist, okay? Let's learn. Saying thank you, extreme bad. Saying thank you, it's neutral. It's just expected. Doing the dishes afterwards, you're an awesome husband. This is what women should learn. But think about this in the Christian life. Not serving God is an extreme ungrateful attitude. Serving God and dedicating your life to God is reasonable. Is reasonable. I mean, to be extremist, we're talking about people like the apostle Paul. Giving up marriage for God. That's extreme. That wasn't even a reasonable part of the service. Yeah, there are things you could do that are extreme for God, but dedicating your life to God wasn't one of them. Going to church three times a week isn't one of them. Reading your Bible daily is not one of them. They're all reasonable. I mean, of all the hours in the week, you can't even spend a few serving God? I mean, God expects the tithe, which is 10% of your money. He's not even asking for 10% of your time when it comes to church. I mean, it's much less. And people can't even seem to want to do that. You know, it's crazy to me how people, they're just so selfish, and they think that by just serving God normally is extreme. It's because you're selfish. It's because you're such a selfish person. You know, if we realize what God did for us and how much He's given us, it's reasonable to serve Him. It's reasonable to do great things for Him. It's reasonable to want to stand out in the crowd and to follow Him. When the disciples, when we were reading the Bible and the disciples forsook Him, none of us were thinking like, oh, they're not willing to be an extremist. It seems unreasonable. It's like you've been with Christ for three and a half years, and then you just desert Him? Like, it just seems crazy. For Peter to deny Him, it's just crazy. You know, for Demas has forsaken me, it just seems crazy. You know, and for you to be plugged into church or reading the Bible and then just abandon things is just crazy. That's the crazy thing. The crazy thing is not serving God, loving the Lord, sacrificing for Him. And, you know, let us be a sacrifice for other people. Of course, it's meaningless for me to get up and just say sacrifice. Who are we talking about? How about your children? Why don't we sacrifice for the next generation and love on them? You know, the person that's selfish is going to destroy their family. And the person that's selfless is going to build up their family. Go if you would to Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10. You know, I know women who refuse, they refuse to have more children because they don't want their body to go through the physical changes. That's like the main reason. Like, they don't want to have the big belly. They don't have the fat cheeks. I'm not talking about any ladies in here, okay? They don't want to have the swollen feet. They don't want all the stretch marks. They don't want to go through all the physical pain. But let me tell you something. You have to go through a lot of physical sacrifice to have a child. And if it wasn't for your mother's sacrifice, we wouldn't even exist. None of us would exist. I know they're trying to invent birthing pods in Google or something. I don't believe it's going to happen, folks. Even if it does, it's psycho, okay? I mean, your mother had to go through so much sacrifice even to give birth to you. And women are choosing not to have children. And they're being selfish. But you know what they're going to do? They're going to end up destroying their own lives. And they're going to become old and they're going to have no one to love, no one to talk to, no one to experience life with anymore. A lot of older people or elderly people that I've spoken to, people in nursing homes and these other areas, they're constantly crying and sad and telling me, man, I just, I wish I had more children. And I always say this and it's still true. I've never met an elderly person that has not said that or has not agreed to that statement. They all say, you know what, I wish I just had another one or I wish I had a few more. I've met people that had 10 and they're like, I wish I had 10 more. They didn't say like, oh, man, don't have 10 children. They'll say that, you know when women say that in the early stage. But not in the late stage. And even if you said it in the early stage, don't say it, okay. But, you know, or just here's the thing. If you don't spend your life sacrificing for that child, you know what, you're not going to reap anything when they get older. I see people, they just send their kid to school and they're the babysitter and to the sports program or whatever it is, extracurricular activities, and they spend almost no time with their children. They're not taking them to church. They're not reading the Bible with them. They're not doing anything with them and then they just turn out to be liberal freaks. They turn out to be people that are going to go get abortions. And they're going to go work at the pet store and not eat meat. They're going to go work for PETA instead of making brisket. You know what, I want my children to make brisket so that I can come over and