[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this morning, I'm going to be battling with a noise outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so will you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The temptation will be to
[SPEAKER_01]: see it as a massive irritation, huge distraction, there they go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're in the back, it's going to be twice as bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But honestly, I see this as,
[SPEAKER_01]: something other than just human beings trying to distract the Church of God from the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I loved it how we drowned them out during the singing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise the Lord for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next 45 minutes, maybe, is going to be a little more difficult for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will do my best and you do your best to fight against the distraction because you desire to know the Lord to the light in the Lord this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's our goal as we open the Word of God as to delight in the Lord so that we will be changed through a true and genuine love for our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is our goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So over the next two weeks as we approach the end of the year
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be thinking about the Cummings of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Cummings, I say, multiple, plural, because here at the end of the year we want to think about his first coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it might be a little too much suck.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's echoing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's two Cummings.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's the first coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus Christ came into the world, the son of God was sent into the world by his father and was born as a baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's his first coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you cannot study and think about his first coming without thinking about his second coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just have all the warm, cozy feelings of a baby being born and of the wise men or the shepherds, you just have all those warm feelings.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think about bright lights and stars and angels and all of that and you're just like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so nice, warm and comforting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you don't think about the second coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: then you haven't quite fully rejoiced in the Cummings of Christ, the Cummings of Christ, and historically in the church, since the first couple hundred years of the church, they have at the end of the year set aside some time to celebrate the Cummings of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And only recently in the last few, maybe 100 years, 200 years that we started to forget to celebrate and to think on his second coming at this time of year.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of a new phenomenon that we just think about babies and swaddling clothes, a baby and swaddling clothes, and that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have plays and pageants and big meals and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand those things are good, but you should not separate the first from our hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: and our faith in his second coming and what we're truly looking for and longing for.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the next couple of weeks and on Christmas Day, we're going to think about the Cummings of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this morning, if you would turn with me to Matthew chapter 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew chapter 1, I'm going to be reading beginning in verse 18.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew 1,
[SPEAKER_01]: verse 18 with the goal in mind that we want to think about and focus on the Cummings of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew 1, verse 18, I'll read through verse 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: When his mother and Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: and her husband Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as he considered these things behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as her wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: She will bear a son and you shall call his name
[SPEAKER_01]: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name in manual, which means God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for this day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for the Lord's Day.
[SPEAKER_01]: where we gather to remember and celebrate, and remind one another of why we are living the Christian life, and to also encourage one another not to give up, but to remember the sacrifice, the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great love of God, the Father, the power of the Holy Spirit, that is in each one of us who believe and to remember that Jesus is coming again.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will not leave this world as it is now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, you are coming again, Lord Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this morning I pray that even with all the distractions and with our own weakness in the flesh where we create our own distractions and where Lord some of us have come in here cold of heart thinking on so many other things but for getting our Lord
[SPEAKER_01]: I pray, Father, that as the Word of God has preached, that the Holy Spirit would awaken our hearts and warm our hearts to the things of God and stir genuine light and love for our God and for His people, the body of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you do this for your glory and for our good in Jesus' name, Amen?
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you see up on the screen, the title this morning is that he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's taking directly from the text, taken from the text.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first point we're going to focus on is Jesus, y'all always saves.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would be like, why give that as the first point?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because the angel comes to Joseph, he focuses in on two names, two names.
[SPEAKER_01]: He focuses in on the name Jesus, and he focuses in on the name Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are two titles or names.
