DEC 24 2025 | From the Cradle to the Cross S1E5 | The Birth of Jesus Christ

Sea Change Church · From the Cradle to the Cross · "The Birth of Jesus Christ" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · December 24, 2025
Luke 2:1–7
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Amen. The birth of Christ as told in the gospel according to Luke chapter two verses one through seven. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Pius was governor of Syria and all went to be registered each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house in lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them. In the end, this is the word of the Lord. Well, merry Christmas to all of you on this incredible, uh, Christmas Eve here. That was amazing. If I wasn't the head pastor, I'd still go to church here. That was so good. And the singing and everything that was going on, if you're, hey, if you're a visitor and, uh, it's first time at our church, I wanna welcome you to Sea Change.

The purpose of our church is this. Number one, we wanna make Jesus known. We wanna let people know who Jesus is. Number two, we want to expand His kingdom into your personal life, into the life of your family, into the community in which you live and into the world in which you take apart and live in. That is our purpose. That is our passion. That is what we want to do with that. If you have a Bible, there might be some in front of you in the pews.

Go to Luke chapter two, one through seven. I wanna say hi to everyone online as well. I know we got a ton of people online all over the world. They reach out, which is fun. I was surprised how many people actually watch this all over. And, uh, easy to find. Uh, this is our, um, our first my wife and i's first, uh, Christmas as empty nesters. Let's give it up for me and my wife, right? We're like, should I give it up for that?

Uh, kind of kind of lonely, right? Everything's decorated. We got all this stuff out and we're like, okay, we're in the living room again. No one here. And so we had a sleepover, uh, this week. My, my married daughter, I told her she couldn't bring her husband. She came, spent the night with, uh, mostly because the 18-year-old was back from college and we had a little sleepover and kind of did the old stuff. And didn't you have any Gen Zers that come back from college?

You guys know what that looks like. It's not pretty, right? I don't, it's kind of like the Yeti, you know what I mean? You never see 'em and they come back, your fridge automatically goes empty. And when I do see them, they come out kind of looking. My daughter comes out looking like Kevin Costner from Dances with Wolves. I don't know if you remember that last scene there at the end. There you go, dress, you know, just bed sheets just there.

Looks at me, kind of grimaces a little bit back in. She, she had a, she had a 15 hour sleep night after all of her finals, which was amazing. Uh, I felt like, uh, you know, apple, uh, phone was gonna get ahold of me and ask me to do some research on her. 'cause they got the highest score you could ever get. Um, but one of the things we do when she comes back is when she comes back is she gives us the t Now, I don't know if you know what that means, but we want to hear the t We want the T means you spill the T about what is going on with your friends, our friends, what's happening in their lives and their relationships.

And so I'll be, Hey, what's happening with Stacey even, well, there's actually no Stacey, there's no Gen Z in the world called Stacey. No, no offense to anybody who's a Stacey. And I'll say, Hey, what's going on with so and so with that? Boy? They're, you know, they're dating, right? Nah, they're not dating. No, they're just talking. And I'm like, what? What? They're just, what does that mean? I thought they went on a date. No, they were just talking.

And I realized that there's a whole relational thing going on with Gen Zs and you'll get it if, if you're like late millennial or Gen Z, or you'll, you'll understand this. First of all, it's way different than when I was a kid. When I was a kid, like in middle school, high school, if I wanted to go on a date with a girl, I'd kind of throw something at her bump into her in the hall, right? Um, and then eventually I would ask this, these keywords, and, and you're with me.

If you're a, if you're a Gen Xer, I would ask, will you go with me? Right? Right. I don't know where we were going, but that was the term that defined it, right? We were in a relationship if you would go with me, right? And that, that isn't, uh, hasn't probably obviously let mean don't know what I'm talking about with that one. But that was something we would say. And what I realized is I talked to my daughter, it's way different these days when it comes to relationships with kids.

Uh, the first thing that they do is they're gonna, like Harry said last week, they're gonna ask for your snap, right? They're gonna ask for your Snapchat. They're gonna say, Hey, I just wanna kind of follow you on social media. The next phase that they have is like this thing called talking or no, yeah, they're talking, they're just talking Now talking just means talking, right? So you're just talking, I dunno what you're talking about.

