Trinitas, last Lord's Day, we expounded the biblical doctrine of Jesus' human generation. We saw that the material body of Jesus Christ, it was generated entirely from the flesh of His mother Mary by work of the Holy Spirit and without the aid of a human father. What this means is that Jesus' father is not another man, like it is for all of humanity, but for Adam himself and for Eve. We have a very different situation yet with Jesus, though, than either of these two. We could already infer that Jesus must be a sort of second Adam, as the only other man in human history who didn't have a father, like Adam lacked a human father. But what this also calls attention to is this profound biblical truth that Jesus has an entirely different generation than his humanity. He is, in fact, eternally generated from the Father. What this means exactly really stretches the boundaries of what can even be known theologically about the God who made everything. Given the weight of this particular subject, we'll go to the Holy Spirit and ask him in prayer to open our hearts and minds before we read the word. So please, bow your heads with me. Living God, what a privilege it is for you to have given us insight into your eternal being and nature from all eternity. Everything that we say about you, Lord, as you exist in yourself, it's paradoxical, and it stretches the boundaries of what we can comprehend. And yet, it can indeed be apprehended to our benefit, to our praise, and to our joy, and to our gladness that we have real fellowship with the living God because we really know you in Jesus Christ. We pray that you would open our minds to these truths anew this Lord's Day, that we might be fed by them. We ask these things, Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus, and by your Spirit, amen. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Micah chapter five, we're gonna read one of the great prophecies of who Jesus is. And when we're finished reading, I'll say this is God's word and you can rise to your feet and we're gonna sing a short verse together, the Gloria Patri, and we will acknowledge that this is God's word and not the mere word of man. So if you got your Bibles, follow along in Micah chapter five, verse two and following. But as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you, one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. Therefore, he will give them up until the time when she who is in labor has born a child. then the remainder of his brethren will return to the sons of Israel. And he will arise and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And he will remain because at that time he will be great to the ends of the earth. This one will be our peace. This is God's word. Trinitas, I'm gonna begin with some brief comments on Micah chapter 5, which we'll use as a springboard into discussing a topic. The topic of Jesus' eternal generation from the Father. Now listen, Micah was a prophet in Israel, some 700 years before Jesus Christ's advent. He tells us certain details about the Savior's coming. long before they occurred. And this passage stands out as one of the remarkable fulfillments of biblical prophecy. The passage tells us that the Messiah will go forth from Bethlehem. And of course, it's in Luke where the account of Jesus' birth outside of Bethlehem is so well set forth for us. This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But what it says about Jesus is deeply mysterious. In verse two, it says that the king, the ruler, his goings forth are from long ago, even from the days of eternity. To begin, it's odd that you have a plural word, his goings forth, as if he has been going forth or proceeding outward for quite some time before his birth. In fact, it says not only are His goings forth from old, but it says even from eternity. In Psalm 90 verse 2, when it says of God Himself that He is from everlasting to everlasting, it is the same word. It's what we find right here. An initial hearer of this prophecy would have only been able to wonder as to what it meant. What's really being said here? They might have read it as hyperbole, that His goings forth are from long ago, kind of like when you say, oh, that structure has been there forever. But even then, why the plural? Why goings forth as opposed to His birth or simply going forth? One might have inferred that the Messiah was going to come from a long line of ancestry of important people. But in fact, we all come from an ancient line of ancestry. We all actually go back to Adam himself. And then there's the fact that the prophecy focuses on his mother as opposed to his father. It says, therefore, God will give up his people until the time when she who is in labor has born a child. There are several prophecies in the Old Testament, that the Savior was to be born of a virgin, that the Savior was to be born of a woman's seed, which is a strange way to put it, because in the Hebrew mindset, seed comes from a man is planted in a woman. So what does all of this mean? Well, after 700 years of disappointment, failure to see any sort of Savior come to really deliver God's people, you can imagine the prophecy would only take on new life and new meaning. You would have