It’s based on the English monetary system – a penny is like our penny, the pound is like our dollar. If you’re going to be in for a single cent – you might as well be in for the whole dollar.

Two young athletes wanted to become great baseball pitchers. Everyday, they would go out and practice.

The first athlete would go out and practice his poses for his major-league baseball card pictures. He would work on softening and conditioning his glove. He’d practice signing autographs on baseballs. He worked on his best public relations smile.

The second athlete took buckets of balls and threw them over and over and over again towards the hole in an old tire hung on his swing-set. Then, he’d trek down to where the tire hung and pick up all the loose baseballs and start over again until he could pitch those balls through the hole nearly every time.

The first one knew that his performance could always be improved by steroids; the second one knew that in order to be the best, he had to be phenomenal on his own - alone – in his back yard, day after day, bucket of balls after bucket of balls.

Both were in the process of becoming major-league pitchers; only one would actually make it. They were in – one for a penny; the other for the whole pound.

Have you ever been a part of something huge?

I once was invited to be on the bottom floor of an investment a few years back, after Pizza Hut had been acquired by Pepsico back in the late 70s. Pizza Hut was a Wichita company, founded by Dan and Frank Carney. In 1977, Pizza Hut was acquired by Pepsico, along with KFC and Taco Bell. About the time I graduated from college, some friends said we should invest in Pizza Hut and Pepsico because 1) it was good Pizza, 2) it was a Wichita legend, 3) we could get rich.

I didn’t buy in.

From 1977 to 1997, the stock split several times. If I had invested, I might have been rich, depending on how much I had invested. As it turns out – I wasn’t in for a penny or a pound, and I got nothing in return.

A friend of mine DID buy stock. In fact, she worked for Pizza Hut in the Wichita corporate office before it moved to Texas, and got stock as bonuses for several years. When Pizza Hut moved to Texas, she left them and had enough money to retire if she wanted.

As far as I know, she still owns the stock. In 1997, Pepsico spun off Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell into a whole new company called Tricon, and in 2002, Tricon joined with Long John Silver’s and A&W Restaurants to become YUM! Brands.

I have a feeling my friend is rolling in the dough – sorry for the pun.

The moral of my story is that she had an opportunity – she stepped through the door and made the most of it.

It wasn’t all peaches and cream, either. Merger issues, lawsuits, closing the headquarters, choosing to move to Texas or leave the company – it wasn’t always fun. But she stuck with it. She was a participant in the drama; she played a role.

I watched from the sidelines and neither gained nor lost from being a spectator; but I was also never in the game.

Have you ever been included? Have you ever been given the opportunity to be fully integrated into something significant? Have you ever been an essential element of something bigger than yourself? Have you ever been a necessary part of a whole that made a major difference?

Being included always feels good – it always makes us feel important – we always get a sense of satisfaction when we are asked to participate – when we get included.

Joseph and Mary were included:
• They were a part of the nation of Israel – God’s chosen people.
• They were part of the lineage of King David – royalty in a sense.
• They were also included in God’s plan and chosen to be parents of the Most High.
• As Jesus’ soon-to-be parents, they were made to face the Roman census and made to face the hardships that travel caused.
• They were included as chief participants in God’s plan for humanity, but they weren’t exempted from the reality of human life.

Though they had a rough time of it, everything they went through had meaning in God’s plan.

In the truest sense – Mary and Joseph were included by God – invited in, allowed to be a part and take an active role, and even included in the hardships that came along with being included.

Mary has been visited by the angel and told she will bear a son – conceived by the Holy Spirit – the Son of God.

Joseph has also been visited by the angel and told to go ahead and marry the virgin and call the son that he will raise, Jesus.

Read about another small part of their story – their part of the Christmas story, and God’s plan and process of salvation in Luke 2:1-7.

Mary faced a lot of hardships as an unwed mother. She was young, maybe 13 or 14; pregnant. Stoning would be her punishment if Joseph rejected her.

Joseph had to make some tough decisions: divorce her? send her away? ridicule her in front of family? denounce her publicly? treat her harshly if he chose to remain betrothed and went through with the official marriage? Or accept her and love her – her and the child she carried.

At this point in the story, we read about the Roman census. The census was a hardship all its own.

A couple of years ago, Gail and I built a deck on the back of our house. Within a week, we had a tax notice stuck in the door. “We noticed you added a deck – an improvement to your home. . .” Our house had been reassessed! They reassessed for the deck and a finished basement (which we don’t have) and added up our square footage wrong because they thought we had a full second floor (which we don’t).

For two years we’ve been fighting to get our house correctly reassessed – and we finally won. But – we still have to pay more because we added the deck. (If we ever finish the basement it will be in the dead of night when no one can see!)

If we were subject to a census like the Roman census Mary and Joseph were forced to take part in, we’d have had to make a long journey back to Wichita, Kansas to register our citizenship and proof of our marriage, register our income taxes, and register the taxes on our home and property.

Worse – if we were Roman citizens, the government would immediately conscript me and my 13 year old son for active duty in the Roman army and be shipped off to some foreign campaign. Gail would have to find her own way back to Ohio, or forfeit her ownership of the house and her salon and all we possess.

Joseph and Mary are the people God has chosen to be the parents of His Son, Jesus, but they have to make a 3-day long journey, uphill most of the way through the mountains of Judea to the south part of Israel to the ancestral home of King David where they could enroll or register with the Romans.