[SPEAKER_01]: So first, let's look at Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: The angel tells Joseph that the baby in Mary's womb is from the Holy Spirit and he commands him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't say, I suggest he says, no, you will call him Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will call him Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this name, Jesus, is the exact same name, Joshua, I think so few people actually know that in the Old Testament, because of the way we translate our English Bibles,
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Old Testament, it is the name Joshua, and in the Greek New Testament, it's Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: If speaking Hebrew, the name is pronounced Yeshua or Yahshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't actually know how they pronounce these words.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as we look at the spelling of the words, it's Yeshua or Yahshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Greeks pronounce the same name in their own language, Yisus, or Yisus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as people just start saying his name in their own language, it changed, they changed the how they pronounced it to Yisus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Later, Latin speakers, much later, Latin speakers pronounce the name,
[SPEAKER_01]: very close to how the offer counts, say the name, Jesus, but from this English speaker is pronounced the name with the harder J, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though every language in the world might have another way of saying words and another way of pronouncing the name and their own language, it is the same name.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the name, yes, you are, you are, you are
[SPEAKER_01]: which comes from two Hebrew words that are smashed together, which give it its meaning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the Hebrew word Yahweh and Su.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh Su, meaning I am safe, or I am is salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we get the title, the meaning of the name, Yahweh saves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the meaning of the name Joshua and the Hebrew Old Testament, and that is the same meaning of the name Jesus in the Greek New Testament, and it is the same name, Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh saves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think carefully on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The angel of Yahweh commands Joseph to call the sun conceived from the Holy Spirit, Yahweh says.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call him that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the angel interprets and applies the name to the sun to be born, saying, for
[SPEAKER_01]: He will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why you should name them Joshua, or Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh saves, for he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the explanation for the name given by the angel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now as we think of Joshua in the Old Testament, and this name of Joshua and the concepts of salvation are connected in the Old Testament,
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua in the Old Testament was a mighty warrior in a righteous leader of God's people.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Joshua 1 for 6, God says to Joshua be strong and courageous for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
[SPEAKER_01]: God was going to use Joshua to give them the promises and specifically the promised land of Canaan.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're told that he even walked up to the angel of the Lord and said, are you for us or against us?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he was strong and courageous in the Lord, his God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was faithful, zealous and humble before the Lord, the Scriptures tell us that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, just why he was able to do these things in the power of the Lord, and through his leadership,
[SPEAKER_01]: God destroyed Israel's enemies, gave them the land of Canaan, and saved them from every physical adversary in danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever ground Joshua's foot touched in Canaan, God promised, I will give this to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And God did.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one could stand before Joshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one could
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to go see how to live a valiant life today, go look at Psalm 60, specifically verse 12, with God, we or I can do valiantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the English Bible says, valiantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the story of Joshua's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: His life is a clear testament to the fact that
[SPEAKER_01]: the Joshua knew there was one enemy that hadn't been defeated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua hadn't saved Israel from their own sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was not a single enemy on Earth or any spiritual adversary that empowered the enemies of Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: that were not destroyed by Joshua as God was with him and as he led the armies of Israel into battle, no one could stand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing could stand before them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Joshua knew that he had not defeated Israel's greatest enemy, their greatest danger, their own sinful hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: of Joshua's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: After he had lived for 110 years and had led Israel for most of that, he then gathers Israel together and says that the end of his life in Joshua 24.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says to them, you are not able to serve the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are not able.
[SPEAKER_01]: for He is a holy God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a jealous God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you forsake the Lord and serve for God, then He will turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was Joshua's final words.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knew in his heart that they couldn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a man who walked with God, was faithful to the Lord, spoke to the Lord, the Lord spoke to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knew the holiness of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He lived through the plagues of Egypt, then witness the lightning, peels of thunder and fire on the mounted of God as he went up Mount Sinai with Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other elders of Israel were left down at the bottom, but Moses went up kind of like halfway with Moses.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was closer than anyone else other than Moses to the Lord's presence on Mount Sinai.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no one left on earth alive.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with this knowledge of God, and a lifetime of seeing the corruption of human hearts, he concludes with sorrow in his heart at the end of his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: After all of his effort, he concludes, you are not able to serve the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: For he is a holy God, Joshua 24, 19.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is too holy for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is too holy for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot serve him without failing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though you scrub the outside of your body, Israel, you cannot cleanse away the lust and pride within your own heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no amount of animal blood which they sacrifice would appease this holy God if their hearts were turned away from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua knew this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua went to his grave, not knowing how Israel could possibly survive, living so close to this holy God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was dangerous for them to encamp around the tavernacle of the living God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he knew this.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Old Testament, Joshua's life proved that Yahweh is salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: His life did prove that salvation from physical enemies and even spiritual enemies coming from you from the outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: His life was a living testimony to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joshua knew on his death, but that he had not been God's instrument to save Israel from their sin filled hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what he feared.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sin that clung to their hearts
[SPEAKER_01]: that would lead them astray as a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the terrifying danger that loomed over Israel for 15 hundred years.
