What a story it is. As you go through my birth and the story
of what would take place not only on that day but for future to come,
the weight of the situation when it comes to the people involved, my
mother, my foster father. And when you put this picture together you start
to see what many people will often say, Oh, this is the reason
for the season. As you gather with friends and family tonight and tomorrow to
celebrate, be reminded not only of what took place and the faith they'rein,
what you believe and why you believe it, And think that every turn of
the story, every piece, every jot, every tittle, every single part
of the story rests on the bedrock of faith. Now you can get lost
in details. Was I born in December? No, absolutely not. But
rather than getting into the different insights and specifics of the history, I want
you to think about the weight of the story itself. Matthew talks about the
breakdown of the birth of Suam Sih, the birth of Jesus the Messiah,
and it says it came about this way his mother Mary was pledged to be
married to Joseph. That betrothal is important back in the day, of course,
in Biblical times when you are betrothed to someone like that or engaged,
there is a period prior to that engagement of a year, and you were
technically married at that point, but there is no consummation of the marriage.
So pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, before
there was before they consummated that marriage, which she was found to be pregnant
through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the
law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had
in mind to divorce her quietly. You know the scriptural language there is to
put her away quietly, and the reason was to have a child out of
wedlock. Wedlock in two thousand years ago was more than just a scandal.
The amount of focus on Mary could be life threatening. Now remember Mary went
through the weight of understanding by having an angel tell her what was going on.
Well, now it was time for Joseph as well. After Joseph considered
the divorce quietly, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream
and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take
Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the
Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to
give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
Now this is to fulfill what had been said through the prophets. The
Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him
Immanuel, which means odd with us. Joseph woke up. How's that for
a dream? Right? Coming back from that, and he did what the
Angel of the Lord had commanded. He took Mary home as his wife.
So the simplicity of that story, obviously, there are the stories of the
Nativity and Luke as well, and breaking down going through those, each little
nook and cranny of the story is one thing. But as you take in,
as you take in truly what was going on and what that would be
like, not only for Mary but for Joseph. These were people of God,
These were people of deep faith, and they have now put upon them
the most intense weight that could be imagined in seeded in their time over two
thousand years ago. And only by that faith, only by the power of
their belief in God, their trust in God, could they move forward through
something that is truly unimaginable. Hebrews eleven one says, now, faith is
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Some
have twisted the concept in of faith into something that is believing in something you
know not to be true, and that's not faith in the slightest. Faith
is that small portion, that small portion, that leap of faith that comes
after reason, past reason. You can take in everything that you can from
your surrounding and you can believe this is what's going on. I know what
is happening. But every time you actualize something, every time you do something,
commit to something, there's faith. You can't have trust in a partner
know them for years, but to engage in a true relationship takes faith in
the things that you've seen, the things that you know. But since you
can't know the future, you walk forward in faith. You walk to the
curb to cross the street. You can look both ways. You can say,
my eyes can see at least a quarter of a mile that way,
at least a quarter of a mile that way, And I know that there
is no vehicle fast enough to be invisible right now and to be able to
get here and meet me in the middle of the street in that amount of
time past my eyesight. But when you step off that curb, it is
still done in faith. Faith is not the weight of everything. It's that
smaller part that comes at the very end where you can't know because it's future.
You can't know, because it's outside of your true understanding. You can't
know about something. But if you lived that way, if you had to
have an engineer come in and check the structural integrity of every chair before you
sat in it, you couldn't live. So the power of faith stepping into
a world of a virgin birth, not only as the woman, but now
as the man, and the entirety of the weight that you are going to
birth the savior of all mankind. That's a faith you can learn from.
So Christmas christ Mass is upon us, and what you're celebrating is not only
my birth and the possibility of redemption and salvation eventually through my death and the
teachings along the way your cell upbraiding the faith at the very least of two
people, my mother Mary and my foster father Joseph. The weight of that
faith is important because not only is their faith in God, their faith and
belief was encapsulated in care for you. Were there going to be trials for
them? Absolutely? Was there going to be tribulation in their life, scrutiny
by people around them? Absolutely. It gets worse when those in power or
learn of a future king and go down the path of what is referred to
as the slaughter of the innocence. All these things are put in the face
of humans who are not thinking about themselves. They start that way. Mary
says, how can this be? Joseph says, I need to deal with
this the way I'm a man of the law. This is the way I
need to do it. The angel says, give it a second thought and
understand what's going on. Joseph makes the right decision, and what goes forth
is the opportunity unity for all. You contrast and compare that to what goes
on in today's world. People have broken apart into individuals, become so independent
they believe they need nothing else from anyone but for that person to serve them,
everyone to serve them, and then to get out of their way to
get whatever their need is so that they won't be bothered. Could you imagine
being bothered by bringing a son a child into this world? When you haven't
even been with somebody, yeah, I mean been with a man and then
your husband to take that on as well, not for their own blessing and
it was, but for the blessing of others and being in that mindset to
have a faith that surpasses even your own comfort, but the comfort of others.
