Christmas Time (2 of 3)
Christmas Series
Steve Jones
Luke 2:1-7
Introduction: A city-slicker was walking past an apple orchard in West Virginia when he noticed a country boy holding his shoat up so that it could eat apples out of an apple tree. What's a shoat? A shoat is a young pig. So he asked the country boy "Why are you holding that pig up like that?" The country boy said "So he can eat the apples." The man said "Well doesn't that waste a lot of time?" The country boy said "Shucks Mister, what's time to a pig?"
Time ain't nothing to an old pig but it is something to us and it's something to God. In Luke chapter 2 we have one of the accounts of Jesus' birth. I want to talk this morning about God and His timing. One of the lessons the Christmas story illustrates is that we can trust God to do the right thing for us...in TIME.
Read Luke 2:1-7 and then Galatians 4:4.
This is a story about God's timing in the lives of mankind. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Solomon says some interesting things about time (Read). Eccl. 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in it's time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men."
God knows everything about our lives – and what goes on in our lives – and that same God has set eternity in our hearts. This is the concept that God, in His omniscience, knows the very smallest details of our lives, and at the same time, in His sovereignty, He is in control of our place in eternity.
God has the big picture and the small picture all together. But, how does this relate to Christmas? Look back at Luke 2:6 "The time came for the baby to be born." Meaning the nine months had passed. Gal.4:4 "But when the fullness of time came..." This is the timing of God in the eternal plan. I want us to be reminded this morning that God sees us in our moments – the here and now – and God also sees us from within the scope of eternity.
I. IN THE SHORT TERM – GOD'S TIMING SEEMS BAD
Let's look at Mary for a few min ...
Christmas Series
Steve Jones
Luke 2:1-7
Introduction: A city-slicker was walking past an apple orchard in West Virginia when he noticed a country boy holding his shoat up so that it could eat apples out of an apple tree. What's a shoat? A shoat is a young pig. So he asked the country boy "Why are you holding that pig up like that?" The country boy said "So he can eat the apples." The man said "Well doesn't that waste a lot of time?" The country boy said "Shucks Mister, what's time to a pig?"
Time ain't nothing to an old pig but it is something to us and it's something to God. In Luke chapter 2 we have one of the accounts of Jesus' birth. I want to talk this morning about God and His timing. One of the lessons the Christmas story illustrates is that we can trust God to do the right thing for us...in TIME.
Read Luke 2:1-7 and then Galatians 4:4.
This is a story about God's timing in the lives of mankind. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 Solomon says some interesting things about time (Read). Eccl. 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in it's time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men."
God knows everything about our lives – and what goes on in our lives – and that same God has set eternity in our hearts. This is the concept that God, in His omniscience, knows the very smallest details of our lives, and at the same time, in His sovereignty, He is in control of our place in eternity.
God has the big picture and the small picture all together. But, how does this relate to Christmas? Look back at Luke 2:6 "The time came for the baby to be born." Meaning the nine months had passed. Gal.4:4 "But when the fullness of time came..." This is the timing of God in the eternal plan. I want us to be reminded this morning that God sees us in our moments – the here and now – and God also sees us from within the scope of eternity.
I. IN THE SHORT TERM – GOD'S TIMING SEEMS BAD
Let's look at Mary for a few min ...
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