had this in your mind that no mere man is going to be able to deliver Israel from their sins so that the promises to Abraham might come to pass. There are other prophecies as well in the Old Testament that suggested the Savior was to be divine. And with all of this in mind, it's not surprising that Jewish speculation began to whirl around what this Messiah would be. There are, of course, other pieces of literature written between the period of the Old Testament and the New, several of which speculated that the Savior must be a divine being who preexisted his fleshly life. And in fact, what we'll find in the New Testament is a testimony to exactly this. I'm gonna talk about three things with you. I'm gonna talk about the testimony in the Gospel of John to the effect that Jesus pre-existed his human life. Then I'm gonna look at Jesus' own teaching that he is actually an active character in the Old Testament before he was ever birthed from Mary. And then we will consider as if the pinnacle of this reflection Jesus' eternal generation from his father before time began. And so we begin with Jesus' pre-existence. Many of you know that before Jesus came in his ministry, preaching and teaching, he was preceded by a guy named John the Baptist. If you don't know who John the Baptist is, the New Testament gives us a fair amount of information about him. He's from the priestly tribe, and here's one of the most important things. He's actually Jesus' distant relation. We're told in Luke that his mother, Elizabeth, was a relation to Mary, seemingly a first cousin, which would make Jesus and John the Baptist, I believe the right language is first cousin once removed. This is a relationship to a man who really existed in history. We actually have extra biblical accounts of who this John the Baptist was. And it's important for you to know that he was a man marked by a reputation of utter integrity. Josephus, one of the great historians of the first century, writes about this John the Baptist. Here's what he says. Herod had him killed, although he was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God. And having done so, joined together in washing, a symbolic washing of repentance is what he went about doing. It says this, for immersion in water, it was clear to him, could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body. And only if the soul was already thoroughly purified through right actions. John was preaching repentance. Secular historians recognized him as a righteous man. And this is what the New Testament says John came preaching about Jesus. In the Gospel of John, written by another John, it says this, John the Baptist testified about him, that's Jesus, and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he was existing before me. This is a fascinating statement because we actually know from the gospels that John the Baptist was conceived in his mother's womb before Jesus was. John is testifying to the reality that the man Christ Jesus pre-existed his life as a man. This John the Baptist, so full of integrity, honesty, and truth, He testifies to Jesus' pre-existence. Part of his integrity is testified by the fact that he confronted power and spoke truth to it. The reason why John the Baptist was first of all imprisoned and then killed is because he said to the highest ruler in the land, Herod, he said to him, you're an adulterer, because in fact, what he did is he entered into a relationship with his brother's wife and eventually married her and John wouldn't quit calling him out for it. He was a man not afraid to speak the truth, even to his own hurt, to his own harm. One of the last testimonies to Jesus went like this from John the Baptist. He says, he who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from above is above all. John taught that this Jesus who followed him in life came from heaven where he pre-existed. John is not the only one who has this incredible testimony to who Jesus was. There's another man who figures heavily in the Gospels. His name is Nicodemus. Nicodemus was one of the high-ranking Pharisees who sat on the high theological court of the land called the Sanhedrin, which would eventually condemn Jesus to death. But Nicodemus was a secret devotee and follower of Jesus. At a few different points in the Gospels, we read about him once when the Pharisees want to have Jesus killed without trial. Nicodemus stands up for Jesus and says, that's not how we practice the law around here. And they suspected him of being one of Jesus' followers. When Jesus dies, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, two men who stood on the high court of Israel, They saw to it that Jesus' body was properly buried and properly embalmed. They got spices to put on him in his death. Well, Nicodemus, early on in Jesus' ministry, so it would seem, comes to Jesus in the night because it's not safe to visit Jesus in the daytime, the associations being too problematic for a man of his position. When he comes to Jesus in the night, he starts asking him questions about the kingdom of God. And many of you might know this passage in John 3. It's where Jesus says that no one can so much as see the kingdom of God, much less enter it unless he's