Finding Room in our Hearts | Josh Moore

In this on-demand message, Pastor Josh walks us through the Christmas story from a different angle — the journey, the timing, and the trust required when God’s plan feels inconvenient or unclear.  Through the story of Mary and Joseph, we’re reminded that God’s timing is never random. Even when life feels rushed, delayed, or overwhelming, God is still at work in ways we can’t always see. 

Merry Christmas from all of us at Hope City.

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Transcript

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- Hey, this is Phil Kal, lead pastor at Hope City Church. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. My prayer is that this helps and encourages you, gives you some practical ways to live out your faith and ultimately fills you with hope. Enjoy the message.- The year was 2006. I was 12 years old and I take you back in time to garage sale day. Okay, go there with me. For many years my parents would be a part of our community wide garage sale event and this would be a day that our neighborhood would all decide to have a garage sale on the same day. And essentially, you can think about it, let's, let's trade junk with your junk. There was no real good purpose behind this and I always had to be around in case my parents needed me in case they needed me to load something to someone's car. And typically about half an hour into this day, I was really bored, didn't wanna be there. I was finding something to do and this time something sparked in my mind. I had a thought at this particular garage sale. I noticed there was a lot of people shopping through our stuff, so I thought, it's time to impress these people. Let's try to get the the sales up and we'll do a little halftime show to make people happy. Maybe they'll buy more stuff. So if I got out my big jump, I knew my parents would be like, no, you're not getting out your big jump. And I was a bit of a biker at the time, so I knew that I could do one thing. I can impress people by getting the most air and go and taking it out there. There's no chance though my parents are gonna let me take the big jump out there. So I found a piece of wood that looked like this and I put it at the end of the driveway, pretty inconspicuous. Nobody would notice it. And I thought, okay, perfect. So I grabbed my scooter, I mustered up the courage and my parents lived on a little bit of an incline on a hill. So I go to the very top and as soon as everyone's down there, I notice people are shopping. I get my full speed and I head down that hill and it's not good. You can imagine you're probably thinking by seeing this. You're like, what was he thinking? Well, I don't know what I was. As soon as I hit this piece of wood, it turned into a doorstop. My scooter snapped in half, my shoes were gone. For some reason, I don't know what happened. And I flew through the air for all the wrong reasons. I could hear people like start to murmur like what just happened over there is, is he okay? The little European grandmothers were like, I think the boy has died. And it was not a good situation. Now, as soon as I landed, I thought to myself, this this hurts, but I am so dead. I am so dead. And then I look up, I roll over and the looming shadow of my mother is standing right over top of me. Like you see it in the movies and I'm getting two, I'm getting two different people here. She's looking back to people with a smile like he's okay, but I'm getting a death stare that could melt metal. I am so scared of her right now. And as we're walking back to the garage, I can feel like the blood pouring out from all my knees and my shoulders. It was just a gong show. People are looking at me with like, sadness and sails are not going up. I can tell you that. And she says under her breath, I'll never forget it, Joshua, now was not the time and I'm thinking in my head, mom, there was no greater time I had a crowd. If people saw this, they would've started like, I wanna buy that coach. All of a sudden I thought this was gonna really help the family generational wealth. But now as I share this story with you, I can agree that was not the time timing, as you'd probably agree after hearing that is everything. Timing helps us in our lives in many different ways, but it is a powerful way that we have control in this life. For us, we can often compare it to money. Money has incredible value, but with money you can earn more of it time. You can't earn more time. Once it's gone, it's gone. Waste of time can't be recovered. As soon as the moments happened, it's stuck in time, it's back. Then you can chase after it and try to relive it again, but you might never experience it the same way. When we talk about time, you often hear people say the line, oh man, they grew up so fast. Oh, if I had a little bit more time, if I could go back in time, I would've done this differently. In a moment of time, you can stop a glass from falling off the counter, your superhero moment in a matter of seconds. You can choose to say the right thing, say the wrong thing, a few seconds can change a day, a few hours can change a relationship. A a whole day could change the world. Time is incredibly powerful. So