Merry Christmas to you all, and I pray that you are spending time
with people that care about you and you care about them. Gifts are nice,
but really it's about the connection and the meaning in those gifts, just
like it was when I was born. The gold, the frankincense, and
murr all have importance behind it. You have gold dealing with royalty, you
have frankincense, an incense that deals with spirituality, and mr an interesting addition
because it was used as an embalming fluid and a fluid not exactly, but
a fluid that was used at the time of burial. Those gifts obviously mean
something and speak to things that were going to happen. And I hope that
the gifts that you give and receive tie into meaningful sentiments to the people in
which you give them. If you have a theology question or a life situation
question, Give us a call. Eight hundred five to zero one five three
four, eight hundred five to zero one five three four Randy. Welcome to
the Jesus Christ Show. Hey, Merry Christmas and happy birthday Jesus. Oh
thanks Randy, thanks for calling. How can I help you today? Yes,
they're always longer on this topic. Oh, no, breaking up a
little. Oh, let me step out. I'm sitting in a parking lot
and I'm gonna guess he's sitting in a parking lot in his car. Yeah,
can you hear me? Now I've stepped out, it's still it's still
breaking up a bit. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to put you
on hold and we'll check your line and come back to you. Pat.
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Hi Jesus, how are you today?
I am well? How are you well? I I have a quick question
maybe you can help me with Okay, I'm I don't know if it's a
faith question, but uh, basically I I worship you. I believe in
that you were born for our sins. But there's people that I work with,
there's people that know that they don't worship. They don't believe in you,
and they're their food there, They're flourishing, they have money, they
have possessions, and I'm currently struggling. I'm struggling financially wise. I currently
lost a house due to a house fire. My son had passed away years
ago, and I'm just wondering, Jesus, is is this a trial with
my faith? Well? A trial indeed. I mean those things are trying
to you. I mean, goodness, the loss of a son, a
home being burned. Absolutely, those are trials. Now, if you're saying
it's based on lack of faith or something, absolutely not. But the weight
of what is valuable on earth is much different. That isn't to belittle either
of those things or anything that happens in your life Goodness, No, not
in the slightest. Whoever, the things that you've described in many ways can
be blessings, but aren't blessings unto themselves. Having things like you said about
you know, money or homes. Is there something to be learned? Absolutely,
whether it's the house, the circumstance when it comes to the death of
a child, that is simply that people die. Now they can go in
different ways. That's something, you know. The moment a child is brought
into this world, the hope and the prayer is that you know, no
parent wants to bury a child, and the hope in the prayer is that
you go before they do. But ultimately, somebody's going to have loss,
whether it was your son when you pass or your son passing when you're alive.
That's a reality that everyone knows that. The hope is that they have
a long life, but none of that is guaranteed, of course, to
anyone. So beyond the reality of that and the sadness and mourning, I'm
pulling back a little bit for you to see a bigger picture and understanding as
to how God interacts with you and to teach you. Now, it's not
that God puts trials in your path. There are things that happen in your
life because of the collective of humanity. Your house, for instance, how
did it start fire electrical? Yeah, so that's not something you did per
se unless you knew about it or had concerns or smelled smoke before and didn't
do anything about it, or you'd had it checked or something like that.
Not putting the blame on you, but humans do human things or two,
whether it was not done properly, or whether some element of the house was
not done properly, or too many things were put on a single circuit.
Whatever it is. Things happen in life because a multitude of interactions. People
come in, people come out, different things happen. So if there's something
that you could have done, then yes, there's a lesson in there,
but it doesn't mean God made that happen for you to have that lesson.
And I think some people get that confused. The blessing in the Old Testament
really was about special favor. It often dealt with joy and prosperity. But
as you move into what Christians refer to as the New Testament, that changes.