born again. In that context, Nicodemus says to Jesus, he says, how in the world can a man be born again? And what Jesus says in response is, you really ought to know the answer. You're supposed to be a teacher in Israel. And he puts the matter this way. If you don't understand these heavenly realities, this concept of being born again, how can you be a judge on this court and even adjudicate earthly matters? And then Jesus says this. No one has ascended into heaven. That is to learn about heavenly things, but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. This report of this secret meeting had to come from Nicodemus himself to the apostle John who wrote this down. He's a second witness to the fact that Jesus had always been claiming he came from heaven before he ever dwelt and lived on earth. Now, these messages are not just secret. Jesus, in one of his most famous sermons, testifies to the same truth. Many of you probably know one of Jesus' most famous miracles was the feeding of 5,000 people with a paltry few loaves of bread. This miracle of feeding 5,000 is recorded in all four of the Gospels. And what is not recorded in all the Gospels, but only the Gospel of John, is that Jesus preached a sermon in close connection with this event. This sermon actually gives us insight into how sermons were preached by the Jews in the ancient world in their synagogues. The typical way to preach a sermon is you'd pick an Old Testament passage from the Pentateuch. Something in the first five books which you saw as kind of the main center of your canon. Then you would take another verse from the prophets or the writings, those books that follow, that kind of reflect on that original event. And then you would draw out the meaning of the Pentateuch with the help of the prophets and other writers. Well, Jesus, remarkably, he has this exact same form of sermon preaching, apparently. We read in John 6 that Jesus, after feeding 5,000 people, picks as his Old Testament text, Exodus 16, where God fed Israel after the Exodus with manna that came down from heaven, some sort of bread-like substance. Then he quotes Psalm 78 24 to expound on the verse where it says he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. And then Jesus expounds his message. And it is one of the most incredible messages you can imagine ever hearing if you had been in the audience. He puts it this way in John 6. Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you bread out of heaven, but it is my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. I, and the bread that came down from heaven. I don't think you can imagine what it would be like to sit under a preacher who says, the whole message this Sunday is about me. Hopefully you don't have that impression at Trinitas Church, that I'm preaching Brant every Sunday. It would be a very problematic situation if I emulated Jesus in that respect. But this audience had a man standing before them saying, all of these passages are about me. He doesn't just say it once. In John 6, 51, he says again, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. The bullseye, the focal point of Jesus' message is Jesus. I just want you to consider how shocking this would really be. I've talked to some real characters in my day, told you many times about how I've impromptu started up conversations with people, and I've been told some crazy things, facts. But I'll be honest with you. If a man said to me that he came down from heaven My response would really be twofold. I would either be angry, thinking I'm dealing with a real manipulator right here. A real charlatan. A really dark figure. Or I'd be scared, thinking I'm talking to someone who is not stable. This is what we would think. The fact that Jesus Christ could speak this way with credulity and actually leave this world with the greatest moral teaching, the only salvific teaching, and leave this world, literally changing every single family, nation, kindred, tongue, and tribe where he is preached, it ought to leave you with the sense that he is indeed the remarkable figure he claims to be. Anyone who heard that sermon had a decision to make right then and there. C.S. Lewis said it well. He is either crazy, or he is the worst of liars, or he is in fact the son of God. Jesus throughout his ministry refers to God as my father. I'll let you know something, other biblical prophets in the Old Testament didn't go around talking that way. He talks about the Father as if He has the most intimate, exclusive relationship with Him. And in the course of His ministry, it becomes clear He means much more than to say that God the Father is His figurative Father. In fact, after this tough message about the bread from heaven, which the text tells us everybody who heard it was angry, especially the religious authorities. Jesus goes into private discussion with the disciples as he would often do after a difficult message. And then the text tells us many times that Jesus would speak plainly. Maybe he'd have a parable, difficult to follow, difficult to understand. And then it'll say, well, but Jesus then spoke plainly about its meaning. And here's what Jesus does after that sermon. The disciples go, this is a really tough