to the glory of God. The season that we call Christmas doesn't really have anything to do with all the hustle and bustle and all the sales on at the stores and the blue light specials and the parties and the gatherings and the family get-togethers and the divinity candy and the trappings and all of that and all the pounds that we're going to promise that we're going to lose as soon as the new year starts. This is really all about a remembrance of the greatest miracle in the history of the world. It's a rejoicing, an exultation, a celebration of the moment when the Owner and the Creator of the universe inserted Himself into His own creation and took on human flesh and became man. That's what the word means. The incarnation. The incarnate. The fleshing of God. is a glorious fact that is too often neglected or forgotten amidst all the gifts and get-togethers and the pageants and the music and the presence. Therefore, we would do well to think deeply about the Incarnation, especially on this day. In just a couple of days, families will gather and we'll do what we do, which is fine. I'm all about families gathering together. I just hope that you papas You heads of houses, you leaders of your homes will establish a precedent in your home that as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. And this is what we do. And we read the Bible. And we remember what this is all about. I'm grateful to live in a country that we let employees get off of work. Leave as bad as everything is to celebrate the birth of the King. There are nations now that are punishing people for celebrating Christmas. We need to remember that. And so to help you do that, to help you remember the Incarnation, here are five biblical truths about the Incarnation. Number one, the Incarnation was not the beginning of the Divine Son. The virgin conception and birth in Bethlehem does not mark the beginning of the Son of God. Rather, it marks the moment when the Eternal Son physically entered into our world and became one of us. The great Reformed theologian of the last century, John Murray, wrote, quote, the doctrine of the Incarnation is vitiated. That means diminished in importance if it is conceived of as the beginning to be of the person of Christ. The incarnation means that He who never began to be in His specific identity as Son of God began to be what He eternally was not. I'll keep you busy for a little while. So God the Son always was, is now, and always will be. The Apostle John was moved along by the Holy Spirit to say 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 the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory. Glory is the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And if that's not enough, John also said, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life. And the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us." So even though John was very matter-of-fact about Jesus' dual nature as both fully God and fully man, just trying to comprehend a being that is both with God and that is God and that became flesh and dwelt among us staggers our finite minds. And that is appropriate. If you just pass this by and say, yeah, yeah, I got that. You don't got that. You do not got that. It's over your head even if you think you got that. Okay? The Bible tells us that Jesus the Christ was born in Bethlehem during the reign Caesar Augustus. The Bible tells us that. History tells us that he was born at some point between 6 and 4 B.C. Dr. Luke gives us some very precise details about the time when Jesus was born. Like, this was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Which are very easy to validate. So we can pin down the approximate time frame when God took on flesh and became a part of His own creation. And this has powerful implications because the one true and living God who was revealed all through creation and on the pages of the 66 books of Scripture is holy. And that word means that Jesus is not like us. He is distinct from us. He is separate from us. He is other than us. He is different from us. He is not a part of what He made. The Buddhists are wrong. God is not a part of His creation. So normally God operates outside of His creation. And the correct understanding of God without Jesus is that God is distant. He's not near. He's distant. We've had Christianity for 2,000 years, so we rebel at that notion. No, God is near. He is near because of Jesus. But before Jesus, He was not near. The Holy Spirit did not dwell among us. He did not walk in us. The Holy Spirit came to us on occasion, and by times, and fell upon people, and then He lifted, and He came and He went, and He came and He went. He didn't abide. That is a new covenant reality. That's one of the signs that Jesus was who He was. John said, God sent me to baptize, and I saw the Spirit of God descend upon Him, and here's the key, and remain! He'd never done that before. But the Bible tells us that on a particular day, at a particular time in history, and in a particular city, to a particular woman, a virgin named Mary, God Almighty, took on flesh and became man. So for the first time in all of existence, God became a part of all that He had made. But just about the time we try to wrap our heads around that, the Bible goes on to say that God the Son always existed in eternity. And that means that the birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary in the city of David during the first census carried out when Quirinius was the governor of Syria was not the beginning of the Divine Son. Now we are those who make the claim that the 66 books of the Holy Bible are the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of the living God. And so as we struggle to comprehend Jesus and all of the particular attributes and qualities that the Bible assigns to Him, Careful not to diminish who He really is simply because our minds struggle to fathom His immenseness. The temptation for us because we live in a microwave generation where