[SPEAKER_01]: The danger of their own sinful hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, their own hearts led them astray.
[SPEAKER_01]: They followed their own hearts, the very next book is the book of judges after Joshua and the theme of that book of judges is that each man did whatever seemed right in his own eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just going to follow this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to follow my heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that how many songs I've been written today about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just follow your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: You be you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everything will just be wonderful for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think those songwriters have never read the book of judges.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where the human heart leads you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the human heart and Israel, which a raced entire tribes off the map.
[SPEAKER_01]: They might be some survivors, but shortly after Joshua and Judges, entire tribe started disappearing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It blinded Judges, the heart filled kings, polluted priests, split kingdoms in half, demolished the temple and exiled the called out people of God, to Babylon, Syria, and other places across the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: the millions of adversaries in Celestia, Eden, Syria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, even if they had all gathered together and banded together, somehow at one point of time in attack Israel in one day, they could not have touched Israel, nor taken a single farm.
[SPEAKER_01]: If Israel had been faithful to God from their hearts, God would not have permitted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It promised.
[SPEAKER_01]: to be their shield and their wall, and that each man would be allowed to rest under his own olive tree, unmolested, unherrested, from the pagans outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was God's promise to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were not faithful in heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kept slaughtering thousands and thousands of animals at the temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: They kept doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the point that God says, I did test your sacrifices.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get them out of my sight, they stink because you sacrifice, but your hearts are far from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion stinks in the nostrils of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the heart is not aligned with your religion,
[SPEAKER_01]: It was sin which Joshua feared, sin in the hearts of the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was Israel's hearts which defeated them and cast them out of the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the sin in our hearts is the great enemy of man.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the greatest enemy of man, the sin of our heart, and the consequences of sin which is death.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the great enemy of men, and in his men's sin, which condemns him to death in the core room of God, and bars men from the God who is life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is why those who do not repent of their sins and turn to God in faith in humility, that is why they are condemned and cast out of the sight of God into the place we call hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: because they still love their sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have not been cleansed of the sin from their hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you still cling to your sin, then you cannot have God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do not have God at the judgment, then you will be cast away from Him forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the great danger that hangs over all mankind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It hung over Israel for 1,500 years from Joshua to the moment we just read about this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the end of Joshua's life to Jesus to Matthew 1 is around 1,400 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's into this human condition that the angel of Yahweh proclaims to Joseph saying in our passage in verse 21,
[SPEAKER_01]: for He will save His people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: That pronouncement had never been given over a human baby before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call His name Jesus for He will save His people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise be to God in the highest for this child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yahweh is salvation for Yahweh has provided a son from heaven to save us from our sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that is all that the angel from Yahweh revealed at the announcement to Joseph that I think we could just end right there and go home and we could still glorify the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We could still go home praising our God who has provided a child to save us from our sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is of merciful and gracious God, and He has provided a way that we can have light for Him with Him, but the angel of Yahweh reveals even more than this.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, we see in the passage that the sun to be born of Mary has been conceived from
[SPEAKER_01]: This human life was from God, not from a man.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is something divine and supernatural about the sun's conception.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then look more closely at the naming of the child.
[SPEAKER_01]: The angel says, you shall call his name Jesus, which is Yahweh saves, for he will save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is unusual language.