then why did God choose to send Jesus the son of God into the world at that moment in time? For Joseph, he's probably sitting there from his perspective going, yeah, like God, why now? Why now out of all times for Mary the the mother of Jesus, she has to be asking the same question. Why are we here today, thousands of years later, sitting in this room reading this story, celebrating it, decorating our houses, going to potlucks that we really don't want to? Why are we remembering this moment in time today? Why? Because this moment, the moment that Jesus entered the world, that moment in time changed everything. It wasn't accidental, it wasn't a mistake, it wasn't even bad. It was actually perfect timing from God's perspective. Luke two, one to seven is the historical record of this story and it reads as this. In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that Cornelius, the governor of se, uh, was the, sorry this took place while the Cornelius was governor of Syria and everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and glee to Judea to Bethlehem, the town of David because he belonged to the house in line of David. He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child while they were there. The time came for the baby de born and she gave birth to her firstborn a son. She wrapped them in cloths and placed 'em in a manger because there was no guest room of available for them. And when we read this store, we often immediately go into our mind the thinking classic. It's a classic We can imagine the manger seeing a few animals standing by some people gathered in a little old shed like the little nativity scene that sits in our house. We frame it like a Christmas card, but in these seven verses, we actually see it bursting with tension. When it comes to timing. It starts with Caesar Augustus. He was known by the people as a good ruler growing the Roman Empire and making it a strong place. People were proud of that and they liked what he was doing. But like many people with great authority, Caesar began to think highly of himself. And so you can imagine that it was easier for him to make it decree like the one that we read at the beginning of the story. It was a chance for him to flex his muscle and say, look how strong I am. I am as a ruler, how strong Rome is. The decree was a census like never before. The Roman Empire, like I said, was enormous and it was looking for taxation from all of its people to grow its military, to make it a stronger nation and say, look at us. So this would require every person that lived in the territory to head back to their ancestral town and pay the government. No e transfers, no mail it in with a pigeon. There was no disc in front of you in the seat that you could tap your phone. None of that was an option. You had to go and pay the man. There was no trace though of such a census like this before in all of history and that's pretty interesting. Scholars say that there's no chance that Caesar knew what God was up to, that Jesus was on the way, but how perfect is it that the greatest empire on the world at the time set the stage without Jesus for Jesus without even knowing it. In verse four, we read, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth and Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David because he belonged to the house in line of David. Now, this wasn't just happens chance, but this was fulfilled prophecy in the Old Testament book of Micah, a minor prophet. We go back to chapter five verse two where it says, but you Bethlehem eha though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come from me, one who will be ruler over Israel whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Three things stand out when you read that verse. The first one, the location being Bethlehem. We have a place now. We have a place to go to out of you will come from me, one who will be ruler of Israel, out of Bethlehem. There will be a ruler and the third thing, whose origins from of old, the line of David Joseph's line. I hope you notice what is happening here. As Caesar sat in his chair, made his decree, made himself look mighty. He was just a tool in God's plan in fulfilling the prophecy spoke in hundreds of years before that moment, beautiful. Jesus was prophesied to be born in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary suddenly have to go to because they belong to the line of David. The timing so far is making incredible sense, but it's easy for us to sit here today and read this story for maybe the hundredth time, maybe hear it for the first time and understand, well, God was in control of the time, but what about Joseph and Mary? Two key people in this story. What about them? In verse five, we see what they do next. They pack up and they go, now Mary, at this point in our life, she is pregnant and it's not just like, oh, do I see a bump? It's like she's incredibly pregnant, she is ready to have this baby. Bethlehem is in the ballpark of 115 to 140 kilometers away from Nazareth, and if we should be learning anything from this story today we should be learning about the the faith and courage that Joseph had to walk up to his pregnant fiance and say, we're going for 140 kilometer walk. That