Let us hear God's Word, Luke 2, verse 21. And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Now when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Now, as we begin today, maybe you're already thinking, I know a lot about the birth account of Christ, verses 1 to 20, the coming of the shepherds, or maybe what we read in Matthew. But maybe you don't know quite as much as of what happened with Jesus shortly after his birth. And Matthew gives us some of that information, and Luke, of course, gives us some here as well. Now for several years, of course, we have included a Christmas message here on the Sunday closest to Christmas, not just what we had done for many years prior to that and have a Christmas message at the Christmas Eve service. And so once we started doing that, we've made our way through Luke's account. And we started in chapter one, first with the announcement of John's birth, and then secondly, with the announcement of Jesus's birth. And then of course, we see Mary coming and her song, and then chapter one ends with the birth of John, his circumcision, and then the song of Zachariah. Well, a couple years ago, we looked specifically here at Luke's account of the birth of Christ, verses 1 to 7. And then last year, we focused on that initial response, the coming of the angels and then the coming of the shepherds to worship Jesus. And so here in these roughly chapter and a half, we have seen the promise of the forerunner, and then his birth, preparing for the coming of the Messiah. We have seen barren Elizabeth having a son, and God blessing in this way. We've seen doubting Zechariah be silent, but then speaking again. We have seen Mary come to visit Elizabeth and the two boys more or less greeting each other in the womb. We've seen, of course, Mary and Zachariah singing their words of prophecy. And then in particular, we've seen the promise of Jesus and, of course, his birth. We've seen Mary and her humility and her faith. We've seen God providentially guiding the Messiah to Bethlehem. Matthew's the one that quotes from Micah, but we see this connection of the fulfillment of prophecy. We've seen, of course, God sending his angels to announce Jesus' birth and then the shepherds coming and their worship. And so we've seen a number of things here. Well now, Luke includes for us some events following the birth of Jesus. What are they and why are they significant? Well, simply, we're gonna see his circumcision, the purification laws, the dedication, and then we see Simeon and Anna's prophecies. And of course, at the end of the chapter, we see Jesus at 12 years old coming and speaking in the temple, and then in chapter three, we see the beginning of his public ministry. And so basically down through verse 38, verse 39, we see things that happen within a very short period of time after Jesus' birth. And so I want to focus on that here, beginning with verses 21 to 24 here today, and then looking more next year, Lord willing. All right, so let's look at verse 21. When eight days are completed for the circumcision of the child, his name is called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. All right, so like I just said a moment ago, we know all about the coming of Christ and the coming of the shepherds and maybe even a fair amount about the coming of the wise men. But here, Luke tells us that eight days after Jesus was born, they bring him for his circumcision. Now, it doesn't tell us specifically where, but most likely this took place at the synagogue in Bethlehem. In verse 22, we see them specifically going to Jerusalem, and all that takes place down through verse 38. But again, presumably, the circumcision would take place at the local synagogue. That's how they normally would have done it. All right, now let's turn to Matthew's account here a moment. And I want to refer to this passage here a few times this morning, so make sure you stick something here. And we'll actually be looking at several places here in order to understand the significance of these few verses. And so first of all, just to talk more about some of the chronology and location and so on, here in chapter 2 of Matthew, of course, we see the coming of the wise men, the Magi, and they come to Jerusalem. And they say about the coming of the king and everybody gets all worked up and such. And then they say about going to Bethlehem and in verse eight, we see them do that. Of course, God tells them to go back a different way. And God also tells Joseph to flee to Egypt there in verses 13 to 15. And verses 16 to 18, of course, we see Herod then wants to eliminate the threat. And based on the timing, he says from two years old and under. which suggests to us that Jesus was not just a few weeks old or even a few days old when the wise men came. If that were the case, then you would suspect it had more to do with a child a year or younger, but to do two years suggests that Jesus would have been older at this point, maybe even a year old. And so, therefore, God is protecting His Son. He sends the wise men a different way. He sends Mary, Joseph, and Jesus down to Egypt. But, again, the implication is they stayed in Bethlehem for maybe as much as