As the kids are making their way to their classes, let me invite you to turn with me in your copy of God's Word to our scripture text for this morning, which is Matthew 9, verses 35 through 38. Matthew 9, verses 35 through 38. If you're using one of the Black Pew Bibles, you can find that in the New Testament, of course, on page seven. That's on page seven. As we get started this morning, I wanna give you a warning. I'm getting ready to say something corny. And it's simply this, that our desire this Christmas season is to remember that Christmas is not about the presents, but it is about God's presence. Now, every time I think about that or say that, it sounds corny to me. That's why I give you that warning. Now, I don't have to give you that warning because of the place that this pulpit holds in our church. It's a central place of importance. It is a primary place. I don't have to warn you about that. There are certain, if you're unaware, any time that we are preaching from God's Word, there are certain social rules that don't apply anymore. One is I can say anything corny in the service to the truth. I can also spoil movie plots. For instance, I could tell you about the tragic event that happens right at the midway point of Frozen 2. I can also tell you how to live your life, all in service to the truth of the Word of God. because our pulpit, our preaching, our Bibles are important. One of our primary goals in all of our preaching throughout the year, which is typically verse by verse through books of the Bible, is to magnify Christ, is to make God immense as he is. And the reason for this is because there is among many, a central problem in the Christian life. And that problem is that our God is too small. No matter how much we exalt him, no matter how immense we make him, he is still too small. We cannot expand him far enough. so that we see him as he truly is. He's beyond that. We cannot exhaust him or exhaust his truth. And yet that's the challenge of the Christian life is to continue expanding him because he is too small. This is something that I have been meditating on for a number of months and it's been coming home to me as a private meditation of my life as I consider different things that go on in my life. Those times when I am worried, There are many things going on, but nothing less than my God is too small. When I am afraid or when I'm distracted or when I'm bored with God, I want something else. I want something that seems deeper or stronger or more helpful. In moments when I'm despairing, our God is too small. We need him to be in us and for us as big as he is. And so this constant challenge of ours is to exalt him and magnify him and expand our view of him so that he will have his rightful place in our lives. We want to continue to expand God this month as we're in this brief preaching series called Jesus Is. In the five weeks of December, we're considering five different things that Jesus is. And this morning, we're going to consider together from Matthew 9, 35 through 38, that Jesus is present. To make Jesus big today, we wanna see him as present. Let me read our text for this morning, and then we're going to walk through it piece by piece. And this morning, what I want you to see is three ways that Jesus is present in our lives. I hope that you'll make these a meditation of yours in the coming weeks as we approach Christmas, the wonderful opportunity we have to celebrate the presence of our God in our lives. Listen to what we read in Matthew 9, 35 through 38. Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. I want you to see this morning that Jesus is present, and he is present in ways that you and I are so quick to forget, so quick to lose sight of, in the many things that our lives seem to press in, and that's where our hopelessness, our worry, our distraction, our fear, our despair, can grow. I want you to see first from this text that we know Jesus is present because we see in his word and in history that Jesus has entered our world. That's what Christmas is all about, is it not? That's what we mean when we use the fancy word incarnation. That Jesus took on flesh, the eternal Son of God, who has existed from eternity past, who will always exist into the future. The second person of the Trinity became flesh, and he entered, literally entered our world. But what that means is some of what we see here in Matthew chapter nine, that as Jesus entered our world, he continued to be present in our world in this unique way. He continued in figurative ways to enter the little worlds of people around him all the time. That's why Matthew says Jesus was going through all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom. He was going through all the cities and villages. There are some connected realities to this of what Jesus was doing in his presence. It means that he came near to us. He rubbed shoulders with us. He laughed with us. He suffered with us. Here again is one of those truths that as our God shrinks, we so quickly lose sight of the centrality of this glorious reality of Jesus that he entered our world. Sometimes we think, well, yeah, of course he did. He had to. God the Father was sending him. But we lose sight of the fact that this is the Son of God. This is God eternal. the perfect holy judge of the world, the one who, in condemnation of sin, flooded the world, the one who perpetrated plagues upon his enemies, the