{"id":3733,"date":"2024-12-24T12:23:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:23:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/?p=3733"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:01:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T20:01:55","slug":"good-news-of-great-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/2024\/12\/24\/good-news-of-great-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News of Great Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have been given &#8220;good news of great joy&#8221; dear friends, a reason to rejoice this day and every day, for &#8220;unto us is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!&#8221; &#8220;Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom He is pleased!&#8221; These words punctuate the beginning of Jesus earthly life, the most remarkable, extraordinary life that has ever or will ever be lived, a life that has transformed our world.<\/p>\n<p>Last Sunday, December 22, 2024, I offered the Christmas sermon at our home church, based on Luke 2:1-20. I want to invite you to watch and listen to this message, looking past the preacher to the amazing message from God, &#8220;good news of great joy for all people,&#8221; communicated through the Gospel writer Luke. May you be encouraged and challenged with the truth:\u00a0<strong>The Savior is born according to God\u2019s plan, so let us join in God-glorifying responses.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uFqvx_x2uv0?si=nzEy2tft-sRAu7Dr\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There were two main points I observed in Luke 2:1-20 (shown below). I found it interesting that Luke gave much more attention to the preparation for the birth of Jesus (Luke 1:5-2:6) than to the actual birth (2:7), and it seemed that Luke&#8217;s primary emphasis in this passage is on seven responses from heaven and earth to the miraculous event of God becoming man (2:8-20). These responses are also excellent patterns for us to imitate.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>God\u2019s plan in the Savior\u2019s birth. (1-7)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Historic setting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Necessary journey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Humble birth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li><strong>Our responses to the Savior\u2019s birth. (8-20)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Proclaim the Gospel with an angel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Worship with the heavenly host.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Seek Jesus with the shepherds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Tell others with the shepherds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Marvel with those who heard.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ponder with Mary.<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Praise God with the shepherds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To God be the glory, and may your Christmas be filled with joy and peace as we worship the Savior, Christ the Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have been given &#8220;good news of great joy&#8221; dear friends, a reason to rejoice this day and every day, for &#8220;unto us is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord!&#8221; &#8220;Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those with whom He is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/2024\/12\/24\/good-news-of-great-joy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Good News of Great Joy<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional-thoughts","category-messages-and-presentations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3736,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/3736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzglobal.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}