It's really about spiritual blessing rather than material blessings. And you can find
that that changes as if you think of Scripture, the entirety of it as
the life of a child. So the beginning of Scripture and what Christians refer
to as the Old Testament really the law and the prophets, and you go
through that, you'll see that there is a different kind of interaction with humanity,
between God and creation. It's a little rougher. Yet the blessings often
tend to be more physical in nature, So like a child, the rewards,
whether it be toys, getting food, shelter, all these things that
are necessities, the blessings seem bigger. But as one gets older, you
can see that God starts interacting with humanity as it goes through adolescence, you
know, in the teen years, and then into adulthood, and the blessings
become different. Wards are different, like love and connection is different than a
toy. It's deeper, it's realer, it lasts longer, it's not something
you put out in a garage sale two months later. So similarly, as
you get more mature in your relationship, it's the exact opposite of what most
people might think, Oh, my life is going through these trials, so
I must not be connected with God. And although that could be the case
at times, but those trials speak differently. Those trials will deal with your
relationships or things like that. But houses burned down, it's horrible that happens
to you. Electrical problems happen, and in life. As horrible as that
is, it's not completely out of the norm. So in this particular case,
you're taking those things on. So what can you learn from them?
You tell me, Pat, what are some of the things that have gone
through your head as you've dealt with these things. Well, I'm trying to
be as strong as I can for my family, you know, showing a
good faith based for them, and that's power. That is power. I
mean you really you hit it. Our conversation this morning and our talk this
morning was about having faith that is so deep it's but beyond your comfort,
it's for the comfort of others. How spot on was that, like Joseph
who looked and said, this doesn't feel right to me. So you take
that on yourself, and no, it's not going to feel good. And
I'm not saying that this is going to be the rest of your life,
Pat, there is more to come. But you are the living proof and
example to your family and to people around you of your faith. And I
know that's a lot to take on. You're going, so my house has
to burn down, I have to lose a child for others to see my
faith. No, but it happened to you because people die and houses burned
down, and it's not what has happened to you. It's your reaction to
it that shows the world who you are and why you are and in that
one Peter three point fifteen, they want to ask you about that hope that
they can't understand that lies within you. All right, Randy, let's give
this a shot again. My friend, Hey, thank you Jesus. How
am I coming in? You sound better to me, my friend? So
what's going on? Yeah, I'm just wondering all this hype about the artificial
intelligence and what's come. And they've been talking about it a lot on the
on the air. Yeah, I have some conspiracy theorist friends and stuff that
you know, you know those folks are. They're always worried about some nefarious
thing going behind it. But you know, it brought me ever since I
was a kid. I remember in Revelations thirteen they talk about an image coming
to life and talking the false prophet has it yet they're talking about these robots
that they're making, Elon Musk and all these guys neuro link in our brains
that coming cashless society. You know, we're halfway there. I wonder when
it comes to some of these scriptures about not losing our freedoms, not being
able to sell or trade or barter unless you're hooked up to this electronic network.
And then on top of that, all of a sudden, what these
machines are all going to turn smarter than us and trick us or manipulate us
or I don't know, if you like the Terminator movie and you know,
destroy all humans like this, I saw movies. Say, why do you
think, Jesus, what's coming with this? You know? I stay in
prayer and I'm not overly worried about it, but I have friends that seem
to be very worried about it. Well, this has happened forever, Randy.
This has been going on since printing presses. When the printing press was
invented, it was thought to be problematic every new technology. You talk about
Revelations thirteen, fourteen and fifteen talking about what takes place before the mark of
the Beast, you've got the anti crisis false prophet. You talk about things
that are taking place, like the breath to the image of the beast that
you talk about coming to life and all of that, And people are trying
to fit these things into scripture. When you read scripture, a study scripture,
there's isoget and exeget there is. When you're studying, you're either taking
from scripture. You see it and you take from it naturally or you try
and force something into it, and doing that can be highly problematic. They
talked about this with credit cards. Do you use a credit card? I
do, yes, I have to. But you know that used to be
a problem for Christians when they first started. They thought that was going to
be the mark of the beast. You have to use this piece of plastic,
you become a number. And they thought that about social Security cards.
So Christians have many times and religionists many times over and over believed that some
technology was going to be the mark of the beast. But the reality is
that has never come to fruition. Technology is the same as any else.
In the hands of somebody who wants to do good with it, good will
be done. In the hands of someone who wants to do bad with it,
bad will be done. But the technology itself is neutral. It has
no value morally one way or the other unless it's used for good or evil.
There are many good things that can come out of AI, and there
are many bad things. It once again is in the hands of humanity to
make the decision as to what direction it goes. Your own personal Jesus someone
to hear you cares, someone who cares