Take your Bibles, please, and we will begin in Luke chapter one. I want to mention something right away, and when I mention it, don't let your mind go wandering past the message, but I have a reason to tell you that this could be a very, very special time. We have heard recently of all that took place in Syria. I was watching a video. They were talking about what King Assad had done to some of the people there, that man is absolutely beyond wicked, just incredibly wicked. But that's not the thing that really caught my attention. Because I listened to a rabbi who is so very excited He is absolutely convinced and others with him that with the fall of Syria, peace is finally coming to their region. And that's not the only thing that's coming. That because of this peace and the turning aside of enemies of Israel, there's going to be a great prosperity and Messiah is finally going to come. He said that several times. I watched him yesterday and he's apparently not the only one. Now we know from looking to scripture that He who they believe is Messiah will not be Messiah. There's much in store for Israel until they look on him whom they have pierced. But folks, while we come here week after week, day after day, we live, and our lives just go through, like Brother Whiteside was saying, you know, this year has just flown by. There are things that are happening around the world. Amen? This book is not only alive, it is coming to pass continually. It would behoove us to be thinking, Lord, may I have a heart for souls. There are people that I know that are dying without Jesus Christ. Lord, I give myself afresh to you because we want to be found faithful as we're going to see. Now the title of the message this morning and for next Sunday is Where Would We Be? I want you to endure with me on that. I'm looking at this from a certain perspective, as you'll see. But let's have ears to hear. Let's have ears to hear. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that your spirit would be allowed in every heart that is here to do his work. Lord, help us to open our hearts, our eyes, our spiritual eyes. Lord, speak, for thy servants heareth. If there's anyone that will hear this message that does not know you as Savior, may they come to know you. Lord, I pray that we would have a passion for souls because eternity is forever and heaven and hell are real. This earth will pass away. There is a new heaven and a new earth coming. Lord, may we be prepared. I pray in Christ's name, amen. I thought this was good. I wound up in my New Testament reading, I wound up reading this morning in Luke. Didn't plan it that way, but it did happen, and we were gonna be going there anyway. Luke chapter one, would you please go with me to verse 26. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth. to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel came in under her and said, Hail, thou that are highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. The angel said unto her, fear not Mary, for thou has found favor with God. And behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be seeing I know not a man? The angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that Holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, She hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who is called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me. according to thy word. Be it unto me according to thy word. I love the narratives that I find in the story of the birth of Christ. I'm sure you do as well. Luke chapter two is just so well known for reading at this time of the year. Now with that in mind, I wanna look back to something that I've mentioned before. It's not original with me, but I believe it's pretty well dead on. Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% of your response. 10% of what happens, 90% of your response. of your response. The story of the birth of Christ has in it some rich accounts of people who, when encountered, took their free will and made a choice and made the right choice. Not everybody, but many that did. Now, when it comes to the story of this season, the greatest choice of all is the choice that came by God. For God so loved the world that he gave, that's a choice, he gave his only begotten son. And so Christ came, born to die. The greatest choice. the child of God can make is one of yielding to that Lord. Romans 6.13, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of the righteousness of God. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you have the righteousness of Christ himself. The word says, now take that righteousness that has been given you, it is not of you, it is of him. Take that and use it for him. Take it and use it for him. In the Christmas narrative, we see people real people like you and me, making choices, living day in, day out, real people who made choices that ultimately glorified God. I so rejoice in those choices, because if they did not make that choice, where would we be? Now again, don't start racing ahead. Well, yeah, but no, just bear with me. The message today is mostly the introduction of the message next week, but there's plenty here. Now, if you desire to turn to it, there's another verse that we're going to. Galatians chapter four, one verse, Galatians chapter four, verse four. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law. We just read that in Luke chapter one. Kind of something interesting here. There's two Greek words that Paul could have used when it came to time. The first one is chiaros. It refers to critical, epic-making periods foreordained by God, and there are plenty in the Bible. But Paul chose to simply use the word chronos. It means a lapse of time, a succession of moments. When the fullness of time was come, time went on, time went on. And then when that moment came, when completed the period of time, designated by God that should elapse before the coming of the son, he would send forth his son. The time came. Now, were there markers for this? Absolutely. There was time pointed out. Things that took place in the events of human history that made this time so perfect. First of all, it was the moment that God ordained for Messiah's triumphal entry. This didn't take place at Christmastime. This came when he was, just before he was crucified, his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and he presented himself as Messiah the Prince. To Daniel was given the date of his coming, 483 years after the edict, of the Medo-Persian government to rebuild Jerusalem under Nehemiah. But then secondly, there was the Mosaic Law. That had done its educational work, showing to the world that the most highly favored nation on earth, the Jewish nation, was, despite all God's blessing and mercy, totally depraved. by the way, just like the rest of us, giving the Gentile portion of the race a picture of its own total depravity. Number three, it was the time of the Roman Empire. They were maintaining world peace. Not only that, Rome built roads all through Europe and into other places, even into Great Britain. And that made it easier for the missionaries to come to travel. So the time was perfect. The stage was set for the greatest event to happen to mankind. It's called redemption for that time. Politically speaking, Herod's family was in full swing. Just before the birth of Christ, Herod Philip was betrothed to Herodias, who later left him for Herod Antipas. We'll leave that for another time. John the Baptist denounced him, lost his head over it. When Herod, who lived from 73 to four BC, ascended to the throne of Judea in 37 BC with the help of the protection of Rome, His authority over the region was limited by the presence of a man by the name of Mark Antony. But after Antony's death in 30 BC, Herod discovered incredible leeway, great freedom, and embarked on a massive building program throughout Palestine. We've seen that personally among the roads, the fortresses, and the palaces. The highlight for the Jewish people was the restoration and renovation of the temple which began in 19 BC. That temple was the temple of the time of Christ. 