is incredible. He has a head after this story. I'd have to imagine Mary did not like hearing that there was no loading up the SUV for the journey with four suitcases and baby carrier. There was no checking the weather app. You like, Mary, we should probably go Tuesday. It's looking like eight inches of snow tomorrow and the plows aren't out yet. Like there was none of that planning in place when they get there. There was no two bedroom, one bath, Airbnb waiting for them. They just packed up and they went and I have to imagine that entire walk, they are just sitting there irritated with Caesar, Joseph's walking along. He is like, I'm gonna write the worst Facebook status about this guy when I get home like we are shredding this guy on Google reviews. There's not a good chance for him. Looks back and Mary, we're done with Caesar salads. We're never having a Caesar salad again, I hate the word Caesar, it's a terrible dressing. They had to be irritated with Caesar, but they also had to be irritated with everything that happened in the situation. There could have not been worse timing. When they get there, Mary gives Joseph the look. It's time. Baby's coming. No hospital scene, no doctors, no attention given, not even a place to sleep in the best Western. They have to find a manger, a place where animals are stored and fed is the only option for the Messiah, the coming king of Israel to be born. Talk about timing. When you look at this story, it's actually just got bad timing, inconvenience, a government mandate that nobody asked for. Everything is happening at the worst possible moment from Joseph and Mary and that's where this story meets us. Now, you and I, we don't need 140 kilometer walk to realize how it relates to us, but all we need in our life is the bill that we didn't ask for the car to break down right now. Out of all times the diagnosis that we didn't see coming, the recovery time, that is taking way too long. It's the unanswered prayer that we're waiting for God to answer. It's the job change that nobody saw coming. It's a family situation that never seems to get better. It even happens to just get a little bit worse every time we see them. It's a question where we sit and we ask God, why now, Lord God, why have you allowed this right now? Just like Mary and Joseph, many of us at times can feel like we're following God into terrible timing. Something like seizures decree comes across in our lives and we're sitting there feeling this is completely random and unfair. We don't get the memo from heaven like an angel coming down saying, Hey, it's gonna be okay. Don't worry about it. It's gonna be all right. We don't get that. Life suddenly drops things on us where we feel like there's no solution. It makes no sense. There's no simple answer and it makes us feel uncomfortable. I've been there. It's a place that we don't want to be, but let me remind you today, hope city that God often hides his greatest work in the places that feel the least holy. Everything about the birth of the savior of the world from a human perspective feels like it is completely unholy and not set apart. You think that Mary and Joseph would be treated like royalty as soon as this baby was found out about, they would wrap him in the finest of linens, take him to the greatest of attention. He would be born in the palace. We'd never have to worry about a manger, never heard of it. But instead, it's a manger, a young couple, a complete, a completely random census, a stressful and exhausting journey. No place to lay their heads. None of this looks spiritual. Yet at the center of it was God's plan for salvation. God often does his deepest work in the moments that sometimes feel completely unordinary out of control. Uncomfortable, chaotic. God's timing didn't make sense in the moment for everyone that was living in it, but it made sense for the story. And if God could use an emperor's pride, a stressful journey, a crowded in a young couple, in a dirty manger for Christ to enter the world and how can he use your situation to do something meaningful and purposeful in you? We can see how God stood. God's timing is all over this story, how he was aligning it from the start, from the decree to the conception, and if it's perfectly into his timing, it's easy for us to hear that now, but it's even a great reminder for us. Sometimes a daily challenge is practical. We can take it with us as we go today, but there's another side to knowing God's timing. It's one thing to realize how perfect his timing is in scripture and in history. It's easy for us. We're reading it. We're like, yeah, it makes sense, but in our old life, in our own lives, it's a whole other thing to trust it. We like the idea that God is lining up everything perfectly to do his will in us to make it come alive in us, but do we trust that? Do we trust him when the situation is inconvenient, when it feels unfair, when we don't feel like we have any answer for what is happening? We can never forget though that God's God controls the timing and we control the response. God controls the timing and we control the response. See, trust is a subjective word. It's deeply personal. For most of us. There's been moments probably in your life where it