teaching. And Jesus says to them in John 6, 62 in private, does this cause you to stumble? He says, what then if you see the son of man ascending to where he was before? Jesus makes it very clear that he was existing in a personal relationship in heaven with his father before he ever came to this earth. He is in the fullest sense, life giving bread come down from heaven. The Last Supper, Jesus continues with this same sort of message. This is Jesus' last message to his disciples. It is the longest single discourse in all of the Gospels, spanning John 14 to 16 and culminating in Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17. And Jesus is the most forthright about his identity in these last moments with his disciples. This is where he's telling them, I'm about to leave. And the third person of the Trinity, God, the Holy Spirit's gonna come. That's good news for you, even if you don't notice. But he prefaces this long sermon while he's at the Last Supper. He says to the disciples, it says of him in John 13 three, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come forth from God and was going back to God. he engages in this gesture of washing the disciples' feet. It's one of the last moments where he is going to be able to engage a prophetic act directly on the disciples, showing them something of what he's really all about, cleansing them from head to toe. But he knew he was going back to his father. Not going there for the first time, but going back to where he had been, and always been, In John 16, 28, when he gets into this big sermon, he says plainly, I came forth from the Father and have come into the world and I am leaving the world again. I'm going to the Father. I'm headed somewhere where I've been already. And it paints the entire incarnation in a different light. It points to Jesus' grand humility, what transpired when he came to save us. that he, as it were, took off a robe of glory and put on a robe of humility. In fact, in Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, it's one of my favorite verses. Jesus prays, now Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory I had with you before the world was. Jesus was with the Father before there was a world, before there was even a heaven. The result of Jesus' message, the challenge of it, is that those who were intrigued by him were frequently engaging in discussions about who this man really was. At the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the high feasts in Israel happened at the end of the summer, end of the harvest, Jesus came. And it says, so the Jews were seeking him at the feast and were saying, where is he? There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning him. Some were saying, he's a good man. Others were saying, no, on the contrary, he leads the people astray. But one of the most perplexing things about Jesus, even for those who were interested in him, is how to make sense of these biblical prophecies that speak of Jesus' mysterious origins. in the seemingly utterly mundane existence that Jesus had. They put the matter this way, the crowds do. They say, look, he is speaking publicly, and they, the authorities that is, are not saying anything to him. The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they? However, we know where this man is from, but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from. They know on the one hand that he's supposed to have origins from Judah and have a connection to Bethlehem, but many thought that when the Messiah did come, it was gonna be sudden, and it would be an inbreaking of a mighty kingdom that nobody was able to predict, and they're like, this guy, we know where he's from. He comes from a small town in Galilee. We know his parents. They say in John 6, 42, therefore, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say I have come down out of heaven? There's a lesson in all of this, friends. Jesus is unlike any other philosopher, teacher, or religious founder you will ever come across. Jesus himself is at the center of his message in a way that no other teacher's message is. You could say of other teachers, that they came with this basic claim, believe me about what I'm saying. My teachings about morality, my teachings about the world. Only Jesus comes saying, believe in me. I am the centerpiece, the focal point of my message. I am the miracle that saves. Friends, this is true. You take the great teachers of the ancient world, Plato, perhaps the greatest of the Greek philosophers, he actually came with a different hero than himself. He taught about Socrates' message. And Socrates' message is, I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. This was quite literally his message as recorded in Apology, one of the works written by Plato. You take a modern hero like Friedrich Nietzsche, He came knowing that he wasn't even the ideal of humanity that he preached about. He came heralding the need for a superman to erect new values in a world that has ceased to have regard for God's word. A man who would have to come with such a insight and a vision for humanity that he captivated the minds of everyone else and Nietzsche knew it wasn't himself and in fact it would be Really difficult