The next thing that the station after that is called we're hanging out. So I'll say, Hey, what's going on with Stacey? The, the, the aforementioned Stacey. Stacey? And she'll say, oh, they're hanging out, which I really don't know the difference between hanging out and talking. And then they have, if it gets confusing, they move into a situation ship. Did you guys heard of that? They're just in a ship or just like vikings, they're just in a ship.

And then they have a define, they kind of finally have a, a, a define the relationship, A DTR that does actually happen. And then eventually you, you'll go back and you'll ask and you'll be like, Hey, what's going on with them? Oh yeah, they're dating. Of course they're dating. Like, it was like, where have you met? You idiot. You know, I say that because relationships are incr in increasingly becoming more and more complicated it feels like.

And what I wanna say to you today in this message is when it comes to relationship, um, just to make it really clear at the very beginning, and then I'll in the non circuitous route get to say this in other ways. Jesus wants to actually be in a relationship with you. He actually wants to be in a, a, a friendship, a, a role beyond friend. He, he, he wants to introduce you to his father. He wants to be in a direct relationship with you.

And this is a radical concept. There is no other religion, there is no other by cha. It, I'm telling you it's true. There is no other religion. You can look it up in the world that promises intimacy with God. The closest you're gonna find is Judaism, which says you can have intimacy. God will have intimacy with a group of people, a nation, a group. And there are some examples where he has intimacy with David and a few individuals.

But where it becomes open to all of us happens actually in the gospel through this story that was just read through the birth of Jesus and his death on the cross. That's what I'm gonna say to you. And what I want to, I think we'll circle back to at the end, is to say, is it perhaps time to define that relationship in your own life? Whether you've been following Christ for a long time or you've never followed him at all, is it time to actually look and say, do I actually want more of the relationship more in everything that he is offering?

Uh, go to verse two if you would. I'm gonna read from verse two. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. That was the first registration when Carius was governor of Syria and all went out to be registered each on his own. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the lineage of David.

That's gonna be important in a second to be registered with. I remember that word with Mary, his betroth, who was with, I want you to remember that word, child. The word with is used twice in that, in verse five. And it says, while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in a swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

There was no place in the inn. In this idea of relationship, I believe we are living in a world that is longing for relationships. Uh, if you follow any of the news, if you read the headlines, you will know that there is a loneliness epidemic surrounded by people, surrounded by online relationships. But there is a loneliness epidemic that is happening. I dunno if you heard the, uh, uh, founder of OpenAI had a, uh, podcast this week and he was talking about relational bots.

And if you don't know what a relational bot is, it's a robot, basically online computer algorithm, whatever you wanna call it, that will have a relationship with you. It will be your friend, it will tell you that you're awesome. In some cases, it'll tell you that they love you. It'll just go on and have these relationships. And they recently, in one country, banned these because they had taken off, especially with young people, and they had had these, and this is the statement that, that Sam Altman said, he was the, the founder of Open ai.

He said, we underestimated how much people would seek relation and relational ability with our AI bots that listen, respond, remember, reaffirm. It tells us something more important, that people aren't just looking for information, they're looking for relationships. Lemme go back to the first thing I said that I, that, that, that is primary to this entire text, is that Jesus himself wants to have a relationship with you and promises to have an individual personal relationship with you.

There is no other religious narrative in the world that promises that there is a God who knows who you are, who formed you in the womb, who knew you before you were formed, and actually did the hard work to die on the cross so that he could open up the gates so that he could have a relationship with you. It's radical. If there's anything that makes the story of Jesus coming to earth in this passage right here, absolutely non-sequitur to all the other religious narratives, it is this, that God wants to have a personal knowing, deep relationship with you.

And we see that we're living in a world that will do anything to have something like that, even if it's not real. I recently asked AI if it believed in the supernatural and liked me. It said, yes, I believe in the supernatural. And I said, no, you don't. You can't believe, oh, thank you for correcting me. And I said, do you, but but do you like me? Of course I like you. I said, you can't like me. Stop telling me that you like me.

And then I go in these arguments with it and I'm trying to train it so I won't treat it like a human being because that's the next step, right? To make it anthropomorphic where God himself is saying he wants to be in this relationship. I I told you these in verse five. There was two words. I give a key word usually, and I gave you the main point is that God, Jesus himself wants to have a personal relationship with you.

