Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Friday, November 22nd, 2024, and I am delighted to be with you today. Let me just say this. What an honor it's been. We started back these Daily Devotionals in the fall. I should have looked back at when, but I know it was in September. And here we are. Next week is Thanksgiving. And then the Christmas season is upon us. And where has the time gone? I don't know. I'm not used to saying 2024. And I'm just glad I don't write checks anymore, because I'm sure I would be saying it's 2022 or 2023. And before we know it, 2025 is upon us. And yeah, it's a lot of things. It's been a wonderful year. The Lord has done a lot of things in my life, and he's blessed the church tremendously, and it has been a wonderful thing to be a part of all that the Lord is doing here. But y'all, I just gotta tell you, you know, insert the John Coffey meme, I'm tired, boss. I'm tired. I need a little time off from daily devotionals, and y'all know that I do this every year. I didn't the first year, but I think this is daily devotional. Oh, I don't know, 600 and... I hope it's not 666. If it were, it wouldn't matter. But nevertheless, I think it's 656 or something like that. Anyway, I'm tired and I need a break. For those of you that were here for Wednesday night this past week, you'll know that we are taking a break, I think, until January the 8th. when we will resume our Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible study. But, as well, I am taking a break from daily devotionals, y'all. There's a lot of stuff going on in December. Busy, busy time of the year. We have a drop-in at our house if you are local. Let me see when I said that was going to be. Let me look at my calendar here. I think it is, sorry, December the 15th. Okay, December the 15th at three o'clock. We're having a drop-in at the Mance. We would absolutely love to have you come by. Love to see you there. We have other things going on throughout the month of December like our Wednesday night Christmas dinner for lack of better term where we sing Christmas carols all that stuff is available in the bulletin Christmas cantata I should have the dates for that, but don't worry We'll post about that stuff, but got a lot of things going on and my family kind of misses me and stuff It's it's become not too uncommon for me to leave the house at 6 a.m. And not to get back until 10 p.m. Or something like that or sometimes even later and then sometimes I'll then take off at 10 30 p.m and not get back until late and uh we need a little bit of time but all of that being said thank you for being here with me throughout the fall I have enjoyed this time well we made a lot of headway in the book of Genesis just finished chapter 21 and when we come back together in the new year we're gonna keep rolling and we're gonna be done with Genesis before you know it before the summertime I believe but nevertheless y'all I thought a lot about what I might bring today for this, the last Daily Devotional of the year. And lots of different things came to mind. I thought about Thanksgiving. But really, y'all, if you don't know this about me, oh my goodness, I love Christmas. I'm even wearing the red tie here, okay? Love Christmas. Love every single thing about Christmas. And yes, that includes what people decry as commercialism and all that stuff. I miss the Black Friday days of trampling people for a $7 toaster. It's all online now. What's going on in the world? I don't know. Seriously, I love everything about Christmas, and so for this, the last Daily Devotional of 2024, I thought it would be fitting to turn our minds to the season. The season, of course, being the advent of our Lord, that Christ came, that God came near. And there's so much that we have to be grateful for, so much that I would encourage you to dwell on. And we see a lot of this in John chapter 1, so that's where we're going to be today. But before we read anything, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our God and our Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us and for all of these times. And Father, people are just so faithful and a part of this with me. I'm just so grateful for that, but also for the technology, for the opportunity to have this time together. It's such a blessing. So Father, please give us grateful hearts. And as we think about the time that lies ahead, we pray that you would be with us in it. Pull us back to yourself again and again, that we wouldn't be swamped by everything and the emotion and all of those things. Instead, let us see, though it has become trite, let us see the real reason for the season, which is Christ Jesus, our Lord. And now as we come to your word, please guide us by your Holy Spirit that we would see what you would have us do and be convicted by it. And we pray it all in Christ's name. Amen. John chapter one, beginning in verse one, we read that in the beginning was the word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Pausing for a moment. It's not unlike where we started, oh, I don't know when, in Genesis chapter 1, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And yet here in john chapter 1 we find the means of creation the agent of creation if you will That's kind of the theological term that is applied here that christ himself God the son is the agent of creation that nothing was made That wasn't well verse 2 through him. All things were made without him. Nothing was made that has been made You know what that means? It means that when we hear about the formation of all things, when we hear about Adam being formed by the hands of God, it's the hands of God the Son, because nothing was made that wasn't made through Him. And the beauty of it all is that Christ, who fashioned man from his hands out of the dust, The beauty and the terror is that one day nails would be driven through the very hands. Now certainly he would take on flesh. We'll talk about that in a moment. But there is a certain poignancy to the order of creation, isn't there? And the reason I say that is because we find that in verse 4, in him was life. And that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness, NIV 1984 says, has not understood it. Better translation is, the darkness has not overcome it. Something is revealed here, there in verse five, and that is that the world is not neutral about anything. Instead, it is adversarial towards the light. It wants to snuff out the light, and indeed would try to do so. But the light can't be snuffed out, you see. He's the light of the world. You find something else. We find in verse six that there came a man who was sent from God. His name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light. He came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. And then we find verse 10. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God. And then, my friends, we find just the most incredible, remarkable statement about Christmas, yes, but about reality, about God's heart. Verse 14, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. My friends, there are many things that we can and should be focusing on this Christmas season. Many things that are very important that we absolutely should not miss. But amongst the greatest of them, amongst the most important, is this that we've just read in John 1 14. A big reference to the fact that the Word became flesh, that God came near. Think about that. That God in all of his fullness, God the Son, hook on flesh, feeling pain for the first time, feeling cold for the first time, being born to paupers, being raised, being at the mercy of human beings. He's the agent of creation. Nothing was made that wasn't made through him. And he's at humanity's mercy? Not only this, no, he came, as we find in Philippians, to not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he took on human flesh, the very nature of a servant, and he humbled himself to death, even death on a cross, and why? Well, there's lots of places we could turn for the answer as to why, but I love Titus chapter three. John sets it up there, the paradigm of the Word taking on flesh and making His dwelling among us. But it's in Titus chapter three, beginning in verse three, that we find something just so remarkable. Remarkable and wonderful, and it's this, along with the Word taking on flesh, along with God coming near, it's this that I would recommend that you dwell on this Christmas season. We find it in Titus chapter three, verse three. And in it, Paul, the apostle, is really telling us, he's given us the score. He says, at one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. Pausing for a second, that's what we find in verse three, but then something changes. Everything changes. And we see it in verse four, it says, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs, having the hope of eternal life. Do you get what Christmas really is? That yes, God came near. Yes, the Word took on flesh and made His dwelling among us, but according to Titus 3, it's in this that the kindness of God appeared. This kindness, not as a payment to us, not because of anything that we did, not because we earned this kindness. In fact, quite the opposite. Think about those things that it says that we were, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by passions and pleasures. Doesn't this describe the world around you that just can't help itself? This world that has been said of none of us, so it could be said of us that is so crazy, we don't know our right hand from our left. You wanna know why that is? Because we're deceived, disobedient, enslaved by passion and desire, and yet, At Christmas, that first Christmas, when the kindness of God appeared, yes, He's God the Son from all eternity, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. Yes, He is the Word through whom all things were made. Yes, the Word took on flesh and He made His dwelling among us, but He did so out of God's kindness, you see. Kindness brings forgiveness. wrought through the blood of the Lamb indeed. But forgiveness that takes us from being those outlaws on the run from God to being recipients of the promise of eternal life and being, as we just said, heirs, heirs. You know what that means? As you dwell on Christmas and all of its trappings, whether it's Bing Crosby on the radio again, or it doesn't matter, y'all dwell on the fact that through Christ, we have gone from being those outlaws on the run from God to being heirs of the kingdom of God itself, with God as our father and Christ as our brother, and according to Romans, with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside us as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance. This is the stuff of Christmas. This is the wonder. This is the beauty. This is the gift of God, that God could give no greater thing than himself, that God could in fact do nothing greater for us than to make us like him. And he does so in Jesus Christ. So while there are many things that you might dwell on this Christmas season, as the 2024 year comes to a close and 2025 is on the horizon, as you think about those things that you might celebrate, celebrate your status in Christ, that by faith in him, you are saved, not by your words, by faith. Just like it was in Genesis 15 when we saw that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, so it is with you. The fact that you are a part of the family of God, the fact that you are an heir to eternal life and the kingdom and all of its glory, all comes down to faith. And even the faith we know from Ephesians 2 is the gift of God so that no one can boast. God's done it all, you see. So that that saying is true when we say we contribute nothing to our salvation except the sin that makes it necessary in the first place. So it is. And yet God does what he does, not because he has to, because he loves you. Now, I don't know about you, but that's a pretty fantastic thing to dwell on this Christmas season, this Thanksgiving, this new year. And I would encourage you to do so. And perhaps you will do so in the face of that which you are facing. I don't know what you're going through. I know that 2024 has been an interesting year. All sorts of things have happened. I know that there's a lot of things going on out there, but keep Christ as your focus, remembering what he's done for you, remembering his love and his mercy. And no matter what you're facing, you'll never be disappointed in that. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you so much for your love and for your mercy. And we pray that we would keep these things in mind, remembering you, celebrating you, recognizing that you're the sovereign one as we go into the new year, recognizing that you have been with us all the way through this past year. Father, I thank you again for this time, these times that you've given to us. Thank you for the opportunity to start our day or finish our day or eventually come around to this whenever it is. What a gift. Father, please give us grateful hearts. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we will be back, well, Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. And yes, we're starting, well, it's Thanksgiving Sunday this coming Sunday, and then we'll start the Advent season. And what a wonderful time of the year that is. If you do not have a Bible-believing church that you're a regular part of and you're local, come to Old Providence. I promise it'll be a blessing. But we'll be here on Sunday mornings on the Lord's Day at 10 a.m. And then, like I said, Monday, January 6th, Lord willing, we'll be back together again. But until then, I hope that you have a happy Thanksgiving, a very, very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. And as always, I can do anything for you if you want to talk or whatever. please reach out on here or call me. Take care.