You are invited to look past the decorations and traditions to find the real reason for the season in Christ. Embrace the freedom He offers today, knowing you are clean and loved, and let that grace propel you forward in faith. Do not use this grace as an excuse, but walk in the righteousness He has declared over your life.
Lord, we thank you. And the Bible says, "ask and it will be given". Seek and you'll find. Knock and the door shall be opened. Will you hear our hearts cry?
And Father, we ask you to show us aspects of who you are more clearly, reaffirm foundations for people, give people a deeper understanding of things that they've never knew or saw before about your reason for coming as a baby, about history. We trust you. And everybody said Amen. You may be seated. I love this church.
My
name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. There's no place I'd rather be. There is nothing that I'd rather be doing. And I'm so thankful that you would choose to spend the Sunday before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here with us.
And I'm having fun with our tacky Christmas shirts and Christmas sweaters and other things. It's a real good time following Jesus. Amen? Amen. If you're not having a real good time, you're probably doing it wrong.
You need to hang out with different people. People that know how to have a real good time following Jesus. Amen? Amen. And our prayer is, if this is your first time, you saw our advertisements about Christmas and everything, I want you to know our heart.
I say this every Sunday too. Our prayer is that you would encounter the power and the presence of God in a very real way. Most of you probably already have. You're like, man, what was all that? God loves you.
That you'd encounter His love in such a way that the blinders of your eyes in any area that have been blinded, you're walking in less freedom than He created you to, would be taken off, and you'd walk in deeper levels of surrender. Everybody say, surrender. There is freedom in surrender. Amen. Outside of surrender, there is bondage, and you're bound to your desires.
You're bound to every whim of thing that you when you're going after freedom, but the only freedom is found in following Him because He created you to know Him and to live for Him. Amen? Amen. So we're going to talk about that. But my prayer, my hope, I guess, for this whole message is that you would walk away understanding the importance of tradition, because tradition is good if it creates the right culture in your life and and home.
There are a lot of traditions that are bad because they create a wrong culture. They reinforce the wrong culture. So my prayer is that you would understand why we do the tradition of Christmas the way that we do. My prayer is that you would understand why Jesus came. You'd understand just more of the totality of the story, and maybe some gaps in your theological understanding would be filled in, and you'd have a stronger foundation.
Is that a good plan for the day? Okay. So the tradition of Christmas is good. I love Christmas. I've got to travel the world.
I was in Japan about 2 years ago during the Christmas season, and Japan's 1 of the most unreached cultures, unreached nations around the world, untouched by the gospel, only 1 or 2% know Jesus in Japan. And yet, they love Christmas. I mean, Christmas is everywhere. There's Christmas lights, and Christmas trees, and they're singing carols, and they have no idea who they're singing about. They're just doing it because they love the season.
So, points people to Christ. It's an open door for the gospel. It's beautiful. I love it. We have a tradition in our home, and I would encourage you to to have Christmas traditions in your home.
On Christmas Eve, we are thankful for what God has done. A lot of times, there's hot cocoa involved, the Christmas movie. We we gather as a family, sit on the couch, and and watch. The last few years, it's been the movie Star. It's a cartoon that that points to the birth of Christ about a donkey, a male donkey that ends up carrying I'll let you watch the movie.
It's good.
It's good. Star.
So, we watch that, and a lot of times we'll open a gift. Sometimes we open the gifts on Christmas Eve, sometimes Christmas Day, it depends on if we're traveling to see family or not. But we'll open a gift and a lot of times that's pajamas or something like that. Grammy will give us pajamas and we'll put on our our Christmas gifts, pajamas and stuff for the night. But before we open gifts, whether that's Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, we open up the Bible.
We all sit around. We go to Luke-2, the Christmas story, and we read it. And the kids read it. So in our house, once you start reading, it's a big deal because you get to participate in reading the Christmas story. River, she's 4.
She can't read yet, so she'll get to, you know, sit and watch as Eden, Selah, and Trip read the Christmas story because he's the "reason for the season". He's the reason we do all of this. His generosity is the reason that we can have gifts. Right? And we recognize that we're putting him at the center.
And then after we read the Christmas story and we pray prayers, thanking God for what he's done in our life and thanking for for him coming, being born of a virgin, which we'll talk about why that was important in a little bit. Open our gifts and stuff. And then inevitably, Christmas morning, my wife will go fire up the black stone and we'll have something called super duper eggs every year. Super duper eggs. It's scrambled eggs with cheese and onions and bell peppers and lots of other things she puts in there, lots of loves in there as well.
These traditions were passed down from to our family, from our families before. My mom and dad, I used to grow up. I I remember Christmas Eve, we're sitting around before we opened up the pajama gifts. You know? We were reading Luke-2 and we went around.
All the kids got to read it. Her family, her dad always did super duper eggs after they opened Christmas presents on Christmas morning. Why? Those traditions are good. They're creating a culture.