you can actually eat something after it's been frozen in a couple of minutes. Our fathers didn't know anything about that. And if you are raised up on television, then you know that every problem of life can be handled in 30 minutes with three commercials. So we're expecting instantaneous relief, instantaneous solutions. And real life isn't like that. And so we're looking to try to get a quick, hit the high point and move on of something that is profoundly deep and profoundly important. And part of worship is to spend time with that which we struggle to comprehend. Because you are testifying that you value it. If you never have time to talk about things that stagger your mind, then you're not really showing any appreciation for it. If you notice the Christmas music we sing is hard to sing. That's by design. The Christmas music that is so popular was all written in very complicated music on purpose. So it took time to practice and time to figure out because it was the greatest celebration they could think of. That's why. So we're not better off by avoiding hard, difficult issues. Rather, we take the mysterious truths of the Bible that obviously transcend what we have learned over the last 6,000 years in science, biology, and physics. And we use the fantastic claims of the Bible surrounding the birth of Jesus as just one more reason to be in awe of Him and worship Him. We went over in January the issue of how we can believe in science and still believe what the Bible says about creation. One of the drawbacks for just copping out on your duty to stand by what the Bible says and you say, I believe what the Bible says and you put me in that group of those who believe the Bible, Your duty to do that is if you negate what the Bible says about creation, it doesn't just stop there. You're going to mess up what the Bible says about everything else after that. So be careful. If you want to go to heaven, if you want your sins forgiven, you need to believe what the Bible teaches, no matter how fantastic it may appear to us. And I find it interesting that a generation raised on Avengers fighting demigods from the Norse kingdom with Odin and Thor and Loki, I find it interesting that this generation has a problem believing in the miracles of the Bible. But we must know that we are not the first group of believers who have struggled to understand the miracle of the ever-living, never-created Son who was born of a virgin at a particular time in history. The fourth century church father, John Chrysostom, who was called the Golden Tongue Orator during his day, said that Jesus was, quote, fully God and fully man in the same body at the same time without conflict or contradiction. I love that. I put that in sometimes when it has got nothing to do with my sermon. I just like it. But it has something to do with my sermon this morning. But see, that's just a little statement made by this guy and the books that he wrote of explaining that statement. I'm still reading. And so we wonder. And we stand in awe. But as we do that, we also worship and adore this Jesus who was born. Because He is also fully God and thus entitled to both our allegiance and obedience. Number two, the incarnation shows us Jesus' humility. Jesus was no typical king. unlike all the other human kings of the earth, Jesus did not come to be served. The scribe commissioned by the Apostle Peter to pin down one of the four gospel records, John Mark, quoted Jesus as saying, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. So unlike the other human kings and unlike all of the other false gods of the world's man-made religions, Jesus came to serve. His amazing humility was on full display from the very beginning right to the last moment. From Bethlehem all the way to Golgotha, the Apostle Paul gloried in the humility of Christ when he wrote this, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So at the very moment that our salvation is being provided for, that is the moment that every sincere Muslim departs from us. How do you kill God? They ask. Without God dying on a cross, you're not saved. So at the foundation of Christianity, they depart. The Jew, the Buddhist, the Muslim, all of those that say they admire Jesus, depart at this point. Understand that. They say, well, we're basically all the same. No, we're basically different. We only agree on peripheral issues that don't really matter. We disagree fundamentally on the core issues. Number three, the Incarnation fulfills prophecy. The Incarnation was not a random or accidental event. It is not that Jesus was born and then somebody backdated the record to try to prove that it was prophesied earlier. The fleshing of God was predicted in the Old Testament in very specific detail hundreds of years earlier in accordance with God's eternal plan that God designed before He made anything. And unlike my friend Carl Sagan who is now a believer, Yeah, as soon as he stood before God, he became a believer. Yeah, he did. And all these other people that spent their lifetime, their lifetime, arguing with God about God's existence. Can you imagine the conversation as soon as they cross over? Really? Unlike them, we have to understand that the 39 books of the Old Testament were in print and copies had been circulated as far east as India and as far west as England 200 years before Jesus was born. You can't backdate it. You can't change anything. It is what it is. Thousands of commentaries and thousands of copies of each of the 39 Old Testament books have been discovered and examined. And there is no variation from the English Bible that you hold in your hand this morning. Perhaps the two clearest Old Testament texts predicting that the Messiah would be both human and God were written some 700 years before Jesus was born. Here's one of them. Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Now, see, we read that now, we say, yeah, there it is right there. Why didn't they understand that? Right. Well, see, this is in response to a king asking a prophet to give him a sign because he was about to go fight the enemy. And he said, can you give me a sign that God is with me as I go fight this enemy? And the prophet stands there and says, the Lord Himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. And the king says, oh, okay, thanks. I guess we'll go fight now. He didn't have a clue, right? In Isaiah 9, verse 6, it says, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and what? The government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Just look at what it says. His name. The child's name. The virgin-born son's name will be Immanuel. Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Eternal Father. Prince of Peace. His name. Huh? Seven centuries before Mary and Joseph made the journey to Bethlehem, God the Spirit moved along the prophet Isaiah to describe a human being, a child. He said it would be a son who was indeed born just like any other child is born. So Isaiah reinforces the reality that Jesus is fully human. Yet even in his humanity, this child, this son is different in that he was born from a virgin. So even though he's human, he's a human being born of a virgin. But, then in all of the extraordinary names that when Isaiah was led to attach to this fully human son, like Emmanuel, wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, described his full deity. and taken together, the Son being born and all of His names point clearly to Jesus being the God-Man, the most unique being in all the universe. Number four, the incarnation is mysterious. The Scriptures do not give us answers to all of our questions, if you notice that. Some things remain mysterious and unknown. Moses understood that what God had chosen to reveal to us is not all there is, when he said in Deuteronomy 29.29, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever. Now there are some who have taken the fact that God has not chosen to reveal everything to us, and they've used that as an excuse to not believe at all. And that's tragic, since what God has revealed is more than we can comprehend in a single lifetime. I'm working on my 48th year of trying to figure this stuff out. And I feel like I'm a fool because I'm wondering when Brother Reese does an exposition on the Psalm. I've been reading the Psalms for 47 years and I didn't know half the stuff that he brings out in his exposition. Where have I been for 47 years? Right. And every time I studied the Bible now for a sermon, I'm going, I know I've read this a million times. I've never seen this. It's amazing. And so this is almost a half a century of trying to figure this stuff out. So what we have is more than you need. That's one of my biggest complaints about Mormons. I don't need three more books, Bubba. I can't handle the 66 I got. Don't give me more information. I need to figure out what I got, right? So never allow anybody to tell you that we don't have enough information to believe because we do. But answering how it could be that one person could be both fully God and fully man is simply not a question that the scriptures focus on. I'll be happy to get with you after church and we can say why? Why? That's the end all be all question of all humanity, right? Why? I mastered that growing up. That was my favorite question to my parents. Why? Why do you not want me to do that? Why? And it's a waste of time. Because He didn't reveal it to you. That's the answer. It's none of your business. And the early church fathers wisely preserved the mystery at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. when they wrote that Jesus is recognized in two natures without confusion without change, without division, without separation, the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one in the same Son and only begotten God, the Word, Lord Jesus Christ. And next time you think you're technologically advanced, just forget that nonsense. This is 1,600 years ago. This is how people talked. We must understand that the main cause of unbelief is a dark heart, not a lack of information. So the deep and profound mysteries that the Bible unapologetically and repeatedly proclaim are not the reason people don't see and don't hear and refuse to trust. refusing to believe is the normal default setting for all the sons and daughters of Adam in their fallen state. It is the grace of God that opens the eyes and unstops the ears and softens the heart. It is God's mercy that grants us the gift of faith. And that miracle occurs to every elected sinner when the Gospel is preached. Number five, the incarnation is necessary for salvation. The incarnation of Jesus does not save by itself, but it is an essential link in God's plan of redemption. John Murray explains, quote, the blood of Jesus is blood that has the requisite efficacy and virtue only by reason of the fact that He who is the Son, the effulgence or the brilliance of the Father's glory and the express image of His substance became Himself also partaker of flesh and blood. and thus was able by one sacrifice to perfect all those who were sanctified. Hallelujah. And the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews likewise wrote that Jesus had to be made like His brethren in all things so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, listen to this, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. The incarnation displays the greatness of God. Our God is the eternal God who was born in a stable. Not some distant, withdrawn God. Our God is a humble and giving God. Not a selfish, grabbing God. Our God is a purposeful and planning God. Not some random, reactionary God. Our God is a God who is far above us and whose ways are not our ways. Not a God that we can put into a box and control. Our God is a God who redeems us by His own blood. Not a God who leaves us in our own sin. Our God is great. Now there are a number of ways to try to discuss this amazing moment when God became a man, but I want to focus on Luke 2, verse 