Amen. I love these few weeks together. If you weren't here last week, we're

camping out for a little bit in the Christmas story that traditional one from

the Gospel of Luke and in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree. And if

you weren't here last week, that was the message. The whole message was in those

days. And I know that's not your typical message material and you're thinking,

man, I bet that was a barn burner. I'm really sorry we missed out on that

message, but you might be surprised. And how much God packed into that little

phrase in those days. And we looked at the sovereignty of God and what was the

seeming chaos of Christmas. And then today we come to the next section that the

announcement of the birth of Jesus. And then as we're sitting in this text, we're

just letting little words and phrases open up for us, the heart and the plans and

the purposes of God for our lives. And so if you don't know the Christmas story, it

opens up with Jesus being born. And once Jesus is born, an announcement is made.

And we see that happen in verse 8, Luke chapter 2 in this beautiful,

comprehensive account of the arrival of Jesus on planet earth. And this is what it

says. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over

their flocks at night. Now that's it for today. You're thinking, okay, where

are we going today? We're going right there today. Because this is amazing truth.

Jesus is born in a manger in Bethlehem according to the purposes and the plans

of God. A Messiah has come. He said, what does that mean? It means that God has made

a way to bridge the gap so that you and I could come back to Him and be in a

relationship with Him and know Him something we could never do that God had to do

...