The NXR Podcast - December 24, 2023


SERMON - The Night Before Christmas

Topics
apostles and prophets
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
King David Paul Samuel Jesus Christ Barnabas R.C. Sproul King Saul Godhead Merry Christmas Babylon Judas Luke
CONFERENCE - The Reality Christian Men Face CONFERENCE - Question & Answer Session with Pastor C.R. Wiley, Pastor Jared Longshore, and Pastor Joel Webbon

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 8 minutes

Words per minute

160.62

Word count

10,923

Sentence count

747

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

31

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

What was Jesus thinking on the night before his coming into the world? What was he thinking as he prepared to take on flesh? What did he think of the sacrifices and offerings that were offered to the Lord before he took on flesh and took on the form of Christ?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Many of us are familiar with the scene of the angels and shepherds in the Christmas story long ago.
00:00:06 Many of us are also well acquainted with the three wise men, or the magi, and the star that guided them from the east.
00:00:13 We even know about King Herod and his evil plan to kill the baby Jesus.
00:00:17 But there are certain parts of the Christmas story that we may not know.
00:00:21 One is this. What was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas, 2,000 years ago?
00:00:28 Would you please stand with me for the reading of God's Word?
00:00:32 Our primary passage of Scripture for today is Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5, 6, and 7,
00:00:38 answering the question that I've just asked,
00:00:41 what was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas 2,000 years ago?
00:00:46 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
00:00:48 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the Word of the Lord,
00:00:51 at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.
00:00:56 again to answer this question what was on the mind of jesus what was he thinking
00:01:00 the night before christmas 2 000 years ago in order to answer that question we'll be utilizing
00:01:06 hebrews chapter 10 verses 5 through 7 the bible says this consequently when christ came into the
00:01:14 world he said sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body have you prepared for me
00:01:21 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure then i said behold i have come
00:01:28 to do your will oh god as it is written of me in the scroll of the book this is the word of the
00:01:34 lord all right please be seated when christ came into the world the night before christmas at the
00:01:44 time of his coming the time of his his coming into the world taking on flesh what was on the
00:01:51 mind of Christ if we could ask such a question well from the scripture one of the things at least
00:01:57 doesn't mean that this is exclusively what Christ was thinking but at least one of the things that
00:02:02 Christ was thinking as he came into the world was this sacrifices and offerings you have not
00:02:09 desired, but a body you have prepared for me. It's important for us to recognize that God's
00:02:16 premier preference from his image-bearing creatures is not blood sacrifice, but rather a life of
00:02:26 obedience. Obedience is what God first desires. Remember the correspondence that takes place,
00:02:33 the discourse between samuel the prophet and the first king of israel king saul that saul had
00:02:40 been presumptuous and he had taken into his own hands certain privileges and rights and duties
00:02:47 that rightly belong to the priesthood or even to the prophetic office that samuel fulfilled
00:02:54 but not to the kingly office he made certain sacrifices before samuel arrived and he blamed
00:03:01 it on the people saying well the people they're the ones who pushed me to do this but Samuel says
00:03:08 well it doesn't matter I'm paraphrasing here it doesn't matter what the people said you're in
00:03:13 charge you're the leader here in Israel and so then he falls back on this excuse of saying well
00:03:19 I was just trying to please the Lord we you know we spared certain livestock and animals even though
00:03:25 God told us to utterly wipe out everything that was living including the livestock but we spared
00:03:31 them only so that we might perform an offer to the Lord a sacrifice. Whereas Samuel responds and
00:03:38 says that the Lord delights in obedience rather than sacrifice. That the Lord would prefer, that
00:03:46 God would prefer obedience to his word, to his law word, rather than sacrifice. Now the irony is that
00:03:55 God does command sacrifices of Israel in the Old Testament because these sacrifices are,
00:04:02 therefore, because God commands them, the fulfillment of these sacrifices is an act of
00:04:06 obedience. But God, he commands certain sacrifices that Israel, his people, would fulfill these
00:04:13 sacrifices as an act of obedience, but only because of prior disobedience. That's the point,
00:04:20 that Israel was called to do certain things, to commit and fulfill certain sacrifices as an act
00:04:27 of obedience to God's commands, but only because Israel had been previously disobedient. But God's
00:04:35 preference over all of it would be perfect obedience, that there would be no need for
00:04:40 blood sacrifice and be no need for death, that simply his people would in fact obey. And that's
00:04:47 what we find in the words of Hebrews chapter 10 verse 5 through 7. Notice that both elements are
00:04:54 at play here. We see the element of sacrifice because of disobedience, but we also see the
00:05:00 element of God's chief desire, which is obedience to his law. Sacrifices and offerings, reading the
00:05:08 text once more, verse 5, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared
00:05:16 for me. Well, why? For what purpose was Jesus given flesh? Why does he have this body? Well,
00:05:24 in one sense, he's given a body so that he can be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
00:05:29 by his death, by a sacrifice. But that's not the only reason that Jesus was given a body.
00:05:37 Jesus was given flesh so that he might die as a sacrifice, but also so that he might live
00:05:43 in perfect obedience to the law of God.
00:05:47 In burnt offerings, this is verse six now,
00:05:49 Hebrews 10, verse six.
00:05:50 In burnt offerings and sin offerings,
00:05:53 you have taken no pleasure.
00:05:55 Then I said, behold, I have come.
00:05:58 So not these sin offerings or burnt offerings,
00:06:01 in that you've taken no pleasure.
00:06:02 But in contrast, behold, I have come to do your will,
00:06:08 to obey, O God, as it is written of me
00:06:11 in the scroll of the books.
00:06:13 Now, this is Hebrews, the author to the Hebrews, quoting David in the Psalms.
00:06:19 And so the original, the first place where we find these words, this text appear in Scripture,
00:06:27 is David speaking of himself.
00:06:30 Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
00:06:34 In burnt offerings and in sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
00:06:38 But then I said, behold, I have come to do your will.
00:06:42 So David is speaking of obedience, speaking of his own self, his own life, saying that I have not been placed here first and foremost fundamentally to perform sacrifices, burnt bulls and burnt rams, grain offerings.
00:06:58 No, I've been placed here and given a body and given the kingship to do your will.
00:07:03 Now, of course, the author to Hebrews is saying that there's a deeper meaning of this particular text, that it doesn't just speak of David, but that David, whether he was conscious of it or not, that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote these words, prayed this prayer to the Lord, ultimately speaking of the king of kings, David's true heir, who would one day sit on his throne, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:07:27 And so this is ultimately, in the highest sense, speaking of Jesus.
00:07:31 But David is even saying this in the first sense, in the first instance, speaking of himself.
00:07:37 So even King David recognized before the coming of Christ that ultimately that God had given him a body.
00:07:45 And this is representative. This could speak of all men, not just David.
00:07:48 But that God has given us beating hearts and breathing lungs.
