The Christmas Story reminds us that God is sovereignly moving among us to bring about His plan even in the face of impossibly bad circumstances.

• It is so vitally important for us to believe the story surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ because in it God is revealing something about His

in our own lives.
• The miracle of God’s method isn’t that His method is unexpected; the miracle of His method is that it both transcends and includes us.

God’s Methods

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Us

• Romans 11:33-36 | Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
• In Romans 11, Paul is responding to the glorious plan of God with praise, doxology, awe and wonder. The tone of his words in these verses seem to indicate there was still a way in which Paul was

by the way God had chosen to move.
• When you hear the Christmas story, does it surprise you that God chosen to move in the ways that He did? Is it more confusing, frustrating, fear-inducing, awe-inspiring, or comforting to you to know that God’s ways are not the same as yours?
• Isaiah 55:8-9 | For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
• Deuteronomy 29:29 | “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
• Throughout Scripture we see this truth play out, not the least of which we see in the advent of Jesus Christ. If we’re honest, throughout our lives we see it play out, too. God chooses

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people like Mary, Joseph, and you and me, enabling us to accomplish His

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work in the world. That’s not meant to be frustrating or scary, rather, it should comfort us to know that God doesn’t depend on human wisdom or ability to carry out His plans and purposes. We can’t understand His ways, but we can trust Him that His ways are always good and right.

God’s Methods

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Us

• 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 | For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
• Again, in 1 Corinthians, Paul is revealing the plan of God to include people who didn’t fit the

of those you would think God would use.
• God announced Jesus’ birth to

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in a field, not kings in a palace (Luke 2:8-14). Jesus was revealed to two elderly prophets in the temple, not some young, up-and-coming influencers (Luke 2:25-28). Following His resurrection, Jesus appeared first to a group of women traveling on foot, not to the religious leaders still conspiring in the temple (Matthew 28:8-15).
• While the methods of God transcend us, the fact that He has given His

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to His children is evidence that God wants us to move with Him and that He wants to include us.
• God still uses ordinary people to accomplish His extraordinary work today. Your

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aren’t as important as your

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to join Him in His purposes. He can and does use the most ordinary and unsophisticated among us to accomplish great things.

Invitation/Application

• It’s easy to get confused or struggle to understand what God is doing sometimes. God gives us enough information to nurture

and faith.
• What about you? What is something God is doing in the world or in your life currently that you do not

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? Are you encouraged by the passages that we have studied today? Do you see the invitation that God is extending to you?
• It is an invitation to trust and be still or to trust and move forward. But

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in what you do not and cannot know will always be a part of God’s invitation.