a year. Now remember also this chronological point. King Herod, based on documents outside of the scriptures, died in 4 BC at 68 years old, which means that Jesus was born roughly 5 or 6 BC, not in 0 or 1 or something like that. Remember also that based on when the angel comes to Mary, Jesus was either born roughly July 1st or roughly December 1st. So if you think 2,000 years after the birth of Christ, 2025, that's about when Jesus begins His public ministry. Okay, so just putting that in some chronological context. All right, now, let's go back to Genesis here a moment, chapter 17. And last week in God's Providence, we talked about this with the baptism of Henry, and we read a portion of this, and so call your attention to that. But let me just highlight a couple things here. Obviously, this is God coming to Abram, changing his name, entering into covenant with Abraham, and giving him the sign of the covenant. And note especially verse 12, he who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. And then, of course, at the end of the chapter, we see Abraham doing that very thing with Ishmael, with himself, and the other males in his house. So here in Luke, then, about 2,100 years later, Mary and Joseph were following this command. They are doing what God had said to Abraham, obeying it, and so in that sense, Jesus is obeying this command. So note our point then. Jesus is receiving the sign of the covenant. It is being placed upon Him. And as I reviewed for us last week, there are three primary points for the sign of the covenant. And the first one is membership. And so here now is Jesus receiving the sign saying, you are a member of the Old Testament Church. You are a member, a descendant of Abraham. And of course, He's the seed of Abraham. And so note the message in this way. Now, secondly, the sign of the covenant communicates the idea of cleansing. Through the cutting away of the foreskin, there's the shedding of blood, and through the shedding of blood, there's the forgiveness of sins. This is what is being communicated through the sign of circumcision. But, of course, Jesus didn't need this, did So let's turn a moment to Matthew's account again, this time chapter three. In Matthew three, when he begins his public ministry, we see that he receives a sign of baptism there, but specifically John's baptism. And in verse 13, note these words, "'Then Jesus came from Galilee to John of the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Thus he allowed him.'" I think we have to have the same understanding here with circumcision. Jesus didn't need it. He didn't need this sign that his sins are being cleansed. And yet to fulfill all righteousness, he received it, just like he received the sign here with baptism with John. And so here is Jesus, who is born of the Spirit, who has no sin, even at his conception and his birth, receiving a sign, speaking of sin, being washed away, and yet, again, all of this is to fulfill righteousness, to do it in our place. Let me read just a moment from Galatians, excuse me, in chapter 4. Remember what Paul says here. Galatians 4, verse 4, but when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. And so Jesus is being placed under the law. receiving these various things, in this case circumcision, fulfilling them, going through them, doing them as if He were a regular Israelite, but doing them to fulfill the law for us. And so the Spirit then, remember that's the third point of the sign of the covenant, membership, cleansing, and the work of the Spirit in the heart. Well, in Luke 1 verse 35, We are told that the Spirit came upon Mary at the conception of Jesus. Now here, the sign of circumcision is talking about the Spirit coming upon Jesus. At his baptism, the Spirit comes upon Jesus in the form of a dove. Do you see all these connections? And then, of course, throughout his ministry, the Spirit is enabling Jesus to do what he needed to do. And so here now with circumcision, along with these other things, we see this emphasis on the Spirit. Jesus had the Spirit to strengthen Him, but not because He was a sinner like us, but to strengthen Him to maintain His innocence and thus to do all that God wanted Him to do. And so He did obey from the heart perfectly, again, as we talked about in Revelation last week. And so Jesus now is dedicated fully to Yahweh, not just at his birth, but now here eight days later. And notice this beginning of the process of saving us. Again, our tendency is to focus all about the birth of Christ and maybe we jump to the death of Christ. But what about these few days after his birth? Well, right away we are being taught here about Jesus keeping the law, fulfilling it for us. And then note also this point, a point I'll develop here in a moment. Notice how Jesus' parents are concerned about keeping the law. All right, and so they're going to raise this child according to the covenant. Alright, well let's come now back to Luke's account if you're not there yet. And notice it says next in the verse about naming Him Jesus according to what the angel said. So if you go back to chapter 1 and verse 30, it says, the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call