The Gathering Surf City

All right.

Good morning.

Oh, love it that you're here.

I feel like I hadn't started
this Sunday unless I go.

All right,

ready?

One, two,

three. Thank you.

How'd you get here?

See, that's one of those questions
I love to start out asking.

And everybody goes,

what do you mean?

Right. I say,

how did you get here?

And some of you will say,

car. Some of you will tell
me where you lived last.

Right.

Some of you will tell
me who invited you.

Some of you will tell me how you feel
really confined this morning.

But anyway.

But the question really goes to trying
to figure out sort of where we are

and why God has us.

Where we are in this place,

in this time.

That idea,

right? Last week we began
our Advent wreath.

And last week we were discussing the fact
that the conditions at the time

that the prophets wrote were
not the best conditions.

And the people of God were in and out
of obedience and disobedience and

idolatry and turning to God.

And God would go through a
good king and a bad king,

and the prophets would speak.

And all of a sudden you'd see things
would go well for a while,

then they'd go bad for a while.

And so God's people
were up and down,

up and down.

And God would send a message to his people
of how to redeem his blessing

and that sort of thing.

And so we talked last week about the
prophets and the fact that Isaiah

promised that God promised through the
prophet Isaiah that he was going

to send a child.

And so that kind of told him
what to be looking for,

right?

And then the idea of,

would they see it?

Would they know what God had done
to get them where they were?

That's what we're talking
about today.

Alrighty, we're in Luke,

chapter two,

just verses four to seven
this morning.

There are a number of passages that we
could have read from to share this

particular candle of the Advent and
the idea of the anticipation of

Christmas.

Or really more the anticipation
of the birth of our Savior.

Verses four to seven.

Here we go.

Joseph also went up from Galilee.

Why?

I'm sorry.

No, I'm supposed to read.

All right.

Joseph also went up from Galilee out
of the city of Nazareth into Judea

to the city of David,

which is called Bethlehem,

because he was of the house
and lineage of David,

to be registered with Mary,

his betrothed wife,

who was with child.

So it was that while
they were there,

the days were completed for
her to be delivered.

She brought forth her firstborn son,

wrapped him in swaddling clothes,

laid him in a manger because there
was no room for them in the end.

All righty,

let's pray.

God, today we want to thank you and
praise you that we're here.

God, you brought us together
for the purpose of worship,

for celebration.

But God,

indeed, you brought us together.

So we might be in a place where we turn
down the noise of the world and

listen to what it is you
have to say to us.

So God,

help us to acknowledge,

but also discern and understand
what you are doing,

what you are preparing,

and God,

what our part might be in that.

Help us to look at Joseph and Mary and
the birth of Jesus and understand

God. You had been at work
on this for centuries.

And like we're told,

when the time was perfect,

the fullness of time,

God sent his son.

Thank you,

God, for sending us Jesus.

And we pray it in his name.

Amen. Bethlehem,

little bitty place.

You know,

there's a Christmas card that we always
would get at Christmas time,

and it would show the sort of.

The kind of the,

you know,

hillside. And then off in the distance
you see this little glowing little

town. And I'm wondering where
they got street lights.

But anyway,

you know,

it was Bethlehem.

This quiet little village,

really. I mean,

statistics tell us it's about 1,000
people maybe living there.

Probably wasn't more than a couple square
miles of space that made up

Bethlehem, but indeed it was the birthplace
and the home of King David

and his family,

and the lineage of David.

And. And so it had an important place
in part among God's people.

Technically, it's about six
miles south of Jerusalem.

It's on the edge of
the desert there.

And the word Bethlehem actually
means house of bread.

Okay, now here's what we know.

Naomi was from Bethlehem.

She left Bethlehem,

went to Moab because there
was a famine in the land,

right? Her daughter in law,

Ruth, comes back with her.

Guess who else is from.

Boaz is from Bethlehem.

There you go.

Just got right ahead
of myself there.

So, Boaz.

So we see the lineage of David,

we see the lineage of
ultimately Jesus,

and it all happens right
here in Bethlehem.

And so I started looking at this,

I thought,

why did they go to Bethlehem?

Whose fault is it,

right?

Why'd they go there?

They go there.

Cause Caesar Augustus said,

I need to count everybody.

So I need to know how much tax I'm gonna
collect from you and how many

soldiers I can count
on to fight for me.

