I'm so thankful to be with you tonight, and in these brief minutes that I have to open the scriptures, I want to encourage you to trust in the Lord. As we gather tonight, we have so much to be thankful for, and we have so much to worry about. You're like, what? Thanks for that reminder. I was hoping to take a day off, maybe two days off from my problems. My goal tonight is not really to fix your attention on your hardships, but my goal tonight is also not to help you ignore them. My goal tonight is to encourage all of us to be realistic about life and to connect them with the truth of Christmas. I think it's critical that we look our trials square in the face and then we connect them with what we just sang, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. Does that have anything to do with what's disturbing you this week, this year, or in this season of your life? To connect our trials with Christmas, I want to tell two stories. There are two accounts of history in the Bible. The first is the miraculous birth of King Jesus, and the second is about the stubborn refusal of a king named Ahaz, 700 years before Jesus, the stubborn refusal of that king to trust God. And I want to start with King Jesus. So the account of King Jesus, of his miraculous virginal conception, is what Dave read in Matthew chapter 1. There's also a record of it in Luke chapters 1 and 2. In Matthew's account of the gospel, the apostle reported that Jesus was virginally conceived in Mary from the Holy Spirit. It said twice there. Now, if you're having a hard time believing that a woman who was a virgin gave birth to a son, you really don't need to wrestle with science. Instead, you need to wrestle with the evidence for God, and with whether or not the God who may exist might have a good reason for a virginal conception. Regarding that first matter, whether there is evidence for a God, I would just encourage you to look around you and look within you. Around you is a universe of stars and galaxies that are not evenly distributed. Around us is a world of oxygen and water, plants and animals, numbers and concepts. Did you know that the fact that you can count to 10 argues very strongly against a materialist worldview? That is, a worldview that nothing exists beyond what you can see or feel? Just count to 10. That's just a brief survey of looking around you. Under you is a planet whose orbit and tilt seem perfect for providing days and nights and habitable temperatures over rhythmic seasons. If you look within, you, we are complex, interdependent systems that can't evolve because every one of our functions is based on genetic information that progressive mutation only hurts. It doesn't help. Is there evidence for a God? I would say that the heavens are screaming the glory of God. I don't actually say that, David says it 3,000 years ago. The heavens are screaming the glory of God. Everything about the human being says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. I think there's strong evidence for the existence of a creator. I have a friend who manufactures replacement teeth. And he says, I am amazed at how far technology has come in the last 30 years. He's taken over his dad's business. But he says, we can't come close to manufacturing teeth as good as the two sets that God originally gives us. Designers can't do it. I said there are two matters. Is there evidence for an existence of God? I think there is, around us, within us. Is there, secondly, any indication that the creator God might have a purpose for a virginal conception? Is there purpose behind it? And I think if we have to look at scripture, we say, the scriptures cover to cover scream this. The whole story of the Bible is that humanity, because of our sin, has brought death on ourselves. And there is a rescue mission of God that centers on a mediator. And that mediator needs to be both God and man. He needs to be able to represent humans before God in a way that matters to God. Why did God become man? Because we need a mediator between God and humanity. And the virginal conception screams, it screams that here is the perfect mediator who can bridge God and humanity. Now back to the virginal conception. In the precise timing of God, Mary, who was a virgin, probably 14 or 15 at the time, conceived her firstborn son. The timing of this is critical. It's after the betrothal that she's found to be with child, but it's before the marriage. That is a short window of time. It's after the betrothal, but before the marriage. Now understandably, her fiancé Joseph didn't believe she was a virgin. Can you imagine how that conversation went? Wait, wait, Mary, you're telling me you're pregnant? And you're telling me you haven't cheated on me? Oh, an angel told you that you'd be pregnant. Ah. You get it. But the fact that Joseph was planning to divorce Mary for infidelity, in the wisdom of God, the fact that he was planning to divorce her became one of the great witnesses to the truth of the virginal conception. If Joseph hadn't have tried to break off the betrothal, You could just imagine how everyone would have looked at him, right? So Joseph, your betrothed cheats on you, and you still trust her? You're not going to break things off? Oh, I get it. She cheated on you. Right, right. Wink, wink. That conversation wouldn't go very well. One theologian, Leighton Talbert, has pointed out Imagine, however, if God had forewarned both Mary and Joseph at the same time, saying, you both are going to be parents of a child that only Mary is the human mother of, right? Like this. Everyone around them would have said, so you both had a dream that God was sending you a child? Right, that's a convenient way to go around it. God's timing was such that the whole situation screamed historical truthfulness. I think that's the third time I've said screamed tonight. I'm just screaming tonight, sorry. The whole situation screamed historical truthfulness. But the timing of God in bringing it about led Joseph and Mary into pain. Talbert goes on to say, for Joseph, it was the pain of what he thought was devastating betrayal, immoral betrayal. For Mary, it