to say who had that Superman spirit. Hitler thought he did. And it turned out to be quite a bust. Just the same Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Muhammad was not himself the son of God incarnate. He didn't even claim to be. He says he was visited by some spiritual being who at first he thought was a demon until his wife, Khadijah, convinced him that it was a good angel. These men can say, believe the ideas I have. Not one of them could say, believe in me. I am the mystery and the miracle of God and man reconciled. Only Jesus. What folly it would be to invest your whole lives in the mere teachings of these mere men. what folly it would be to bet your whole life on your own vantage point and understanding of things. There is only one, only one who ever claimed to be the God-man in human flesh, and there is only one. The fruits of whose ministry have changed the world a million times over in the last 2,000 years. Jesus taught, he pre-existed. But Jesus taught more. He also taught that he is a major character in the Old Testament, in those books that preceded the New Testament. He taught, I was there the whole time. We see this in John chapter eight, with respect to the great patriarch, Abraham. Jesus says this, your father, Abraham, when he is in a bout with the Jewish authorities, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. It says, so the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old, and you have seen Abraham. They don't even interpret his words right. His point was that Abraham had seen him, but they thought of Abraham as such an important figure, they're like, no way you've ever seen Abraham. Jesus, rather than correcting them, answers this way. Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Their hostile inference that it would be a wonder for you to see Abraham is contradicted by the claim that before even Abraham was, not just before John the Baptist was, but before Abraham, this patriarch from 2,000 years before Jesus. Before he was, I am. It's an affirmation that I have indeed seen this Abraham with my eyes. And we know from Genesis 18 that the Lord appeared to Abraham at the Oaks of Mamre. He did so in the context or as three men standing opposite of Abraham. They foretell to Abraham that he's gonna have that son, Isaac. But they also note that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah must be destroyed. Later in that same passage, we have one of the most incredible Old Testament pictures of the Trinity. We read that although God came down in theophany, appearing as a man, that appearance of God, that man walked down to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it says this in Genesis 19.24, then the Lord, who was in Sodom and Gomorrah, rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. Jewish readers have noticed, for thousands of years, there are apparently two individuals called Yahweh. One present in the cities, raining down from the other, the Lord out of heaven, fire and brimstone. There's this picture, right then and there, of our God, our Lord, as two persons. But the wonderful thing is that Jesus says even more than that he preexisted Abraham. What he says is that I properly bear the name I am. This is an unambiguous indication that Jesus not only interacted with Abraham, but that Jesus was this unique messenger of God who met Moses in the burning bush. Many of you know this story of the burning bush. It's in Exodus 3, and it says, the angel or messenger of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of the bush. And then this messenger of the Lord is actually called God the Lord. It says God called to him from the midst of the bush. This messenger of the Lord is God the Lord. And this is the place where Moses says, what's your name so I can tell Pharaoh who sent me? And he says, I am who I am. This name speaks to the self existence of God. And Jesus claims it for himself. Not only did Abraham and Moses encounter the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, but Isaiah the prophet with those grand prophecies about the virgin who will give birth to a child. Jesus tells us that Isaiah met him too. Jesus in John chapter 12, is in the midst of explaining why the religious authorities won't believe in him. He quotes a passage from Isaiah that they will be ever seeing, but never perceiving or understanding. But then he says this in John 12, 40. These things Isaiah said because he saw his, that's the Messiah's glory, and he spoke of him. There's really only one passage where Isaiah is struck with the glory of God. It's in Isaiah chapter six. He sees God enthroned on high with angelic beings surrounding him. And Jesus is declaring that Isaiah saw me in my pre-incarnate heavenly state. Jesus did not simply pre-exist Abraham and Moses and Isaiah. Jesus pre-exists time itself. The author of the Gospel of John has one of the most remarkable disclosures of Jesus' true identity in the opening verses of John, that I'll bet many of you know so well. He writes this, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God and all things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us and so begins the gospel account of the life of Jesus. In Genesis chapter