To make matters worse, Mary was 9 months pregnant. When they got there, they found thousands of relatives running around the town of Bethlehem. Everywhere they looked they saw a cousin or an uncle or an aunt or some other distant relative – many of whom, no doubt, were strangers.

They found that the main living areas of everyone’s home was filled, as were the katalumas or upper rooms used by visiting guests, also known in scripture as “inns” – so they were forced to settle down for sleeping on the straw of the front room where the family kept their animals during the night.

In fact, Mary had to lay her newborn baby in the hay of one of the mangers or feed-troughs there in the house. It was less than sanitary, and less than comfortable, but it was the best they could find when thousands of people descended on Bethlehem. The Romans had forced thousands of people all over Israel into this forced registration, and no one slept well or ate well for several days, perhaps weeks.

All except the Romans, that is. This forced registration found literally millions of people moving from one city to the next. Every time they stopped for rest or food or water, the Romans taxed them.

Can you imagine if Christmas was legislated?

• Everyone must return to the city of their birth.
• On the way you must buy gasoline and stay one night in a hotel, OR you must buy bus or train or plane tickets for travel.
• On the way you must purchase food and drink.
• Once registered, you must go back to where you live and spend money all the way.
• Oh – and you must buy some Christmas gifts in every town in which you stop.
• And each time you spend a dollar, the government gets 7 cents.

That’s pretty much what was happening with Mary and Joseph.

This has been a stressful time for them.

Pregnant – but not married yet.
Pregnant by God, no less.
Carrying the Child of the Most High God.
People think they’re crazy – or immature – or immoral. . . it’s scandalous!
Rumors are flying.
Visited by angels – c’mon, you know what that would do to you!!
Now they have to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem - about 70 miles as the crow flies, but with the winding mountain trails they had to use, the trip would be about 100 miles, and the climb would be an increase of 1,312 feet in altitude. At their best walking pace, the trip would take at least 3 days – more like a full week to cover that distance and height.

Wouldn’t you think that God would have spared them the trials and tribulations and difficulties of this trip? Why Bethlehem? Why the Roman occupation? Why a virgin birth – with speculation for years to come about the true father of Mary’s son?

Why?

Because Mary and Joseph signed on for the long haul. They were included – and they walked in with their eyes wide open and their heads held high.

They did it because it had to be so.

Isaiah said the virgin would conceive and bear a son. Only a human virgin could be used to give birth to the Son of God – so there could be NO misconceptions about His birthright and His true nature; He was fully God and fully human.

The Messiah had to rule on David’s throne, so He had to be born of the lineage of David, and both Mary and Joseph were descendants of King David.

The prophet Micah said the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, so God used the Roman census to get Mary and Joseph there for the birth. (The Romans thought they were high and mighty – but even in their pride they were being used by God to fulfill His plan for salvation for humankind!)

And Jesus was born in the most humble of places to show, that while He was King over all the earth, He was born to humanity to save us from our wretchedness. Where else but in the hay of a manger would such an approachable King be laid to sleep?

God’s plans included Mary and Joseph – and that meant including them in the rough times and the joyful; in the hard times and the pleasant. God uses all of the situations of Mary and Joseph’s lives to bring about His perfect plan for redeeming a lost and fallen and wandering humanity.

Take time to read Romans 8:18-25.

Let me give you a paraphrase of that passage:

What we go through today and tomorrow is not even worth comparing to the amazing glory and full revelation what God has planned for us in His perfect will. We have to wait and see it revealed in us fully at the end of human history.

Not only the created world, but we ourselves, who are already saved by Christ’s redeeming act, even we moan and groan inwardly as we await eagerly the completion of our full adoption as sons and daughters of our loving Father, which is made complete when we receive our new, spiritual, perfect, resurrected bodies.

It’s in this certainty of salvation and resurrection into eternal life with God that we were saved. But, we’re still waiting for it to all be completed, perfectly. And we will wait patiently – and endure patiently – and deal with everything that comes our way, patiently because, hey: hope that is seen is no hope at all! Who hopes for what he already has? No – we’re waiting and hoping for the completion of all of God’s plans. . . and since He has included us in His plans, we’re going to endure it all and wait patiently!

What is it you’ve gone through in your life that is less than wonderful – less than happy – less than encouraging?

We all get old, we all get sick, we all suffer loss, we all will die.

Life dishes out tough times – taxes, debt, depression, frustration – you name it.

But, what we go through today and tomorrow is not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us.

Let me make that personal for you: what YOU go through each and every day is not worth comparing to the glory that God is going to reveal in YOU at the end of your life – as you choose to follow Jesus and bend your knee and bow your head to His Lordship.

Folks, God includes us in the process and plan of salvation. Everything we go through in life has meaning in God’s plan. He uses everything in life to mold us and shape us and refine us into the image of Jesus.

At Christmas, I believe one of the greatest things you can do is to identify God’s continual blessings to you, and to give Him thanks and praise for what He’s doing in you. That’s the greatest Christmas gift any of us can give to Him!

What is God doing in your life?

He led Joseph and a very pregnant Mary on an arduous, dusty journey to Bethlehem to give birth next to the animals and lay Him in a manger.

He led Jesus through a life of trials and pain to a death He did not deserve.

How is God shaping and molding and refining you?

Will you offer that to Him this Christmas as your greatest “thank you” and your greatest gift of surrender, ever?