was the pain of being suspected by the very one whom she would never have cheated on of having done something she would have never done. He suspected her of betrayal. She disappointed him horribly. God, the way he led in their lives, led them into pain. He led this young couple into an experience of deep pain that would last the rest of their lives. Some of you might remember John 8, when Jesus, 30 years later, is accused by people who hated him, saying, we weren't born in a situation of immorality. That accusation hung on throughout his whole life and throughout Joseph and Mary's whole relationship. It was only after Joseph had determined to legally break things off with Mary that he was commanded by God to go ahead and get married to her. He was commanded by God to, in fact, believe her story, because she was telling the truth. And he was commanded by God to become the boy's legal father, and he was given the privilege of naming the boy. As Dave read before, he was to name him Jesus. Yesus, Yahweh saves. Jehovah God is here to rescue his people from their sins. And Joseph and Mary were called to obey despite the pain, despite all of the confusion and the suspicion. They were called to trust and obey the God who could cause a virginal conception. The way I'd state the point of this first story is trust the God of the impossible, the God who can do the impossible. even as he works in your life in ways that are baffling, in ways that are chronic. He leads us into mysterious trials. He leads us into ongoing trials. You say, can I really trust God? He's the God of the virginal conception. Who can do that? That's a God who can do things that are beyond our ability to comprehend. We can trust Him. The apostle Matthew explained that all of this fulfilled Isaiah's 700-year-old prophecy. Quote, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. That's a Hebrew term that means God with us, or with us, Immanuel, with us God. Of course, he's quoting Isaiah 7.14, so that leads us to our second story. Our second story is in Isaiah 7, and it's the story of King Ahaz, who refused to trust God. If you're in the scriptures, we're gonna be dipping into a couple places of the first 14 verses. The focus of chapter 7 through 11 of the prophecy of Isaiah is on King Ahaz. He ruled Jerusalem beginning around 735 BC, so 735 years before Christ. Isaiah's prophecy is 66 chapters long. It's a monumental prophecy. And King Ahaz, in the whole book of Isaiah, stands as Exhibit A for how not to live. At the time of the events in chapter 7, Ahaz found himself between a rock and a hard place. If you were here on Sunday morning, just bear with me as I repeat some of the things I did on Sunday. On the one hand, you have the rock. Ahaz was confronted with the biggest military in the world. At the time, it was the Assyrian military, violent and powerful under King Tiglath-Pileser III. And King Tiglath-Pileser III wanted to take over the world, and Jerusalem was on his way. King Ahaz saw the handwriting on the wall, as it were, and he said, I'm going to be easy pickings for this mighty king. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make myself subservient to him. I'm going to go ahead and become a vassal king under him. And I'm just going to submit to him and pay him tribute. And that's how we're going to get out of this trial. Well, God didn't want him to do that. God had specifically told him, I don't want you making alliances with evil nations like this. And that was the rock, Assyria. Here's the hard place. The hard place is, Israel had two neighbors to the north in this chapter called Ephraim and Syria. And these two nations wanted to form a major alliance against Assyria. They were trying to form tons of these smaller militaries, put them in union together so that they could stand up to the great Assyrian army. King Ahaz didn't want it. So these two neighbors to the north were coming down on Ahaz, saying, we're going to get rid of you. We're going to conquer Jerusalem. We're going to depose you, King Ahaz, and we're going to put in a king in Jerusalem who meshes with our foreign policy. That was the plan. That was the hard place. Assyria, my neighbors to the north, and like I said, There's actually a third. There's a rock and a hard place, and then there's an absolute crushing vice grip. And that's God speaking to Ahaz through Isaiah, saying, don't go align yourself with Assyria, a wicked nation. Don't align yourself with the nations to the north. God keeps saying, trust me. Ahaz didn't fear God. this aspect of the problem situation didn't really seem to bother him. This was the pressure that Ahaz was facing that he cared the least about. And the prophet Isaiah very graciously approached this stubborn King Ahaz, and he encouraged him to trust the Lord, to submit to God's will, to obey God's command, and not align himself with militaries that were so wicked. I pointed this out on Sunday, but look at Isaiah chapter seven, verse 11, if you're looking at it in the scripture. King Ahaz is being told by God, trust me, trust me, trust me. And the Lord says, basically, what do I have to do to prove to you that I can be trusted? Verse 11, he says, this is Isaiah speaking on behalf of God, ask a sign of the Lord your God. Let it be as deep as the grave or as high as heaven. He's basically saying, you want someone back from the dead? You want me to do the most astounding miracle in the world? Ask whatever you want. But Ahaz, according to the text, very sanctimoniously says, oh, I'm not going to bother the Lord with any sign. I'm not going to put the Lord to the test. I would never want to do anything like that. And the reason Ahaz says this is because he has determined he's not going to do what God wants him to do. He's already developed his own strategy, and he's going to run with it. So Isaiah says in verse 13, here then, O house of David, this is speaking to the kingly line in Jerusalem, is it too little for you to weary other people that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself is gonna give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Now, there are