There's two key words. And if you listen to me, preach enough, it's going to, uh, be very, you're, it's, it's gonna make sense why I picked this and I didn't pick a noun, I didn't pick Jesus would be a good one, right? That'd be a great one to talk about in one of these verses. The name of Jesus or a verb, you know, he, you know, was, you know, took Mary or wherever he went. I, I, um, I picked a preposition. And the preposition that really stuck out to me was with go to verse five.

If you have on the screen, I know you don't have it in your hands unless you have your Bible. It says, go to verse four actually. And Joseph went up from Galilee, skipped down to four, he registered with Mary. If you had your notes, I'd have you circle it. His wife who was with child, the word with there, if you were, has two meanings. The with child means great with child. It's a different form of the use of the Greek word with, but it means great with child.

But the one before that means with, and the common sense of being alongside with you. Now, a preposition, not that we're, look, we're not gonna go too deep. I failed English in high school, okay? We're not gonna go too deep, I promise. But a preposition is a word that shows relationship to, and there are a few words that are more powerful in my opinion than the word with who you travel with matters in your life. It'll matter with your trajectory, who you do life with, how much time you spend with God, with others.

The word with is so powerful. And as we see this passage, we also remember that in the Old Testament, before Jesus was born, he was given this name and it said that Messiah will come and they gave him a name, and the name was Emmanuel. And the name Emmanuel means this God with us. That God desires deeply to be with you. He likes you. One of the things I struggle with for so long is, and I think Harry mentioned a little bit about this last week, just such a great sermon last week, late last weekend.

Um, one of the things I've struggled with is knowing, I know God loves me. I feel like he has to love me, right? The question is, do you like me? You know, do you actually like me? And I feel like God has said, I created you the way, I created you for a reason, and I created you intimately because I want to know you from the inside out. I want to know you deeply. The word there with is pronounced soon, okay? In, in the Greek, it's pronounced su it's a primary preposition.

And it denotes a union with or together by association, companionship process, including completeness. In the Hebrew, it is Emmanuel God with us, God wants to be with you. The question is, how much of God do we want? I really haven't found it's how that, the question really is how much will God give me? He usually gives me as much as I want. I've had seasons and I've had other people that have wrestled. They've wanted more and they haven't gotten more.

Maybe they've had breakthrough. And I'm not saying that if God is with you, he's going to give you everything you need. If you were to start talking to your AI relational bot, one of the problems they said they had with it in this interview I was listening to is it's just there to please you. It's there to figure out what you want, how you want, uh, you know, and to, and to give you what you want, to keep the relationship going.

I would say if you're gonna be with God, with Jesus, it isn't gonna work that way. There is a, there is a, a, a, a give and take because it's a relationship. It's a back and forth that we see, but it is God who enters into this relationship. And if you look in this, one of the ways that he, that he came, there's just, just some quick things that we see is, first of all, Jesus came as a Jew. He came to be with a group of people.

He wasn't the Scandinavian guy. You see in the pictures, right with the blue eyes. He came as he came as part of a people, he came as part of a family. He entered into Joseph's family. Joseph was from a lineage from a guy named King David. If you've seen Michael Angelo's statue, David, uh, you know, I think it's in Florence, I believe at the Eiti. I think it's at the Eiti. I could be wrong. Uh, it is there if you go to see that, that is the same David that Jesus came from.

See, Jesus didn't stay far away, but he came and he dwelt among us. He wanted to be with us. And he came through a people and he came through a family. He ultimately came through this woman who became almost like an ark that would hold Jesus. And she would birth Jesus. Her name was Mary. And through that relationship and his death on the cross, he now we can enter into that same relationship. And it goes on to say later in the scripture that if we believe in Jesus, his very spirit will not live on the outside of us, but will in dwell us from within.

One of the masterpieces of literature, whether you have seen it or believe it or not, is John is the book of John. The book of John is one of the most, it's in your Bible, it's easy to find. It's the fourth book from the right in the New Testament. And it starts out with this incredible treatise. And he calls Jesus a nickname. He calls him the word, but he means Jesus. And I can't get into the whole reason why he calls him the word, but the basic is, is that he, there's nothing more that could be said about Jesus.