As my kids grow older, they'll remember those things and it'll cause them to remember the reason for the season. Hopefully, they'll remember what dad said about why. And if they don't, which I'm sure they will. Right? You guys will remember.
Alright. But if they don't, they'll open up scripture and and go and search it out for themselves. Traditions create culture, and traditions are good if they create the right culture. So I want to move forward with Christmas and just answer a lot of questions that people are asking this season. 1, why do we call it Christmas?
I'll tell you. *Christ* mass is where it first came from. The early church, the early Christians, in wanting to celebrate the birth of Christ, they would always gather and have mass. Mass would represents the Eucharist or communion where they would celebrate the the death of Christ and His blood that cleanses us of our sin, and remembering that what Jesus did on the cross matters for us today. They'd always have mass, but they wanted to celebrate the birth of Christ.
And so Christmas, *Christ*'s mass, was when they would gather 1 time a year to specifically celebrate when when they figured that maybe Jesus was born on this day. So why did they choose December 25? Well, let me tell you. Does anywhere in here say that Jesus was born on December 25? No.
But we do know, just a little history lesson, some We we know that Jesus died on Passover, and the year that he died, Passover, was March 25. And early Christians in the first century and second century believed that, man, well, Jesus being perfect, having never sinned, a perfect life would be if he was conceived and died on the same day. So then if he if we know he died on March 25, we're gonna start celebrating Christmess or Christmas, if you know, then maybe he was conceived on March 25. That would be like a whole perfect life. I'm not saying the Bible says that.
That's just what they were saying in the first and second century. They were believing. Right? And so, well, March 25, if he was conceived there, 9 months plus March 25 is December 25. Let's have the first Christ mass on December 25.
A lot of people say, oh, it's just a you know, December 25, they did it there. It's a Roman God thing. No. That actually came after they started celebrating Christmas. So the the the syncretism that a lot of people are worried about in Christmas and stuff, no.
*Christ Christmas points to Jesus*. You can bring other things in and have it diluted in any in whatever way you want, but we do gifts, not because some other culture did or that culture did. We we do gifts because we're celebrating that Christ is radically generous, and we put him at the center of everything that we do. And it gives us the opportunity to share the gospel. You understand?
Amen? Amen. You guys good? Yeah. So then that leads to more questions.
Well, if we're celebrating Christmas because of Christ's birth, and we understand that, then why? Why did God come into this world and be born of a virgin? Why did he have to be born of a virgin? Like, why would that happen? And in that time, you have to understand that most people believed in God or in gods.
They believed in deities, but it was interesting that the God of the universe would be *incarnated* into the womb of a *virgin* and go through the birth canal? And then go through everything that a baby goes through as he grows up? I mean, not uncommon for God to appear as a man, but actually to become 1.
That's crazy.
Back then, there there there weren't as many atheists as we have now. People getting into science, which is a good thing. Science is simply the study of what God has created. All of nature points to God. So the more that you study it, the more that you dig in, the more it points that there is a God.
It's pride that blinds the minds of unbelievers. Amen? So then why all of this? And that's the reason for this message. I'm going to take you on a journey through history, understanding God's his story, and how many different small stories that God created of people following him by grace through faith points to Jesus.
Many of this you've already heard before, or much of this you've already heard before, much of it you haven't, some of you. Sometimes or for some of you, it's going to put things together in a way you've never seen before. But I want you to know, I'm probably not going to open this and read verses for the rest of the time. But I'm going to quote many and summarize many. So with that being said, I wanna put up the list of verses that I'm quoting and summarizing for the rest of the message.
Take a picture. Oh, I'm serious. Pull out your phone. Take a picture. I want you to go back and see if what I'm saying is true.
If you're too far from this to take a picture, we're gonna put this up at the end of service. I want you to take a picture then because I want you to dive in. The thing some of the things that I'm I'm gonna tell you for many of you, it's gonna be shocking. But there's a verse for that. And if there's not a verse for it, don't believe me.
Amen? You guys ready to dive in? God has a **grand plan** and his grand plan from all history is to have a people that freely love him, that choose to love him because without faith, it's impossible to please him. And that Revelation-21, which I don't have up there, write it down. He would be their God, and we would be his people and he would "dwell with them".
That's the plan of all of history. As a matter of fact, we can know God's plan. Another 1 that's not up there. I'm taking taking some liberty here. Amos-3:7.
Surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants, the prophets. So everything God does before He does it, He reveals it to His people because he wants to work with his people and through his people. He's sovereign. He can do whatever he wants, but he set a plan in motion and doesn't operate in any way that's opposed to what he's already said because he never changes and he never lies. That's why he operates through man.
We'll talk about it. So he does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants, the prophets, but Jesus said in John-15:15, another verse that wasn't up there, that you are my friends because I reveal God's will to you. So we can know God's will, be his friends, and operate according to his will. How does that work? Why is Christmas the way it is?