What was it?

Because somebody somewhere
read Micah chapter 5,

verse 2 and said,

oh, Bethlehem,

Ephrathah, we gotta be there,

honey. You're about to give birth.

We got to run down.

Right? You see what I mean?

I mean,

what orchestrated their
being in Bethlehem?

The census?

Was it all because they
needed to be counted?

Maybe it was family reunion.

Right?

You see what I mean?

I mean,

I want to ask you why you're here.

Ask you,

how did you get here?

But that's not the big question.

You're here.

Yay. And I'm saying that,

really, I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad we get to hang
out together.

This has been a huge week.

Did y'all know that?

I mean,

we've had some big things going on.

Like, we were all about Wednesday night
getting ready for the big family

celebration and business meeting and
leadership nominations and budget.

And, man,

we had a big time,

matter of fact.

And some of you know,

Angie Fussell.

Angie said that was the most people
I've seen at a business meeting at

Surf City Baptist Church
in all my life.

And she's been here all her life,

you know,

and yet nobody would have realized
it was a business meeting,

and nobody would have realized it
was Surf City Baptist Church.

But anyway,

all that aside,

it was a grand celebration.

Not of business,

but it was a grand celebration of the
things that God has done in our

midst. And.

And we get to be a part of it.

Now, why do we get to
be a part of it?

Because, honestly,

we're paying attention to what God's
doing and allowing God to

orchestrate and to lead our lives so that
we can be in the place where he

wants us to be so that we can enjoy
the blessing that he wants us to

enjoy, so that we can be a part of the
advance of his kingdom and the

proclamation of the gospel.

That's why we're here.

Yay. And see,

I'm just.

I'm having a blast because I've been
putting this together in my mind.

I'm going,

why am I here?

I mean,

Angie and I were talking
about this morning.

You want me to tell you?

All right,

first.

All right,

so Zach Spratling.

Nobody knows Zach Spratling.

I don't know if his mom and dad in
Georgia be watching me right now,

but here you go.

Zach Spratling was a little boy.

And I've told y'all back and forth,

he's the one I used to trade sour
candy with in my office.

I was the youth pastor,

and Zach would come and
hang out in my office,

and we'd trade sour candy.

This was back when sour candy
was first invented,

Just so you know.

Anyway, so we would exchange it.

And so I get ready to leave
First Baptist Beaufort,

Georgia to go to Town Baptist
Church in Maryland.

And I read my resignation.

Everything. Well,

Zach and I,

we were kind of like buddies,

you know,

we were candy traders.

Anyway, and so Zach's in the back
seat of his mom and daddy's car,

she says,

and he goes,

mom, how does Bobby know he's
supposed to go to Maryland?

And mom gives the answer that good church
mamas are supposed to give.

Well, God told him,

son.

Well, Zach,

who ends up graduating from Georgia
Tech University with a degree in

engineering, asks this question.

Well, how did he tell him?

Did he just say,

bobby, I want you to go to Maryland?

Right, right.

I mean,

these are the questions that a kid who's
about to lose his sour candy

trader wants to know.

See, so then I'm pastoring in western
North Carolina and we would take a

vacation to the beach.

And so a six year old kid,

years later named Eli goes,

dad, can we move to the beach?

And I went,

no, we live in the mountains.

Well, there you go.

You know,

I don't know.

I mean,

I look back over my life and I go,

God, you have positioned
us for this place,

this time.

Why? Why are you here?

What is it God wants to do in you,

through you,

with you?

Not for your sake,

not for the sake of your accumulation
or your portfolio or any of that

kind of stuff.

Why does God have you here?

And what is his purpose for what you're
supposed to be doing for his

kingdom's sake?

Man, I look at this and I'm like,

wow, Joseph also went
up from Galilee,

why out of the city of
Nazareth into Judea,

why to the city of David,

why? Which is called Bethlehem?

Well, we're looking back
over 2,000 years.

We know why.

We can tell why.

Now the challenge for us is to take.

Now I could just stand up here
and tell you the story.

Jesus and the birth
and the Bethlehem.

And that this next candle is the
Bethlehem candle of peace,

right? That's what I'm told by a lot of
the little outlines and things we

use. And I go,

okay, peace.

And then we think of this.