00:07:52 He's given us life in order not just to die or to perform sacrifices, but ultimately to obey
00:08:01 God's word. One of the chief texts that would support what I'm speaking of now would be Romans
00:08:08 chapter 12, that tells us that we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Let me find that
00:08:15 text briefly and I'll read it. This is Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse one. I appeal to
00:08:20 you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice
00:08:27 holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship this is your act of worship
00:08:34 Paul writes to the New Testament church that Christ has been sacrificed as a once and for all
00:08:41 sacrifice as the final and ultimate lamb of God there needs to be no longer any blood sacrifice
00:08:49 Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient. It was enough, but God does still demand of his people sacrifice,
00:08:58 but not the sacrifice of blood, not the sacrifice of death, but the sacrifice of obedience,
00:09:05 the sacrifice of life, an obedient life. And Jesus has modeled, and not only modeled,
00:09:12 but also fulfilled as a substitute in our place for all those who trust in him, not one,
00:09:18 not only his death, his blood sacrifice, but both. Also, this Romans 12 living sacrifice.
00:09:27 It's important that we recognize the significance and the absolute necessity of both the passive
00:09:34 obedience of Christ, as theologians would refer to it, and the active obedience of Christ.
00:09:41 Now, what those two categories, those terms represent, the passive obedience of Christ
00:09:46 is his obedience unto death, his obedience at Calvary, his obedience on the cross,
00:09:53 his obedience to be as a lamb led before the slaughter, to be silent before his accusers,
00:10:00 to not call down a legion of angels as he explicitly says he could.
00:10:05 It was within his authority and power to do so, but rather to relegate himself to his false accusers,
00:10:13 to entrust himself to men, ultimately,
00:10:17 because he never entrusted himself to men,
00:10:19 but rather, knowing the sovereignty of God
00:10:21 standing above all men, he entrusted himself to God.
00:10:24 He entrusted himself to his Father.
00:10:27 He handed himself over to his accusers.
00:10:29 He did not put up a fight,
00:10:31 but rather he went willingly and passively to the cross
00:10:36 in order to bleed out and die as a sacrifice for sin.
00:10:41 That is what we would refer to as the passive obedience of Christ, and we are saved by this
00:10:48 obedience, his obedience in death, his obedience at the cross, his obedience in allowing himself
00:10:56 to be handed over, to be bloodied and bludgeoned, and to bleed out and die for the sins of his
00:11:06 people. We have salvation because of this, all right? It's nothing less than this, but it is 0.99
00:11:12 more than this. That's not the only reason that you and I are saved. We are saved because of
00:11:18 Christ's passive obedience in death on the cross, but also his active obedience for the 33 years,
00:11:26 give or take, leading up to the cross. Jesus' willingness to die would do nothing
00:11:33 if he wasn't willing first in every moment of his life
00:11:38 to live and obey.
00:11:41 If Jesus had sinned against God even once,
00:11:44 then it would have invalidated not only his life,
00:11:48 but his death.
00:11:50 His death could not atone for us, you and I,
00:11:54 if it was not the sacrifice
00:11:55 of a perfectly obedient and righteous man.
00:11:59 So it's both Jesus' act of obedience in his life, living a life of full obedience to the law of God, and his passive obedience in his death, being willing to go to the cross to bleed out and die as a sacrificial lamb that is the substitute, meaning in our place.
00:12:20 So Jesus didn't just die as a moral example of sacrificial love. No, he actually died as atonement,
00:12:28 payment, a substitute in our place. But Jesus did not only passively obey in his death as a substitute,
00:12:36 but he actively obeyed in his life also as a substitute. The life of Jesus, it does serve
00:12:44 as a moral example of how you and I should live,
00:12:48 but it doesn't only serve as an example.
00:12:51 Jesus didn't just live to provide for us
00:12:54 a model of a life of obedience that we could follow.
00:12:58 No, he also lived just as he died as a substitute.
00:13:02 He died in our place, but he also lived in our place,
00:13:07 which means that he took our punishment
00:13:10 in his passive obedience, in his death,
00:13:13 but he also fulfilled on our behalf all righteousness in his life. So the work of
00:13:20 Jesus, both his life and death, the work of Jesus does not merely bring you and I from a state of
00:13:28 being guilty to now a state of moral neutrality and innocence, but rather if you are in Christ,
00:13:36 If you have faith in Jesus, you are not only morally innocent, but you have the very righteousness
00:13:44 of God. So not just an absence of guilt and immorality and sin, but you have a presence
00:13:52 of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Not the mere righteousness of angels or cherubim or seraphim,
00:14:00 or the righteousness of the four living creatures with six wings covered in eyes that surround
00:14:05 the throne of God, not merely the righteousness of 24 elders seated on 24 thrones that cast down
00:14:13 their crowns and sing to the Lord and cry out to him day and night, holy, holy, holy is the Lord
00:14:19 God Almighty. All these angelic beings are righteous to the degree that they have never,
00:14:26 ever, ever, ever sinned against God even once over the course of eons. And your righteousness
00:14:33 infinitely surpasses theirs. It is not an inferior righteousness. It is not a comparable
00:14:41 righteousness. It is an infinitely superior righteousness because your righteousness
00:14:47 is the kind of righteousness that these angelic beings, who again have never sinned, they are
00:14:54 sinless, right? That's pretty righteous. They are sinless beings and yet they must cover their faces
00:15:00 and cannot look upon the holiness of God
00:15:05 because his righteousness is so brilliant,
00:15:09 so blinding, so superior to their own
00:15:13 that they can't even directly gaze upon it.
00:15:17 God's righteousness is infinitely superior
00:15:20 to a sinless, angelic righteousness.
00:15:24 Now, whose righteousness has been given to you?
00:15:28 Not angelic righteousness.
00:15:30 not human righteousness if there were such a thing no divine righteousness you have been given
00:15:39 the righteousness of the second eternal member of the Godhead namely Christ Jesus it's his
00:15:48 righteousness it's God's righteousness it's the brilliance the same righteousness that is so
00:15:55 brilliant and so blinding that angelic beings cannot even look upon it. It's that righteousness.
00:16:04 That is your righteousness. It's an alien righteousness, as theologians would call it,
00:16:09 in the sense that it's foreign. It's not your own in the sense that it is not manufactured
00:16:15 or made or conjured by you. It comes from outside of you. But it is, although it is an alien
00:16:22 righteousness, a foreign righteousness. It is at the very same time, your righteousness. It is yours.
00:16:30 Yours because you conjured it. Yours because you created it. No, yours because you were given it.
00:16:36 And you were given this righteousness by grace through faith in Christ. So back to the original
00:16:43 question, what was on the mind of Christ on the night before Christmas? Well, the mind of Christ,
00:16:49 what is he thinking? What is his purpose? What is he aware of? Well, he's aware of this.
00:16:56 Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt
00:17:02 offerings and in sin offerings, you have not taken pleasure. But then I said, behold, I have come
00:17:09 to sacrifice, to kill, to bleed out and die. That's true of Christ. But what does he say? 0.83
00:17:16 I have come to do your will. Jesus came, brothers and sisters. Did he come as a lamb to be led to
00:17:24 the slaughter, to bleed out and die? Yes. But he also came to obey God, to be the first man 0.97
00:17:34 in all of human history to ever love the Lord his God with all his heart and all his soul and all
00:17:42 his mind and all his strength every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every
00:17:48 year of all his life. Jesus is the first time that God ever received from humanity what he deserves.
00:17:58 God waited patiently in long suffering in great patience for thousands of years to receive from
00:18:06 his image-bearing creatures what he had deserved since before the foundations of the world.
00:18:13 Namely, again, not first and foremost blood sacrifice, but first and foremost a life,
00:18:20 a living obedience. Obedience. This is what Samuel is saying to King Saul. The Lord does not delight
00:18:29 in sacrifices as much as obedience. Now it is true that in one sense God delighted in the sacrifices
00:18:38 of Israel insofar, which was not always very frequent or often, but insofar as during those
00:18:46 times when Israel performed these sacrifices obediently. When they did the sacrifices according
00:18:52 to God's words, not according to their own stipulations or preferences, but according to
00:18:58 what God had spoken through Moses, and also not only on the exterior, performing the sacrifices
00:19:05 with the right method, but also with the right motive. That on the interior, insofar as Israel 0.53
00:19:12 exterior, in the exterior sense, performed the sacrifices rightly, and in the interior sense,
00:19:19 they also possessed by the grace of God the right and proper motives, right? Actually humbling
00:19:26 themselves before God, honoring him as God, seeing the sacrifice as what they rightly deserve,
00:19:33 namely death for their sin, and offering this to God as a pleasing sacrifice. When that was done,
00:19:40 that was obedience. And that obedience, in a sense, was pleasing to God. But it was not sufficient
00:19:47 for salvation. Because Hebrews goes on to say, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away 0.67
00:19:54 sin. It's not a sufficient sacrifice. God demanded sacrifice. He commanded it, prescribed it. Israel
00:20:02 at times obeyed it. And sometimes certain individuals in Israel, by grace, they obeyed it 0.63
00:20:08 in the exterior sense and the interior sense. They actually possessed the right motives.
00:20:13 They actually desired to be pleasing to the Lord and to honor him rightly. But even in this,
00:20:19 It was pleasing to God in one sense, but not salvific.
00:20:24 It was not sufficient for salvation.
00:20:28 But all this is because of prior disobedience.
00:20:32 That's the whole point of Jesus, his coming to earth,
00:20:36 his life and his death and resurrection and ascension
00:20:39 to the right hand of the Father.
00:20:40 It's because we disobeyed.
00:20:42 It's because mankind rebelled against God.
00:20:46 That's why God demands blood,
00:20:49 Because the wages, as Romans says, the wages of sin is death.
00:20:54 The wages of sin is death.
00:20:55 It was the only way to pay the price for our iniquity.
00:20:59 It was the only way to set the record straight.
00:21:02 It's the only way that God can pardon man and maintain not only mercy, but his perfect justice at the same time.
00:21:11 Apart from a sufficient sacrifice, atonement just means payment, a sufficient payment.
00:21:16 apart from that, God could not pardon and forgive our sins without compromising his own righteousness
00:21:24 and justice at the very same time. Jesus is the way, he is the way, God's way, to where both mercy
00:21:33 and justice can be simultaneously upheld. That God can exercise mercy to you while maintaining
00:21:42 his perfect standard of righteousness and justice without an ounce of compromise. That's the
00:21:49 purpose, the reason for the death of Jesus. But the desire of God, the desire of God for us as
00:21:57 New Testament Christians who have already been paid for by Jesus and his sacrifice 2,000 years
00:22:04 ago on the cross, God's desire for you and I is not that we would offer up to him the sacrifice
00:22:11 of blood and bulls and goats. And God's desire for us is not that we would reinstitute the Old 0.97
00:22:18 Testament, Old Covenant sacrifices of Israel. And God's desire from us certainly is not that we
00:22:24 would come every single week and perform another sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself. Shout out Roman 1.00
00:22:31 Catholicism, right? That's not his desire either. No, God's desire for you as a New Testament
00:22:38 Christian who has already been sacrificed for. Jesus' work is finished. He said it is finished. 0.97
00:22:45 God's desire for you is a sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice not of death, but of life,
00:22:51 and not atonement for sin, but willing obedience to his law. God's desire for you and for us
00:22:59 is Romans 12, verse 1 and 2. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,
00:23:06 to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act
00:23:13 of worship. Do not be conformed, verse 2 says, to this world, but rather be transformed by the
00:23:20 renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good
00:23:27 and acceptable and perfect. That's God's plan for your life. That's his desire for your life.
00:23:35 if you want to please the Lord, his desire is obedience. It's the same thing that Samuel said
00:23:42 to King Saul long ago. It is not sacrifice, but obedience. And the sacrifices, again, that were
00:23:49 pleasing were those sacrifices that were done in obedience. And they were only commanded to be done
00:23:55 in obedience because of prior disobedience. In our case, as New Testament Christians,
00:24:01 all of our disobedience, every ounce of sin that you've committed in the past, that you will commit
00:24:08 in the present, that you'll commit in the future, all of this has already been sacrificed for.
00:24:13 It's already been atoned for. So what is it that you and I can offer to the Lord this Christmas
00:24:19 season? What is it that we can give back to him because he's given so much to us? It's not
00:24:27 a suicide mission. It's not that we would sacrifice ourselves or sacrifice something else.
00:24:36 What God desires from us to return as an act of gratitude for the grace that we've received
00:24:43 is that we would live. Not that we would die, but that we would live and that we would live
00:24:49 in such a way that our lives are marked by righteousness and obedience. That we would
00:24:55 actually live out of the righteousness that we've received by grace through faith in Christ
00:25:01 alone. That that righteousness that Christ lived to provide and died to give, that this righteousness
00:25:08 would actually be manifest in the people of God. That the world would be able to look to us and see
00:25:16 holiness. That they would see obedience. That they would see people who are living a life of
00:25:23 obedience. That what David is speaking of himself in Hebrews chapter, well in the Psalms, but quoted
00:25:29 by the author of Hebrews, what David in the first sense spoke of himself in the truest sense is
00:25:34 Christ speaking of himself. And yet in another sense, an even further sense, we can say that
00:25:41 the words of Christ in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 5 through 7, he's speaking it ultimately of himself.
00:25:47 but we as little Christ, Christians, his ambassadors, his representatives going out
00:25:53 in the world, this is our marching orders as well, that we might be able to say to the Lord,
00:25:58 sacrifices and offerings you have not desired. The blood of bulls and goats you have not desired.
00:26:04 They can never ultimately take away sin. The only sacrifice you ever desired was the sacrifice of
00:26:10 your son Jesus, and you only desired that in order to make payment for the disobedience of 0.91
00:26:16 your image bearing creatures. But what you've desired truly in your inmost, what you've desired 0.61
00:26:23 from the very beginning is obedience, righteousness, a fulfillment of your word, burnt offerings and
00:26:30 sin offerings you have taken no pleasure in. Behold, we, the church, the New Testament church,
00:26:37 we have come to do your will. Oh God, as it is written in the scroll of the book, there is a
00:26:45 sense. It's not the truest sense. The ultimate sense is this is speaking of Christ, but there
00:26:49 is a sense in which the New Testament Christian can say, we have come to obey. We have come to
00:26:56 be righteous as he is righteous, holy as he is holy. We know that we will fail in many ways and
00:27:02 at many times, but all of that has already been atoned for by Jesus Christ. All of that has been
00:27:08 already paid in full. The payment was sufficient and it is finished. And when we fail, when we sin,
00:27:14 when we rebel, our response is to ask for forgiveness, to repent of our sin, and to get
00:27:20 back up and to go back into life, back into our vocation, back into what God has called us to do
00:27:27 and to seek to do it with obedience once again. There are many similarities. Landing the plane
00:27:35 here will be shorter this morning. There are many similarities between the night before Jesus' death
00:27:41 and the night before his birth. In both of these instances, Christ, we could say in a sense, as it
00:27:48 were, you always got to throw that in. As it were, Christ is thinking on the same things. Here are the
00:27:54 three primary things. His love for his father and eager desire to obey, to do his will. Number two,
00:28:01 the immense cost that would be required in order to do God's will. And number three, Christ's great
00:28:08 love for his people. So what was Jesus thinking on the night before his birth? The same thing he
00:28:15 was thinking the night before his death. He was thinking about God the Father, how to obey him
00:28:21 and please him. Number two, the immense cost that that obedience would incur for himself. And then
00:28:28 number three, his immense love for his people. This is Luke chapter 22, verses 41 through 44.
00:28:34 this is Jesus on the night of his arrest. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and
00:28:42 knelt down and prayed saying, father, if you are willing, remove this cup. That is the cup of God's
00:28:47 wrath. Remove this cup from me, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared
00:28:55 to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him and being in agony, he prayed even more earnestly
00:29:02 and his sweat became like great drops of blood
00:29:06 falling down to the ground.
00:29:08 The night of Jesus' arrest, before his crucifixion,
00:29:11 before his death, Jesus is thinking about the immense cost.
00:29:16 And I think there's also a sense in which we can say
00:29:19 that David prophesying, whether he was conscious of it or not,
00:29:24 the Holy Spirit of God inspiring David,
00:29:26 prophesying, speaking the very words of Christ,
00:29:28 that shows us not just the night before his death,
00:29:31 Jesus' death, but the night before his birth. That before Jesus died, he's saying, this is going to
00:29:37 cost. This is going to hurt. This is going to cost me everything. If there's any other way, then God
00:29:43 let your cup pass from me. But if there's no other way, then not my will, that is my human will, but
00:29:49 yours, the divine will, be done. That's what Jesus says before his death. And it's similar to what he
00:29:55 says before his birth. He says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you
00:30:01 have prepared for me. And that body is purposed twofold. One, a body to live, Romans 12, a body
00:30:09 to live a life of perfect obedience as a substitute in our place, but also a body to be torn apart,
00:30:18 to bleed out and to die as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus was given
00:30:25 a body that he might live and obey also that he might die and pay for our sins. This is his thought
00:30:33 process. We could say in a sense, as it were, his thought process before his birth and his thought
00:30:39 process before his death. The thought process again is threefold. God, I want to honor you more
00:30:46 than anything else. Number two, honoring you in order to redeem them is going to cost. It's going
00:30:54 to hurt. And number three, I'll do it for your glory, first and foremost, but also for their
00:31:00 good out of love for his people. And that's where I want to end right here with John chapter 17,
00:31:05 going a little bit more into the words, the prayer and the mind of Christ, as it were,
00:31:11 before his death, because I believe that that frame of mind is very similar to what Jesus was
00:31:16 thinking before his birth. This is John 17 in the garden of Gethsemane, right before Jesus' arrest,
00:31:23 right before his death, similar thoughts that he was thinking in the mind of Christ before his
00:31:28 birth. He says this, I do not ask for these only. These only, the context there being the disciples
00:31:35 who were physically with him. The 11, right? It's the 12 minus one minus Judas. I do not ask for
00:31:42 these only, but also, here comes in you and I, for those who will, in a future sense, will believe in
00:31:49 me through their word. That's why we believe, because of the apostolic testimony that has been
00:31:55 inscripturated for us and inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit these last 2,000 years.
00:32:02 So Jesus is shifting, transitioning now in his prayer to his father right before his arrest,
00:32:08 his mock trial, and his crucifixion. And he's praying now not only for his disciples who were
00:32:14 physically with him at that time, the 12 minus one, but now he's praying for all future disciples,
00:32:20 which includes you and I, all those of us who would one day believe in him through the apostolic
00:32:27 witness, the word of the apostles. Verse 21, that they may be, so what? We've already discussed who
00:32:35 he's praying for, future disciples, New Testament Christians, you and I. What is he praying? That we
00:32:41 may all be one. That's one of his chief prayers, is a prayer for unity. That we may be one, just as
00:32:50 you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also, Christians, disciples, may be in us so that
00:32:59 the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them.
00:33:06 and they may be one even as we are one.
00:33:11 I and them and you and me,
00:33:13 that they may become perfectly one
00:33:16 so that the world may know that you sent me
00:33:19 and loved them even as you have loved me.
00:33:22 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me
00:33:27 may be with me where I am to see my glory.
00:33:30 Let me pause there for a second.
00:33:32 This is, again, some of the last moments of Jesus' life
00:33:35 before his crucifixion, he's praying to the Lord. And in this particular context, he's praying for
00:33:40 you, future disciples. And one of the things he prays for is unity, that we may be one as the
00:33:46 Godhead is one, but also, and that's a oneness with each other and a oneness with God. That's
00:33:51 unity with God, right? Peace on earth, goodwill towards men, because we've been reconciled with
00:33:56 God first and foremost, but also reconciled with one another. So unity with the church,
00:34:01 the people of God, but also unity with God himself. So that's one thing that he's praying
00:34:06 for, unity. But he also prays that we might be with him. It's a prayer of love. It's a prayer
00:34:13 of not just unity, but intimacy. He prays that the church, the people of God, his own, those that
00:34:20 the Father has given to him, that we might be with Christ where he is. That is, be with him forever
00:34:27 in eternity in heaven and in that place that we might have eternal bliss and joy and peace. How?
00:34:34 By seeing his glory that God has given to him because you loved me. Going back into Christ's
00:34:43 voice now. You loved me before the foundation of the world. Verse 25. O righteous father, even though
00:34:51 the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them
00:34:57 your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be
00:35:04 in them and I in them. Jesus' prayer in John 17, right before his death, is the same thought
00:35:11 process that he has before his birth. And what he's praying for is you and I. He's doing all of
00:35:17 this, his life of obedience and his sacrificial death, all of it, he's doing one because of
00:35:23 obedience to the father, love and commitment to the father. But number two, for the good of his
00:35:29 people, God actually loves us. And right there at the end of John 17, what Jesus prays for, he says,
00:35:36 I have made it known. I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known
00:35:42 that what? For what fulfillment? What purpose? That the love with which you have loved me,
00:35:49 the love of God the Father that he has for his son Jesus may be in you, in us, New Testament
00:35:57 Christians, and I in them. Jesus did all of it. He came to earth. He lived a perfectly righteous
00:36:05 life, not just an absence of sin, but a fulfillment of full presence of righteousness and obedience.
00:36:11 and he died a substitutionary death, bodily rose from the grave on the third day and ascended to
00:36:17 the right hand of God the Father. He did all of it for the glory of his dad, for the glory of God,
00:36:23 for the glory of the Father, in obedience to him, but also so that you and I might have the love
00:36:29 of God in us. And what kind of love? The same degree, caliber of love that God the Father has
00:36:36 for his own son. We're not being shortchanged here. It's not a cheap deal. We are getting
00:36:43 the divine righteousness of Christ in salvation and the divine love of God, the father that he
00:36:50 has for his own son. And we get to relish in that and bask in the love of God, the same caliber of
00:36:56 love that he has for his own self. We get to relish in that not for a few years or even a few
00:37:04 millennia, but for eternity. And all this is on the mind of Christ. It is his purpose, his desire,
00:37:11 his aim when he comes into the world and when he goes to the tree. All of this. The last thing that
00:37:18 I want to draw out of John 17, because it's another purpose of Jesus coming. It's a purpose
00:37:24 of the Christmas story, his incarnation, his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
00:37:30 one of the purposes, as we saw in John 17, is that we might be with him where he is in heaven
00:37:35 for eternity, share and bask in the love of the triune God that God has for himself, that that
00:37:41 same love would be in us. But also, as I said earlier, one of the purposes is for unity and
00:37:49 not just a unity that represents reconciliation between man and God, but a unity with one another,
00:37:54 A horizontal, not just vertical, but a horizontal unity between believers.
00:38:01 That the church would be united with itself or herself.
00:38:05 That the church, Christians, would have unity with one another.
00:38:09 In all my living, in all my experience, first and foremost, as simply a follower of Christ, a disciple myself, a Christian,
00:38:18 but then also my experience pastorally, I have found that unity can only be achieved
00:38:23 one of three ways. And this is important for us to understand. Number one, the first one is not
00:38:31 charity. It's not niceness. The first way to achieve unity is persuasion. Unity that comes
00:38:41 by charity, there is a biblical precedent for this. And I'll get, that's the number two way.
00:38:45 I'll get to that in a moment. But unity, first and foremost, where you begin with unity, unity is not
00:38:51 common care in the midst of divided convictions. I'll say that again. First and foremost, premier
00:38:59 unity, top shelf unity is not common care in the midst of divided convictions. That's not unity
00:39:09 in its first sense, in its greatest degree. The greatest form of unity, the one that Jesus
00:39:16 came into the world to achieve and died on the cross in order to purchase on behalf of his people,
00:39:23 that unity is not just charity toward one another, even though we disagree with one another.
00:39:29 No, the first sense of unity is a unity of what theologians refer to as common conviction,
00:39:35 him. Or you might call this not the unity of love. That's important. I'll get there in a moment. But
00:39:41 the unity of faith. This is what Ephesians 4 speaks up. Ephesians chapter 4 says that Christ, who is
00:39:49 the head of the church, he gives to his body, the church, good gifts. And among these good gifts
00:39:55 are leaders. He gives men, fallible, albeit, but men who have been saved by the grace of God and
00:40:03 are called by God to lead his church. He gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers.
00:40:11 I'm going to say I don't believe in the five-fold ministry. Sorry. I believe it's four. Shepherd
00:40:15 teachers, I think that in the Greek there, it's actually shepherd hyphen teacher. It's like two
00:40:20 sides of a singular coin. So it's not shepherds and then also teachers as a fifth role, but the
00:40:26 shepherd teacher. So apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers. And I believe
00:40:31 shepherd teachers are pastors, essentially. Those are the two primary roles. They're teaching and
00:40:37 they're shepherding. Evangelists are evangelists. They're sharing the word. And then you have
00:40:42 apostles and prophets. That's Ephesians 4. If you cross-reference and go back to Ephesians 2,
00:40:47 namely, I believe, verse 20, Ephesians 2.20, the foundation of the church is laid on the apostles
00:40:53 and the prophets with Christ Jesus as the capstone or the cornerstone. So I believe, this is my
00:40:59 conviction that what we have is the foundation of the church laid 2,000 years ago by the prophets
00:41:05 and the apostles and Christ Jesus as the final word from the Father. That's Hebrews chapter 1.
00:41:12 Long ago, he spoke to us by our fathers, the prophets, in many ways. But in these last days,
00:41:16 God has spoken to us through his Son. He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
00:41:22 imprint of the Father's nature. If you want to know what God is saying or what God is thinking
00:41:27 or what God looks like, you look at Jesus.
00:41:30 And we have Jesus, his life, his ministry, his teaching,
00:41:33 all encapsulated in scripture, the apostolic testimony.
00:41:38 So the apostles and prophets is the foundation of the church
00:41:41 with Jesus being the cornerstone of that foundation.
00:41:44 And then these last 2,000 years,
00:41:46 we have been building on that foundation
00:41:48 and it's the saints themselves, the church,
00:41:51 that is executing the work of ministry.
00:41:54 Ephesians 4 says the work of ministry itself
00:41:56 is given not to leaders, but to the saints, to the church itself, so that the church is actually
00:42:02 building itself up in love. But the church does this work successfully because it's being equipped
00:42:10 by leaders. And the leaders who are functioning primarily now in this gospel age, New Testament
00:42:16 age, is evangelists and pastors, shepherd teachers, evangelists and pastors. So you have the foundation
00:42:23 of the church laid 2,000 years ago, prophets, apostles, or apostles first, then prophets,
00:42:28 with a capstone, cornerstone being Christ on the foundation for 2,000 years now. You have building
00:42:34 and the workers that are doing the building is not the evangelists and pastors, but the
00:42:39 Christians themselves. But the Christians are being equipped, resourced by the evangelists
00:42:45 and pastors. And all of that, here's the point, all that towards a specific end. And in Ephesians
00:42:52 four, we're told, we're explicitly, it's described for us what that end is. The end is unity of the
00:43:00 knowledge of the Son of God. I'll say that again. To the point, to the end, to what aim are we
00:43:07 building and resourcing and all this stuff, this living temple of living stones to the Lord?
00:43:12 What is the aim of all this? That we might achieve a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God,
00:43:18 which means it is not, it is not a pro. It's not something to brag about when the church says,
00:43:27 hey, you know what? What's so cool about the Christian church today is that there's, you know,
00:43:33 30,000 different denominations. No, that's not a win. That's a loss. That's a massive loss.
00:43:43 It's not a win to say, well, in a local church setting, for instance, in that context, locally,
00:43:47 to say, what I love about this church
00:43:50 is that we all disagree with each other.
00:43:53 Well, if you all disagree with each other,
00:43:55 then you're on, statistically speaking,
00:43:57 and this is a best chance,
00:43:59 this is a best case scenario,
00:44:00 that one of you might be right.
00:44:03 Because if you all disagree with each other,
00:44:05 you know, it's likely you're all wrong.
00:44:07 In a best case scenario, 1.00
00:44:08 you have one Christian in the entire church
00:44:11 with decent theology.
00:44:13 That's not a brag.
00:44:14 That's not a win.
00:44:15 That's not something to boast of.
00:44:17 The goal of Christian unity, first and foremost, is a unity of the faith. It's a unity not of common 0.94
00:44:25 care, but a unity of common conviction. It's a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God. When
00:44:32 we have a bunch of Christians who have different ideas about the nature and character of God,
00:44:39 when we have different ideas about who Jesus is, then we're not united. So if you can't get unity,
00:44:46 first and foremost in conviction, beliefs, content, substance, then you go to number two.
00:44:53 The number two method of unity is charity in the midst of disagreement. So long as that disagreement
00:45:00 is not top tier primary theological disagreement. You cannot have unity, even a unity of common
00:45:07 care, or we might call it a unity of love, if your unity of faith is so lacking that you actually 0.98
00:45:14 have heretics in your midst. In that case, you need to go to the third way of achieving unity,
00:45:21 which is separation. And I know that sounds ironic. It sounds like that's not unity at all.
00:45:27 But one of the ways that Paul and Barnabas, for instance, and they didn't even have a disagreement
00:45:31 on primary truth. But Paul and Barnabas, just to use them as an example, the way that they gained
00:45:36 unity with one another is that they left one another. They realized we are going to continue
00:45:43 to disagree so sharply that if we minister on the same team, in the same place, in the same way
00:45:50 together, we're not going to do any good. We are going to be at each other's throats constantly
00:45:56 because we can't see eye to eye. I've given this example several times, but I'll give it again.
00:46:00 People talk about John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul when he was living. Oh, they had such a beautiful
00:46:05 relationship. You know how they achieved that relationship? 2,600 miles of distance between
00:46:12 them two separate churches, two separate denominations, and two separate ministries.
00:46:17 John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul, they had unity. The way that a lot of us have unity, for instance,
00:46:22 some of you, you might have, you know, family in town and say, we're going to have a great time
00:46:27 together by the grace of God. And how are you going to achieve it? You're going to achieve it
00:46:31 because you're going to be together strategically for 48 hours and not a second more. And then that
00:46:37 person's going to leave and get their 2,600 miles of separation. And that's the way you'll be able
00:46:42 to love them for the next 364 days, right? So that you can go and see them again. That is unity.
00:46:51 But let's just admit, here's the point. That's not the kind of unity that Jesus is praying for
00:46:56 in John 17. That is the third and final way of attempting to get unity, which is, I'm sorry,
00:47:03 but we have to part ways. Sometimes you do this through Matthew 18, church discipline, with
00:47:08 somebody who's actually not in the faith at all. And sometimes, sadly, you have to do it even with
00:47:16 someone who is a brother or a sister in Christ, like Paul and Barnabas did. Paul didn't say that
00:47:20 Barnabas was a heretic, and Barnabas didn't say that Paul was a heretic, but they still had such
00:47:24 a sharp disagreement that even as two brothers, they had to part ways. They had to bless one
00:47:31 another to go and labor in different portions of the Lord's vineyard. And that is a kindness and a
00:47:35 mercy of the Lord to us. It's a mercy of the Lord to us that his vineyard is large. And it's large
00:47:41 enough to accommodate R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur 2,600 miles away. That is a mercy. But
00:47:49 that is not top-tier unity. That's not our aim. We settle for that because of sin in this life.
00:47:57 But when we settle for it, it better be because we first exhausted all our other options.
00:48:02 And we need to start at the top.
00:48:04 And the top, again, number one, is not charity, unity of love, unity of common care in the midst of theological disagreement.
00:48:12 That's number two.
00:48:13 That's the unity of common care.
00:48:15 Then there's the unity of separation.
00:48:17 And then there's the unity top tier, first and foremost, the unity of actually being on the same page.
00:48:22 we don't even the church doesn't even talk about that form of unity anymore because we think it's
00:48:29 a pipe dream we think it's so far gone so outside of the realm of possibility that it's rarely even
00:48:36 preached it's rarely even preached these days from the pulpit to people of God hey you know what guys
00:48:42 we should have the same theology we should believe the same things about Jesus we should have a
00:48:49 unity, as Ephesians 4 says, a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, that we know the same Jesus,
00:48:58 and we know the same doctrine, that we actually have the same views and interpretations of this
00:49:04 book, that we're aligned not just with warm, fuzzy feelings in our heart, with love, but we're
00:49:10 aligned with truth, with truth. And I believe that by the grace of God, what Ephesians 4 is getting
00:49:17 that. I don't believe it's just a description. I believe it's a promise that it's something that
00:49:22 we don't just strive for, but it's something that's going to be done. And it's something that
00:49:25 started 2000 years ago when Christ came into the world in a manger. This unity is what Jesus
00:49:33 prays for. It's on his mind before his death. I believe it's on his mind as it were before his
00:49:39 birth. This is what he came for, what he was born for, what he died for. And it's what he's praying
00:49:45 for, even at the right hand of God, the father almighty. He is praying that his church would be
00:49:50 united. And I know it's discouraging when you look at the church today, but let me go ahead and just
00:49:55 give you guys a little bit of a white pill right here at the end. The church is way more united
00:50:00 today than it was 2000 years ago. It took the church about 500 years just to figure out,
00:50:07 just to figure out the Trinity. For 500 years, Christians were killing themselves, 0.97
00:50:13 killing one another. Not all the time, but some of that. There was literally killing one another, 1.00
00:50:19 wars and battles going on because they didn't even agree on the triune nature of the Godhead.
00:50:27 And then there were battles and fights over the nature of Christ. Is he part God, part man? Or
00:50:35 is he fully God and not man at all? Did he just appear as a man, right? This Arianism idea,
00:50:41 was he just an apparition like a ghost, but he was really only divine and never human? I mean,
00:50:46 people, again, they fought wars. They died over these things. So it took the church about a thousand
00:50:53 years just to get united on doctrine of God. Now, are there still people today that bear the name
00:50:58 of Christ that are heretics on doctrine of God? Sure, of course. But here's the difference in today 0.90
00:51:04 and 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago, those people were taken seriously. Today, we mock them. Praise
00:51:11 God. That's winning. That's victory. That's progress. In 2,000 years, one of the things
00:51:17 that's been accomplished is instead of an ecumenical council where a heretic gets a hearing, 0.97
00:51:22 we laugh that guy off the stage. We boo him. We mock him. We mark him as a heretic. And we tell
00:51:29 people that if anyone follows him, they're going to go to hell. It is a blessing. It is a blessing 0.95
00:51:34 of Christ and his work that you don't have, speaking of Christmas time, that you don't have
00:51:39 Saint Nick having to punch Arius in the face. Did you know that happened? If you want to teach
00:51:44 your kids about Santa, teach them the most important characteristic of Santa is that he 1.00
00:51:49 punched a heretic in the face. That's a wonderful thing. So you have Saint Nick punching Arius, 1.00
00:51:55 the heretic, in the face over doctrine of God. We don't have to do that anymore. We don't. Yes, 0.94
00:52:00 there are sects and cults. That's true. But there are literally millions, if not arguably two to
00:52:07 three billion Christians who believe right, correct, triune doctrine. They believe that God
00:52:15 is three persons, one essence, and that the second member of the Trinity has two natures that are not
00:52:22 divorced from one another, not severed, but also not mixed. That he is fully God and fully man
00:52:28 as a second member of the three persons in a one essence God. One God, three persons in the second
00:52:36 person, two natures. That's huge. That's a lot of victory. All you have to do, I think, to be
00:52:42 encouraged is you just have to pan out. You just have to pan out. I know that we're divided right
00:52:48 now, but I think, I know it's been said before. I'm not the first person to say it, but I think
00:52:53 it's worth saying again. I think part of the reason the church is still divided today is because in a
00:52:58 very real sense, we are still living in the early church. If Jesus tarries, no man knows the day or
00:53:04 the hour. I'm not making any prophecies. That would be a foolish thing to do. No man knows the
00:53:08 day or the hour. I don't know. Jesus could come back tomorrow. That is entirely possible. I think
00:53:13 it's unlikely, but it's possible. But if Jesus tarries, what would the church look like in 10,000
00:53:20 years? There's a song, many of you guys are familiar with it, where it says, shout on, pray on, we're
00:53:25 gaining ground. It doesn't feel like that a lot of times, but we are. And you need to be hopeful.
00:53:32 All the time you need to be hopeful because you're commanded to rejoice.
00:53:36 You're commanded to believe, to trust, to hope.
00:53:39 But beyond just that, you need to be hopeful,
00:53:42 not just because God commands it in order to fulfill his will,
00:53:45 but because you need it.
00:53:48 Life is not sustainable.
00:53:50 It's not sustainable the way many conservatives 0.98
00:53:53 and sadly even Christians have been living these last three years. 0.96
00:53:56 And I'm not talking about sustainable in the sense of
00:53:59 our, our, you know, draconian, you know, political elite, you know, totalitarian leaders
00:54:06 pressing down on us. I'm not talking about that. That's, that's bad enough in its own right.
00:54:11 What I'm saying is not sustainable is every day spending hours on the internet, looking at the
00:54:17 worst, the worst things in the entire world. It's, you can't live that way. You can't, people were
00:54:23 not like, we were just, we're finite. It's not even about our fallenness or our sin nature.
00:54:28 It's about our creatureliness.
00:54:31 It's about our finitude.
00:54:33 Not fallenness, but finitude.
00:54:35 You as a creature, a mere creature,
00:54:38 redeemed, praise God, but still a creature.
00:54:41 There are some things you just can't know.
00:54:44 And if you do know those things, you can't respond.
00:54:48 You're just not meant to.
00:54:49 You're not supposed to.
00:54:50 People, you know, all the time pressing on you for a response.
00:54:54 What's your view?
00:54:54 What's your position?
00:54:55 How do you feel about this?
00:54:56 Are you mourning this?
00:54:58 Are you mourning that millions of people are dying over here?
00:55:01 And my answer is no.
00:55:04 What? You don't care about millions of people?
00:55:06 No, I can't care.
00:55:09 It's not I won't care.
00:55:10 I'm doing everything I can right now to care about the five other people in my family,
00:55:16 to care about my mother and my father, to care about my local congregation.
00:55:20 I'm doing everything I can to care about the relationships that God in his sovereignty
00:55:24 has actually placed in front of my face.
00:55:27 because I know precisely who God has called me to care about.
00:55:31 Yes, we live in a universal neighborhood.
00:55:33 Children in Uganda, they are your neighbor.
00:55:36 But there's something to be said for the Good Samaritan.
00:55:38 Notice, the Good Samaritan in that parable
00:55:40 is not someone on the other side of the planet
00:55:42 with a smartphone 0.53
00:55:43 who puts a black square on their Facebook.
00:55:47 And then Jesus says, you know, this is the Good Samaritan.
00:55:50 No, the Good Samaritan,
00:55:52 notice one element in that parable is proximity.
00:55:55 Do you know why he was morally bound to do something for his neighbor?
00:55:59 Because he was there.
00:56:01 He was there. 0.92
00:56:04 This is not America and Israel.
00:56:08 This is not America and Ukraine.
00:56:11 This is not America and whatever.
00:56:13 You know the thing that will happen in the next 15 minutes.
00:56:15 We'll find out tomorrow.
00:56:17 There will be another thing and then another thing and another thing.
00:56:20 Care about this.
00:56:21 Care about this. 0.94
00:56:22 Post this flag.
00:56:23 Post this square.
00:56:25 Thoughts and prayers.
00:56:26 Thoughts and prayers.
00:56:27 And it's just like a whip behind you. 1.00
00:56:29 You're a slave. 1.00
00:56:31 Do it. 0.99
00:56:31 Do the thing.
00:56:32 Say the thing.
00:56:33 Say it.
00:56:33 Say it.
00:56:33 Feel it.
00:56:34 Feel it.
00:56:34 Cry.
00:56:35 Cry.
00:56:36 Care.
00:56:36 Care.
00:56:37 You can't live like that.
00:56:38 You can't.
00:56:40 Care about your kids. 0.96
00:56:42 Care about your wife.
00:56:43 Care about your husband.
00:56:44 Care about your church. 1.00
00:56:47 Israel, who cares? 1.00
00:56:51 I don't care. 1.00
00:56:54 Ukraine. 1.00
00:56:55 don't care. I don't care. And I don't care what's politically correct. 1.00
00:57:02 I don't care about that either. I don't. And every single thing that happens in the White House,
00:57:09 I don't care. And that's not to forego civil responsibility. We do have that. But even that,
00:57:16 it starts with proximity. It starts locally. It starts at home. It starts with your city council.
00:57:23 It starts with your county.
00:57:24 It starts with that.
00:57:27 Who is your neighbor?
00:57:28 Yeah, it is technically true, biblically, theologically true.
00:57:31 You have 8.2 billion neighbors. 1.00
00:57:33 And if you think you can love them all properly, then you are an arrogant fool. 1.00
00:57:38 And I don't even know where to begin to help you. 0.99
00:57:40 The only person who can help properly, perfectly, 8.2 billion people is God.
00:57:47 And you're not him.
00:57:49 You're not.
00:57:50 and this is not just because you're a sinner it's because you're a creature even when sin
00:57:57 is done away and you have your glorified body in heaven for eternity you still couldn't care
00:58:02 for 8.2 billion people because you're not divine you're not the creator who is to be forever praised
00:58:10 amen you are a creature you are finite and so many of us we fail with what God has placed right in
00:58:18 front of our face because we're spending so much energy and so much time with something happening
00:58:23 on the other side of the planet, and we don't even know if it's real. You don't, by the way.
00:58:30 You think you know everything. You don't. You don't know everything. You know exactly what
00:58:36 you're supposed to know, decided by some other group at a specific time. You know what they
00:58:42 want you to know, when they want you to know it, and that's all you know. We don't even know
00:58:49 proper history, and I'm not talking history from the Crusades or history from, you know, ancient
00:58:54 Babylon. We don't even know proper history of things that happened 60 years ago in this country.
00:59:00 You can't even find that information. Everything's been revised. The victor goes the spoils. One of
00:59:09 the spoils is getting to write the books. It's not just gold. It's not just cash. One of the
00:59:16 greatest spoils of war that goes to the victor is narrative. The greatest spoil is not wealth.
00:59:22 It's truth. Who gets to decide what is truth? That's what Pilate says to Jesus. What is truth?
00:59:31 And in 2,000 years, that question has only been muddied. What is truth?
00:59:39 We don't know. Yes, we want to be involved. Yes, we want to give our lives as a living sacrifice,
00:59:45 but give it at home. Charity starts at home. Your neighbor starts at home.
00:59:52 What about your literal neighbor? Do we even think about that? What about your next door neighbor? 0.96
00:59:58 And first and foremost, what about your family? Thinking about that. So one of the things that
01:00:04 we need, I preached this last week, but we need hope. We need hope. And, and one of the ways that
01:00:11 you get hope is you get off the internet and you get into this book and you look at the big picture
01:00:17 and the big picture is, I don't care who tells you, I don't care what story you read. Here's
01:00:23 the big picture. In 2000 years, Christ and his kingdom has advanced. Shout on, pray on. We are
01:00:30 gaining ground. There has been an advancement. There has. There is more theological unity today.
01:00:38 Well, what about all these people that disagree? Yeah, they're wrong. They're heretics. They're
01:00:41 going to hell apart from the saving grace of Jesus. I'm not talking about them. They'll always
01:00:46 be enemies of the church, but we have millions that are aligned. Millions that are on the same
01:00:52 page. Here's the math is simple. Okay. 2000 years, things are just getting worse and worse and worse.
01:00:57 Jesus is coming back next Thursday and, you know, give whatever cash you have to Israel.
01:01:01 Bad theology. Stop that. Stop that neoconservative, dispensational. Get that out of here. That is
01:01:08 trash. Garbage theology. No. Here's the deal. 2,000 years. The math is simple. 12 followers 1.00
01:01:15 of Jesus, 2 billion. Let's pray. Shout on, pray on. We are gaining ground. Jesus, you came into
01:01:23 the world as light and you are casting out the darkness. It is not always a perfect progressive
01:01:31 increase. There are dips along the way. There are dark shadows, dark moments, moments of despair,
01:01:39 but you are the final word. You get the final word and you have spoken that the light has come
01:01:46 into the world and that the darkness has not overcome it and it will not overcome it. That
01:01:52 Christ, you are pushing your crown rights forward over every single square inch of all of all of
01:02:00 your earth. And you're using your body, the church, to do it. And Lord, I pray that you would make us
01:02:06 wise. And Lord, I echo your own prayers in John 17, what was on your mind before your birth and
01:02:12 what was on your mind before your death, that your people would be in unity, that you would unite us,
01:02:19 Lord, and that you would not just unite us with charity and love in the midst of of disagreeing
01:02:26 on truth, but that first and foremost, you would unite your church, not just that we love the same
01:02:31 people, but that we believe the same truth. God, I pray that that you would raise up many
01:02:39 biblically qualified, gifted men to preach truth and to preach it so persuasively, so powerfully,
01:02:47 like a double-edged sword, that it would slice through lies, that it would reveal darkness,
01:02:53 expose corruption, and that people would come to faith, come to conviction, come to truth,
01:03:00 and that we would be united with, yes, a unity of love, but a deep love for one another that
01:03:06 ultimately is undergirded by truth. You say in 1 Timothy that the church is the pillar
01:03:12 and buttress of the truth. The truth. Father, truth is so, it's like a needle in a haystack.
01:03:21 We are the most informed generation of people who have ever lived on the planet, and yet we are the 1.00
01:03:27 dumbest. Informed, but information and knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge applied. 0.98
01:03:36 Wisdom is knowing what to do with a matter.
01:03:40 Wisdom is not just knowing information
01:03:42 about a certain topic or subject,
01:03:45 but wisdom is knowledge that comes from you.
01:03:48 Wisdom that comes from above that tells us how to live.
01:03:52 That's what we need.
01:03:53 We have so many people patting themselves on the back,
01:03:56 pretending and humoring themselves that they're informed,
01:04:00 that they know what's really going on,
01:04:01 that they took the red pill, that they see the truth,
01:04:04 they realize how bad things are,
01:04:05 but these people still don't know what to do.
01:04:09 The sons of Issachar were mighty men.
01:04:13 And what made them mighty is they didn't just know the times,
01:04:16 but they were those who knew the times
01:04:19 and who knew what Israel ought to do.
01:04:22 Father, I pray that you would raise up such men,
01:04:25 sons of Issachar, that Israel, the true Israel, the church,
01:04:29 that we would not only know the times,
01:04:32 but that we would know what to do,
01:04:34 how to act, how to live, what are our marching orders, what do we do today? And Lord, I pray that
01:04:41 we would start where we're most certain, the things that we know with a sureness from your
01:04:49 word. What do we do right now? What do we do? We go home, we hug our kids, we tell them Merry
01:04:56 Christmas, we give them a candy cane, we drink some hot chocolate, we sing some hymns to the
01:05:03 glory of God. We talk about Christ born in a manger to coming to live and to die for the sins
01:05:10 of the world. And we wake up on Christmas morning and we give presents, good gifts to one another
01:05:15 because you gave us the perfect gift of Jesus. And we look at a Christmas tree and we say, yeah,
01:05:20 maybe it was pagan with the winter solstice and all these kinds of things. But that's the
01:05:25 tradition. The great tradition of Christianity is crushing paganism. And so we're celebrating that 0.95
01:05:30 today. We're celebrating what pagans have done for 2,000 years, convert to Christianity. And this
01:05:36 tree, this evergreen tree represents the everlasting life that we have with Christ. And we love one
01:05:41 another. Now let's go outside and play with that scooter or play with this or do that. Let's smile.
01:05:47 Let's love one another and let's honor Christ. If we eat or we drink, whatever we do, that we would
01:05:52 do it all for the glory of God. Lord, I pray, I pray, I pray against the demonic power of despair.
01:06:02 I can feel it every day, and I feel it on this church. And as one of its pastors, it's not about
01:06:09 me. I'm nothing special, but you've given me this position. As one of its pastors, for a moment,
01:06:15 going back to some charismatic days, I just rebuke, in the name of Jesus, the Lord rebukes
01:06:20 a spirit of despair over this congregation and over Christians around the world that are hopeless.
01:06:28 That death keeps swallowing up life. That's not the book. The book is true. Though every man be
01:06:36 a liar, let God be true and every man a liar. The book doesn't say that life is one day eventually
01:06:42 swallowed up by death, but that death is swallowed up by life. That darkness is expelled by light.
01:06:50 that life wins, that light wins, that Christ wins. So no matter what we've been through,
01:06:58 no matter what we're thinking, no matter what loved one has died, no matter what kid is sick,
01:07:03 no matter what job was lost, no matter what the news said yesterday and will say tomorrow,
01:07:09 that the ultimate narrative, the ultimate truth in all the universe is that you, oh God,
01:07:14 gave your son and he is the hope of the world and we win with him. We believe this because you said
01:07:23 it. You said it. And it's the only anchor we have. There's nothing else that we can even realize. We
01:07:29 don't know what's true. But this book, we can believe. It is true. It is certain. Help us to
01:07:36 believe it, to know the times, and to know what we ought to do. And if there's things where we don't
01:07:41 know, then let us start closer, closer to home. The things that we're sure about, loving our wives,
01:07:47 loving our kids, having kids, laying up an inheritance, physical wealth for future
01:07:53 generations, buying property, and pushing back the pagans. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.