was built up kept because the promise was met, proved to be trustworthy, but then for other moments, for other people, the word trust feels completely uncomfortable, makes our skin crawl. It's painful to hear. It brings back moments that we would never want to think about again. Maybe for you it's a promise that was never kept. A coworker that had your back until they didn't. Maybe it was a loved one who said, I'll be there, but they weren't there. Maybe it takes you back to a moment of betrayal, manipulation where you were misled and lied to right directly to your face a moment when you quietly saw how the word trust was shaped in your life without anybody else knowing it in life. I can imagine that you've been on both sides of that where trust has been good, but trust has been lost. When I look back at my closest people, the people that I have in my life, they're there because I trust them. My best friends, my family, my coworkers, these people are in my life. I love them dearly because I trust them, but I also remember moments like when I was in junior high, it was in gym class and my friends pulled a prank on me that I made me think and step back for a second going like if they pulled that prank on me, do they actually care about me? They did that to me, right to my face in front of everybody else like they made me embarrassed like that. They thought these people, I could trust them. They wouldn't do something like that. To me, it made me really think, do I value this relationship? I say this because I can't help but think that something is coming to the surface of your memory. When I mention this a moment, a right and wrong thing, a good and a bad moment that happened that shaped the word trust for you, and if you're anything like me, the bad moments far outweigh the good moments. They echo in my brain a lot more than the moments where trust was built. Those experiences don't, they don't just stay in the past. They shape how I live my life today, and you might agree with that. They shape how you see trust in your life today, but maybe without even realizing it, we don't know that they actually shape sometimes how we see God. So let me ask you gently, but honestly what has shaped your trust in God? What has shaped your trust in the Lord? Do you view God's love for you like a parent or guardian that removed themselves from your life and you're left thinking of God really loves me? Then why would he let this happen to me? When you waited for that call it never or the apology that never arrived and you sit there and you think, if I can be overlooked this easily by people, like am I overlooked by God like this when you cried out for healing or provision pleading for something to happen for an outcome to change, but nothing leaving you wondering, if God didn't show up when I needed him, why would he show up? Now, what has shaped your trust in God when trust takes on the spiritual dimension, we can cast our idea of trust on him. So what do we do? Well, let's go back to Mary and Joseph for a second here. Luke two isn't just a timing story, it's a trust story for Mary and Joseph. Trust was more than predicting God's actions or seeing if their list of requests would be fulfilled. It wasn't about that Mary's trust in God was on display for the world. When she boldly accepts the rule of becoming the earthly mother of Jesus, the son of God, an angel comes down and without a hesitation or asking 50 friends or putting a poll on the internet, should I do this? She simply says, without hesitation, may your word be fulfilled. To me, trust was on display when Joseph faced with a confusing and potentially scandal, the situation having a baby out of wedlock, being ridiculed and looked upon by society as people that did that, that mistake, look at you guys, him sitting there worrying about that, but without a hesitation, without worrying too much, he trusted God rather than <inaudible>, relying on his own understanding or how he could fix the situation himself. Trust for them was when they went to Bethlehem, no place to stay. Where are we gonna go? Obeying the government mandate when it was at the worst possible moment for them embracing the unexpected role of being the earthly mother and father of the Messiah, their trust was on display throughout the entire story. In these seven verses, we see how they trusted God, hope that he know this. It's safe to say that timing is incredibly powerful, yes, but trust involves more than predicting what God will do. It's more than understanding why something is happening in our lives. Trust is knowing that God controls the situ. God controls the timing and we control the response and here's what the response looks like. One of the ways that we can choose to respond is by choosing our perspective. James two, sorry, James one, two to four says, consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you faced trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And the word that stands out in this passage I wanna sit on today is the very first one. Consider when you consider something, you get to make the decision on how you see that thing, how you have your perspective of that thing. You make the choice. And what James is saying here is that