one who stands in ineffable light and glory There's no one like him. No one counsels him. No one tells him what to do. No one knows more than him. No one has more power than he does. And that he entered our world is the grand miracle, miracle of Christmas. That he is present with us because he's entered our world. If we look around the world and we look at especially those who are elite in our world, world leaders, so many world leaders, you can tell from the way that they talk as they pitch their campaign or as they talk once they're in office that they see value in being near to their people. They will talk about being the everyman, just like you, mingling among you. But in reality, they seldom are. I'll never forget as a kid, there was a friend of the family who was in the Secret Service, who was very close to one of the presidents and was in charge of lots of the security that was going on around our president at the time. And he was describing what it's really like when the president goes out to meet the public in one of those handshake lines. the days before the Secret Service shows up and they are miles around, scattered throughout the town or even the woods with dogs searching for threats, making sure the area is secure. And then everything is planned out to the moment. Everybody knows where the president will be, when he will be there. What you don't see on television when the president is walking the line, shaking hands and kissing babies, is that there are Secret Service agents in front and behind him. They're never caught in the shot because, of course, they don't want to be seen. What are they doing? Every person who shakes the president's hand is patted down. While they're patting them down, they have their eyes on everyone else in the crowd, trained to know what kind of motions are the most dangerous. someone reaching down, someone hiding their hands behind their back, someone not making eye contact with the Secret Service, all because they need to keep some kind of buffer between the president and his people. I use that as an illustration to show you how much greater is Jesus Christ than any world leader. No buffer. He didn't have his disciples patting people down. He wasn't checking people's background reports to make sure that they were safe for him to be near. He didn't go around pushing toxic people out of the circle of his life. He entered our world. He not only came close to us commoners, he became a commoner. He was going through all the cities and all the villages. You know, the disciples once made a critical error about this very point as Jesus was coming to get close to people. They took the secret service approach. And we read in Mark 10, 13 to 14, that people were bringing children to Jesus so that he might touch them. And the disciples, clearly not catching on to what his whole mission was about, are found rebuking them. Keep them back, it's too much. It's too much for our guy, we gotta keep the buffer, we gotta keep the line, keep everything safe, don't get too close. You'll get your handshake, you'll get your kiss. What does Jesus say? It says, when Jesus saw this, he was indignant. Do you know what that means? It means he was beside himself. And he said to them, permit the children to come to me. Do not hinder them. Do not put up a buffer. Do not pat them down. Because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Jesus entered our world. He is our present person. One of the tragedies that I have found in my life when it comes to my God shrinking and not being big enough, but being too small, is that along the way, He is also depersonalized. I stopped seeing Him as the present person in my life. Maybe you do too. I'm right here with you in this struggle. I'm ashamed to say how many times have I walked into our sanctuary and sang songs to him with no, no concept that he is present, that he's ministering to me right now, or even in my daily life, that he is a real person. You know, there are people in the world who don't believe that Jesus is a real person. and including me, this room is full of them. Because we go through our lives depersonalizing Jesus. He's the face of the operation. He's just this figurehead, but we need him to become a person. along my church planting path in terms of also being a part of biblical counseling ministry, it's been a joy of mine to work with authors and books to help them develop ideas and try to get those things published. And every now and then you have to try to get some endorsements for these books. And so there was one book I was trying to get an endorsement for and asking around about who would be a good person to endorse it. And so somebody said, you should ask J.I. Packer to endorse this book. Well, if you don't know who J.I. Packer is, he is probably the greatest living theologian of our day. He is the author of a number of important books, one being Knowing God. If you've not read that, you should read that. Wow, that blew me up. And so here I have J.I. Packer as this great giant of the faith in my life, and I have somebody saying, oh yeah, you should just get in touch with J.I. Packer and have him endorse this book that you want to see published. Well, how do I even go about doing that? I guess I need to get his people's number, and then they'll talk to him. He'll talk to them, and then they'll talk to me. One day, somebody said, hey, I have a number for you. You