one, many of us know that creation, everything we see was brought into being by God's mere command his words. It's a mystery as to why Genesis one even shows us any instrumentality of God using words. Surely something could be brought into being by no verbal act of his own. But throughout the Old Testament, we see the word of God personified. We see that it's an effort to disclose a relationship that exists within God himself. And at this point, I simply hope you will take this home with you today. When you read your Bibles, when you read through it in a year, when you start in Genesis and make your way to Revelation, you are reading about the ministry of Jesus Christ the entire time. You're reading about what Jesus did before he came as a man from Genesis chapter one. to Genesis 18, where the Lord meets Abraham, to Exodus 3, where the Lord's messenger meets Abraham in the, excuse me, Moses in the bush, to Isaiah, all the way until we see this man, Christ Jesus, walking the earth. He is the main character. This leads us to the depths of reflection we can engage in on Jesus. We have to ask the question, where does Jesus come from? People prior to Christ reflected perhaps he's an angel, maybe even the highest of them, but John one tells us that Jesus is God himself. In fact, it tells us that from eternity past, Jesus relates to the father as a son. It is mind bending to think of what this means. Fact three analogies are given for us. Jesus relates to the Father, the Son relates to the Father like a word to a man. Let me get at what this is talking about. If you were to ask, how could I get to know anybody in this room? Step one would be to talk to them. Young men, if you wanna meet a young lady someday and maybe ask her to marry you, you're gonna have to talk to her first. It's gonna be how you disclose to her who you are beyond that pretty face of yours. It's gonna be how you disclose your inner person. The description of Jesus as an eternal word is meant to convey that from eternity past, he has been expounding, beaming, perfectly describing his father. Just the same, therefore, Jesus is not only called the Word of the Father, He is also called the eternal image of the Father. In our call to worship today, we got at it, but it's even better in the Greek. It says that Jesus is the radiance of His, that's the Father's glory and the exact representation of His nature. Friends, we're not talking about an inexact representation of your nature, like when you look in a mirror, that only captures the front of you. It's two-dimensional. If there could ever be an exact representation of you, there would actually be a whole nother one of you, wouldn't there be? If they mirrored you at every point. Another great way to get to know a person, besides their words, and sometimes an even more honest way, is by the sorts of people they produce. You can learn a lot about a man from his son, because his son will do as he does and not merely as he says. Jesus is the perfect image and representation of his father. And he has been shining the father back to him for eternity. And that is why the most common way of describing this relationship is not word or image, but son. And John 1 18 says, no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has explained him. Many of you might know the language of the Nicene Creed, it's God from God, light from light. What we know about this wonderful relationship is that there is some sense in which Jesus is going forth and shining back the Father to him from eternity. He didn't begin to be at any point, but he happily bears this relationship to his Father. And this provides such a deep insight into all of us. Friends, the Lord wants you to know that one of the most wonderful relationships you'll ever encounter in your life is not foreign to God, but he is the archetype of it all. So why don't you think for a moment. There's nothing so wonderful, parents, as being able to look into the face of your kids and see them beam back to you virtues, good character, fortitude, wisdom, a profession of faith, Every parent in this room would rather see that than live an extra 10 years, rather see that than encounter great wealth, rather see that than have a grand vacation. And what the Lord would have you know is he knows that so well. The father loves the son, and the son loves the father. This relationship didn't start at some point, it always was. It's the archetype of it all for us. Some people have looked at this and said, well, is there some sort of eternal subordination of the son? He's always just kind of obeying the father and casting off his own will. That would be a grave mistake because here's the thing, the father and the son share the exact same will because they have the exact same substance. It is unlike any relationship of submission that you see in that respect. When we tell kids to honor their parents, we're saying, hey, cast off your wayward will and listen to a better authority. When it says to subjects in a nation, be subject to those in authority, it implies you're gonna wanna do some things they don't want you to. But Jesus' relationship to the Father, the Son of God, is not like that. They are perfectly united and there