I can eat it. Can you imagine if you raised a vegetarian? A vegan? I mean, a vegan, you don't even get cheese. It's like, what? So we're not having meat, can I have cheese or eggs or anything? It's like, here's some dry parsley. What? What is this? Here's soy tofu. You know, it's like, what kind of person did you raise? And you know what, your children like what you like. You know, we're already getting Ellie on the steak. She likes it, she's chewing it, she doesn't quite swallow it, but she likes the taste. And that's a start. We're going to start her right. But you know what, the people that are constantly just living their life for themselves. It's all about me going on vacations and it's all about me enjoying my life and it's all about my social media and it's all about my activities, my clothing, my life. You know what, they're going to destroy their family. Whereas the other side of the equation that says, you know what, it's all about my children and reading and training them and humbling myself and lowering myself and just being a living sacrifice. They're going to get to a point in their timeline, in the future, where they're going to wow. My life's great because I was a living sacrifice. Live selfishly and destroy yourself. Live as a sacrifice and you're going to actually enjoy. Look at Matthew 10, verse number 39. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. I'll tell you what, people that spent their whole life trying to not raise their kids are going to lose their kids. And people that spent their whole life raising their kids are going to find their kids. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he's old he will not depart from it. And of course, taking them to this church isn't just like a check mark, like they're going to be good. Taking them to any church is not going to be a check mark that they're going to be good. You, you have to sit down with your children. You have to read the Bible to them. You have to minister unto them. You have to serve them. You have to lower yourself. You know, what did the Lord Jesus Christ do? He humbled himself. Let us humble ourselves and invest in our children. Let us not care what the world, let the world reject us. You know, the world gets mad at the idea of having lots of kids sometimes. And, and they, they always talk this big talk about how bad it is. And they personally, if they go around, they'd be like, oh man, I never want to have that many kids. And they'll tell their kids not to have that many kids. But you know, when I go to a restaurant, everybody thinks it's great. I mean, me and my wife, we were eating dinner the other night. And it was just weird, but it's like people, this lady just walks up and she just looks at us and she just says, congratulations. I'm just like, what? It's just, congratulations. You just have, you know, everybody just can see, oh wow, that's actually a blessing. Having a lot of kids, they're well behaved, they're dressed nice, they love the Lord. And I, you know, there's nothing special about me. And the, and the whole area hates me, virtually speaking. But when strangers see us out, they think we're great. And I, I kid you not, it's like we get compliments almost every time we go to a restaurant. And it's just weird. It's just so weird how it just happens all the time. And it's not, again, it's not me. It could be you. It could be anyone. But you know what, when you serve God and you sacrifice and you put your children first and you love on them, you know you're going to find your life. Whereas all the other people out there, they've lost their life. And they're saying like, oh man, I wish, I wish my kids were here with me having dinner, or I wish my grandchildren were here, but my grandchildren are monsters. My grandchildren can't even sit still for five minutes. We have to have a tablet out just to even keep them entertained for a few minutes. And then they're still screaming and crying. Even the kids with the tablets aren't even as well behaved as the children in this church. Never give up on your children. Be a living sacrifice for your wife, your husband, be a living sacrifice for your brother, for your sister, be a living sacrifice for your children, be a living sacrifice for the lost out there that need to be saved. And let us learn some lessons from the manger that maybe your life wasn't born to be royalty, you were born to be in a manger too. Thank Heavenly Father for giving us the gift of your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, such an unspeakable gift. Thank you that he was willing to humble himself so that we could have life. Thank you that he was willing to be rejected so that we could be accepted. Thank you for allowing him to be a sacrifice so that we could become the sons of God. So that we could have the riches and the glory and the honor and the prestige that the Lord Jesus Christ had and we could be sons and daughters of God. I pray that we would be motivated this Christmas and going into next year to be a sacrifice, to not think selfishly, to not care about ourselves, but rather to see whom we can serve, to see who we can