can try to get in touch with J.I. Packer, see if they can get an endorsement from him for this book. So I was just right around here, going from one appointment to the next in the car, and I just thought, well, I'll just call the number. I don't even know if anybody will answer, even if it's the right number or not. So it started ringing and ringing, and I'm just tooling down the road, waiting for somebody to answer. And suddenly, somebody answered. And it was J.I. Packer. He said, hello, Jim Packer. And in that moment, I froze, of course. I said to myself, don't say anything stupid. And then I said something stupid. I said, Dr. Packer, how are you doing today? That's stupid. That's what telemarketers say. To which he said, well, I don't know what you mean. I'm alive, if that's what you're asking. Yes sir, that's a fine answer, I'm glad you're alive. Now I'll tell you something happened in the next 15 minutes that I'll never forget. I took a screenshot of that call on my phone so that I could save it and remember the day that I talked to J.I. Packer. And I'm gonna tell you why. It's because in the next 15 minutes, this giant of the faith became a person. An ordinary, typical, friendly, grandfatherly person. And he just talked to me. And at the end of our phone call, he said, now I want you to know, you can call me anytime you want. Now, I never did that. But I could have. And I could call him today. You know why? Because J.I. Packer answers his iPhone. He is a person. You see, that's the same shift that has to happen in our lives relative to Jesus. Because we will walk out of here and in 20 minutes, the hustle and bustle, the trials and temptations of life will depersonalize Him. And He will fade away into the distance. He'll be gone off somewhere else, nowhere present, not at work, not powerful. And once again, our God will be too small. That's why this truth is so important to recall to ourselves, that Jesus has entered your world. If you know him, he by grace alone entered your world. You didn't get up and go enter his world. You didn't get up, go looking for him. You didn't call him up. He called you. He drew near to you. And this is important to understand because second, the second way that Jesus is present is by his active work in this. Jesus understands us. Unlike anybody else, he understands our need. Jump down to verse 36 so that you can see what Jesus was doing when he was going through all the cities and the villages. He was seeing the people. He was watching them. He was talking with them. He was interacting with them. Unlike anyone else, he was reading their minds. He was knowing their hearts, and with perfect omniscience, He understood everything about them, and He understood their need. Matthew says in verse 36 that He felt compassion for them when He saw them. Often Jesus would be seen weeping because of what He knew about people. Because of the way that He understood their need, He felt compassion for them. He saw them and he saw them as being distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. He was moved to his bowels. That's what the word compassion means. It doesn't just mean he felt sorry for them or pity for them. It means the deep within him, he was moved because of his understanding of them. And he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. Literally, the language that Matthew is using is the language of being sheep without someone to hold them. That's what drove Jesus to such compassion for people because he understood our need. He understood that our need was to be held by God. Our need was to be brought near to him. and therefore he is present and he is bigger than you ever thought he was. And we see it because he understands, he understands our need. We should not underestimate the importance of understanding this need. Similar in our world to the doctor's diagnosis being of paramount concern, it is a paramount concern that Jesus knows and understands our need. I have a friend who's a church planter in Boston. pastoring there and frequently preaching, and it was probably about a year ago or so, he was up preaching on a Sunday morning similar to this, and then about halfway through his sermon wasn't feeling so well, and then started to develop some pain in his abdomen. That pain quickly, right after he was done preaching, took him straight to the hospital, and there he was for a number of hours, four or five hours, while doctors tried to figure out what was going on. Meanwhile, the pain is growing and growing inside of him. They took PET scans and other MRIs to try to figure it out, but they couldn't seem to get it right. They couldn't understand what was this inside problem. They couldn't understand the need until finally they realized that he was in need of an appendectomy. He was having an appendicitis. Powerful preaching. You can preach yourself right into the hospital. I've never done that. But you see, it goes to show why was that such a trial? Couldn't understand the internal need. Couldn't understand the need of the moment. Once they did, then they could do something about it. But Jesus is present also in that he understands our need. And here's what's beautiful about Jesus. It's not textbook understanding. This is not book learning. Jesus understands, yes, because he is all knowing, he is omniscient. He knows, of course, he knows everything. But Jesus is unique because he also knows it