Let's understand his plan. Let me roll it out to you. In Genesis-1, God created the heavens and the earth. He 6 days of creation, he spoke and boom, it happened. And he said after each day, it was good.
But then when he created mankind, instead of just speaking, he used his hands and formed man out of the dust of the earth. It was personal. And then he bent down and he breathed into man. So when mankind awoke for the first time, the first thing he saw was the face of God. You get to see the face of God too.
Many of you experience the face of God today during worship because the Bible says the face of God is revealed in his presence. When you experience the presence of God, you're experiencing his face and he's no longer hiding his face from you, but
he wants to pour out his presence on you because of Jesus. So another extra little nugget. Anyway, so God breathed into Adam, and Adam became a living being. He created mankind, Adam and Eve, in his image to be a reflection of him. Man is greater than the animals because the animals are not created in the image of God, but we are to be a reflection of him.
So, we don't value animals more than we value babies in the womb, because babies in the womb are created in the image of God. And if your theology doesn't want doesn't would rather kill a baby in the womb than an animal, you're off. And you're devaluing the image of God. If
that offends you, that's okay. I love you enough to tell you the truth. *Repent*, and let's "walk in truth" together. Amen? Okay.
So God breathed into Adam. He became a living being, created him in his image. And then in Genesis-1, I think it's 21 through 23, something like that. It's on the screen. Earlier.
He said, let us make mankind in our image, and he gave dominion of the world to mankind. Sovereign God, over all, but because he's all powerful, he can do what he wants with his power. And he delegated dominion of the world to mankind. In that delegation of dominion, God, who doesn't go back on his word, is saying, I'm gonna operate through man in the earth, "co laboring" with him and through him. So he created a garden of Eden that was beautiful and wonderful, put man in it to work the garden with him, walked with him in the garden.
But outside of the garden, there was chaos. And God spoke to mankind and said, hey, I want you to multiply and fill the whole earth. What was he supposed to do? And going outside of the garden, he was supposed to make the rest of the earth look like the garden, taking the character and nature of God everywhere he goes as the reflection of God in the earth, co laboring with him. Makes sense?
But God is love. And so God, in creating mankind in his image, created him for a loving *relationship* with himself. But you can't have a loving relationship without the choice not to love. And how do you love God? How is that possible?
Is it just a feeling of love? No. God is all powerful, all knowing, and he's all good. He's omnipresent. The only way that you can love God is by obeying him.
That's it. To love him is to obey his commands. Because when you disobey him, you're saying, I don't trust that you're all powerful and all good and know everything. I know more than you. That's what disobedience to God is saying.
I choose my way instead of yours. So the only way to love him back is to obey him. So the only way to have a relationship with him is to hear his word, believe it, and put it into practice. So what did God do to give man the opportunity to love him? He gave him a choice.
He created 2 trees in the Garden Of Eden. He said, you can eat from any tree in the garden, but this 1 tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you cannot eat from for you will surely die. So that was a special 1. Then he had the "tree of life". If mankind would have eaten of the tree of life, he would have had God's life on the inside and would have lived dependent on that life in relationship with him.
But mankind never did. Instead, he chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What is that? Doesn't doesn't that sound good? Sounds like a good tree.
I wanna know more, don't I? No. Wait a second. That's a tree of, I get to choose for myself what I think is good and what I think is evil apart from what you say, God. "My truth".
Sound familiar in culture? My truth. What I want. What I feel. If it goes along with what you say, that's good.
But as soon as it doesn't, I'm doing what I want instead of what you say, God, because I'm my own God. Adam and Eve chose to eat of that tree of what I think is good and what I think is evil, independent of God who is life. Independence from life results in? You guys follow me? Independence
from life results in?
You will surely die. And so, there was a spiritual death that took place in that moment. They were separated from the life of God. Spiritual precedes physical. Doomed to physically die, the "payment for sin" is death.
Now, in Romans-5:19, it's on the list, it says, by the disobedience of the 1 man, the many were made sinners. Think about that for a second. By the disobedience of the 1 man, the many were made sinners. So are you a sinner because you sin? No.
You're a sinner because 1 man sinned. And that nature to sin was passed down from generation to generation. You don't You look like your parents. You look like your grandparents. You have some of their characteristics and mannerisms, but also some of their nature was passed down to you too.
If your parents are alcoholics, you're more likely to be born and grow up addicted to something because their sin nature was passed down to you. See, the problem is in the heart. When Adam and Eve, they were delegated authority over all the world, and
they chose sin, sin infected the heart, and
the Bible says whatever you obey, you become a slave to. Well, that's the problem, because now they're in dominion over the world, and they become a slave to sin. So now the power of sin affects and influences all of creation. And Satan just capitalized on that to try to keep us condemned so that he can rule using the influence and the power of disobedience because he was the first rebellious 1. Make sense?