O little town of Bethlehem,

how still,

how peaceful we see thee lie.

You see my point?

Why? And if we don't acknowledge and
seek to discern what God's doing in

this story,

how God brought about the fulfillment
of hundreds of prophecies for the

birth of his son,

our Savior,

our Lord,

the Messiah,

the anointed one.

And we say,

wait a minute,

guys, you work all those little Bitty
kinds of details together to do

that to what?

To save the world.

Right. How is it that God might be directing
details in your life that he

expects you to discern so that what?

I can't answer that question
for all of you.

Can't. But it might be because there's
one person that needs to know the

Jesus. You know,

it might just be one intersection in
your life that God puts you in.

And I don't mean road intersection,

because those are dangerous places.

But it might just be one
passing conversation.

You see what I mean?

Where you're supposed to express
somehow your hope,

prophecy, candle of hope,

your peace.

Because Jesus said my peace
I leave with you.

Not the peace that comes
from the world.

Because guess what?

The world translates peace and treaties
in the absence of conflict.

You know what God's peace is?

God's peace is a contentment and well
being that it doesn't matter what

the circumstances of
you are going on,

you have peace,

see. And guess what?

There are people you're going
to run into today,

I imagine,

that need peace,

that need an assurance
that you know what,

I can count on God.

And the thing is that your peace is
dependent on the fact that God

orchestrated all of these little things
together to bring about the birth

of his son,

our Savior,

Jesus, the Christ,

the anointed one.

And they had to be in
the right place.

Bethlehem, a couple of square miles in
the middle of a desert with sheep

and goats and stuff on the
hillsides around them.

And probably a couple
what they used to.

In one of the dictionary things
I was reading this week,

they didn't call them
inns or hotels.

It was not like the,

the holiday in Bethlehem,

okay? They were called caravaneries.

Caravaneries. So when caravans would
travel from point A to point B in a

desert setting and they would stop off
where there was water available,

where there were certain resources
for them to make each leg of the

journey.

A caravanery would just be kind
of a little stopover place,

not a hotel.

There was,

there was no Gideon's Bible
in the bedside table,

okay? It was just a place to stop,

to sort of refresh,

restock before going the
rest of your journey.

And so no,

it wasn't like there were 300
rooms at the Holiday Inn.

And they got there and said,

sorry, we just booked our last room.

You know,

we put it in our context like Joseph
and Mary walked up to the check in

desk, could we get a room please?

No, that's not how it worked.

You know,

because Caesar Augustus had
called this census,

people were converging on their
family's birthplace,

town, lineage,

place. It's like in the
summertime in June.

I used to look forward to it,

man.

In June,

our family would go to Lake Greenwood
for family reunion.

And the food would stretch from
here to the back of the room.

And, man,

that's where I learned to eat,

you see,

I used to look forward to
family reunion time.

And I imagine,

you know,

Joseph gets to Bethlehem
and there's Uncle Bill.

Probably not,

but you know what I mean?

And so they're all converging
on this little place,

and the time came for
her to deliver.

That's what it says.

It says.

So it was that while
they were there,

the days were completed for
her to be delivered.

She brought forth her firstborn son.

Guess what?

Wrapped him in whatever
a swaddling cloth is.

Just stripped of cloth,

they wrap them up.

What do you call that?

Swaddle them.

They swaddle the baby,

set him in a little hay
trough kind of thing.

And then the angels shout,

we're not there yet.

That's two weeks away.

No, that's next week.

Angels are next week.

But the idea is that God put the pieces
in place to accomplish what?

His design,

his purpose,

and his plan.

And I can't even begin to tell you how
many people come to me as their

pastor and say,

I don't know what God
wants me to do.

Well, can I just be.

Oh, this is going to sound horrid,

but I got to say it.

If you don't know what it is that
you're supposed to be doing,

then you're not paying attention.

Because every day,

God gives you opportunity to
be his hands and feet,

his voice,

you see,

every day.

To be in the right place.

Yes. At the right time.

Yes.

The right way to proclaim
the word of God.

You see?

See, if we're not the ones telling
others what's going on,

if we're not the ones
telling others that,

yeah, all this stuff that
you see in the news,

all this stuff that we are told is.

So the word that comes
to mind is stinking.

But here you go.