even in the face of a trial, we are called to realize our perspective. Firstly, you immediately jump to a perspective perspective of negativity when something doesn't go the way that you wanted it to. I know I do, it's, it's my human reaction at times. No, I'm not asking you to say thank you Lord for the car that sideswiped me in the West Edmonton Mall parking lot. I didn't even like that mirror there. That's not what I'm saying. But instead, do you see all trials as a chance in your life to become angry with God or as an opportunity to have your faith in him despite the result? Because the verse goes on to remind us that when our faith is tested, it creates perseverance. It develops us, it grows us. Our relationship with him, it's like a football team down 20 points at the half and they go into the locker room. So they walk in there and be like, guys, we suck. And they sit down, they sit there, they wallow in it. They have no plan, they have no perspective to say there could be an out from this, and they just live in their sorrow. Then that negative perspective limits them from ever discovering the resiliency and grit that they could have in that moment. They'll never know. James is tell telling us that if we choose to interpret the trials of this life with a proper perspective, we know that we can't always control the outcome, but then at that moment we can choose the lens in which we see it through. We get to think about how we want to look at that thing. This doesn't just appear on its own. It actually takes practice. It does. So maybe try this, consider pausing before reacting. Easier said than done. I know that for sure, but maybe slow down for just even a simple second and process what God is trying to say to you in that moment. Even ask him, Lord, what do you want me to learn in this? Right now I'm boiling, I'm angry, I'm irritated, but Lord, what do you want me to learn right now? Allow space for God to speak before your gut reaction does, before your emotions do, before your heart even does. The first way that we can sometimes control our response is through controlling our perspective, but another way is through reflection. Another way to do this is through reflection. Scripture constantly calls God's people to look back so that they can see how they trusted him in the past for what is ahead. The psalmist in the book of Psalms writes in Psalm 77, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I'll consider all of your works and meditate on the on all your mighty deeds. And the truth is, is that we often focus really quickly on what we don't have. We look at the stuff that hasn't happened yet and we sometimes forget what God has already done. Our perspective is just quickly on what we don't have and not what's been there before. And if we allow ourselves a few seconds to shift our minds off of the need and focus on what and who God's is and was, then we remember that the same God who was before is the same God today. Reflection helps us see the patterns of God's faithfulness. And when we take time to remember his past goodness, the moment when the prayer was answered, the time that the healing happened, the moment when we saw God come through and experience maybe even his grace in a situation, then we gain confidence. Confidence that he can handle the challenge ahead. Confidence that his timing is perfect. Timing is God's timing where he's in control. Even confidence that when life feels uncertain that he holds the keys, that he holds the answer to the uncertainty, and we sing it be we sing it along a lot around here, but confidence that God will do it again. Practically though, what does this look like? How do I translate this to my life? Well, one way to try is to journal it. It's an opportunity to write down what God has done, his faithfulness. You can tuck it in your Bible, you can put it up on a wall, you can make sure it's on your phone. I don't know. But it's a place that you can go to where you remember what God has done, even when you're thinking, he hasn't done anything for me. It's a list of memories, a way to remember God's faithfulness in your life and it will build that confidence that he can do it again. Another way is sharing with others what God has done in your life. It's verbally processing the things he has done instead of sitting there going like, man, I don't have this and I don't have this. No, I do have a God that has done this. Who knows the faith it could build in someone else. It could build in you. It's beautiful. Like I said at the start, reading through scripture and realizing that the same God who was back then is the same God today. It's not an old dusty book with stories that happened just from the past. That is the same God in this Bible that is alive in us today. And maybe it's an opportunity as well to start beginning our prayers with re with reflection before requests. We start with praise, thanking the Lord for what he has done before he be. Just say, God, this is what I need. He wants to hear your needs. He really does. But maybe it's an opportunity to shift our heart and the posture of it to say, God, I'm gonna praise you before I come with my needs. When we respond with reflection, it's not just sitting there and