You guys follow me. I'm I'm gonna try to tie it all together for you and not knock over things as I do. So what happened? Adam and Eve, by the disobedience of the 1 man, the many were made sinners. A seed reproduces after its own kind.
If you plant an orange seed, you get an orange tree. If you plant an apple seed, you get an apple tree. If you plant the seed of a sinful man into the egg of a woman, what do you get? A sinful man or woman. Sinner.
That sin nature was passed from generation to generation. You don't teach a 3 year old to disobey. They naturally do. You have to teach them to be obedient. Oh, there's still some obedience in there.
Right? Because the signature of the creator, the God who is love, is still on them, but it's been tainted by a nature to sin. Make sense? We have to be saved from ourselves. So as Adam and Eve reproduced, you see the sin nature in the first family.
Cain and Abel. Cain ended up murdering Abel because of envy and strife. And then they had Seth, and Seth reproduced, and multiple of many of their kids reproduced. And as generation to generation multiplied, because that's what happens, Exponential multiplication filled the whole earth. So as man filled the whole earth, what filled the whole earth too?
*Sin*. Because
*sin* was in the man. It's a hard issue. By the disobedience of the 1 man, the many were made sinners. It's a nature problem, and you end up doing what you are. No matter how hard you try to do good, you're always chained and pulled back to sin and selfishness, and the payment for sin is separation from God.
So, during that time, we're going to get to the flood where God judged the whole earth. Why would a good God kill everything in the earth except for 1 family? I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you. But even in that time, God was still operating by grace through faith.
He give His word, and His word is wrapped in all of the grace necessary to walk it out. People like Enoch, who lived as a righteous man and preacher of the gospel, preacher of of God's word. People like Noah who heard God's word and had all of the grace necessary to build the ark, he heard it, he believed it. How do you know he believed it? He did it.
Without obedience, there's no faith. But God, when you receive the word, the word transforms you, and you know it transforms you because the obedience comes after that. The doing comes because of who he made you to be by the receiving of his word, by grace through faith. So Enoch lived in righteousness because he believed God's word, believing forward to the word made flesh, Christ. Noah believed forward to the word made flesh, Christ, and he made the ark.
And then God judged the world. Why did he judge the world? Because he's a righteous judge and he's God. He can do what he wants. *Sin* has to be judged.
Otherwise, God's not righteous. If a murderer Some some guy rapes and murders my daughters He gets caught. We go to the court, and the judge sees, and the guy has sorrow because he knows he's about to be caught and put away for life or executed. So he's pleading for mercy. And the judge says, you know what?
Let's just swipe this under the rug, let you go. Is that a righteous judge or an evil judge? Why? Because that *sin*, that deed requires punishment according to the law of the land. Right?
God is a righteous judge, and the penalty for sin according to the law of the universe is death. He's not evil. He doesn't enable us. There has to be payment. And so, he flooded the world.
I believe, knowing his character nature, he probably spoke to many of them, but they rejected his voice. But people like Enoch and Noah heard, believed and walked in faith, And it was credited to them as righteousness. Anyway, flooded the whole world. The crazy thing about the flood, because it's history, everybody say, His story. His story.
Right. So it's God's story, and through the lives of people like Adam, or Seth, or Enoch, or Noah, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, the prophets of old, through all of their stories, He's showing an aspect of Christ, so that we can see their testimony and be "pointed to Christ". That's the same thing he wants to do in your life. As you follow by grace through faith, he wants you to be a reflection of Christ, so people can see your life and be pointed to Jesus too. But it's all in this his patience, he's working it out, and weaving all of these stories together in history, so we can look back and learn about how Christ did things, how God did things, the character nature of him, and know him, and be able to follow him better today.
So let me show you what he was showing in the flood. In Genesis-6, it said it says that God grieved that he made man because every inclination of his heart was on evil from birth, which means he had a sin nature. So then, God judged the world with the flood, and then in Genesis-8, Noah and his children were getting off of the boat, which the boat represents Christ. The boat saved them from the judgment of God in the same way when we believe in Christ, we're placed in him, and we're saved from the judgment of God. You get it?
So in Genesis-8, when they get off of the boat, God makes a promise, and he puts a rainbow in the sky that says that he'll never judge the earth by a flood or by water again. Next time, it's gonna be by fire. And Noah makes a sacrifice to God because that's what he knows to do as an act of worship. God smells the aroma, the pleasing sacrifice, and he declares this, I'll never judge the earth again by water, even though the inclination of man's heart is on evil from birth. Wait a second.
Hold on. Genesis-6, the inclination of man's heart was on evil from birth. God judges the world. And then Genesis-8, the inclination of man's heart is still on evil from birth? That's a problem.
That means the flood didn't work. Did it do what God wanted it to do? Absolutely. But it's showing through history and through looking back on what God did, it shows that the judgment of God does not bring about the *righteousness* of God.
*Judgment* doesn't bring righteousness, and you know that. Any of you have ever been
to jail? You don't have to raise your hand. Did jail change your heart? Nope. Maybe if you met Jesus in jail, but you got out and you just got better at hiding it.