His name Jesus. So they do. They obey. They do what they're supposed to do. There's no need for Mary to be mute or Joseph to be mute like Zechariah. They believed. They trusted. Now, notice how they are naming Jesus when He was circumcised, not when He was born. There are indications in the scriptures of naming children when they're born. But certainly by the time you get to the first century, this is what was common. In fact, in chapter 1 with John, he is named at his circumcision as well. You remember all that with Zechariah then speaking and so on. So somewhere along the line, this changed, and this became what was normal, okay? And so just note that here. Now let's turn also again to Matthew, and this time verse 21. Okay, at the very end, verse 25, you see them naming Him, but verse 21 tells us why this name is important. In Matthew 1, verse 21, She will bring forth a Son, and He shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. Now, you might remember me saying on other occasions that Jesus is the Greek word, the Greek name. Jesus is how you'd pronounce it in Greek. And that is connected then to the Hebrew name Yeshua, which we would say Joshua. And Joshua is a combination of the name of Yahweh and the combination of the word then to save. So Yahweh saves is what Jesus means. Yahweh saves us by sending his son. Jesus saves us by fulfilling the law for us. in its obedience and in taking the punishment. The focus here is on His obedience. And so Jesus has come to save us, but before He can die for our sins, He has to obey perfectly. And that's what's going on. We see it first with the circumcision. Let's also notice here, just a moment, in Matthew's account here, chapter 5 and verse 17. Remember these words of Jesus where He says, "'Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.'" Now, when He came to fulfill the law and obey it for us, some of those laws are done away with, okay? the purification laws that we're going to see here, the dedication laws that we're going to talk about here in a moment, the sacrifices and such. These things are done away with now because of Jesus' obedience. Some of them are changed, like circumcision, from circumcision to baptism. Some of them stay the same. He kept them for us, and we're supposed to keep them. And, of course, we think of the Ten Commandments in particular. And so, note that point here. So as we come back to Luke's account, one last thing to mention here about verse 21, and that is, if you look at chapter 1, verses 57 and following, there was a huge celebration when John was born and when he was circumcised. There's no indication of any of that here with Jesus. It sounds like it was just mom and dad and Jesus and the priest. Note the contrast. All right, so verse 22. Now, when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. All right, so verse 21, we assume they're in Bethlehem. Here it clearly says they go to Jerusalem. That was about five miles north of Bethlehem. Alright, let's turn now to Leviticus and chapter 12. Let's begin our task of trying to understand why this is so significant and what's happening. So in Leviticus 12, a short chapter here. Let's read the first handful of verses first of all. Leviticus 12 verse 1, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If a woman is conceived and born a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As in the days of her customary impurity, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. She shall then continue in the blood of her purification thirty-three days. She shall not touch any hallowed thing nor come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are fulfilled. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her customary impurity, and she shall continue in the blood of her purification sixty-six days. All right, so obviously, there's a time of uncleanness, right? Whenever you have a child, there's blood, there's fluid and such, right? So this made them unclean ceremonially. And for the boy anyway, the uncleanness for the child was for seven days until they were circumcised. And now, right, the symbol of cleansing is given. And the mother then is continuing in her purification for another 33 days for a total of 40. But for the girl, everything is twice as much. It's not because girls are more dirty than boys. Hey, no, the boy received the sign of circumcision and the girl didn't. And so everything is twice as much for the female in that way. But notice that both mother and child need cleansing. So here is Jesus, again, receiving this cleansing to fulfill all righteousness. And the cleansing in part for him, of course, was his circumcision. Now in verse 6, when the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and as a young pigeon or a turtle dove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her, and she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who is born a male or a female. And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtle doves or two young pigeons. One is a burnt offering and the other is a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her and she will be clean. All right, so either the 40 or the 80 days are completed. And