36 acres and beautiful. This was wonderful concerning that. But there was another problem. When it came to people, character was destitute. It was at this time that Jesus was born. Now, look again, if you would please, at Galatians 6.4. You see the word translated sent forth? That word is the Greek word exapostello. The word apostello refers to the act of one who sends another with a commission to do something. The person sent being given credentials. Our word apostle comes from that. Our Lord is called the apostle and high priest of our confession in Hebrews 3.1. But not only was our Lord sent from the presence of the Father, but as the other prefixed preposition X signifies, he was sent out from his presence. Not only was he sent forth from heaven, but he became incarnate in the human race through the virgin birth that we just read about. He was made of a woman. Not only did he become incarnate, He was born and lived his life previous to his cross under the Mosaic law. But he was here for us. As the scripture tells us, he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. And for that reason, we can look to a perfect savior. who died on the cross and rose again and rejoice in a perfect salvation. But again, getting back to what we're looking at here, God in his perfect foreknowledge knew of those who would be involved in the birth of the Savior. When the time came for the players, the people that God in his wisdom knew would be there. From the human standpoint, we would see that these people made choices, but the Lord knew the choices that they would make. What's the point of all this? Why stress the characteristics of a group of people? Here's why. And folks, wake up and listen. God is gazing from eternity and using those who in their time are found faithful. We're gonna be looking at several of those next Sunday. But meanwhile, just to stop and think in the very same way that our Father went to Mary, the shepherds, and others, and found them faithful. God is looking for people who will be faithful to his call today. Go ye into all the world. Preach the gospel to every creature. Obey my commands. That's what he's looking for. as much as during this time. Where would we be if there was nobody found? Listen, 2 Chronicles 16, nine, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. In every age, every age, there are people that God looks to, people of godly character to do God's will. And he does that today. He still needs characters that have character. Godly character. Listen, again, we've heard this. You read your Bible, you're gonna know this. When the wickedness of mankind was super abounding, God found Noah. When Israel groaned under the weight of bondage, God found Moses. When a righteous man was needed to lead Israel, according to the testimony found in Acts chapter 13. And when he had removed him, the previous king, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill All my will. You know what the alternative is? A verse that I remember when I was in construction, we used to challenge each other as we were doing the job. Ezekiel 22 30. And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it. but I found none. You know what I would hate? I would hate for the Spirit of God to look down on the Faith Baptist Tabernacle, come into this building while we're sitting here and praising God for the birth of Christ, but the Holy Spirit realizes when it comes to doing my will the way I'm calling, I'm not really finding a lot. Now, there's nobody I have in mind. I pray that, you know, he would find all of us, you know, we're there. But wouldn't it be sad if he looked? And in a choice in our heart of hearts that nobody else can see, the Holy Spirit realizes There's no obedience here in you or somebody else or me or me, whatever. Now, when it comes to the Christmas story, what was found? Well, when you think about the people that were there, as we will see, humility was found. Faith was found. Obedience was found. Worship was found. Witness was found. Godliness was found. These were all found because people made godly choices. Because they realized that God so loved them. Now again, these were not robots. They had free wills. People look to the Lord, they believe his word, his promises, his commands. They're flesh and blood, just like us. Again, these people were not superhuman. They were just like us. Fishermen, how many fishermen we got in here? Well, not as many. But you know what? You stop and think about that. Where would we be? Where would we be if one or more of those people made a different choice? Where would we be if the person that shared the gospel with us decided it wasn't that important? The challenge for us all is simple. And by the way, it's sobering as well. When we think of what's going on in the world today, what is being found in the people that profess Christ today? What's being found at FBT in 2024? Almost 2025. What's being found? Now we can ask ourselves several questions. You know, when it comes to people that were in the Christmas story, we might have a favorite person that we think of in the Christmas story. I have a personal one. One of the shepherds. I was in seventh grade. Big production. And I got to get up on the platform and say, let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. I didn't even see any angels. But what's your favorite? Whatever it might be. The question is this, what choices are we willing to make? In fact, what choices are we making? We can think of a lot of people in history. Stop and consider, behind every Paul, every Barnabas, every John Knox, every Martin Luther, every D.L. Moody, every Charles Spurgeon, every Jonathan Edwards, every David Livingston, every Adoniram Judson, every Hudson Taylor, one of my absolute favorites, behind every one of them is the story of a great choice. Where at one time or another, right where they were, there was a decision to be dead to self and alive unto God. There was a decision to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. There was a choice They counted the cost and found that Christ was worthy. We're celebrating his birth. The best way to celebrate his birth is to give our lives for the cause of his death and burial and resurrection. That's what those tracks back there go on to explain. Reaching back to prophecy, showing people that Jesus Christ is exactly who he said he was. The son of God who came to seek and to save that which was lost. So the question is this, have you found him? Secondly, If you found him, are you his? In other words, I am thine and all that I have. Let's pray.