Everything that is beautiful, everything that is kind, everything that could be said. And so in, as opposed to making it this massive diatribe of who he could be, he just calls him the word. He is everything. He is the word. I'm gonna read that to you because it's so important. And it says this in John one, one in the beginning was Jesus the word and the word was what? With God. And that word Jesus, it says was God. Now this is written by Jesus best friend John.

In the book of, in, in the book of John four books to the right, as soon as you get to the New Testament, was Jesus, we believe his best friend, the one who when Jesus was on the cross, looked to John and said, take care of my mother. Because Mary was there at his birth, obviously. And she was there with Jesus in his death. And John was with Jesus on the cross. And Jesus looks down from the cross and says, take care of my mother.

I want you to be with her. You see, with matters and who you are with matters. The friends you choose to walk with matter, they're the ones that will be there for you, the type of friend you'll be when you are with others matters. And it says He was with God. And then if you skip down a little bit further in John 14 verses, it talks about this with, because Jesus was not willing to sit in heaven and just watch us be separated from him because of our sin.

It says that he left heaven, he left everything. And in verse 14 of John chapter one, he said, and the word that was Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the only son from the Father full of grace and truth. I'm gonna come in for a landing here. There's a binary though, because relationships are binary, right? Granted, if I'm just talking to my computer, it's not binary. I mean, it's not a binary code probably, but it's not binary.

There is no person I'm talking to. It's just os and ones. But with God, there is, there are things that, that he will demand of us, right? And a lot of people will walk away because of some of the demands of scripture. What I have found with the demands of scripture is while I didn't always like everything that I felt scripture might have demanded of me, I have found that the, the things that were demanded of me often are the things that I don't want to give up, that have often been the things that most ruined my life and that I've grown older.

I wanted more and more to get rid of because God knows how he created us and he wants to walk with us. And so there's these binary, and so go to verse seven on the screen, if you would. She gave birth to her firstborn son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no place, lemme say that again, no place for them. In the end, talked a couple weeks ago about how Jesus came in poverty and his penu area came poor.

He didn't come rich. He could identify with the lowly. He was really good at that, those that were suffering. Um, he's called the suffering servant in the scripture. He dealt with, um, dark moments of depression, anxiety in the on, at the cross in Gethsemane. He had these moments where he would weep over Jerusalem, over the death of friends. He's a real person. He stepped in and became flesh and dwelled among us. But it said that he was, he was put there because there was no place for him at the end.

I know it's really easy just to say, wow, that's a, you know, that's, there was no place for him. Makes sense. But as I look at my own life, I realize that that metaphorically, I'm so often that in. And the question is, is will I make space for him? Because what I have found, and, and it's not, it's not a, a, a, uh, 100% truism that Jesus doesn't barge in where he's not invited. I have seen him do some barging, okay?

He's a good barger when he wants to make himself known. He will make himself known when he doesn't want you to die. And I had many opportunities that I, you know, didn't try to take my own life or I could have passed away multiple times. He's like, Nope, gonna save you from that. He will do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. But what I have found is that if we don't want to make room for him, he will oftentimes not force himself in.

And I guess the question is, as we're coming in for touchdown, do you want to make room for him? And do you want to walk with him? And this just isn't for people who, Hey, you know, I brought my my cousin to church today, and he never goes to church. Okay? It's for you too. But for some of us who have been walking with Jesus a very long time, I watched those youth videos. That was me. I was 14 years old. That was me, 15 years old, different camp, same kids.

And asking myself the question is, am I going to allow him space in my life? And how much margin, how much margin are you going to allow God in your life? Especially when it sometimes becomes uncomfortable? Because once again, Jesus wants to have a relationship with you, but he just doesn't want to tell you what to do. He doesn't just want to send you on your way with a bumper sticker answer. He wants to be in life with you.

And I gotta say, the Christian life is beautiful and amazing and awesome, and it's really hard. And right now I'm surrounded by a lot of people that aren't getting the prayers that I hope that they were getting answered. It's a struggle. But what I have found in my entire life, and, and I can only speak outta my own experience, is that no matter what I've gone through, even when God felt distant, as I look back, I can see that I was never alone.

I might have been lonely, but I was never alone. He says, if you seek him, you will find him. I talked at the beginning about the crisis of loneliness, and I began to, I think this began, it didn't crescendo in the eighties, but it began to pick up on the, um, some of the songs of the sixties and skip the seventies in the eighties. And then in the nineties, uh, bands like Nirvana, Nirvana sing, you know, all We Are All Alone is All We Are.