has never been anything but a happy reflecting of the Father. Friends, you need to leave this Lord's Day understanding that there is order in God himself. And as you go about looking at this creation, loving orderly things, loving symmetry, able to apprehend beauty, all of it, all of it is but a faint image of that grand order and beauty and symmetry in God himself. You all know that if you're gonna have peace in your household, there's gonna have to be an order there, a happy order. Well friends, you also know in yourselves to have real virtue and peace in yourself. There has to be an order there where your affections submit to your will which submits in turn to your intellect and your wise vantage points on things. There must be order to have liveliness, virtue, and truth. All of that, all of that is in the triune God before we ever see it in creation. This teaches us that there is a life in God. One of the great signs of life in this world, and we talk about definitions in biology of a living thing, is that it reproduces. That picture of life is reproduction, is again, but a faint image of the Son who eternally proceeds from the Father. Friends, what all this means is that you cannot have saving relationship to God, knowledge of God, except for in Jesus Christ. It says in 1 John 2, 23, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. You cannot have the one without the other. Many of you know about many of the conversations I have in passing at my cafe house, but in the last several weeks, turns out the barista, the main person who serves the coffee, married to the owner, they both work together, her masseuse, a rather physical therapist, she had a leg injury, revealed that she was a Jehovah's Witness. And she began inviting the barista to her Bible studies at the Jehovah's Witness Church. Now usually I'm the firsthand party who gets to engage in apologetics with somebody else. It's actually a little bit painful for me to be an instructor of another. That's what I got to be for the last several weeks. We spent a lot of time talking about these truths that you cannot know God without knowing his son. Turns out, Just last week, after reading a book called Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, directed directly to Jehovah's Witnesses, she was able to talk a little bit about John 1.1, a little bit about verses like John 17.3 that teach there's only one true God who can only be known as Father and Son by the Spirit. Her witness, it was an offense, and so will yours be. It is a difficult thing to hear that there is no true knowledge of God, but in Jesus Christ. But I want you to know, Trinitas, you actually have insight into who God is in himself. Every other portrait of a monotheistic God leaves God like an empty black hole, but you peer into a divine life in Jesus Christ. You see the love of the Father for the Son and vice versa. You know God. Friends, this doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son is essential to the gospel. We're about to go into a national holiday where we give gifts to one another to celebrate the incarnation. If you don't know God as Trinity, you cannot know God as Savior. The only reason it can be said, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life, is because the Trinity is a God who has a gift to give. God the Father gave God the Son for you and me. There can be no vicarious God-man Savior without the eternal generation of the Son from the Father. and you cannot know or appreciate what a grand sacrifice Jesus was, until you understand that some, some, something of what God has in love for his Son, Jesus Christ, is tasted by each one of us when we have children of our own, and when you understand that the Father's love for the Son is infinite, you can begin to appreciate what gift was given for you. how appropriate it is that we would remember Jesus by giving gifts. He's God's gift. And the eternal generation of the Son is necessary to see it as a gift from God. Bow your heads with me. Holy God, sometimes we dumb down what an offense Jesus Christ necessarily is. sometimes the Lord due to familiarity. We don't realize that if we were to encounter the incarnate Jesus Christ in his earthly ministry, he would startle us. He would leave us at a point of crisis and decision to determine and to decide whether everything we knew was off and Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the Savior, contradicting what we thought was even possible. or whether or not we would simply embrace our comfortable vantage point on the world. Living God, I pray that we would happily be uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel. I pray that we would have witnesses to family members who don't believe in Jesus to the effect that he is the only path, the only door, the way, the truth, and the life. We have family members who have aberrant doctrines of Jesus Christ. as propounded by Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, Lord, any number of radical cults, that we would embrace the imperative to speak of who you really are. May this season not just be a time of sentimentalism, but a bold proclamation of who our Savior is. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.