[SPEAKER_01]: to say that, yes, you could say he will save, but to say his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: The angel is speaking about the child.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying that Jesus will save, Jesus is people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an unusual phrase in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: To say that this human deliverer will say the human deliverer's people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is unusual.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with the rest of Scripture repeating, confirming, and clarifying the angel's message, I must believe that the angel is proclaiming to Jesus about to proclaim two Joseph, about Jesus, saying, call him Yahweh saves, the name Joshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call him Yahweh saves,
[SPEAKER_01]: For the child is Yahweh saving Yahweh's people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what the rest of the New Testament points back to over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have been with us for last year and a half going through John, John over and over and over again makes this claim.
[SPEAKER_01]: that the child born of Mary through the Holy Spirit whose name is Yahweh saves, he is Yahweh saving Yahweh's people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this passage itself, there is an immediate confirmation of this understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matthew jumps into our narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: He jumps in, he interjects, and he says in verse 22, talking about the child's identity, he says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 23, this is a quote from the Old Testament, behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear us on, and they shall call His name, Emmanuel, which means God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's never a place in the New Testament where we actually get the impression that when Jesus walked around, they actually called Him in manual.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: They called Him in Jesus or you're Hoshua or Yeshua.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus, that was His name.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they called Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Matthew and inspired Apostle being given these words by the Holy Spirit says, Jesus fulfills Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is who he is, God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's quoting for Isaiah 714.
[SPEAKER_01]: but Matthew's making clear that this prophecy from Isaiah, given by the Lord, is ultimately fulfilled because Jesus truly fulfills the meaning of God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is the truth, the fulfillment of God with us, the promise of Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus fulfills us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So consider the three things I've pointed out that have been revealed about the child
[SPEAKER_01]: He is from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is Yahweh saving and He is God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the conception in birth of Jesus, God does something He has never done before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romans 8 tells us that God the Father sends His own Son from heaven to earth in the likeness of sinful flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: in order to condemn sin in the flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is identifying who came in the flesh and telling us why he did it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is my son from heaven never created eternally begotten.
[SPEAKER_01]: Born not created
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, my friend, if anyone tries to convince you that Jesus was created, it is a heretical teaching about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you, friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know, no, many of you have run into this and have thought about this and struggled with this, because it's such a popular teaching here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus was created.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's one of the highest angels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead it teaches that before time began, he was begotten of his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: God!
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Holy Spirit of God!
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, before time began.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's not talk about Jesus ever having or of the Son, the Holy Son from heaven, ever having a beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did not.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was before time.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, a fairy God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The gods in of the Father and the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proceeds from the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dad is the testimony of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Colossians chapter one, verse 15 through 19, is one of those Scriptures that testify to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of the Christ, Paul says, He is the image of the invisible God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This word image is the same word used for idols.
[SPEAKER_01]: Humans bow down to wooden idols that represent some the sun or some imagined deity.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's rebellion before God.
[SPEAKER_01]: To bow down to a wooden or gold or silver or to bow down to a tree and says, this is a representation of my God.
[SPEAKER_01]: true worship happens when you bow down before Jesus, the image, the representation of the one true God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to see and touch and feel God,
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why God said Jesus as His image, His perfect image.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is why it is good and right to worship Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you worship Jesus, you are worshiping God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is to the glory of God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the testimony of Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: The New Testament makes that clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Colossians 115.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the image of the invisible God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first born of all creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, He is born.
[SPEAKER_01]: Creation is created.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is born.
[SPEAKER_01]: Creation is created.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes back now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to talk about what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to pull back the curtain in Genesis for 16
[SPEAKER_01]: All things were created.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it has been created, it was created through Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: All things were created through Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: In heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's a tree, it's physical or it's the spirits, the angels, all through Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, it doesn't matter how much power you heap on them, or how much glory you heap on things, Jesus is greater, for He made them.