some complexities to what's going on here in Isaiah. If you read these chapters about Ahaz, chapters 7 through 11, there's some complexities, including Isaiah's next child, which is Maher Shalalah Hashbaz, one of the coolest things to say in all of the Bible. I just wonder what he called his son. Reminds me a little bit of Aladdin or something, where he's like, come here, laddie, come here. Maher shalal hashbazi? Something like that. Isaiah names his son. The booty's going to be gone. The plunder's going to be taken very quickly. That's the name of the boy. And he has a prophetic name. And this boy is kind of like a preview fulfillment of a coming son who's going to be born of a virgin. There are some layers to what's going on here, and I'm not trying to just jump over that. It's worth exploring. But I just want to stop and say, can you relate to Ahas? I think all of us, to some degree or another, should. We can be exactly like Ahas. We've made up our mind about the strategy that we're going to take to fix the problems in our lives. God, I'm going to fix it my way. I know that you and some people around me are telling me that it really shouldn't go that way, but I've already decided I'm going to ignore what you say, God, and I'm going to pursue my own way. We've determined our way. Sometimes it's like escape. Sometimes it's like I'm going to go get the pleasure fix. Sometimes it's, I'm going to cut people off even though God tells me to love others. Other times it's, I'm going to get aggressive with people because I just can't stand them any longer. Other times we break our promises, we break our covenant, and we say, God, I'm going to do things my way. I don't care what you say. And when God confronts us and says, stop. Don't go down that path. Trust me. Obey me. Like Ahaz, we basically say, God, I already know what you're going to say. I already know you're going to try to prove yourself to me, and I don't need to hear it. I've already decided. Thank you, God. But no thank you. And God wants us to trust him. The point of the second story, I would say, is to trust the God of the impossible, especially when he confronts your disobedient strategies for dealing with your own problems your way. Trust God. He's the God of the impossible. In this situation, God basically tells Ahaz, the deliverance for Israel isn't gonna come in your lifetime. It's gonna come through a future king. That king is gonna be born of a virgin. In other words, God says, Ahaz, the God whom you are refusing to trust, That God whom you are refusing to trust, he's got his own plan. You've not gotten on board. He's going to run ahead with his plan. And that God is the God of the impossible. He's the God who can make virgins conceive. I end by asking two questions. Have you decisively, decisively trusted God with your life? I wonder, do you even know that the God of creation wants to have a relationship with you? Or do you know that according to the scriptures, you're out of sorts by nature with the God who made you? Do you realize that your sin puts you at odds with God in a distant relationship with God? Do you even realize that you need to trust, to decisively turn from your own way and trust the God of the impossible? This God made the world. This God prophesied the virgin birth 700 years before it happened. This God can forgive you. This God can give you eternal life. Will you trust him? I urge you, if you've never trusted God, if you've never fled to Jesus and you've said, you are the one mediator who died in my place and then rose again to prove that you had beat sin and you can give life, If you've never turned to Jesus, I urge you to turn to him tonight. It'd be a wonderful time to do it, even as we're worshiping him on Christmas Eve. Call on Jesus, say, save me. Call on him, say, be my Lord, I commit my life to you, oh, and I'll follow you. My first question and conclusion is just have you decisively trusted God? Are you trusting God with your life? The second would be for Christians. I wonder if you're struggling to trust God tonight. I wonder if you're going through trials and you say, I want out of the pain. Maybe you say, I don't want everything to be perfect, but I just wish God would make it a little easier than it is right now. You're going on in these trials on and on, and you're saying, God, can't you just cut me some slack? Why do you have to keep adding to my trials? Can't you take some of them away? And right now, this is where we wrap up. God calls you to look at the manger. That manger that's carrying the virginally conceived Messiah. Look at the manger and say, God, I'm going to trust you. I do not understand what you're doing or why you're doing it, but I'm going to trust you. I am not going to keep going down my own path. God, I want to stay on your path. Keep me in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. God, there's nothing too hard for you. I know that everything will make sense in time. Tonight, I can pretty much guarantee you that God's not going to give you everything on your Christmas list, the Christmas list of your life tonight. But the virgin birth proves that the God you're trusting is mighty. He's unimaginably mighty. The virgin birth proves it. It proves that the God whom you're trusting is unspeakably wise. He's mighty and he's wise. And the virgin birth proves that the God you're trusting is good, gracious and good, undeservedly good. Keep trusting the God of the impossible. Keep trusting the God who can effect the virgin birth And who knows, it's going to happen seven centuries ahead of time. Let's pray. Oh God, I pray that you would fuel our trust in you tonight. Thank you for the birth of Jesus. Thank you so much for doing it in such a wondrous, marvelous way through a virginal conception. Oh God, I pray that we would humble ourselves under your mighty hand. I pray that we would trust you in trials, trust you through pain, trust you when everything seems dark. Keep trusting you as the God of the impossible. Jesus, thank you so much for being our mediator. And we pray to our Father and your Father in your authority. Amen. Amen.