At Gateway Church in Austin we celebrated the birth of Jesus – God with us!
A Humble Birth with Eternal Implications
Bethlehem, Judea — In the quiet hours of the night, far from royal courts and public announcement, a child was born who many are calling the long-awaited hope of Israel.
Mary, a young woman from Nazareth, gave birth to her firstborn son while staying in Bethlehem due to the recent imperial census. With the town crowded beyond capacity, the child was laid in a manger — an ordinary feeding trough — a striking contrast to the extraordinary claims surrounding His arrival.
Witnesses report that angels appeared to shepherds in nearby fields, declaring the birth of “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” These shepherds arrived swiftly, confirming the sign they were given: a baby wrapped in cloths and lying among the animals. Upon seeing the child, they spread the message widely, leaving many astonished at what they had heard.
Religious scholars note that the child’s birth aligns precisely with ancient prophecies foretelling that a ruler would come from Bethlehem, the city of David — one whose kingdom would not be established by force, but by peace.
Though born in obscurity, this child has already drawn the attention of heaven and earth alike. Some believe this moment marks the arrival of God with us, stepping into human history not as a conqueror, but as a servant.
As news spreads from shepherds to households, from fields to marketplaces, one truth becomes clear: this message is meant to be heard.“How can they believe if they have not heard?”
— Romans 10:14
Message Video from Gateway South Austin:
Message Audio from Gateway South Austin:
Message Notes from Carlos Ortiz, Jr.:
SONG: O Holy Night
In 1847, a priest in France, asked Placide Cappeau, a wine merchant and poet, to write a Christmas poem for the church. Inspired by the Gospel of Luke, he wrote “Minuit, chrétiens” (“Midnight, Christians”) while on a stagecoach ride, imagining the nativity scene. The song debuted at a Christmas Eve midnight Mass in 1847.
In 1855, a minister named John Sullivan Dwight translated the carol into English. An abolitionist, one of the Christians advocating against slavery emphasized the lines about breaking chains and ending oppression, making it resonate deeply in America, especially the North during the Civil War.
In 1906, the first radio broadcast was on Christmas Eve. Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first human voice over radio, reciting Luke’s Gospel and playing “O Holy Night” on his violin from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.
Here’s some of what he read on that first ever radio broadcast…
Luke 1:26-35 says this,
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
So what is Mary told about Jesus in this short passage from the Angel Gabriel?
She was told 3 things:
- She would conceive and give birth to a son (Jesus)
- Jesus would be great and called the Son of the Most High
- Jesus would reign forever over a kingdom that has no end
These were the 3 most important things to note, and the rest of the list of miracles were simply signs of his greatness, signs of his ties to the most high, and signs of what was to come.
Mary didn’t have to know all of the details of her son’s life, she didn’t have to have the play by play of what he would become, she merely had to have the faith that God was going to send his son into the world, and that he would reign on a throne forever.
And part of that forever is that here we are, over 2000 years later, in His kingdom. His Kingdom is an invisible Kingdom with no borders or manmade boundaries. It is not advanced by weapons of war or politics but through faith, love, and hope – passed from one person to another when we choose to believe.
So what kind of questions does this present to us?
Like Mary, we are presented with this good news of Jesus, and our faith is pricked to know Him and to know Him more and more, over and over.
Similar to Mary’s 3 revelations of Jesus, I wonder on this day if we could answer three simple questions:
The first is this, if Mary was asked this question in the song, could we answer it just the same.
Do We Know?
Do we know that God, the creator and father of all, sent his son Jesus into the world?
John 3:16a – 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…
The second question is this,
Have We Heard?
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Have we heard the good news of who Jesus is. People will talk about faith, and having it, but Romans 10 tells us that faith comes from hearing, and hearing about who Jesus is, comes from Scripture.
The third question is this,
Do We Believe?
This build up is seen as we continue in the John 3 passage:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
Do you believe?
And not in the same way we ask the question about believing in Santa!
- Do you believe that the God who created you, sent his Son to this earth to be with us, and that his life, death and resurrection set him up to rule a kingdom that has no end.
- And that all of THIS was done for you and I, so that we would not be condemned, but embraced despite our sin and shame.
- Do you believe that you are loved by a God like this?
I know days like today can be sentimental.
- We are surrounded by family, or a lack of family.
- We have kids running around, or maybe there are no wide eyed children in our lives.
- We have wealth to buy what we want, or we are struggling for our basic needs.
- We love this season, or this season is difficult for a plethora of reasons.
- But the emotion of the season does not add or even take away from the truth of who Jesus is. The season doesn’t dictate our belief or disbelief.
This season is really about one thing…the truth.
The next verse in this same passage starts with, and “this is the verdict,” in other words, “this is the bottom line,” let’s read along…
John 3:
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Do you know there’s a Savior and his name is Jesus?
Now that you’ve heard, will you truly hear that he is calling out to you today?
Today, you too can believe wholeheartedly!
And when we truly believe we allow our lives to come out of the darkness and into His light.
He is the light, the source of light, and that light exposes the darkest parts, sins, and shame of our life.
Not to chastise you, or to condemn you, but to bring us to repentance…a turning from what we do and who we are in the dark, TOWARDS his light, and a new way of being. HIS WAY!
In 1962, our part of the world was in despair, and there were rumors of war that would upend our way of life.
We were enduring the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Noel Regney, a French WW II veteran, and his wife Gloria Shayne (a pianist), wrote and composed a song out of this despair and heavy time.
They were in New York City during the fall of 1962, when it hit them that Christmas time was coming but peace was eluding the world, that was until they saw the faces of two young kids who were full of smiles and joy, and it marked them.
So they penned a song about peace when the hope of peace was fading.
They wrote a song about the light and peace of a Savior.
A plea for the light of Jesus to invade the darkness.
SONG: Do You Hear What I Hear?
We just sang these words:
“The child, the child, sleeping in the night…He will bring us goodness and light.”
That’s what this moment represents. When everything feels dark, it doesn’t take much light to change the room. One flame. One spark of hope.
Jesus said in Matthew 5, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
So as we light these candles, let this be a picture, of the light of Christ entering the darkness, of hope spreading, of goodness and light filling the world. I’m going to light the first candle…and then we’ll pass that light from person to person, until this room is filled.
Will you please grab your candles and stand with me? (say this up top or right here)
And as the light spreads, let’s sing together.
SONG: Silent Night