[SPEAKER_01]: All things were created through Him and get this and for Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: through him and for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two is glory that they might worship Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the will of God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: God is the Creator who crakes through His Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father wills the Son is the one through whom it is created by the power of the Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did God do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Through my Son, for my Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: worship my son, honor my son and I am glorified.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the will of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Father, He is on a mission in this world to glorify His son.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is His will and His prerogative.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even get to the end of the passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: For 17 of Closho's one,
[SPEAKER_01]: and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is the head of the body, the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the beginning, the first born from the dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's talking about he is the one who's going to lead us into a resurrection life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was raised first unto eternal life and we will follow him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He went before us, we will follow him if we have faith in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: the first born from the dead that in everything in all things he might be pre-iminent first highest greatest most exalted in all creation whether we're talking about heaven or hell or earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is pre-iminent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 19, for in him, the Christ, in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about why he was walking around here on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a human body, can you, can we even grasp that all the fullness of God in human body?
[SPEAKER_01]: that points to this testimony, though he was in the form of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking about prior to his incarnation, prior to coming in the flesh, though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grass.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means no, I won't believe heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm God a very God.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your son.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't leave heaven because
[SPEAKER_01]: Dust of the Earth, that's what humans are, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're made of the dust, and to dust we will return.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't cling to God, the Father, and say, no, I won't go.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Philippians tells us he did not count equality with a God, with God, a thing to be grasped, as if he had to make sure he hung onto it and didn't let anyone ever doubt it, no, for seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: but he emptied himself, he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what is happening in Matthew 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what is happening in Matthew 2 and Luke 2 when there is a baby from the Holy Spirit
[SPEAKER_01]: the Son of God is leaving behind his rights and his honor and his glory that was so vivid to all the angels they knew who he was and you knew how to recognize them instantly the devil's
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who had been cast out of heaven long ago, they knew who he was and they feared him for they had seen his glory and had one point worshiped him in heaven, along with his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: They knew his glory, but that is what Jesus left behind in order to be robed in dust, human flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emmanuel.
[SPEAKER_01]: God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Himself affirms this and He expects us to believe this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people will say, that's too complicated.
[SPEAKER_01]: God would never make something so difficult for us to grasp in our mind or in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would never do that to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is another lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: because Jesus Himself affirms this and expects us to believe it in John 14 verse 8.
[SPEAKER_01]: Philip, one of his disciples who've been walking around with him said to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He thinks He's being uber spiritual.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to see God, see the glory of the Father, just like Moses will ask on the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Show me your glory, so Philip thinks he's being spiritual.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is Jesus' response.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse 9 of John 14, Jesus said to Philip, Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me?
[SPEAKER_01]: human eyes looking at a human body, you are seeing God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you say, show us the Father Philip, verse 10, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
[SPEAKER_01]: The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does his works.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one, one God, yet three persons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something beyond us, something that we cannot fully put God into the box of my mind or my heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus expects each and every one of us to believe it and to praise Him for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: To humble our hearts and our minds before His majesty as God and to believe His words.
[SPEAKER_01]: The words of the Father He says,
[SPEAKER_01]: the father is in him and he is in the father.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the mystery, the wondrous mystery of what we call the in-car nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sun's coming from heaven and taking on human flesh are coming in the flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what in
[SPEAKER_01]: It's inappropriate to say that an angel simply robed himself in a human body.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came in flesh, truly born, as one of us, yet by the Holy Spirit, the God, man, which we cannot wrap our minds fully around, yet we believe, and we rejoice in the truth of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: by faith we humbly believe these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is what the angel of Yahweh is announcing to Joseph.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is proclaiming that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has bodily entered the world of men to save his people from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the hosts of heaven, get a glimpse of what's happening here, when they see
[SPEAKER_01]: the baby, the prince from heaven, the son of God, the father, when they see him born of Mary and wrapped in swaddling clothes, it's like heaven itself, can not pull back.
[SPEAKER_01]: the joy of the hosts of heaven at the glorious work of God, of the mercy of God that he would because thus far so far to save us from our sins and in Luke 214 we are told that heaven breaks through to earth and in some random field where there's shepherds at night guarding their sheep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heaven breaks through and we're told in Luke 214 that the hosts of heaven begin proclaiming and praising God saying, glory to God in the highest glory to God, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.