Right? *Judgment doesn't bring about righteousness. This is a part of history that God's using all of these different stories to point to Christ and to point what to what does change the heart*. So now, Noah and his kids multiply, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Japheth, they have lots of sons and daughters, who have lots of sons and daughters, and man fills the whole earth again. And man fills the whole earth. What fills the whole earth too?
*Sin*. Sin. Because a seed multiplies after its own kind. So what did God do? He chose another man.
Why? Because he gave dominion to mankind. So he always operates through a man on the earth. So he chose Abraham, spoke to him. Abraham heard, believed, and how do we know that he believed?
Because he did it. He said, go to a land I'll show you. Abraham picked up and started going. By grace through faith, the ability to do what God said was wrapped in the word. He received it, was transformed by it, and we know he was because his action shows that he was transformed.
You do comes from who you are. Who you are is either what you were born as or what God said because you believed it and were transformed by his word.
People are well, I'm born this way.
You can be "born again". So, Abraham follows by faith, begins having children or has Isaac. Isaac has 12 tribes of Israel, and all of Israel today are the children of Abraham. That's where that came from. That's where Israel came from.
And their story, God had to choose someone to work through redemption for the world, and he chose a man who operated in faith. So Abraham's children end up in captivity in Egypt. That's where you hear the story of Moses and and the 10 plagues. What happened? God chose a man to free his people from from slavery in Egypt, and his people were just the children of Abraham who "walked by faith", and God's enacting his plan of all of history through that because he's God and he chose to.
When you're God, you can make your own rules, but you'll never be, So I would choose to follow Him. Amen? Okay. So the tenth plague, all these crazy plagues, the frogs and all the stuff. If you don't know the story, go read in the book of Exodus.
The tenth plague is the plague on the firstborn, where the angel of death is gonna pass over and kill all the firstborn of Egypt. And God spoke through Moses, and they had to dip hyssop in the blood of a lamb and put it over the doorway. And as long as the blood was over the doorway, the angel of death would pass over. That's why that's why they celebrate Passover, by the way. The angel of death would pass over and and no 1 in their home would die.
Well, what does that represent? Jesus is the lamb that was slain. It's all pointing to Christ. You put the blood over the doorpost of your heart, and you don't have to pay the penalty for sin and be separated from God, but walk in relationship with Him. Everything in Scripture is pointing to Christ.
The birth of Christ, Christmas is the center, the crux of it. You can't celebrate his birth without celebrating his death and resurrection because it all matters. So what happens next? Moses leads the people out of Egypt because they were set free by the blood from their captors. As they're going out of Egypt, guess what?
All of the Egyptians recognize what's happening and they start chasing after them. When you give your life to Jesus, you better believe every demon in hell is trying to come after you so that you don't believe what happened was real, and you go back to Egypt. Don't. They walk through the waters of baptism, the Red Sea. Their captors are drowned in that.
Get baptized if you've given your life to Jesus. And they end up at the foot of Mount Sinai. You okay, buddy? They end up at the foot of Mount Sinai. If these names and stuff aren't familiar, that's okay.
Just get the story of what I'm saying. They end up at the foot of Mount Sinai, and they reject the voice of God for the voice of Moses. They reject relationship with him for the voice of Moses. Don't hey, don't have him speak to us, God, Moses. We wanna hear you.
You go speak to him. And God gives them the old covenant. You've heard that before? The law. The law of Moses.
Deuteronomy, it shows that if you 28, which is on the on the list of scriptures. I want you to go back and look. It shows that if you obey the the law, you're blessed. If you disobey the law, you're cursed. And they said, at the foot of the mountain when the law was given, outside of relationship because they rejected hearing his voice.
They said, yeah, we can obey God. We'll do it. But the problem is they can't because they have a sin nature. And sin nature will always result in disobedience to God eventually to following what you want instead of what God says. Amen?
So then why did God give the law? Because the law was against man. Because man had a sin nature that was destined to fail, and the penalty for breaking the law was death. Why did God give the law? Romans-5 chapter 20 tells you.
The purpose of the law, it's on the list, the purpose of the law was that the trespass or sin would increase. What?
Let me explain. This is part of God's history. He still had people that walked by grace through faith all throughout, but in the grand plan and grand scheme of thing, he's painting a picture of man's nature and God's nature and how to have relationship with Him and holiness by grace through faith, and He wants you
to look back and see it. But just real clear, if you have a group of kids and they're walking to school and home from school every day, and they're passing by mister Peter's yard. And mister Peter has a nice beautiful garden. And in his garden, he has these beautiful roses. And for months, the kids walk by, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, they don't even notice the roses.
They're joking and laughing. But mister Peter-1 day sees these kids walking by and says, oh, no. They're gonna mess up my roses. So he puts a big sign in the in the garden and says, do not touch the roses. Those 7, 8 year olds, they just learned to read, they're walking by and says, do not touch the roses.
