Let's pray. Father, I ask you that through your Word and by your spirit now, the fearlessness

and the greatness of our joy would be freshly firmly rooted in the Lordship of Jesus and

that you would open our eyes. This is what Paul prayed in Ephesians 117 that the eyes of your

people would be open to see and to know God, the greatness of God, the inheritance of God,

the power of God, freshly seen by saints. So come, I pray and do that for all of us. I ask in

Jesus name, amen. So we're focusing on verses 10 and 11. Again, fourth time in Advent, the angel

said to the shepherds, fear not. So underline that. That's one of the big points. For behold, I bring

you good news of great joy, underline that. Fearless, great joy. And then here comes the reason,

the foundation, the argument. Because unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior

who is Christ the Lord. That's my assignment. So we've been talking about Christ and Savior,

but now I get to focus on Lord. So my question is this, how does the Lordship of Jesus make possible

your fearless, great joy in 2022? How does that work? Because it's given as a ground. It's given as

an argument of support. It's supposed to hold up your fearlessness and your joy. How does it? Will

it? Does it right now for you? That's where we're going. Verse 10. Let's make sure you see it. Fearlessness,

don't be afraid, fear not, and great, not small, not middle, great joy has come into the world

because this baby is the Lord. And the question is, what does that mean? So someone says to me,

now perhaps, Piper, don't you know the sky is falling? It's falling on your family.

It's falling on this church. It's falling on this city. Open your eyes, Piper. It's falling on

the world. It's called Omicron. We have no idea where this is going to end. Good grief. What's

this fearless, great joy? So the aim of this sermon is to enable you to answer that person.

What will you say to the person? When you tell them, I've got great joy and I'm fearless

because of the Lordship of Jesus and they say, open your eyes, you're an idiot. The sky is falling on

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