[SPEAKER_01]: They see what God has done.
[SPEAKER_01]: They see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are slow to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are slow to rejoice.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are hard of heart and weak of mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet they see.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can see.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can see the sun of heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Being born is dust.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that that body, that he, that God in body, could suffer in our place.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they cry out glory to God in the highest, and to all of us who believe, peace, peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your sins will be forgiven.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will be cleansed and paid for.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is good news of great joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is without doubt.
[SPEAKER_01]: praising of God in Luke 2, 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, among those with whom God is pleased.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my friends, this is the very important thing that I believe most of our neighbors and friends and family members who are not saved do not understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that the celebrations of this time of year are not for them, joyful things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It isn't if you are still in rebellion from the Lord Jesus Christ, then this is not a time of peace for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not joy for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have not partaken yet of peace and joy in the birth of Christ Jesus the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have not.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is only good news to those who humble themselves and believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you believe that there is that your Lord is in heaven and He is sees you and He knows you and He knows your heart and He knows what you do with your hands and your feet
[SPEAKER_01]: It with your mouth, if you believe that genuinely it will change the way you live, it will.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no such thing as somebody who believes in Jesus Christ, having repented of their sins, who keeps on living in their wickedness, no such thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You either continue and sin as an rebel to God, condemned to hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, Jesus Christ, the babe, the God-man is joy and peace and forgiveness for you, and you are changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please don't think that this
[SPEAKER_01]: 35 year old man sitting in front of you thinks that I have achieved perfect sinless perfection.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is not what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know for a fact that I have changed and I am being changed
[SPEAKER_01]: from one degree of glory as I walk with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It affects the way I live and sin, although it is still pleasant in that instant.
[SPEAKER_01]: That first moment is like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes me as a Christian sick later.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so sick of my sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying, Lord, help me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Call the Lord Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I might not sin against you anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the heart of someone who is genuinely born again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who is truly saved from their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: It still looks delightful from the outside, but once we partake of it, it disgusts us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We feel sick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we want to be right with a heart king.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is you this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: then Jesus Christ coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is great news for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have repented of your sins and humbled yourself before the child wrapped in swadling clothes, who would die for your sins, who would save you from your sins, then this is great news of great joy for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have not repented of your sins, if you still
[SPEAKER_01]: This still can be great, news for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as you are still breathing, this is still the potential, the possibility for good news for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you will turn from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, and will turn your eyes to the Christ, the Son that was sent from heaven to save you from your sins,
[SPEAKER_01]: If you will do that in faith, then this can become good news for you that he came.
[SPEAKER_01]: In closing, ask you to bow your heads as we pray and ask the Lord to make this true in our hearts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we do not love you as we should.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even those of us here who are born again,
[SPEAKER_01]: who have received peace with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, even even those who are called Christians, we still do not love you as we should.
[SPEAKER_01]: We still do not jump up and down and raise our hands and sing for joy because Christ has saved us from our sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes
[SPEAKER_01]: that we lose our wonder and our awe of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Lord, I ask that by your spirit and the word that you would once again delight us in the truth that Jesus has come.
[SPEAKER_01]: and He has saved us from our sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He is coming again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for all those who have repented, other sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus will save us from the wrath of God at the day of His coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of His, of Jesus's second coming,
[SPEAKER_01]: When we all stand before the Lord and given a count of our life, I will have to say, Lord, on my own, I lived a wicked, sinful life.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus saved me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus was righteous for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus saved me from my sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: His blood washed me clean.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from that day on, I clung to him, my faith,
[SPEAKER_01]: Though I fell into sin again, I still clung to him in repentance and faith daily, trusting that he is able to save me, and Lord, that is the hope we have before you, God, the Father, that you will keep your promise to honor the sacrifice of your Son and save us, and that is what we hope and Lord, and I pray that you will give us great joy this week as we
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in your son's name we pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.