help, to see who we can assist, to love on our children, to love on our friends and our family and those in our lives that we can help and assist. And I pray that you would just use us greatly as we seek to please you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. We're going to sing one more song and then I believe after that pastor is going to have some instructions for us, correct? Yes? Okay. Let's go to our last song which is 427, We Three Kings of Orient Are. 427, We Three Kings of Orient Are. Song 427, We Three Kings of Orient Are. We Three Kings of Orient Are, Bearing gifts we traverse afar, Field and fountain, moor and mountain, Following yonder star. Oh, star of wonder, star of mire, With loyal beauty bright, Westward near, Oh, star of wonder, star of mire, With loyal beauty bright, Westward leading, Still proceeding guide us through thy perfect light, Born a king on Bethlehem's plain, Gold I bring to crown him again, King forever ceasing never, Over us all to reign. Oh, star of wonder, star of mire, With loyal beauty bright, Westward leading, Still proceeding guide us through thy perfect light, Frankincense to offer have I, Incense owns a deity nigh, Prayer and praising all, Then raising worship him God on high. Oh, star of wonder, star of mire, With loyal beauty bright, Westward leading, Still proceeding guide us through thy perfect light, Her is mine, its bitter perfume, Breathes a life of gathering gloom, Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, Sealed in the stone full tomb. Oh, star of wonder, star of mire, With loyal beauty bright, Westward leading, Still proceeding guide us through thy perfect light, Glorious now, behold him arise, King and God in sacrifice, Hallelujah, hallelujah, Peels through the earth and skies. Oh, star of wonder, star of night, Star with loyal beauty bright, Westward leading, Still proceeding guide us through thy perfect light. I want to make a few quick announcements. We do have two baptisms. They're still just getting ready, so just give me just one second, and we're going to have our baptisms. As far as the food is, you can enter through this hallway area. That's where the line will start, and so you can go this way. Just to give you kind of an idea of what we have, so the bread is going to be up front, and we have rolls, we have like sandwich buns, and then we have like mini sliders. So you can kind of decide what you want. There's going to be brisket and some ribs, just to make sure everybody can get a chance to try it. We're going to try and do one rib per adult the first time through, okay? One rib per adult the first time through. As far as the brisket, you can make yourself either a sandwich or a mini slider, or if you just want brisket with a roll, so that way you can plan correctly when you're going through the line. The bread's there up at the front, so you either want to do a roll with just some sliced brisket, or you want to make a sandwich or a mini slider. And please just help your children as you go through the line. There's a lot of different side dishes. There should be drinks and everything. Are there drinks on the table? I don't know. If there's not drinks out on the tables, then there's drinks all over here in the fridge and in this area as well. I'm going to say a quick word of prayer for the food now. We'll do our baptisms and then we'll be dismissed, okay? Thank Heavenly Father for giving us this great time of fellowship to be gathered here together. And thank you for allowing us to consume the spiritual food, the gift of your Lord Jesus Christ. But I pray that we'd also be blessed by the physical food this afternoon, that the people that go out soul-willing, that you'd be with us, that you'd help us to get many people saved, and that you would bless everybody as they travel home. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. One last thing, as soon as we're done, if we can have all the men try to help us, we're going to try and put as many tables out as we can and kind of reposition all the chairs. There's probably not quite enough tables to accommodate every single person, but we'll just try to do our best to put as many chairs as we can and all the tables. So if you can kind of get up, start getting in a line, that way men can start reorganizing all the chairs and tables, alright? So we have Taniya and Uriah coming from baptism. Alright, you ready? You want to take your socks off? Okay, alright. Turn it around. It's this way. When I say the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, you're going to hold your nose and get me down and bring me back up, okay? Ms. Taniya, have you trusted Christ as your Savior? Yes. Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of His death, raised to walk in newness of life. And we have Uriah coming. When I say the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, you're going to hold your nose and get me down and bring me back up, okay? Brother Uriah, have you trusted Christ as your Savior? Yes. Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of His death, raised to walk in newness of life. Alright. Alright, you are dismissed.