All this stuff that's in front of us that
we're being told is so stinking

important, doesn't even approach the
importance of what we're talking

about this morning,

y'all. It doesn't even come close to
be in the right place at the right

time, to be living out the right way
that God has given you to live so

that you can be.

I mean,

I remember,

you know,

everybody's asking me,

how's the baby?

Baby's fine.

Two and a half weeks old now.

Yes. When my phone is in my hand,

I have grandpa pictures.

Okay? Can you imagine Joseph standing
outside the manger?

Oh, yeah.

We just had a baby.

We just had a baby.

Oh, really?

Tell us about it.

Well, you're not going
to believe this,

but not too long ago,

an angel showed up in my bedroom.

You see,

God takes these and puts
them together.

And folks,

I promise you,

he's doing the same things in your life
to put you in the right place,

the right time,

so that you can share
the right way to him.

Okay? We've got some cool opportunities
and I got a couple minutes to

tell you about it.

20, 25 is going to be exciting.

All right,

so we did our Wednesday
night meeting,

right? And the choir was been getting
ready for weeks so they could do

this morning's meeting and then,

and then Saturday.

Oh, my parents day out.

There's some parents.

I had one mom,

she said,

don't often get a morning like this,

right? And then,

man, you walked in here and it looked
like it was a T and I left.

But it was beautiful.

Ladies had a blast in this place yesterday
with the Christmas tea.

And guess what?

The whole birth of Jesus
was proclaimed.

And the hope and the promise and the peace
that we have in Christ was all

proclaimed. And guess what?

Because we want to seek and do the things
that God sets before us to do

and to be obedient and to come together
as the body of Christ and be

faithful to what God's
entrusted to us,

we've been asked in the new year to come
alongside a church up in Burgo

to adopt a baby church.

Well, they're not a baby church.

They've been around a while.

But I'm going to be meeting with the
two elders on Saturday morning to

discuss it.

Here's what I need to know.

I need to know,

are there any worship leaders in the
room you might be hiding from me?

I found out this week that there's a
guy that I know in the gathering

that I didn't know that he was
once a full time pastor.

I told him,

I said,

aha. Now that I know,

I get to ask God why you're here.

You see,

I think that as we take
these steps of faith,

God says,

okay, since you were faithful
in that little thing,

we're going to hand you more
things and more big things.

So that's the challenge
this morning.

You ready?

If you've led worship,

you've been a worship leader,

I need you to come down here
Right after we finish.

And tell me.

So I write your phone number
and your name down.

If you've been in pastoral ministry
sometime in the past,

I need your name and number because God
didn't bring any of us here for

nothing.

Okay? That's our challenge.

And so now it's your challenge,

and I just offered it to you.

The Bethlehem candle is
a candle of peace.

You know why it's a candle of peace?

Because God was at work in making
Bethlehem important,

and he's at work today
and calling us.

Okay? My candle lighter quit.

Oh, there it is.

Anyway, if I don't get it lit,

I'll clean it out before
the next time,

okay?

It's the only chance you get.

Why are you here?

What did God do to put you in this place
at this time to accomplish his

kingdom purpose?

Okay, that's our challenge,

folks. It starts with Jesus.

And if you don't know Jesus,

you need Jesus.

We're going to sing.

It's quite doing,

this last one.

All right,

y'all, come on up here.

It's going to take a minute,

so I'm going to get y'all moving.

I'll get out of your spot,

darling. Did y'all notice
the dock was gone?

Didn't know if you noticed.

I can jump right off the front
of the platform again.

You may be asking yourself,

okay, God,

why am I here?

That's the same question
I'm asking God for you.

Why are you here?

God, why are they here?

What is it that you have in store?

What is it that you're
calling us to?

You know,

I can tell you stories of how God
has started stuff around here,

and it's amazing.

It's amazing to see God creating
worship opportunities.

One of the few things that we said,

this is what we're going
to do as a gathering.

We're going to create worship
opportunities.

Right, Tim?

Where did you go?

There you are.

Worship opportunities.

Ask Tim about worship opportunities.

He'll tell you.

All righty.

Pray with me as we get
ready to sing.

Father, thank you for today.

And God,

that you're at work.

God help us to be where you are.

God help us to get there.

And then God,

help us to pray and listen as you give
leadership and guidance to our

lives. And we pray it in Jesus name,

Amen.