Um, but before that, in the eighties, I remember there was a song, um, by, uh, the Police and, uh, sting sang a song. It was called Message in a Bottle, maybe remember it? And I, we've all sung it. But this week I really, I dove deeply into the lyrics and I just realized, I think there's so many people who actually feel this way. As he said, this is just a castaway, an island lost at sea, another lonely day. And no one here but me, more loneliness than any man could bear rescue me before I fall.

What? Into despair At the end of the song, it goes on at the very end. And he says, walked out this morning. Don't believe what I saw, a hundred billion bottles washed upon the shore. Seems I'm not alone at being alone. A hundred billion castaways looking for a home. I I don't say that to be emotionally morbid. I say it because there might be some of you who that really resonates with. You really feel that way right now, and you need a God who says, I know you and I want to be with you, and I want to go with you.

Jesus says in Revelations three 20, behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in with him. I will eat with him, and he with me, and he will become your home. That is the message of the gospel. That is why Jesus came. And I will say something that might sound controversial. Jesus didn't come to save you from your sins primarily. He did do that, but he's not a cosmic lifeguard.

He did that for a greater purpose. He did that because he wants to be with you because he loves you. He didn't just say, oh, those people need some saving. Let's go do some saving. Like I'm just a lifeguard. That's what I get paid for. Then we'll go out for drinks afterwards. No, that's not how it worked. It's because he loves you so deeply. He couldn't think of himself being separated from you. That is the message of the gospel.

And the question is, is there a place for him in the end of your life? Or how much more margin could we make? Let's stand if we would. We're have the communion this service. I want to think through that on this Christmas Eve as we move into a new year, praying that 2026 will be a year of fruition for you. A year where you walk with others and you walk with God more deeply. You think about who you're walking with as the ushers come by, they're gonna be giving the, uh, communion out.

We'll be doing it in our place. I also ask the prayer team to come forward and after the service, we'll give you, um, a couple options before I bless you in this. The communion was before Jesus died on the cross, on the night he was betrayed. Jesus got all of his best friends together, and then one that would betray him. It was still a friend, but he betrayed him. And he started a, a ritual to talk about suing together, being together and being around a table and what matters and who you're with matters.

10 of those 12 would be martyred for the faith. One would die John, his best friend of natural causes. Judas would betray him and take his own life. But on the night Jesus would betrayed Lord Jesus, uh, took bread. And after giving thanks to God, he broke it. And if you have that bread in your wafer right now, one of the things I like to do is I like to break it. Chris, Can I have one? Thanks so much. And he says, uh, this is my body.

It is broken for you. Take and eat and do this in remembrance of me. And so let's take this and remember the broken body of Jesus. And in the same way Jesus took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. That's what opens the door to this relationship. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. Let's take the cup. I would say, gracious God, may we who have received this sacrament live in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

We may show forth your gifts to all the world. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ and we'd like to conclude the communion with the Lord's Prayer. If you wanna extend your hands, if you're comfortable with that, we'll say, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not at the temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Before I bless you, I just want to say, uh, a couple things. One, uh, there's uh, three options tonight. There's a few options. But lemme just give you, if, if you are here and this message, you're like, boom, like you know that God's speaking to you, you will know. If God's speaking to you, I'll just make it very clear.

You will know if that's you. Our prayer team is gonna be up here in the front. Come forward, we wanna pray for you. We wanna pray that you would know Jesus Christ as your savior, that his spirit would indwell you. After you pray with them, God's spirit will indwell you. It says He will be with you in what you're going through. Then we'll set it up and see you baptized in the new year here. But that is the first, that's one option.

If you're like, Hey, this is interesting to me. I wanna research this more. We have a table in the back, right when you go out to the right in the lobby, next steps, we have, uh, an awesome book called The Case for Christ. And you can check into it, go back there, just pick one up, and then just continue to come. I encourage you, come back six weeks in a row, come back six weeks, see what God is doing here at Sea Change Church and how he can do that.

And then the other thing is, I want to bless you, and you go. So if you extend your hands, let bless you tonight. Lord Jesus, you're a God who wants to be with us, Emmanuel. We wanna be with you, God. And if you want to be with him just in your own