being nostalgic and looking back on the past. It's evidence, evidence that God, who was God back then who could be trusted before is the same God today, trusted today the same Lord. And what this creates in us is response of hope. It's the name on the door When we talk about trusting God with our timing, with his timing, hope is a conscious choice to believe that God's plan is good in our lives. And even when the circumstance looks uncertain and it looks like it doesn't have an answer, it's an active stance like saying, Lord, I trust you with my life right now. I trust you with this situation. I lay it down at your feet. I can't control the timing. I can't control the outcome, but I can hold onto the hope that you do. When we choose this response, it builds perseverance, it grows our relationship with the Lord, our faith doubles, triples, and our perseverance. Like I said, it can carry us through that situation. So let me ask you in closing, what time of life are you in right now? Can you relate to Mary and Joseph largely in their story? What season are you wrestling through? Do you need to trust God more or do you need to put more into practice like what we heard tonight? Maybe it's a start. Maybe it's a time to return to where you were with him. Trust is knowing that God controls the timing and we control our response. If you're able, I'll ask you to stand. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank you for the Christmas story. We thank you that we can stand in this hope and remember what happened so long ago and apply it to our lives today. This is not just some story about a baby born in some manger, a random couple that just happened to have a child, but is a story when hope entered the world, when salvation began its story on earth. Father, we thank you for the life of Jesus. We thank you for his coming. We thank you for these two lives of Joseph Mary. We can look back with them and see how they had faith in the situation. They had faith in the trial, even in the moments when they felt like nothing was going right, they trusted your timing and knew God that you had the solution, that you knew which way to go, and they trusted and relied on that today. Father, may we walk in that same trust, in that same faith, knowing that your timing is alive in us today, working through us. We bring anything to you before your feet today, Lord, and say, we need your help in this area of our lives, but we trust that you, God can take it and control it the way you need it. Lord, may we grow greatly in our relationship with you and know you more because of what we are doing in our lives right now, where we're going. In your name we pray, amen. And we can never forget that Jesus didn't come in a palace, but he came in a manger. He was born in a manger. Jesus came in the most humble, ordinary way so that anyone could come to him, not making himself distant, no status required, no perfection needed, no, just an open heart. And maybe that's you today. Maybe you're realizing, you know what I, I need a relationship with Jesus. I need him in my life. And the good news is that God's timing, like we talked today is perfect and you're not here by chance. So if today you're feeling that nudge in your life to begin a relationship with him, I ask you right now just to pray this prayer alongside me, and I'll give a few instructions at the end. But pray with me again, Jesus, today. I realize my need for you. I believe you lived, died, and rose again so that I may have life and life to the full. And I know that I have made mistakes and I have walked in sin, but I lay it down before your feet and know that I am forgiven because of what was done at the cross. Today I choose a relationship with you. I walk in relationship with you today. Lord, I give you my life. And from this day forward, I choose to follow you in all that I do. In your name we pray, amen. If you prayed that prayer, we want to give you some practical steps on what to do next, some next steps. And if you tap your phone on the disc in front of you, that phone, the D phone disc in front of you, you can scan that there and it'll get you connected to a pastor. And then we can also get a digital booklet into your hands about what is some next steps. With that, if you'd like some prayer, we'll have some pastors down to the left here. They would love to pray with you and anything that's going on in your life, we'd love to have a conversation about it. And this Sunday, we kick off our Christmas Eve services. We have tons happening throughout our entire church through all three campuses, and we'd love for you to join us if you have some time. I hope one of the services works for you, but maybe don't come alone. On your way out, you'll see some little invites, some little green cards you can grab. You can take 50 of them if you'd like. And we'd love for you to invite maybe someone at work, you have another day, tomorrow, you have the weekend to maybe get a family member to come out on Sunday. So we'd love to see you here. Remember, there's no church in the morning, but we'll see you in the afternoon for the kickoff of our Christmas Eve experiences. Have a great night. Drive safe and we'll see ya when we see ya. Good night. Good.