Now all of a sudden, they see the roses. The roses become really beautiful to them all of a sudden. They want to touch the roses. Eventually, by a few times, 1 of them touches the roses. The rest of them follow the bold 1 and touch the roses.
Why? Wouldn't that happen? The law, do not touch the roses, brought out the nature of sin.
In the same way, God gave the law, do not this and do not that, to bring out the nature of sin, so the sin increased and people recognized their need for being saved from their sin nature, their self. So, God gave mankind dominion, mankind disobeyed, and and ended up giving the power to sin, Satan capitalized on that. Man now needs to be saved from himself and restored into authority, not a slave to sin anymore. So God is painting a picture throughout all of history how mankind is saved, and he shows that judgment doesn't change a man's heart. And then he gives the law, which seems to be against mankind, but really, it's showing mankind that he can't follow God by his own effort, and he needs to be changed from the inside out.
Every religion in the world has a list of rules or a list of laws that if you follow this or do the sacrifices or think in this way, good enough, you'll make it to God or to nirvana or your 70 virgins or whatever the lie says. And it's all based on self effort because the God of this world, Satan, wants to get you to focus on yourself instead of Jesus. Wants you to trust in your own ability to save yourself, which is impossible. The payment for sin is? Amen.
And so Israel, with this code of laws and list of do's and don'ts for the rest of their history up till Jesus, They go through mountains and valleys and mountains and valleys. What does it look like? Obey for a bit, follow God's principles and demands, and they're blessed because of it. It's the promise of God. He doesn't go back on his word.
But then, pride comes. They forget about who blessed them. So they end up getting distracted by the gods of other nations around them, by women, by other things. Next thing you know, they start sinning. Well, there's curses for disobedience.
And so, they end up getting taken over by captors or famines or other things and they hit some kind of a "rock bottom". And at that rock bottom, eventually, they realized because they tried everything else, they can't save themselves and and they hit their knees and say, God, save me, and they repent. And God in His mercy reaches out to them again, saves them, and then out of their gratitude, they start obeying and putting God's laws back into practice. And, they forget when they're on the top. Blessing is dangerous sometimes.
You get prideful, think you did it, forgot God did it. Start worshiping other things, get distracted and then they hit rock bottom again as the curses of the law, their performance. And they hit rock bottom and hopefully they reach out and repent. You ever Does that feel like a lot of your lives? Doing good because I was I'm feeling good because I was doing good.
Then I got distracted somehow and now I'm hitting some kind
of rock bottom. Got to
reach out. That's why a lot of people in jail end up on their knees having jailhouse religion that for many of them is *relationship* because they realized they couldn't do it on their own. Don't get to rock bottom. Hear the testimony of what happened and repent now and live for Him. You can go from glory to glory instead of from mountaintop to valley.
Not saying that every circumstance is gonna be great, but in here you'll be great because you're walking with him with your life on the rock. That's the purpose of Christmas. So in the "fullness of time", all throughout, he's showing a pointing to Jesus. The Old Testament is God concealed. The New Testament is Jesus revealed.
So all throughout the Old Testament, people walking by grace through faith and righteousness credited to them because they were receiving his word,
but yet they haven't been transformed. It's just the mercy and grace of God. Nobody could be born again before Jesus.
And in the fullness of time, after this played out in God's patience to the time where everything was right, He spoke His word through Gabriel, a messenger angel to Mary. *John-1:1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. In 1 14, it says, and the *word became flesh** and dwelt among us. So God spoke his word and planted it in the womb of a virgin.
Mary was not sinless. She was sinful. She was born of a man too and a seed reproduces after his own kind. But God's holy word uniting with the egg created something holy because when God's holiness touches something, it becomes holy. You understand?
Created not created. Jesus Jesus always has been, but he was incarnated into the womb of a woman. **"God became a man"**. It's the artist. It's as if the artist of all in his artwork gave his artwork the ability to choose, not him, and it chose not him.
So he wrote himself into the artwork to redeem it. So God became a man in the womb of a virgin. Why? Because he had he had the seed. Seed reproduces after its own kind of the heavenly Father.
So he didn't have the nature of Adam. He wasn't sinful. He had the nature of his father. So grew, came out the birth canal in a manger, didn't come as a king as everybody expected, but instead experienced all of the temptation and all of the suffering that every man and woman does. And yet he overcame, never sinning, never disobeying because he had the nature of his father.
The payment for sin is death. Over 300 prophecies of how Jesus would die, would be birthed, how he would be birthed, live, die, and rise again in the Old Testament that were written, documented hundreds of years before. Jesus fulfilled everyone. And then Jesus in the fullness of time after he lived 33 years, chose to go to the cross. He had the will of a man.