so they come and now this is what they do. to go through the purification laws, the clean and unclean laws. So we see that they're going to bring a lamb, and this would be used as a whole burnt offering, so burned whole, and this represents dedication completely to the Lord. And then the bird, of course, was killed, and this would be the sin offering. So there's sins of intentional and unintentional sins and so on. And in verse 8 we are told, if they're too poor to bring a lamb, they're going to bring two birds. So as we come back to Luke and his account here, notice then that Mary would have come along with Joseph and they would have brought their sacrifice. And as we see in verse 24, to offer sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. So here they bring the two birds. And so you might remember in the first century that they had a court around the temple, one for the Gentiles, one for women, one for men. And then the priests and Levites could come all the way to the temple. So surely Mary would have done all of this in the court of women unless she stood there and Joseph took things to the court of men. But because she needed to be purified, it probably all took place in the court of women and so on. And so the two birds are brought. One was burned. One, right, they probably wrung the neck and so forth here and sacrificed it. Now, notice how God is bringing Jesus into a poor family. Now, this does not mean they were in poverty, but they were poor. Can you imagine if Jesus was born into Herod's family? Do you see the difference? Here's Herod, wealthy, I mean, king and so on and so forth. But he wants to kill. He wants to ensure his own position. Here you have a poor family, seemingly nobody's, and yet they want to obey God. Do you see their faithfulness? Do you see how God is placing Jesus into a family where obedience to God's law was important? The nature of Christ was already perfect. but the nurture of Christ was pretty good as well. Do you see this emphasis here? All right, well, let's now look at verse 23 here in Luke 2. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. Now, notice, first of all, I rarely skip a verse, which I just did, right? But notice, at least in the New King James, they put verse 23 in parentheses. And it seems like to begin and end these three verses with the emphasis on purification and having this verse of dedication in the middle, it seems to highlight the dedication point, right? And so here is Jesus fulfilling the ideas of circumcision, now fulfilling the ideas of purification, but also and maybe now primarily in regard to purification and dedication, at least, dedication seems to be highlighted. in this way. So, let's now try to understand why this is significant. Let's turn back to Exodus chapter 13. Now, you recall the context here is the Exodus from Egypt, and so we have the 10 plagues being given, and we have the the blood of the lamb being put on the doorpost for Israel and so forth, right? And so God passes over them. And then, right there, brought out of Egypt. Now notice these words, Exodus 13 verse 1, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and beast, it is mine. Now why? I'll jump down to verse 11. And it shall be when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites as He swore to you and your fathers and gives it to you, that you shall set apart to the Lord all that open the womb, that is, every firstborn that comes from an animal which you have, the male shall be the Lord's. But every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with the lamb, and if you will not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. So it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is this? And they shall say to him, by strength of hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all males that open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem. It shall be as a sign on your hand and as frontless between your eyes, for by strength of hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt. See the point here. All the firstborn in Egypt, including the Israelites, deserved to die for their sin. But God provided a way to protect the Israelites. But God still owned the firstborn. He owned the firstborn of the animals, so they were to be sacrificed to him. Except for a donkey, you can substitute a lamb. And then for the children, because God does not want child sacrifice, Instead, you give money. You're to redeem it. And so note this emphasis here. Now let me just say here briefly, in Luke 2 verse 23, when it references this passage, this isn't a direct quote, it's more of a paraphrase, but obviously it's referring to this. So let's now turn to Numbers chapter three. A few more passages for us to consider here today to help us to understand this. Here now in Numbers chapter 3, note these words, verse 11, Numbers 3 verse 11. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, now behold, I myself have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of every firstborn who opens the womb among the children of Israel. Therefore, the Levites shall be mine because all the firstborn are mine. On the day that I struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified to myself all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast. They shall be mine, I am the Lord. So the command is not changed. God still owns the firstborn. But instead of taking the firstborn son from every family, the Levites are going to do it instead. They're going to fulfill this command. Now think about this. I'm the firstborn son in my family. So you think about this in our families. If God were to take the firstborn from every family, you see how this is going to affect inheritance rights? It's going to affect help around the place. And so I think we see some of God's goodness here to each of the families by instead of taking their own son to serve him at the tabernacle, instead, the Levites are going to do it instead. And the Levites were done, were chosen, I should say, because remember, they sided with Moses at the golden calf. And so this was part of their reward. All right, now remember what we're doing here. We're not just trying to understand these laws, but we're trying to understand why Luke says this is so important for us to understand. It's because Jesus is fulfilling all of these commands for us. Jesus is identifying with us. He's outwardly cleansed, though he didn't need it. He's fulfilling all the law. in circumcision, in these purification laws, and now here in this dedication law of the firstborn. Jesus was not merely a cute little baby that came among these animals, and the shepherds came, and the wise men came. He came to obey the law because we can't do it, and God says it has to be done. nor should we merely say, well, Jesus came, he was born to die. Hey, let's not just jump over his whole life here to the very end. No, throughout his whole life, from the very beginning, he is keeping the law in our place. This is what Luke, and ultimately, of course, God wants us to understand here. All right, let's come back to Luke's account and also call our attention to this emphasis. Not only is Luke telling us how Jesus is fulfilling this, but, you know, even though Jesus is God, He's not walking to the synagogue at eight days of age. He's not going to Jerusalem by himself. His parents are obeying. And note the emphasis. In verse 22, it says about the law of Moses, Verse 23, the law of the Lord. Verse 24, the law of the Lord. Down to verse 27, the end of the verse, the custom of the law. And down to verse 39, the law of the Lord. And even in verses 41 and following, right, they go to Jerusalem to keep the law of the Passover, even though the word law is not used there. Five times here in this section, the word law is used. Jesus is being trained to be obedient by his parents. Now, again, we think, well, he's God, he's God's son, right? He's going to be perfect, right? Yeah. But he also has a human nature that needed to be trained and taught obedience. God placed him in a family that was concerned about keeping the law, and they did. Jesus was born to good parents, trained in righteousness. Even though they were poor, they were training Jesus to do what was right. Note this emphasis here. And so, in this way, Mary and Joseph helped Jesus to atone for our sins. All right, now, a little bit more for us to pull out of this. Let's turn to Numbers again, this time chapter 18. Numbers chapter 18. All right, now let's look at verse 15. Numbers 18, verse 15. In other words, for the priesthood. and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. And those redeemed are the devoted things you shall redeem when one month old, according to your valuation, for five shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is 20 geras. All right, now, do you see what this is adding to our understanding? The firstborn belongs to Yahweh, okay? We've seen that. The Levites now take the place of the firstborn. And yet God still wants Israel to bring their firstborn to the Levites so they can have food to eat. And for the things that are redeemed with money, now the Levites have money in order to live. So you see how this is happening. Now, in Luke, does he say anything about redemption money? I think it is quite noticeably not there. Let's turn a moment to 1 Samuel chapter 1. We're almost done turning to all these places here today, but you see how this fits. First Samuel chapter 1, you remember the story of Hannah? She was barren. Her husband, Okana, the other wife, Pinnaita, remember that whole mess there? And Hannah couldn't have any children. And so in verse 11, here in 1 Samuel 1. Notice, she's not giving redemption money. for her firstborn son, she is more or less going back to the beginning. Exodus 13, she is giving her son to Yahweh to serve in the tabernacle, to serve Eli. Of course, that's exactly what's going to happen. But here she's promising to do that. So she's not going to redeem Samuel. Note also the reference to the Nazirite vow, we read this a little bit ago in chapter six. So it wasn't just Samson that had long hair, Samuel did too. Now look at the end of the chapter. Verse 24 now, in 1 Samuel 1. And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her with three bulls, one ephah flower, and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord in Shiloh. And the child was young. And they slaughtered a bull and brought the child to Eli. And she said, O my Lord, as your soul lives, my Lord, I am the woman who stood by you here praying to the Lord. For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition, which I asked of him. Therefore, I have also lent him to the Lord, or given him. As long as he lives, he shall be lent to the Lord." So they worshiped the Lord there. You know, there are many reasons why Samuel is a type of Christ. I think we have to see the connection here, too. As Hannah, gave Samuel to Yahweh, literally, right? The weaning typically happened when they were three years of age, give or take. She gave her son away to Eli when her child was about three years old, did not redeem him. And here now comes Jesus. There is no mention of redemption money at all. I think that's very deliberately done because Jesus is dedicated to the Lord in a way that not even Samuel was dedicated. He is dedicated fully. Jesus didn't just go to the tabernacle in Shiloh, but he did go to the temple, remember? At the end of chapter 2 here in Luke, he goes to the temple, and they go to leave, and they can't find Jesus, and then they find him, and he's like, hey, you know, where else would I be? I've been given to Yahweh. I'm serving Him. Now, of course, Samuel did pretty well. He was rather faithful and godly and so forth. Samson, on the other hand, not so much. But Jesus, of course. was perfect in every way, given to Yahweh like Samuel was, holy and perfect in every way." Now, one more thought for us here. Let's come back to Matthew's account one last time. And at the end of Matthew chapter 2, verse 23, it says, and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene." Now, you might remember, I've mentioned before, you've maybe heard it elsewhere, that there is no place in the Old Testament where a prophet said this. So how do we understand this? Well, there are a variety of ideas that have been given over the years, but I have to wonder if the Nazirite idea is the direction we should go. Jesus is dedicated to Yahweh completely. He is a Nazarene, which sounds like a Nazirite, and okay, maybe it's a bit of a stretch. But whatever view you have is a bit of a stretch here on this. But maybe we should also see in this way that Jesus is set apart to Yahweh in order to keep the law for us. He's eight days old and he's keeping the law for us. He's 40 days old and he's keeping the law for us. He is dedicated, not redeemed, keeping the law for us. Do you see the theme here? Jesus is fulfilling the command of circumcision. Jesus is fulfilling the purification and clean and unclean laws and even the sacrifices, right? Jesus is fulfilling the firstborn laws for us. He is a fit substitute to die on the cross eventually because he obeyed perfectly in everything. And so when he did go to the cross, he was circumcised on the cross. His blood purifies us and Jesus' dedication unto death is so that we can find life. God is opposed to child sacrifice except his own son. Jesus was never redeemed so that we can be redeemed. So you see that these first few verses after the birth of Christ are pointing us in this direction. This is why this cute little baby was born, to live for us, to obey for us. We also see how important it is as parents to train our children in righteousness. Because he was perfect, and because the spirit was living in him, probably could have been raised in Herod's house and been perfect. That's not what God did, of course. And so you see the emphasis on nurture, not just the nature of Christ. And so as we think of the birth of Christ this year, let's keep this in mind, that he was born to obey, not merely born to die. He is our blameless substitute, has purified us from our sins. And this gives us assurance of faith and assurance of salvation. All right, well, many things to cover here today. Here are a few thoughts for it. So let's pray together. Our Father, God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the richness of it. We thank you for how it's tied together for us here in this way. We thank you, our Lord Jesus, that you came and even in the beginning obeyed everything, all of the law of God. And we are thankful, Lord, that you have done this for us, because we are to be holy as God is holy. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Our righteousness must exceed the scribes and Pharisees and their righteousness. But of course, we cannot do it. And so we praise you, Lord, that you have come to do it for us. And in so doing, you have fulfilled the terms of the covenant. And in so doing, you have made yourself fit to be that lamb without blemish, to atone for our sins, to wash us clean, to make us so that we can be reconciled to the Father. And so, Lord, we do pray that as we come here to remember the birth of Christ, that these things would be dancing in our heads, as it were, and that we would focus on the meaning of Christ's coming, his birth, his perfect life, his death, his resurrection, and even his ascension and his eternal session at your right hand now. And so, Lord, we thank you for these things. And we pray all this and in Jesus' name, amen.