Sermon by Markus Watson on December 9, 2007

This is the second sermon in the series titled “Unexpected !!”

Theme – You’d think that when the Son of God was born, God would want to announce the birth of his Son to someone important, or powerful, or spiritual. Not so! God made his birth announcement to the most unlikely people—to shepherds! Dirty, smelly, blue-collar shepherds. What a surprise! He also makes his Son known to someone else unexpected—to you and me.

This sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.

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Exactly one year ago, I was in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, interviewing to become the Organizing Pastor of a New Church Development—a church plant. The interview went great, the people were great, the area seemed great—everything was great! Just before we drove away to go to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, the chair of the hiring task force asked me, “If things work out the way I think they will, how soon do you think you could start?”

Robin and I left Frisco fully expecting that that’s where God was going to take us. But that’s not what happened. Something even better happened! God brought my family and me to Northminster Presbyterian Church in San Diego! I thought God was taking us in one direction, but the direction God actually ended up taking us was completely unexpected!

Our God is a God who does unexpected things. And Christmas is no exception. When you look at the Christmas story, nothing about the birth of Jesus was typical. Because of this, our theme for the Christmas season this year is “Unexpected!”

Everything about Jesus’ birth was unexpected. The fact that Jesus was born to a virgin from the outlying town of Nazareth was unexpected. The fact that God made his first birth announcement to sheepherding farmhands was unexpected. The fact that foreign astrologers traveled hundreds of miles to find this child king was unexpected. And the very fact that God would become a human being was utterly unexpected.

As we get ready to celebrate Christmas this year, I think we ought to expect God to do something unexpected. I don’t know what that might be—it is, after all, unexpected! It might be in your family; it might be in your work; it might be among your friends; it might be here at our church; it might be in our community; it might be in your own relationship with God. I think God loves to surprise us! And I suspect God’s got some great surprises for us this Christmas season!

~ Markus

Sermon by Markus Watson on December 2, 2007

This is the first sermon in the series titled “Unexpected !!”

Theme – Neither Mary nor Joseph were prepared to become parents, much less parents to the Son of God! It wasn’t easy for them. But they said “Yes” to God. They welcomed Jesus into their lives. Are we ready and willing to welcome the Son of God into our lives?

This sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.

It is recommended that you give Juice a try. Juice is an open source podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts.