The NXR Podcast - SERMON - The Night Before Christmas

00:00:00.700 Many of us are familiar with the scene of the angels and shepherds in the Christmas story long ago.

00:00:06.060 Many of us are also well acquainted with the three wise men, or the magi, and the star that guided them from the east.

00:00:13.260 We even know about King Herod and his evil plan to kill the baby Jesus.

00:00:17.680 But there are certain parts of the Christmas story that we may not know.

00:00:21.540 One is this. What was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas, 2,000 years ago?

00:00:28.540 Would you please stand with me for the reading of God's Word?

00:00:32.200 Our primary passage of Scripture for today is Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5, 6, and 7,

00:00:38.180 answering the question that I've just asked,

00:00:41.220 what was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas 2,000 years ago?

00:00:46.160 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.

00:00:48.880 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the Word of the Lord,

00:00:51.680 at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:00:56.100 again to answer this question what was on the mind of jesus what was he thinking

00:01:00.800 the night before christmas 2 000 years ago in order to answer that question we'll be utilizing

00:01:06.740 hebrews chapter 10 verses 5 through 7 the bible says this consequently when christ came into the

00:01:14.200 world he said sacrifices and offerings you have not desired but a body have you prepared for me

00:01:21.040 in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure then i said behold i have come

00:01:28.180 to do your will oh god as it is written of me in the scroll of the book this is the word of the

00:01:34.780 lord all right please be seated when christ came into the world the night before christmas at the

00:01:44.020 time of his coming the time of his his coming into the world taking on flesh what was on the

00:01:51.340 mind of Christ if we could ask such a question well from the scripture one of the things at least

00:01:57.220 doesn't mean that this is exclusively what Christ was thinking but at least one of the things that

00:02:02.520 Christ was thinking as he came into the world was this sacrifices and offerings you have not

00:02:09.040 desired, but a body you have prepared for me. It's important for us to recognize that God's

00:02:16.040 premier preference from his image-bearing creatures is not blood sacrifice, but rather a life of

00:02:26.260 obedience. Obedience is what God first desires. Remember the correspondence that takes place,

00:02:33.920 the discourse between samuel the prophet and the first king of israel king saul that saul had

00:02:40.680 been presumptuous and he had taken into his own hands certain privileges and rights and duties

00:02:47.720 that rightly belong to the priesthood or even to the prophetic office that samuel fulfilled

00:02:54.440 but not to the kingly office he made certain sacrifices before samuel arrived and he blamed

00:03:01.760 it on the people saying well the people they're the ones who pushed me to do this but Samuel says

00:03:08.740 well it doesn't matter I'm paraphrasing here it doesn't matter what the people said you're in

00:03:13.880 charge you're the leader here in Israel and so then he falls back on this excuse of saying well

00:03:19.760 I was just trying to please the Lord we you know we spared certain livestock and animals even though

00:03:25.420 God told us to utterly wipe out everything that was living including the livestock but we spared

00:03:31.080 them only so that we might perform an offer to the Lord a sacrifice. Whereas Samuel responds and

00:03:38.740 says that the Lord delights in obedience rather than sacrifice. That the Lord would prefer, that

00:03:46.380 God would prefer obedience to his word, to his law word, rather than sacrifice. Now the irony is that

00:03:55.000 God does command sacrifices of Israel in the Old Testament because these sacrifices are,

00:04:02.920 therefore, because God commands them, the fulfillment of these sacrifices is an act of

00:04:06.920 obedience. But God, he commands certain sacrifices that Israel, his people, would fulfill these

00:04:13.940 sacrifices as an act of obedience, but only because of prior disobedience. That's the point,

00:04:20.180 that Israel was called to do certain things, to commit and fulfill certain sacrifices as an act

00:04:27.360 of obedience to God's commands, but only because Israel had been previously disobedient. But God's

00:04:35.080 preference over all of it would be perfect obedience, that there would be no need for

00:04:40.700 blood sacrifice and be no need for death, that simply his people would in fact obey. And that's

00:04:47.940 what we find in the words of Hebrews chapter 10 verse 5 through 7. Notice that both elements are

00:04:54.320 at play here. We see the element of sacrifice because of disobedience, but we also see the

00:05:00.920 element of God's chief desire, which is obedience to his law. Sacrifices and offerings, reading the

00:05:08.700 text once more, verse 5, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared

00:05:16.300 for me. Well, why? For what purpose was Jesus given flesh? Why does he have this body? Well,

00:05:24.180 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

00:05:29.420 by his death, by a sacrifice. But that's not the only reason that Jesus was given a body.

00:05:37.060 Jesus was given flesh so that he might die as a sacrifice, but also so that he might live

00:05:43.480 in perfect obedience to the law of God.

00:05:47.280 In burnt offerings, this is verse six now,

00:05:49.420 Hebrews 10, verse six.

00:05:50.940 In burnt offerings and sin offerings,

00:05:53.160 you have taken no pleasure.

00:05:55.160 Then I said, behold, I have come.

00:05:58.940 So not these sin offerings or burnt offerings,

00:06:01.160 in that you've taken no pleasure.

00:06:02.640 But in contrast, behold, I have come to do your will,

00:06:08.180 to obey, O God, as it is written of me

00:06:11.540 in the scroll of the books.

00:06:13.480 Now, this is Hebrews, the author to the Hebrews, quoting David in the Psalms.

00:06:19.100 And so the original, the first place where we find these words, this text appear in Scripture,

00:06:27.860 is David speaking of himself.

00:06:30.180 Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

00:06:34.980 In burnt offerings and in sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

00:06:38.420 But then I said, behold, I have come to do your will.

00:06:42.320 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.

00:06:58.820 No, I've been placed here and given a body and given the kingship to do your will.

00:07:03.660 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.

00:07:27.760 And so this is ultimately, in the highest sense, speaking of Jesus.

00:07:31.980 But David is even saying this in the first sense, in the first instance, speaking of himself.

00:07:37.840 So even King David recognized before the coming of Christ that ultimately that God had given him a body.

00:07:45.300 And this is representative. This could speak of all men, not just David.

00:07:48.800 But that God has given us beating hearts and breathing lungs.

00:07:52.120 He's given us life in order not just to die or to perform sacrifices, but ultimately to obey

00:08:01.420 God's word. One of the chief texts that would support what I'm speaking of now would be Romans

00:08:08.920 chapter 12, that tells us that we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Let me find that

00:08:15.580 text briefly and I'll read it. This is Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse one. I appeal to

00:08:20.680 you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice

00:08:27.360 holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship this is your act of worship

00:08:34.440 Paul writes to the New Testament church that Christ has been sacrificed as a once and for all

00:08:41.700 sacrifice as the final and ultimate lamb of God there needs to be no longer any blood sacrifice

00:08:49.400 Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient. It was enough, but God does still demand of his people sacrifice,

00:08:58.240 but not the sacrifice of blood, not the sacrifice of death, but the sacrifice of obedience,

00:09:05.200 the sacrifice of life, an obedient life. And Jesus has modeled, and not only modeled,

00:09:12.400 but also fulfilled as a substitute in our place for all those who trust in him, not one,

00:09:18.820 not only his death, his blood sacrifice, but both. Also, this Romans 12 living sacrifice.

00:09:27.100 It's important that we recognize the significance and the absolute necessity of both the passive

00:09:34.080 obedience of Christ, as theologians would refer to it, and the active obedience of Christ.

00:09:41.040 Now, what those two categories, those terms represent, the passive obedience of Christ

00:09:46.420 is his obedience unto death, his obedience at Calvary, his obedience on the cross,

00:09:53.000 his obedience to be as a lamb led before the slaughter, to be silent before his accusers,

00:10:00.700 to not call down a legion of angels as he explicitly says he could.

00:10:05.600 It was within his authority and power to do so, but rather to relegate himself to his false accusers,

00:10:13.480 to entrust himself to men, ultimately,

00:10:17.100 because he never entrusted himself to men,

00:10:19.340 but rather, knowing the sovereignty of God

00:10:21.440 standing above all men, he entrusted himself to God.

00:10:24.980 He entrusted himself to his Father.

00:10:27.140 He handed himself over to his accusers.

00:10:29.800 He did not put up a fight,

00:10:31.560 but rather he went willingly and passively to the cross

00:10:36.640 in order to bleed out and die as a sacrifice for sin.

00:10:41.860 That is what we would refer to as the passive obedience of Christ, and we are saved by this

00:10:48.880 obedience, his obedience in death, his obedience at the cross, his obedience in allowing himself

00:10:56.700 to be handed over, to be bloodied and bludgeoned, and to bleed out and die for the sins of his

00:11:06.100 people. We have salvation because of this, all right? It's nothing less than this, but it is 0.99

00:11:12.120 more than this. That's not the only reason that you and I are saved. We are saved because of

00:11:18.140 Christ's passive obedience in death on the cross, but also his active obedience for the 33 years,

00:11:26.660 give or take, leading up to the cross. Jesus' willingness to die would do nothing

00:11:33.620 if he wasn't willing first in every moment of his life

00:11:38.340 to live and obey.

00:11:41.280 If Jesus had sinned against God even once,

00:11:44.760 then it would have invalidated not only his life,

00:11:48.680 but his death.

00:11:50.060 His death could not atone for us, you and I,

00:11:54.160 if it was not the sacrifice

00:11:55.880 of a perfectly obedient and righteous man.

00:11:59.700 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.

00:12:20.720 So Jesus didn't just die as a moral example of sacrificial love. No, he actually died as atonement,

00:12:28.620 payment, a substitute in our place. But Jesus did not only passively obey in his death as a substitute,

00:12:36.740 but he actively obeyed in his life also as a substitute. The life of Jesus, it does serve

00:12:44.500 as a moral example of how you and I should live,

00:12:48.400 but it doesn't only serve as an example.

00:12:51.560 Jesus didn't just live to provide for us

00:12:54.540 a model of a life of obedience that we could follow.

00:12:58.140 No, he also lived just as he died as a substitute.

00:13:02.920 He died in our place, but he also lived in our place,

00:13:07.920 which means that he took our punishment

00:13:10.440 in his passive obedience, in his death,

00:13:13.580 but he also fulfilled on our behalf all righteousness in his life. So the work of

00:13:20.660 Jesus, both his life and death, the work of Jesus does not merely bring you and I from a state of

00:13:28.240 being guilty to now a state of moral neutrality and innocence, but rather if you are in Christ,

00:13:36.480 If you have faith in Jesus, you are not only morally innocent, but you have the very righteousness

00:13:44.120 of God. So not just an absence of guilt and immorality and sin, but you have a presence

00:13:52.840 of righteousness. Whose righteousness? Not the mere righteousness of angels or cherubim or seraphim,

00:14:00.380 or the righteousness of the four living creatures with six wings covered in eyes that surround

00:14:05.680 the throne of God, not merely the righteousness of 24 elders seated on 24 thrones that cast down

00:14:13.440 their crowns and sing to the Lord and cry out to him day and night, holy, holy, holy is the Lord

00:14:19.880 God Almighty. All these angelic beings are righteous to the degree that they have never,

00:14:26.160 ever, ever, ever sinned against God even once over the course of eons. And your righteousness

00:14:33.860 infinitely surpasses theirs. It is not an inferior righteousness. It is not a comparable

00:14:41.440 righteousness. It is an infinitely superior righteousness because your righteousness

00:14:47.280 is the kind of righteousness that these angelic beings, who again have never sinned, they are

00:14:54.360 sinless, right? That's pretty righteous. They are sinless beings and yet they must cover their faces

00:15:00.960 and cannot look upon the holiness of God

00:15:05.440 because his righteousness is so brilliant,

00:15:09.280 so blinding, so superior to their own

00:15:13.020 that they can't even directly gaze upon it.

00:15:17.220 God's righteousness is infinitely superior

00:15:20.540 to a sinless, angelic righteousness.

00:15:24.580 Now, whose righteousness has been given to you?

00:15:28.760 Not angelic righteousness.

00:15:30.960 not human righteousness if there were such a thing no divine righteousness you have been given

00:15:39.340 the righteousness of the second eternal member of the Godhead namely Christ Jesus it's his

00:15:48.940 righteousness it's God's righteousness it's the brilliance the same righteousness that is so

00:15:55.940 brilliant and so blinding that angelic beings cannot even look upon it. It's that righteousness.

00:16:04.120 That is your righteousness. It's an alien righteousness, as theologians would call it,

00:16:09.660 in the sense that it's foreign. It's not your own in the sense that it is not manufactured

00:16:15.040 or made or conjured by you. It comes from outside of you. But it is, although it is an alien

00:16:22.700 righteousness, a foreign righteousness. It is at the very same time, your righteousness. It is yours.

00:16:30.200 Yours because you conjured it. Yours because you created it. No, yours because you were given it.

00:16:36.300 And you were given this righteousness by grace through faith in Christ. So back to the original

00:16:43.000 question, what was on the mind of Christ on the night before Christmas? Well, the mind of Christ,

00:16:49.400 what is he thinking? What is his purpose? What is he aware of? Well, he's aware of this.

00:16:56.040 Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt

00:17:02.440 offerings and in sin offerings, you have not taken pleasure. But then I said, behold, I have come

00:17:09.220 to sacrifice, to kill, to bleed out and die. That's true of Christ. But what does he say? 0.83

00:17:16.520 I have come to do your will. Jesus came, brothers and sisters. Did he come as a lamb to be led to

00:17:24.940 the slaughter, to bleed out and die? Yes. But he also came to obey God, to be the first man 0.97

00:17:34.500 in all of human history to ever love the Lord his God with all his heart and all his soul and all

00:17:42.500 his mind and all his strength every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every

00:17:48.760 year of all his life. Jesus is the first time that God ever received from humanity what he deserves.

00:17:58.980 God waited patiently in long suffering in great patience for thousands of years to receive from

00:18:06.760 his image-bearing creatures what he had deserved since before the foundations of the world.

00:18:13.380 Namely, again, not first and foremost blood sacrifice, but first and foremost a life,

00:18:20.540 a living obedience. Obedience. This is what Samuel is saying to King Saul. The Lord does not delight

00:18:29.740 in sacrifices as much as obedience. Now it is true that in one sense God delighted in the sacrifices

00:18:38.000 of Israel insofar, which was not always very frequent or often, but insofar as during those

00:18:46.020 times when Israel performed these sacrifices obediently. When they did the sacrifices according

00:18:52.920 to God's words, not according to their own stipulations or preferences, but according to

00:18:58.340 what God had spoken through Moses, and also not only on the exterior, performing the sacrifices

00:19:05.400 with the right method, but also with the right motive. That on the interior, insofar as Israel 0.53

00:19:12.660 exterior, in the exterior sense, performed the sacrifices rightly, and in the interior sense,

00:19:19.920 they also possessed by the grace of God the right and proper motives, right? Actually humbling

00:19:26.720 themselves before God, honoring him as God, seeing the sacrifice as what they rightly deserve,

00:19:33.700 namely death for their sin, and offering this to God as a pleasing sacrifice. When that was done,

00:19:40.060 that was obedience. And that obedience, in a sense, was pleasing to God. But it was not sufficient

00:19:47.500 for salvation. Because Hebrews goes on to say, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away 0.67

00:19:54.360 sin. It's not a sufficient sacrifice. God demanded sacrifice. He commanded it, prescribed it. Israel

00:20:02.660 at times obeyed it. And sometimes certain individuals in Israel, by grace, they obeyed it 0.63

00:20:08.880 in the exterior sense and the interior sense. They actually possessed the right motives.

00:20:13.900 They actually desired to be pleasing to the Lord and to honor him rightly. But even in this,

00:20:19.920 It was pleasing to God in one sense, but not salvific.

00:20:24.320 It was not sufficient for salvation.

00:20:28.520 But all this is because of prior disobedience.

00:20:32.380 That's the whole point of Jesus, his coming to earth,

00:20:36.460 his life and his death and resurrection and ascension

00:20:39.240 to the right hand of the Father.

00:20:40.860 It's because we disobeyed.

00:20:42.980 It's because mankind rebelled against God.

00:20:46.580 That's why God demands blood,

00:20:49.040 Because the wages, as Romans says, the wages of sin is death.

00:20:54.160 The wages of sin is death.

00:20:55.420 It was the only way to pay the price for our iniquity.

00:20:59.320 It was the only way to set the record straight.

00:21:02.220 It's the only way that God can pardon man and maintain not only mercy, but his perfect justice at the same time.

00:21:11.020 Apart from a sufficient sacrifice, atonement just means payment, a sufficient payment.

00:21:16.960 apart from that, God could not pardon and forgive our sins without compromising his own righteousness

00:21:24.740 and justice at the very same time. Jesus is the way, he is the way, God's way, to where both mercy

00:21:33.460 and justice can be simultaneously upheld. That God can exercise mercy to you while maintaining

00:21:42.120 his perfect standard of righteousness and justice without an ounce of compromise. That's the

00:21:49.700 purpose, the reason for the death of Jesus. But the desire of God, the desire of God for us as

00:21:57.980 New Testament Christians who have already been paid for by Jesus and his sacrifice 2,000 years

00:22:04.560 ago on the cross, God's desire for you and I is not that we would offer up to him the sacrifice

00:22:11.000 of blood and bulls and goats. And God's desire for us is not that we would reinstitute the Old 0.97

00:22:18.960 Testament, Old Covenant sacrifices of Israel. And God's desire from us certainly is not that we

00:22:24.960 would come every single week and perform another sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself. Shout out Roman 1.00

00:22:31.840 Catholicism, right? That's not his desire either. No, God's desire for you as a New Testament

00:22:38.760 Christian who has already been sacrificed for. Jesus' work is finished. He said it is finished. 0.97

00:22:45.300 God's desire for you is a sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice not of death, but of life,

00:22:51.780 and not atonement for sin, but willing obedience to his law. God's desire for you and for us

00:22:59.620 is Romans 12, verse 1 and 2. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

00:23:06.380 to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act

00:23:13.680 of worship. Do not be conformed, verse 2 says, to this world, but rather be transformed by the

00:23:20.720 renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good

00:23:27.880 and acceptable and perfect. That's God's plan for your life. That's his desire for your life.

00:23:35.580 if you want to please the Lord, his desire is obedience. It's the same thing that Samuel said

00:23:42.880 to King Saul long ago. It is not sacrifice, but obedience. And the sacrifices, again, that were

00:23:49.760 pleasing were those sacrifices that were done in obedience. And they were only commanded to be done

00:23:55.780 in obedience because of prior disobedience. In our case, as New Testament Christians,

00:24:01.600 all of our disobedience, every ounce of sin that you've committed in the past, that you will commit

00:24:08.000 in the present, that you'll commit in the future, all of this has already been sacrificed for.

00:24:13.640 It's already been atoned for. So what is it that you and I can offer to the Lord this Christmas

00:24:19.720 season? What is it that we can give back to him because he's given so much to us? It's not

00:24:27.560 a suicide mission. It's not that we would sacrifice ourselves or sacrifice something else.

00:24:36.500 What God desires from us to return as an act of gratitude for the grace that we've received

00:24:43.620 is that we would live. Not that we would die, but that we would live and that we would live

00:24:49.280 in such a way that our lives are marked by righteousness and obedience. That we would

00:24:55.240 actually live out of the righteousness that we've received by grace through faith in Christ

00:25:01.380 alone. That that righteousness that Christ lived to provide and died to give, that this righteousness

00:25:08.780 would actually be manifest in the people of God. That the world would be able to look to us and see

00:25:16.080 holiness. That they would see obedience. That they would see people who are living a life of

00:25:23.260 obedience. That what David is speaking of himself in Hebrews chapter, well in the Psalms, but quoted

00:25:29.480 by the author of Hebrews, what David in the first sense spoke of himself in the truest sense is

00:25:34.760 Christ speaking of himself. And yet in another sense, an even further sense, we can say that

00:25:41.420 the words of Christ in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 5 through 7, he's speaking it ultimately of himself.

00:25:47.380 but we as little Christ, Christians, his ambassadors, his representatives going out

00:25:53.100 in the world, this is our marching orders as well, that we might be able to say to the Lord,

00:25:58.860 sacrifices and offerings you have not desired. The blood of bulls and goats you have not desired.

00:26:04.740 They can never ultimately take away sin. The only sacrifice you ever desired was the sacrifice of

00:26:10.520 your son Jesus, and you only desired that in order to make payment for the disobedience of 0.91

00:26:16.860 your image bearing creatures. But what you've desired truly in your inmost, what you've desired 0.61

00:26:23.000 from the very beginning is obedience, righteousness, a fulfillment of your word, burnt offerings and

00:26:30.580 sin offerings you have taken no pleasure in. Behold, we, the church, the New Testament church,

00:26:37.480 we have come to do your will. Oh God, as it is written in the scroll of the book, there is a

00:26:45.080 sense. It's not the truest sense. The ultimate sense is this is speaking of Christ, but there

00:26:49.500 is a sense in which the New Testament Christian can say, we have come to obey. We have come to

00:26:56.060 be righteous as he is righteous, holy as he is holy. We know that we will fail in many ways and

00:27:02.540 at many times, but all of that has already been atoned for by Jesus Christ. All of that has been

00:27:08.220 already paid in full. The payment was sufficient and it is finished. And when we fail, when we sin,

00:27:14.480 when we rebel, our response is to ask for forgiveness, to repent of our sin, and to get

00:27:20.760 back up and to go back into life, back into our vocation, back into what God has called us to do

00:27:27.460 and to seek to do it with obedience once again. There are many similarities. Landing the plane

00:27:35.220 here will be shorter this morning. There are many similarities between the night before Jesus' death

00:27:41.020 and the night before his birth. In both of these instances, Christ, we could say in a sense, as it

00:27:48.120 were, you always got to throw that in. As it were, Christ is thinking on the same things. Here are the

00:27:54.120 three primary things. His love for his father and eager desire to obey, to do his will. Number two,

00:28:01.660 the immense cost that would be required in order to do God's will. And number three, Christ's great

00:28:08.360 love for his people. So what was Jesus thinking on the night before his birth? The same thing he

00:28:15.400 was thinking the night before his death. He was thinking about God the Father, how to obey him

00:28:21.120 and please him. Number two, the immense cost that that obedience would incur for himself. And then

00:28:28.460 number three, his immense love for his people. This is Luke chapter 22, verses 41 through 44.

00:28:34.620 this is Jesus on the night of his arrest. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and

00:28:42.260 knelt down and prayed saying, father, if you are willing, remove this cup. That is the cup of God's

00:28:47.740 wrath. Remove this cup from me, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And there appeared

00:28:55.660 to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him and being in agony, he prayed even more earnestly

00:29:02.520 and his sweat became like great drops of blood

00:29:06.380 falling down to the ground.

00:29:08.680 The night of Jesus' arrest, before his crucifixion,

00:29:11.860 before his death, Jesus is thinking about the immense cost.

00:29:16.820 And I think there's also a sense in which we can say

00:29:19.760 that David prophesying, whether he was conscious of it or not,

00:29:24.280 the Holy Spirit of God inspiring David,

00:29:26.520 prophesying, speaking the very words of Christ,

00:29:28.840 that shows us not just the night before his death,

00:29:31.780 Jesus' death, but the night before his birth. That before Jesus died, he's saying, this is going to

00:29:37.440 cost. This is going to hurt. This is going to cost me everything. If there's any other way, then God

00:29:43.400 let your cup pass from me. But if there's no other way, then not my will, that is my human will, but

00:29:49.820 yours, the divine will, be done. That's what Jesus says before his death. And it's similar to what he

00:29:55.340 says before his birth. He says, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you

00:30:01.820 have prepared for me. And that body is purposed twofold. One, a body to live, Romans 12, a body

00:30:09.460 to live a life of perfect obedience as a substitute in our place, but also a body to be torn apart,

00:30:18.220 to bleed out and to die as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus was given

00:30:25.000 a body that he might live and obey also that he might die and pay for our sins. This is his thought

00:30:33.900 process. We could say in a sense, as it were, his thought process before his birth and his thought

00:30:39.880 process before his death. The thought process again is threefold. God, I want to honor you more

00:30:46.760 than anything else. Number two, honoring you in order to redeem them is going to cost. It's going

00:30:54.240 to hurt. And number three, I'll do it for your glory, first and foremost, but also for their

00:31:00.760 good out of love for his people. And that's where I want to end right here with John chapter 17,

00:31:05.920 going a little bit more into the words, the prayer and the mind of Christ, as it were,

00:31:11.000 before his death, because I believe that that frame of mind is very similar to what Jesus was

00:31:16.540 thinking before his birth. This is John 17 in the garden of Gethsemane, right before Jesus' arrest,

00:31:23.480 right before his death, similar thoughts that he was thinking in the mind of Christ before his

00:31:28.380 birth. He says this, I do not ask for these only. These only, the context there being the disciples

00:31:35.620 who were physically with him. The 11, right? It's the 12 minus one minus Judas. I do not ask for

00:31:42.080 these only, but also, here comes in you and I, for those who will, in a future sense, will believe in

00:31:49.760 me through their word. That's why we believe, because of the apostolic testimony that has been

00:31:55.460 inscripturated for us and inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit these last 2,000 years.

00:32:02.580 So Jesus is shifting, transitioning now in his prayer to his father right before his arrest,

00:32:08.480 his mock trial, and his crucifixion. And he's praying now not only for his disciples who were

00:32:14.080 physically with him at that time, the 12 minus one, but now he's praying for all future disciples,

00:32:20.220 which includes you and I, all those of us who would one day believe in him through the apostolic

00:32:27.600 witness, the word of the apostles. Verse 21, that they may be, so what? We've already discussed who

00:32:35.540 he's praying for, future disciples, New Testament Christians, you and I. What is he praying? That we

00:32:41.760 may all be one. That's one of his chief prayers, is a prayer for unity. That we may be one, just as

00:32:50.260 you, Father, are in me and I in you. That they also, Christians, disciples, may be in us so that

00:32:59.340 the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them.

00:33:06.080 and they may be one even as we are one.

00:33:11.440 I and them and you and me,

00:33:13.640 that they may become perfectly one

00:33:16.520 so that the world may know that you sent me

00:33:19.100 and loved them even as you have loved me.

00:33:22.760 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me

00:33:27.000 may be with me where I am to see my glory.

00:33:30.960 Let me pause there for a second.

00:33:32.360 This is, again, some of the last moments of Jesus' life

00:33:35.920 before his crucifixion, he's praying to the Lord. And in this particular context, he's praying for

00:33:40.680 you, future disciples. And one of the things he prays for is unity, that we may be one as the

00:33:46.060 Godhead is one, but also, and that's a oneness with each other and a oneness with God. That's

00:33:51.400 unity with God, right? Peace on earth, goodwill towards men, because we've been reconciled with

00:33:56.780 God first and foremost, but also reconciled with one another. So unity with the church,

00:34:01.620 the people of God, but also unity with God himself. So that's one thing that he's praying

00:34:06.340 for, unity. But he also prays that we might be with him. It's a prayer of love. It's a prayer

00:34:13.740 of not just unity, but intimacy. He prays that the church, the people of God, his own, those that

00:34:20.460 the Father has given to him, that we might be with Christ where he is. That is, be with him forever

00:34:27.400 in eternity in heaven and in that place that we might have eternal bliss and joy and peace. How?

00:34:34.760 By seeing his glory that God has given to him because you loved me. Going back into Christ's

00:34:43.440 voice now. You loved me before the foundation of the world. Verse 25. O righteous father, even though

00:34:51.240 the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them

00:34:57.900 your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be

00:35:04.100 in them and I in them. Jesus' prayer in John 17, right before his death, is the same thought

00:35:11.160 process that he has before his birth. And what he's praying for is you and I. He's doing all of

00:35:17.580 this, his life of obedience and his sacrificial death, all of it, he's doing one because of

00:35:23.900 obedience to the father, love and commitment to the father. But number two, for the good of his

00:35:29.780 people, God actually loves us. And right there at the end of John 17, what Jesus prays for, he says,

00:35:36.720 I have made it known. I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known

00:35:42.380 that what? For what fulfillment? What purpose? That the love with which you have loved me,

00:35:49.340 the love of God the Father that he has for his son Jesus may be in you, in us, New Testament

00:35:57.420 Christians, and I in them. Jesus did all of it. He came to earth. He lived a perfectly righteous

00:36:05.000 life, not just an absence of sin, but a fulfillment of full presence of righteousness and obedience.

00:36:11.220 and he died a substitutionary death, bodily rose from the grave on the third day and ascended to

00:36:17.320 the right hand of God the Father. He did all of it for the glory of his dad, for the glory of God,

00:36:23.520 for the glory of the Father, in obedience to him, but also so that you and I might have the love

00:36:29.400 of God in us. And what kind of love? The same degree, caliber of love that God the Father has

00:36:36.680 for his own son. We're not being shortchanged here. It's not a cheap deal. We are getting

00:36:43.440 the divine righteousness of Christ in salvation and the divine love of God, the father that he

00:36:50.140 has for his own son. And we get to relish in that and bask in the love of God, the same caliber of

00:36:56.940 love that he has for his own self. We get to relish in that not for a few years or even a few

00:37:04.160 millennia, but for eternity. And all this is on the mind of Christ. It is his purpose, his desire,

00:37:11.820 his aim when he comes into the world and when he goes to the tree. All of this. The last thing that

00:37:18.840 I want to draw out of John 17, because it's another purpose of Jesus coming. It's a purpose

00:37:24.480 of the Christmas story, his incarnation, his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

00:37:30.580 one of the purposes, as we saw in John 17, is that we might be with him where he is in heaven

00:37:35.920 for eternity, share and bask in the love of the triune God that God has for himself, that that

00:37:41.940 same love would be in us. But also, as I said earlier, one of the purposes is for unity and

00:37:49.020 not just a unity that represents reconciliation between man and God, but a unity with one another,

00:37:54.940 A horizontal, not just vertical, but a horizontal unity between believers.

00:38:01.040 That the church would be united with itself or herself.

00:38:05.620 That the church, Christians, would have unity with one another.

00:38:09.660 In all my living, in all my experience, first and foremost, as simply a follower of Christ, a disciple myself, a Christian,

00:38:18.240 but then also my experience pastorally, I have found that unity can only be achieved

00:38:23.580 one of three ways. And this is important for us to understand. Number one, the first one is not

00:38:31.440 charity. It's not niceness. The first way to achieve unity is persuasion. Unity that comes

00:38:41.100 by charity, there is a biblical precedent for this. And I'll get, that's the number two way.

00:38:45.640 I'll get to that in a moment. But unity, first and foremost, where you begin with unity, unity is not

00:38:51.520 common care in the midst of divided convictions. I'll say that again. First and foremost, premier

00:38:59.880 unity, top shelf unity is not common care in the midst of divided convictions. That's not unity

00:39:09.100 in its first sense, in its greatest degree. The greatest form of unity, the one that Jesus

00:39:16.120 came into the world to achieve and died on the cross in order to purchase on behalf of his people,

00:39:23.560 that unity is not just charity toward one another, even though we disagree with one another.

00:39:29.600 No, the first sense of unity is a unity of what theologians refer to as common conviction,

00:39:35.320 him. Or you might call this not the unity of love. That's important. I'll get there in a moment. But

00:39:41.480 the unity of faith. This is what Ephesians 4 speaks up. Ephesians chapter 4 says that Christ, who is

00:39:49.700 the head of the church, he gives to his body, the church, good gifts. And among these good gifts

00:39:55.300 are leaders. He gives men, fallible, albeit, but men who have been saved by the grace of God and

00:40:03.480 are called by God to lead his church. He gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers.

00:40:11.680 I'm going to say I don't believe in the five-fold ministry. Sorry. I believe it's four. Shepherd

00:40:15.720 teachers, I think that in the Greek there, it's actually shepherd hyphen teacher. It's like two

00:40:20.000 sides of a singular coin. So it's not shepherds and then also teachers as a fifth role, but the

00:40:26.900 shepherd teacher. So apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers. And I believe

00:40:31.980 shepherd teachers are pastors, essentially. Those are the two primary roles. They're teaching and

00:40:37.900 they're shepherding. Evangelists are evangelists. They're sharing the word. And then you have

00:40:42.440 apostles and prophets. That's Ephesians 4. If you cross-reference and go back to Ephesians 2,

00:40:47.720 namely, I believe, verse 20, Ephesians 2.20, the foundation of the church is laid on the apostles

00:40:53.380 and the prophets with Christ Jesus as the capstone or the cornerstone. So I believe, this is my

00:40:59.400 conviction that what we have is the foundation of the church laid 2,000 years ago by the prophets

00:41:05.880 and the apostles and Christ Jesus as the final word from the Father. That's Hebrews chapter 1.

00:41:12.260 Long ago, he spoke to us by our fathers, the prophets, in many ways. But in these last days,

00:41:16.860 God has spoken to us through his Son. He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact

00:41:22.080 imprint of the Father's nature. If you want to know what God is saying or what God is thinking

00:41:27.200 or what God looks like, you look at Jesus.

00:41:30.340 And we have Jesus, his life, his ministry, his teaching,

00:41:33.960 all encapsulated in scripture, the apostolic testimony.

00:41:38.600 So the apostles and prophets is the foundation of the church

00:41:41.400 with Jesus being the cornerstone of that foundation.

00:41:44.500 And then these last 2,000 years,

00:41:46.520 we have been building on that foundation

00:41:48.780 and it's the saints themselves, the church,

00:41:51.880 that is executing the work of ministry.

00:41:54.420 Ephesians 4 says the work of ministry itself

00:41:56.780 is given not to leaders, but to the saints, to the church itself, so that the church is actually

00:42:02.800 building itself up in love. But the church does this work successfully because it's being equipped

00:42:10.280 by leaders. And the leaders who are functioning primarily now in this gospel age, New Testament

00:42:16.400 age, is evangelists and pastors, shepherd teachers, evangelists and pastors. So you have the foundation

00:42:23.100 of the church laid 2,000 years ago, prophets, apostles, or apostles first, then prophets,

00:42:28.620 with a capstone, cornerstone being Christ on the foundation for 2,000 years now. You have building

00:42:34.700 and the workers that are doing the building is not the evangelists and pastors, but the

00:42:39.980 Christians themselves. But the Christians are being equipped, resourced by the evangelists

00:42:45.300 and pastors. And all of that, here's the point, all that towards a specific end. And in Ephesians

00:42:52.380 four, we're told, we're explicitly, it's described for us what that end is. The end is unity of the

00:43:00.160 knowledge of the Son of God. I'll say that again. To the point, to the end, to what aim are we

00:43:07.820 building and resourcing and all this stuff, this living temple of living stones to the Lord?

00:43:12.920 What is the aim of all this? That we might achieve a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God,

00:43:18.920 which means it is not, it is not a pro. It's not something to brag about when the church says,

00:43:27.200 hey, you know what? What's so cool about the Christian church today is that there's, you know,

00:43:33.140 30,000 different denominations. No, that's not a win. That's a loss. That's a massive loss.

00:43:43.640 It's not a win to say, well, in a local church setting, for instance, in that context, locally,

00:43:47.980 to say, what I love about this church

00:43:50.000 is that we all disagree with each other.

00:43:53.140 Well, if you all disagree with each other,

00:43:55.020 then you're on, statistically speaking,

00:43:57.220 and this is a best chance,

00:43:59.280 this is a best case scenario,

00:44:00.780 that one of you might be right.

00:44:03.680 Because if you all disagree with each other,

00:44:05.480 you know, it's likely you're all wrong.

00:44:07.760 In a best case scenario, 1.00

00:44:08.840 you have one Christian in the entire church

00:44:11.620 with decent theology.

00:44:13.260 That's not a brag.

00:44:14.660 That's not a win.

00:44:15.900 That's not something to boast of.

00:44:17.600 The goal of Christian unity, first and foremost, is a unity of the faith. It's a unity not of common 0.94

00:44:25.760 care, but a unity of common conviction. It's a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God. When

00:44:32.960 we have a bunch of Christians who have different ideas about the nature and character of God,

00:44:39.540 when we have different ideas about who Jesus is, then we're not united. So if you can't get unity,

00:44:46.380 first and foremost in conviction, beliefs, content, substance, then you go to number two.

00:44:53.980 The number two method of unity is charity in the midst of disagreement. So long as that disagreement

00:45:00.140 is not top tier primary theological disagreement. You cannot have unity, even a unity of common

00:45:07.680 care, or we might call it a unity of love, if your unity of faith is so lacking that you actually 0.98

00:45:14.660 have heretics in your midst. In that case, you need to go to the third way of achieving unity,

00:45:21.180 which is separation. And I know that sounds ironic. It sounds like that's not unity at all.

00:45:27.200 But one of the ways that Paul and Barnabas, for instance, and they didn't even have a disagreement

00:45:31.100 on primary truth. But Paul and Barnabas, just to use them as an example, the way that they gained

00:45:36.760 unity with one another is that they left one another. They realized we are going to continue

00:45:43.700 to disagree so sharply that if we minister on the same team, in the same place, in the same way

00:45:50.940 together, we're not going to do any good. We are going to be at each other's throats constantly

00:45:56.140 because we can't see eye to eye. I've given this example several times, but I'll give it again.

00:46:00.780 People talk about John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul when he was living. Oh, they had such a beautiful

00:46:05.900 relationship. You know how they achieved that relationship? 2,600 miles of distance between

00:46:12.620 them two separate churches, two separate denominations, and two separate ministries.

00:46:17.840 John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul, they had unity. The way that a lot of us have unity, for instance,

00:46:22.760 some of you, you might have, you know, family in town and say, we're going to have a great time

00:46:27.520 together by the grace of God. And how are you going to achieve it? You're going to achieve it

00:46:31.060 because you're going to be together strategically for 48 hours and not a second more. And then that

00:46:37.360 person's going to leave and get their 2,600 miles of separation. And that's the way you'll be able

00:46:42.840 to love them for the next 364 days, right? So that you can go and see them again. That is unity.

00:46:51.420 But let's just admit, here's the point. That's not the kind of unity that Jesus is praying for

00:46:56.280 in John 17. That is the third and final way of attempting to get unity, which is, I'm sorry,

00:47:03.940 but we have to part ways. Sometimes you do this through Matthew 18, church discipline, with

00:47:08.900 somebody who's actually not in the faith at all. And sometimes, sadly, you have to do it even with

00:47:16.200 someone who is a brother or a sister in Christ, like Paul and Barnabas did. Paul didn't say that

00:47:20.200 Barnabas was a heretic, and Barnabas didn't say that Paul was a heretic, but they still had such

00:47:24.900 a sharp disagreement that even as two brothers, they had to part ways. They had to bless one

00:47:31.160 another to go and labor in different portions of the Lord's vineyard. And that is a kindness and a

00:47:35.800 mercy of the Lord to us. It's a mercy of the Lord to us that his vineyard is large. And it's large

00:47:41.460 enough to accommodate R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur 2,600 miles away. That is a mercy. But

00:47:49.640 that is not top-tier unity. That's not our aim. We settle for that because of sin in this life.

00:47:57.360 But when we settle for it, it better be because we first exhausted all our other options.

00:48:02.480 And we need to start at the top.

00:48:04.620 And the top, again, number one, is not charity, unity of love, unity of common care in the midst of theological disagreement.

00:48:12.560 That's number two.

00:48:13.740 That's the unity of common care.

00:48:15.480 Then there's the unity of separation.

00:48:17.200 And then there's the unity top tier, first and foremost, the unity of actually being on the same page.

00:48:22.900 we don't even the church doesn't even talk about that form of unity anymore because we think it's

00:48:29.500 a pipe dream we think it's so far gone so outside of the realm of possibility that it's rarely even

00:48:36.460 preached it's rarely even preached these days from the pulpit to people of God hey you know what guys

00:48:42.820 we should have the same theology we should believe the same things about Jesus we should have a

00:48:49.980 unity, as Ephesians 4 says, a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, that we know the same Jesus,

00:48:58.640 and we know the same doctrine, that we actually have the same views and interpretations of this

00:49:04.680 book, that we're aligned not just with warm, fuzzy feelings in our heart, with love, but we're

00:49:10.660 aligned with truth, with truth. And I believe that by the grace of God, what Ephesians 4 is getting

00:49:17.460 that. I don't believe it's just a description. I believe it's a promise that it's something that

00:49:22.120 we don't just strive for, but it's something that's going to be done. And it's something that

00:49:25.780 started 2000 years ago when Christ came into the world in a manger. This unity is what Jesus

00:49:33.360 prays for. It's on his mind before his death. I believe it's on his mind as it were before his

00:49:39.720 birth. This is what he came for, what he was born for, what he died for. And it's what he's praying

00:49:45.640 for, even at the right hand of God, the father almighty. He is praying that his church would be

00:49:50.680 united. And I know it's discouraging when you look at the church today, but let me go ahead and just

00:49:55.140 give you guys a little bit of a white pill right here at the end. The church is way more united

00:50:00.300 today than it was 2000 years ago. It took the church about 500 years just to figure out,

00:50:07.800 just to figure out the Trinity. For 500 years, Christians were killing themselves, 0.97

00:50:13.600 killing one another. Not all the time, but some of that. There was literally killing one another, 1.00

00:50:19.020 wars and battles going on because they didn't even agree on the triune nature of the Godhead.

00:50:27.580 And then there were battles and fights over the nature of Christ. Is he part God, part man? Or

00:50:35.240 is he fully God and not man at all? Did he just appear as a man, right? This Arianism idea,

00:50:41.160 was he just an apparition like a ghost, but he was really only divine and never human? I mean,

00:50:46.780 people, again, they fought wars. They died over these things. So it took the church about a thousand

00:50:53.220 years just to get united on doctrine of God. Now, are there still people today that bear the name

00:50:58.380 of Christ that are heretics on doctrine of God? Sure, of course. But here's the difference in today 0.90

00:51:04.880 and 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago, those people were taken seriously. Today, we mock them. Praise

00:51:11.120 God. That's winning. That's victory. That's progress. In 2,000 years, one of the things

00:51:17.760 that's been accomplished is instead of an ecumenical council where a heretic gets a hearing, 0.97

00:51:22.760 we laugh that guy off the stage. We boo him. We mock him. We mark him as a heretic. And we tell

00:51:29.160 people that if anyone follows him, they're going to go to hell. It is a blessing. It is a blessing 0.95

00:51:34.420 of Christ and his work that you don't have, speaking of Christmas time, that you don't have

00:51:39.420 Saint Nick having to punch Arius in the face. Did you know that happened? If you want to teach

00:51:44.640 your kids about Santa, teach them the most important characteristic of Santa is that he 1.00

00:51:49.860 punched a heretic in the face. That's a wonderful thing. So you have Saint Nick punching Arius, 1.00

00:51:55.300 the heretic, in the face over doctrine of God. We don't have to do that anymore. We don't. Yes, 0.94

00:52:00.920 there are sects and cults. That's true. But there are literally millions, if not arguably two to

00:52:07.700 three billion Christians who believe right, correct, triune doctrine. They believe that God

00:52:15.220 is three persons, one essence, and that the second member of the Trinity has two natures that are not

00:52:22.540 divorced from one another, not severed, but also not mixed. That he is fully God and fully man

00:52:28.560 as a second member of the three persons in a one essence God. One God, three persons in the second

00:52:36.020 person, two natures. That's huge. That's a lot of victory. All you have to do, I think, to be

00:52:42.240 encouraged is you just have to pan out. You just have to pan out. I know that we're divided right

00:52:48.040 now, but I think, I know it's been said before. I'm not the first person to say it, but I think

00:52:53.240 it's worth saying again. I think part of the reason the church is still divided today is because in a

00:52:58.120 very real sense, we are still living in the early church. If Jesus tarries, no man knows the day or

00:53:04.100 the hour. I'm not making any prophecies. That would be a foolish thing to do. No man knows the

00:53:08.620 day or the hour. I don't know. Jesus could come back tomorrow. That is entirely possible. I think

00:53:13.140 it's unlikely, but it's possible. But if Jesus tarries, what would the church look like in 10,000

00:53:20.480 years? There's a song, many of you guys are familiar with it, where it says, shout on, pray on, we're

00:53:25.900 gaining ground. It doesn't feel like that a lot of times, but we are. And you need to be hopeful.

00:53:32.560 All the time you need to be hopeful because you're commanded to rejoice.

00:53:36.340 You're commanded to believe, to trust, to hope.

00:53:39.900 But beyond just that, you need to be hopeful,

00:53:42.620 not just because God commands it in order to fulfill his will,

00:53:45.920 but because you need it.

00:53:48.300 Life is not sustainable.

00:53:50.960 It's not sustainable the way many conservatives 0.98

00:53:53.800 and sadly even Christians have been living these last three years. 0.96

00:53:56.920 And I'm not talking about sustainable in the sense of

00:53:59.420 our, our, you know, draconian, you know, political elite, you know, totalitarian leaders

00:54:06.480 pressing down on us. I'm not talking about that. That's, that's bad enough in its own right.

00:54:11.180 What I'm saying is not sustainable is every day spending hours on the internet, looking at the

00:54:17.220 worst, the worst things in the entire world. It's, you can't live that way. You can't, people were

00:54:23.860 not like, we were just, we're finite. It's not even about our fallenness or our sin nature.

00:54:28.440 It's about our creatureliness.

00:54:31.420 It's about our finitude.

00:54:33.300 Not fallenness, but finitude.

00:54:35.620 You as a creature, a mere creature,

00:54:38.280 redeemed, praise God, but still a creature.

00:54:41.680 There are some things you just can't know.

00:54:44.420 And if you do know those things, you can't respond.

00:54:48.100 You're just not meant to.

00:54:49.420 You're not supposed to.

00:54:50.960 People, you know, all the time pressing on you for a response.

00:54:54.120 What's your view?

00:54:54.740 What's your position?

00:54:55.700 How do you feel about this?

00:54:56.940 Are you mourning this?

00:54:58.440 Are you mourning that millions of people are dying over here?

00:55:01.620 And my answer is no.

00:55:04.420 What? You don't care about millions of people?

00:55:06.560 No, I can't care.

00:55:09.060 It's not I won't care.

00:55:10.740 I'm doing everything I can right now to care about the five other people in my family,

00:55:16.040 to care about my mother and my father, to care about my local congregation.

00:55:20.440 I'm doing everything I can to care about the relationships that God in his sovereignty

00:55:24.980 has actually placed in front of my face.

00:55:27.200 because I know precisely who God has called me to care about.

00:55:31.640 Yes, we live in a universal neighborhood.

00:55:33.740 Children in Uganda, they are your neighbor.

00:55:36.280 But there's something to be said for the Good Samaritan.

00:55:38.340 Notice, the Good Samaritan in that parable

00:55:40.280 is not someone on the other side of the planet

00:55:42.880 with a smartphone 0.53

00:55:43.560 who puts a black square on their Facebook.

00:55:47.440 And then Jesus says, you know, this is the Good Samaritan.

00:55:50.460 No, the Good Samaritan,

00:55:52.340 notice one element in that parable is proximity.

00:55:55.220 Do you know why he was morally bound to do something for his neighbor?

00:55:59.640 Because he was there.

00:56:01.500 He was there. 0.92

00:56:04.840 This is not America and Israel.

00:56:08.580 This is not America and Ukraine.

00:56:11.040 This is not America and whatever.

00:56:13.200 You know the thing that will happen in the next 15 minutes.

00:56:15.820 We'll find out tomorrow.

00:56:17.380 There will be another thing and then another thing and another thing.

00:56:20.440 Care about this.

00:56:21.460 Care about this. 0.94

00:56:22.880 Post this flag.

00:56:23.800 Post this square.

00:56:25.640 Thoughts and prayers.

00:56:26.540 Thoughts and prayers.

00:56:27.660 And it's just like a whip behind you. 1.00

00:56:29.660 You're a slave. 1.00

00:56:31.100 Do it. 0.99

00:56:31.760 Do the thing.

00:56:32.420 Say the thing.

00:56:33.080 Say it.

00:56:33.500 Say it.

00:56:33.920 Feel it.

00:56:34.340 Feel it.

00:56:34.860 Cry.

00:56:35.360 Cry.

00:56:36.000 Care.

00:56:36.480 Care.

00:56:37.060 You can't live like that.

00:56:38.960 You can't.

00:56:40.560 Care about your kids. 0.96

00:56:42.760 Care about your wife.

00:56:43.840 Care about your husband.

00:56:44.740 Care about your church. 1.00

00:56:47.300 Israel, who cares? 1.00

00:56:51.660 I don't care. 1.00

00:56:54.660 Ukraine. 1.00

00:56:55.220 don't care. I don't care. And I don't care what's politically correct. 1.00

00:57:02.880 I don't care about that either. I don't. And every single thing that happens in the White House,

00:57:09.900 I don't care. And that's not to forego civil responsibility. We do have that. But even that,

00:57:16.360 it starts with proximity. It starts locally. It starts at home. It starts with your city council.

00:57:23.560 It starts with your county.

00:57:24.820 It starts with that.

00:57:27.420 Who is your neighbor?

00:57:28.300 Yeah, it is technically true, biblically, theologically true.

00:57:31.680 You have 8.2 billion neighbors. 1.00

00:57:33.780 And if you think you can love them all properly, then you are an arrogant fool. 1.00

00:57:38.040 And I don't even know where to begin to help you. 0.99

00:57:40.920 The only person who can help properly, perfectly, 8.2 billion people is God.

00:57:47.720 And you're not him.

00:57:49.500 You're not.

00:57:50.120 and this is not just because you're a sinner it's because you're a creature even when sin

00:57:57.280 is done away and you have your glorified body in heaven for eternity you still couldn't care

00:58:02.320 for 8.2 billion people because you're not divine you're not the creator who is to be forever praised

00:58:10.640 amen you are a creature you are finite and so many of us we fail with what God has placed right in

00:58:18.320 front of our face because we're spending so much energy and so much time with something happening

00:58:23.820 on the other side of the planet, and we don't even know if it's real. You don't, by the way.

00:58:30.180 You think you know everything. You don't. You don't know everything. You know exactly what

00:58:36.920 you're supposed to know, decided by some other group at a specific time. You know what they

00:58:42.800 want you to know, when they want you to know it, and that's all you know. We don't even know

00:58:49.200 proper history, and I'm not talking history from the Crusades or history from, you know, ancient

00:58:54.340 Babylon. We don't even know proper history of things that happened 60 years ago in this country.

00:59:00.860 You can't even find that information. Everything's been revised. The victor goes the spoils. One of

00:59:09.080 the spoils is getting to write the books. It's not just gold. It's not just cash. One of the

00:59:16.360 greatest spoils of war that goes to the victor is narrative. The greatest spoil is not wealth.

00:59:22.880 It's truth. Who gets to decide what is truth? That's what Pilate says to Jesus. What is truth?

00:59:31.580 And in 2,000 years, that question has only been muddied. What is truth?

00:59:39.080 We don't know. Yes, we want to be involved. Yes, we want to give our lives as a living sacrifice,

00:59:45.540 but give it at home. Charity starts at home. Your neighbor starts at home.

00:59:52.280 What about your literal neighbor? Do we even think about that? What about your next door neighbor? 0.96

00:59:58.400 And first and foremost, what about your family? Thinking about that. So one of the things that

01:00:04.700 we need, I preached this last week, but we need hope. We need hope. And, and one of the ways that

01:00:11.680 you get hope is you get off the internet and you get into this book and you look at the big picture

01:00:17.960 and the big picture is, I don't care who tells you, I don't care what story you read. Here's

01:00:23.000 the big picture. In 2000 years, Christ and his kingdom has advanced. Shout on, pray on. We are

01:00:30.600 gaining ground. There has been an advancement. There has. There is more theological unity today.

01:00:38.060 Well, what about all these people that disagree? Yeah, they're wrong. They're heretics. They're

01:00:41.540 going to hell apart from the saving grace of Jesus. I'm not talking about them. They'll always

01:00:46.120 be enemies of the church, but we have millions that are aligned. Millions that are on the same

01:00:52.360 page. Here's the math is simple. Okay. 2000 years, things are just getting worse and worse and worse.

01:00:57.320 Jesus is coming back next Thursday and, you know, give whatever cash you have to Israel.

01:01:01.500 Bad theology. Stop that. Stop that neoconservative, dispensational. Get that out of here. That is

01:01:08.180 trash. Garbage theology. No. Here's the deal. 2,000 years. The math is simple. 12 followers 1.00

01:01:15.300 of Jesus, 2 billion. Let's pray. Shout on, pray on. We are gaining ground. Jesus, you came into

01:01:23.840 the world as light and you are casting out the darkness. It is not always a perfect progressive

01:01:31.300 increase. There are dips along the way. There are dark shadows, dark moments, moments of despair,

01:01:39.280 but you are the final word. You get the final word and you have spoken that the light has come

01:01:46.740 into the world and that the darkness has not overcome it and it will not overcome it. That

01:01:52.800 Christ, you are pushing your crown rights forward over every single square inch of all of all of

01:02:00.520 your earth. And you're using your body, the church, to do it. And Lord, I pray that you would make us

01:02:06.720 wise. And Lord, I echo your own prayers in John 17, what was on your mind before your birth and

01:02:12.940 what was on your mind before your death, that your people would be in unity, that you would unite us,

01:02:19.640 Lord, and that you would not just unite us with charity and love in the midst of of disagreeing

01:02:26.240 on truth, but that first and foremost, you would unite your church, not just that we love the same

01:02:31.980 people, but that we believe the same truth. God, I pray that that you would raise up many

01:02:39.360 biblically qualified, gifted men to preach truth and to preach it so persuasively, so powerfully,

01:02:47.800 like a double-edged sword, that it would slice through lies, that it would reveal darkness,

01:02:53.560 expose corruption, and that people would come to faith, come to conviction, come to truth,

01:03:00.980 and that we would be united with, yes, a unity of love, but a deep love for one another that

01:03:06.440 ultimately is undergirded by truth. You say in 1 Timothy that the church is the pillar

01:03:12.200 and buttress of the truth. The truth. Father, truth is so, it's like a needle in a haystack.

01:03:21.140 We are the most informed generation of people who have ever lived on the planet, and yet we are the 1.00

01:03:27.060 dumbest. Informed, but information and knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge applied. 0.98

01:03:36.900 Wisdom is knowing what to do with a matter.

01:03:40.320 Wisdom is not just knowing information

01:03:42.300 about a certain topic or subject,

01:03:45.040 but wisdom is knowledge that comes from you.

01:03:48.140 Wisdom that comes from above that tells us how to live.

01:03:52.000 That's what we need.

01:03:53.280 We have so many people patting themselves on the back,

01:03:56.740 pretending and humoring themselves that they're informed,

01:04:00.120 that they know what's really going on,

01:04:01.980 that they took the red pill, that they see the truth,

01:04:04.300 they realize how bad things are,

01:04:05.960 but these people still don't know what to do.

01:04:09.840 The sons of Issachar were mighty men.

01:04:13.560 And what made them mighty is they didn't just know the times,

01:04:16.540 but they were those who knew the times

01:04:19.060 and who knew what Israel ought to do.

01:04:22.980 Father, I pray that you would raise up such men,

01:04:25.760 sons of Issachar, that Israel, the true Israel, the church,

01:04:29.900 that we would not only know the times,

01:04:32.520 but that we would know what to do,

01:04:34.940 how to act, how to live, what are our marching orders, what do we do today? And Lord, I pray that

01:04:41.780 we would start where we're most certain, the things that we know with a sureness from your

01:04:49.400 word. What do we do right now? What do we do? We go home, we hug our kids, we tell them Merry

01:04:56.460 Christmas, we give them a candy cane, we drink some hot chocolate, we sing some hymns to the

01:05:03.460 glory of God. We talk about Christ born in a manger to coming to live and to die for the sins

01:05:10.060 of the world. And we wake up on Christmas morning and we give presents, good gifts to one another

01:05:15.420 because you gave us the perfect gift of Jesus. And we look at a Christmas tree and we say, yeah,

01:05:20.760 maybe it was pagan with the winter solstice and all these kinds of things. But that's the

01:05:25.080 tradition. The great tradition of Christianity is crushing paganism. And so we're celebrating that 0.95

01:05:30.440 today. We're celebrating what pagans have done for 2,000 years, convert to Christianity. And this

01:05:36.160 tree, this evergreen tree represents the everlasting life that we have with Christ. And we love one

01:05:41.740 another. Now let's go outside and play with that scooter or play with this or do that. Let's smile.

01:05:47.140 Let's love one another and let's honor Christ. If we eat or we drink, whatever we do, that we would

01:05:52.920 do it all for the glory of God. Lord, I pray, I pray, I pray against the demonic power of despair.

01:06:02.040 I can feel it every day, and I feel it on this church. And as one of its pastors, it's not about

01:06:09.020 me. I'm nothing special, but you've given me this position. As one of its pastors, for a moment,

01:06:15.180 going back to some charismatic days, I just rebuke, in the name of Jesus, the Lord rebukes

01:06:20.520 a spirit of despair over this congregation and over Christians around the world that are hopeless.

01:06:28.800 That death keeps swallowing up life. That's not the book. The book is true. Though every man be

01:06:36.620 a liar, let God be true and every man a liar. The book doesn't say that life is one day eventually

01:06:42.920 swallowed up by death, but that death is swallowed up by life. That darkness is expelled by light.

01:06:50.520 that life wins, that light wins, that Christ wins. So no matter what we've been through,

01:06:58.140 no matter what we're thinking, no matter what loved one has died, no matter what kid is sick,

01:07:03.520 no matter what job was lost, no matter what the news said yesterday and will say tomorrow,

01:07:09.360 that the ultimate narrative, the ultimate truth in all the universe is that you, oh God,

01:07:14.640 gave your son and he is the hope of the world and we win with him. We believe this because you said

01:07:23.440 it. You said it. And it's the only anchor we have. There's nothing else that we can even realize. We

01:07:29.020 don't know what's true. But this book, we can believe. It is true. It is certain. Help us to

01:07:36.120 believe it, to know the times, and to know what we ought to do. And if there's things where we don't

01:07:41.660 know, then let us start closer, closer to home. The things that we're sure about, loving our wives,

01:07:47.480 loving our kids, having kids, laying up an inheritance, physical wealth for future

01:07:53.540 generations, buying property, and pushing back the pagans. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - December 24, 2023

SERMON - The Night Before Christmas

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