by experience. He's a shepherd. Do you think that shepherds, real shepherds out in a field, that they understand the need of their sheep? Absolutely, because they're in the field. Do you think they understand something of the fear that the sheep feel when a twig snaps or the leaves crunch behind them? Yeah, why? Because he's right there with them. He's there dealing with the same wolves, the same threats. It's the beauty of Jesus' presence in our lives. In fact, so much so that in Hebrews chapter four, this was our public reading of scripture this morning, we read this again, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Not only do we need to personalize Jesus in our lives every day, but in the process, we need to work at aligning our view of our need with his. Often, we are at odds with Jesus because he knows best and we think we know better. He says, what you need is repentance. And we say, no, it wasn't my fault. The conflict wasn't my fault. I didn't do that. I'm not the one out of line. Jesus says, but you too need repentance, or you too need humility, or you need to change, or you need to step out in responsibility, or whatever Jesus is saying. And so with this, we can have confidence to approach the throne of grace knowing that Jesus understands our need. And because of his work to be close to us and to reveal to us in his word what our true needs are, we can align with his view and we can gain the benefits of that. Finally, I want you to see this another way that Jesus is present is not only that he entered our world and that he understands our need, but his understanding goes even farther. His presence goes even farther, that in himself, he gives us his provisions. Go back up to verse 35. Jesus was going through all the cities and villages. Remember, he's seeing the people, he's feeling compassion for them. They're distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. What does he do? He teaches them. He's teaching in their synagogues. He's proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom to them. He's caring for their souls. Jesus, with his unique ability, is also healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. He's caring for the whole person as he brings us, as he brought them his provisions. There are many words that we could use to describe this. We could say that Jesus brings us his answers. Absolutely, he does. He brings us his help, absolutely. He brings us his truth. I like this word provisions because it's full. It's the kind of word that we think of when we go camping. If you go camping, I don't. But if you go camping, you know that you need provisions. You got to pack the car up with everything that you need, the food and the tools and the tents and everything else. Or in military contexts, you need provisions. Those are provisions for war. You need the tools of war. Or even a mechanic. A mechanic needs his or her provisions, his or her tools to put to use. This is what Jesus brings to us. He ministers to us his provisions. He brings us his tools and his answers. And then we have an opportunity because of his presence, because of his work in our lives, we have an opportunity to sharpen those tools, to put them to use. Just like going to a good mechanic, you want a mechanic who knows how to use those tools, who is well-versed in using them. Well, we wanna be well-versed as a church in using Jesus' tools in our own lives, in the lives of other people, even in the lives of people outside of our church. Well, before we bring this to a close, I do want you to see as we think about these provisions, what these provisions primarily are all about. You can see it right there for yourself in verse 35. Going through all the villages and the cities, what is he doing? He is teaching. He is proclaiming. His primary provisions are provisions of truth, of preaching, of doctrine and theology. The word theology seems like a big word to many of us. It simply means to study God. It's the tools of knowing God that he has brought to us. And we wanna sharpen those tools, but we need to see the importance of that, don't we? We need to see the importance of our theology, that what we believe drives everything about us. I wanna share with you before we sing again, Five reasons that you and I need to take theology seriously. Five reasons why we're taking theology seriously in daily life. Number one, it is because God is fundamentally religious. He is religious. He is doctrinal. He is theological. He is full of truth. We cannot, we cannot know God without studying him. We cannot know God without theology. It's something we should thrive on and feed on. Number two, because God has designed us for theology. Just as a car runs on gas, people, all people, run on theology. Everything that you do, all day long, no matter where you go, is connected to what you believe. What you believe is important in life, what you believe about God, what you believe about other people, what you believe about yourself, what you believe about the whole world. And he has designed us for theology for this reason. And that's because number three, theology directs our hearts and our lives. Some people will hear this about theology, they'll say, well, I'm not a very theological person. Well, that in and of itself is a statement of theology. It's a statement about who you are, what you are, what you're to be like, how God has designed you. Four, theology