And in the Garden Of Gethsemane, he surrendered his will to his father's will because he only did what he heard the father say and only did what he saw the father doing. And in the Garden Of Gethsemane, he said, knowing the torture and the pain that's about to come, he said, if there be any other way, let's do that. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And so he willingly went to the cross following the will of the father, took the 40 lashes for our healing, was nailed to the cross, and then he said these words, father, our God, my God. The first time he he said God instead of father and talking about him.
Why have you forsaken me? He's quoting the Psalms, but he's also showing that he was forsaken even though he didn't deserve it, never sinned because he was substitutionary atonement. He was taking our place for our sin, separated so we wouldn't have to be. Then he said it is finished, meaning he fulfilled the old covenant and the new covenant. Jesus lived every law perfectly fulfilling the whole old covenant.
Once a debt is fulfilled, you don't have to pay on it anymore. So then he enacted the new covenant. He gave up the ghost. He meaning he released his spirit. He died on the cross.
And then he was in the tomb for 3 days. The Bible actually says he went and led the captives free, which is a whole another message. I don't have time for that. But why did he rise again 3 days later? Well, the payment, because he never sinned.
He was the the blood that was shed. Without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. A righteous judge requires payment for a guilty party, and the payment was Jesus' death and blood. But Jesus never sinned. So death had no hold on him.
He died for the sins of the whole world. But yet because he never sinned, he didn't have to stay dead. 3 days later, he rose from the grave. The reason that you die is because sin in the world and we're born with a sin nature. But the reason that we can live in Christ and be resurrected, there is a real resurrection, is because of Jesus overcoming the power of sin.
So 3 days later, he rose from the grave showing that his payment was good enough, but also so that we could receive his life. The new covenant, the old covenant, Jesus fulfilled completely. The new covenant is when we believe in Jesus, but not just believe that this happened, not just believe that he died and rose again. Nicodemus, the religious man came to Jesus and said, hey, we believe that you're from God. We see the miracles you're doing.
And Jesus said, no 1 can see the kingdom of heaven unless he's born again, **born of the spirit**. He said, flesh gives birth to flesh. The Spanish Bible says, meaning human life can only reproduce human life. Sinners reproduce sinners. But spiritual life is from the Holy Spirit.
So Jesus being raised from the dead now gives his life to all who believe, but to biblically believe is to follow, to confess him as Lord. I believe so much that I'm not going to eat of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What I feel anymore is right and wrong, my own God. Instead, I'm gonna eat of the tree of life. Jesus, your life becomes my life. I'm saying, I believe so much that you're the Lord of my life, and I'm gonna love you back through obedience.
I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna trust you to change me from the inside out by your word, by your grace, and I know it's gonna transform me,
so I'm gonna take 1 step at a
time as you empower me. Thank you, Jesus, that I'm transformed. Born of the spirit. When you believe, you confess him as Lord. He forgives you of your past, present, and future sins.
Washes you clean. That's what this means. And then puts the Holy Spirit, the new covenant inside of you, gives you a new heart instead of a heart that's bent towards sin, the nature of sin. You're a new creation in Christ Jesus. Now you have the nature of your heavenly father that's bent towards righteousness.
And you're learning for the rest of your life from that moment forward how to renew your mind because it's been affected by the power of sin and who you were before, and the devil always wants to remind you of that.
To the reality of who
you are now as a "new creation in Christ" Jesus. And the more you set your mind and believe what he says about you, the more your life looks like it, as empowered by the Holy Spirit he puts in you. That Jesus had to be born of a virgin because if he was born of Adam, he would have been sinful too. Jesus was born. God became a man, and then bled and died and rose from the dead so that the sons of men could become sons and daughters of God.
And it requires faith, hearing that word of grace, and believing it enough to submit your life to him and make him the center from this day forward. That's the reason for the season, guys. And we're gonna do *Christ* mass. We're gonna take this in remembrance of what He did. So I wanna encourage you all to stand.
But before we do, here's my question. I want you to be honest with yourself. Have you ever been born again? Have you ever believed that Jesus died and rose again so much that you confess with your how mouth because you believe in your heart that he's your Lord of your life? You've experienced being forgiven of all of your *sin* and the Holy Spirit coming to live inside of you.
Have you ever experienced that before? If you haven't and you know you're ready for that, I want you to raise your hand right now. I wanna lead you. If you've never been born again, but you know you're ready, I wanna I can help with that right now. Is there anybody in here that says that's me?
I know that's me. You know what? Let's make it let's make it more than that, more than just raise your hand. If you're if you really wanna be born again and like something in you is like, I need to surrender my life to Jesus as Lord, I wanna come forward. Anybody in here that knows they need to be born again, I want you to come forward.
Mean, that takes radical boldness. Right? But Jesus said, you deny me before people, I'll deny you before my father in heaven. Those who confess Jesus as Lord and really mean it, it's a transformed life. It doesn't matter what other people think.
Amen? This is not just a church service. It's not just I'm coming on Sunday mornings. It's I'm all in. Alright.
