The Arrival of the King

Pastor Ryan’s explores the “upside down nature” of life and faith, contrasting common expectations (like suppressing emotion or assuming success breeds confidence) with the truth that reality often works in reverse. Focusing on the arrival of King Jesus in Luke 2:1-7, Pastor Ryan highlights how this event demonstrated both God’s sovereignty and Jesus’s profound humility. God’s supreme control was shown when he used the decree of the greedy Roman ruler Caesar Augustus to force Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, thus fulfilling prophecy. The birth also displayed Jesus’s humility: instead of being born in a lavish palace, the King of Kings arrived in an obscure, “too little” town and was laid in a manger (a feeding trough), confirming the humble beginnings prophesied for the Messiah. Ultimately, Jesus’s birth and subsequent sacrifice on the cross represent the loving act of God stepping into human pain and suffering to save us, calling believers to live lives that reflect this “upside down way of Jesus”.