is at the heart of happiness. Theology is at the heart of holiness. And those two concepts are central to the Christian life. Do you wanna be happy? Be a theologian. Do you wanna be holy? Then study God. That's where our joy comes from, both of those, being holy and happy in Jesus. I know it's so easy. It's so easy and there's sort of a nugget of truth in it to say that God doesn't want you to be happy, he wants you to be holy. That is not true. He gives Himself to you, all of these provisions, for your happiness, for your joy in Him. Right? Not to just make you happy with whatever you want to do, but to be happy in Him. And the people who are happy in Him are the people who are holy in Him, because they know They know the role of theology. It is intended to make us happy and to make us holy. And then number five, I want you to see this, especially from the last verse of our text for this morning, that if you're a follower of Christ, you are designed to be a theology dispenser, like a Pez dispenser. That's what I think of when I think of a dispenser, where you pull back its head and out pops a little rectangular piece of candy. Very similar. We are made to dispense this. When we pull back your head, what comes out? Well, by God's design and by God's work, ever-increasing, more glorious, more true, more life-changing, more holy, more happy theology will be coming out of you. Listen to what he says in verse 38, after all of this about what Jesus was doing in the cities and the villages, teaching and feeling compassion for people, he says in verse 37, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. To do what? To dispense theology, to announce good news, to tell people about Jesus, who is the present person. who is the one who has entered our world, who is the only one who really understands our need, and who is the one who grants us by grace alone his provisions, his provisions for this life. So no matter who you are today, no matter how old you are, no matter how long you've been a Christian, I'm gonna give you the same challenge. Throw yourself into the study of God. Be in the Bible. Ask God, shine your light into my mind and my heart. Make me to know you more and more and more. Because we want to know this Jesus. We want to know him and we want to know his love. As a final thought, I want to leave you with this incredible picture that I saw this week, a recent story of a little 10-year-old girl named Jaylin who had experienced severe hearing loss in the early years of her life and had received just recently a cochlear implant which would allow her to hear again. Somebody was videotaping this moment when it was turned on, and one of the first words that she heard, she heard for the first time from her mother, which was simply, I love you. She'd never heard her mom say, I love you before. She knew that she loved her, but to hear it. And it is such a heartwarming story. It's such a beautiful picture. And it's a picture that I think that we need. It's a picture that I need. It's one of the reasons why my God is too small. I need to hear him say, son by grace, I love you. I have done this for you. You are mine. I will care for you. I will protect you. I will use you. You belong to me. I know there are people here this morning that need to hear that. I know that there are people here and everywhere who need to hear that for the first time. You need to hear the call of the gospel, that God loves you in spite of you. Even though you have broken all of his commands, even though you are worthy of his wrath, He has chosen to set His love on you. And in response to that, you should come to Him. You should place your trust in Jesus, repent of that sin that has kept you from Him, and fall face forward into Christ so that you can belong to Him, you can know Him, and you can rejoice in these truths that we have heard this morning. Please stand with me right now wherever you are as we pray. We thank God and we prepare our hearts to sing again. If today you need to make a decision about Jesus and following him, please, you can come to the back. There are folks at the back who would love to talk with you and pray with you, share more of the gospel with you. Don't wait another moment. Our Father in heaven, today we do give you thanks because you are the God who is there. There's no one like you. There's no one besides you. There are no other gods. You are the only one. And we give you thanks because you have sent your son to enter into our fallen world. a world that hates you, a world that runs from you and hides from you, tries to hide you and shrink you, and yet you came near to us in Christ. We give you thanks. This Christmas season, we pray that our hearts would be set upon Jesus and everything that he has done to be present with us, to be with us among our streets and in our cities, feeling compassion, understanding our need, and bring us his provisions. We pray that this would be a meditation of ours in the coming days, and that as a result of that meditation, you would grow. We need you to be bigger. We need our Bibles to be thicker. We pray that you would help us to study you, find our happiness, find our holiness, all in the work of Jesus on our behalf, this incredible work of grace. make us grace dispensers, make us theology dispensers, make us ambassadors for the good news of Jesus, we pray in his perfect, precious, and present name, amen.