So that means, I'm assuming at least most of you are already Christians. So I'm a challenge you. I want you to turn to the because I believe there's people in here that's never been born again, and they're they know they need it, but they're really nervous about it because this seems like a high pressure situation. We love you. It's not.
We care for you. I want you to turn to the people on your right and left and front and behind. I want you to look them in the eyes. I want you to say, hey, Jesus loves you a lot. Do you need to be born again?
And if they do, they're gonna say yes. And grab your hand, I want you to bring them forward. Ask them. Look them in the eyes. Awesome.
Yeah. Just stand right there. You good. We hey. Hey.
There's 1 that's broke the ice. He's the bold 1. That means there's others in here. If you need, hey. Come on.
Bring them forward. Don't be shy. God loves you. Praise the Lord. Dude, biggest decision of your life, but best.
As we take communion, what you're doing is is you're gonna be believing that this is what Jesus did for you, and there's salvation right here. Right? Amen? So just just right now, want you to close your eyes. I want you to say thank you, Jesus that you died and rose for me.
I've been living for myself. I've living for myself. And I ask you to forgive me of my sin. I repent. I turn my life to you.
*Holy Spirit*, come into my life and make me new. Thank you, Jesus. Thank Jesus. Because your word says I'm forgiven. And we're gonna take communion together.
And this this is this for and we're all as a church gonna take communion together. But this this matters. Okay? I want you to take out this Styrofoam thing. Represents bread.
The Bible says his body was broken so that we could be whole. Salvation that Jesus paid for is for our physical, solical, your mind, your will and emotions and spiritual salvation. So you're saved, healed and delivered. His body was broken. So just think about as we take this, wait a second.
Any physical pain or elements I have in my body be healed in Jesus' name. We trust Him. I believe, man, God wants to heal it miraculously right now. If it doesn't happen, we still move forward in faith, trusting Him and rejoicing all the same. Amen?
I believe some are gonna be healed right now as we take this. So, Lord, we thank you that your body was broken for us 2000 years ago so we could be healed emotionally. Depression can leave. Mental illness can leave in Jesus' name. Physical ailments be healed in Jesus' name.
We could be whole spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And what you did 2000 years ago matters for us today, and we take this remembering that and declaring it by faith. Thank you, Jesus. Let's take it together. This blood represents, it's not blood, it's just juice.
But it represents Jesus' blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sin. Like, when God sees you, when he sees you, man. What's your name?
Ryan.
Ryan, he sees you, Ryan. And all that have put Jesus as Lord. He sees you as pure before him. Like, because of what you did, all of your sin is washed away no matter how bad or good you thought it was. He looks at you and he sees his son.
He looks at you. He sees his son and his daughter because you've been washed clean and made new. A clean home for the Holy Spirit to lead you. So, Lord Jesus, we thank you for your blood that was shed. And, Lord God, we we we thank you that we're clean and pure in you.
Hold on before we take this. There's people in here that you're living in sin. There's aspects where you've been disobedient, whether you're living with your girlfriend or or whatever it is, you're "living in sin". We don't just declare that Jesus has forgiven us and go on about our sin. *Repentance* is, I'm looking down and I'm seeing Christ by faith on the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
And now, that's not an excuse to go back to crap. But that's the freedom to move forward, free from it. So don't don't take this knowing that you're gonna continue in your junk just as an excuse. Instead, it's a declaration. I see Christ in me.
Right? I I see I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of what you did. And so now Lord, I'm moving forward in that way leaving the junk that I've made excuses for behind. Because if you've really cleaned me and you have, you're gonna empower me to live in freedom. Amen?
So "fall forward". If you mess up again, fall forward but don't don't make an excuse. Oh, I'm just a filthy rotten sinner. No, you're not. You're clean.
Amen? Amen. So, Lord Jesus, we declare this by faith, and we move forward in you knowing that we can because of your power and your grace. Thank you that you cover all of our sin and all of our mistakes. Lord, we receive this declaring your perfection, God.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Hold on 1 second before we drink it
again. This
[Speaker 1] [01:00:01] is how good it is. Abraham and Sarah are written in the hall of fame and faith, but they both screwed up multiple times in the Old Testament. Read their story. And you go to the New Testament and you read it, and and it talks about their righteousness and their goodness and purity in God's eyes. That started when he received the word way before he started the journey.
And even though he failed multiple times after that, God still credited him as righteousness, not as an excuse for sin, but because his word was transforming him and he was working it out over time. Does that make sense? So look, don't let what you've been stuck in condemn you. His word says you're clean. We take this by faith, and then we fall forward and get in a body that's gonna help us to live it out.
So Lord Jesus, we take this declaring that what you said is true. We're clean. That in the annals of heaven, the "history books of heaven", when it writes about our lives, it's gonna write about righteousness and and the works that we did by faith in you, having forgotten our sin. We take this knowing that it's that good. Lord, help us to live out what you say about us.
In Jesus name. Amen.