14 that says this, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased. Now you ought to notice something about this. It says the whole host of heaven gathered together and said. And every time you hear the Christmas story, you hear about the heavenly host singing. It doesn't say they sang. They didn't sing. They spoke this. This was speaking. This was not singing according to the Bible. Now the good doctor is here quoting what a multitude of the heavenly host said when they appeared with the angel that was already talking to the shepherds. And as we discovered when we were in our journey through this magnificent gospel record, the reason that these shepherds were here near to Jerusalem in the first place was no doubt because they had been hired to raise the animals who were going to be used for sacrifices. And as these shepherds were with their flocks on just another normal evening, Luke tells us, an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. And they were terribly frightened. I guess so. Every time an angel came to people, the first thing out of the angel's mouth was, fear not. Right. Why? We're terrified of angels. Right. Right. Right. Amen. Why? Because the only reason God's sending this heavenly being is to kill me because I'm a sinner. Right. Amen. So they had to say, fear not. And then this frightening shining angel began to speak to the shepherds. Here's what the angel said. Do not be afraid. How about that? For behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths lying in a manger. Even though the angel had been dispatched from heaven and was not human, he spoke to these men in a language they could understand, whether that was Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek, I'm not sure. And as they were trying to take in all this immortal being was saying to them, Luke says, and suddenly, that's not enough, right? And suddenly, there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace among men with whom He is pleased. Now you need to notice a little odd way that this verse is rendered here. Because for most of my entire adult life, the heavenly exclamation has usually been quoted as being glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and good will toward men. Is that how you've learned it? And that's how the translators of the King James rendered it back in 1611. But that's not what the heavenly host said. The literal Greek here reads this, glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace toward men, goodwill. My Greek expert is sitting here now. He can help me out. The Latin Vulgate. The Latin Vulgate of the 4th century incorrectly rendered the phrase to say peace to men of goodwill, which is simply not what was said and gives the wrong impression. Others incorrectly teach that the heavenly host said peace and goodwill toward men, as if this was an exhortation for us all to embrace the grace of God, which isn't any better. Now it's true that the peace that the Lord offers us takes effect only when we actually receive it. But, this phrase is not uncommon in the New Testament. And it is best understood in connection to the Hebrew. What the heavenly host said has nothing to do with us accepting God's grace. The host was speaking about the source of grace. And was proclaiming that peace is a free gift that flows out from the pure mercy of God. So this phrase is best understood as being on earth peace among those with whom God is pleased or on earth peace among those with whom God has caused to be favored. So the heavenly host was proclaiming that with this child who was born that day in Bethlehem, God will now bring peace to those chosen ones with whom God has purposefully and powerfully placed His favor or His good will or His grace. And the peace referred to here is not the absence of war or the cessation of trouble or the end of hostility in the earth that is so commonly thought. This has nothing to do with people being more kind to one another. This is very narrowly referring to a peace with God. The heavenly host was saying that this Son who has been born that day in the city of David is the One who will bring an end to the wrath of God that is against all of humanity because of the sin of Adam and the individual acts of rebellion and treason against God that all of us have engaged in during our entire lives. You cannot possibly appreciate the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ until you first comprehend the frightening and terrible bad news. God is angry with our sin and His justice demands, His righteousness demands that He judge all rebellion. If God did not damn unrepentant sinners to hell, he would be saying that he agreed with us that his glory was not worth defending. And God will never do that. Now look again at verse 11. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Dr. Luke tells us that all this happened on a particular day in history. So this is not some day in a mythological imaginary story, but a very specific day when Caesar Augustus was the emperor of Rome and Quirinius was the governor of Syria, which are historically verified people and events. Now as I said, because the calendar was later changed, we can narrow this day down to sometime between 6 and 4 B.C. And if Jesus was 33 years old when He died, if He was born in 4 B.C. which I personally hold to, then He died around 29 A.D. Somewhere around there. But we also need to remember that this was also a day that was planned in eternity before the creation of the world. Indeed, the whole universe with untold light years of space and billions of galaxies was created and made glorious for this particular day and what it meant for human history and in the annals of creation because in the beginning before God made anything, He determined to bring glory to one of His attributes and that was His grace. And in order for God to glorify His own grace, He has to have a recipient of that grace because God doesn't need it. That's why you breathe air. The Apostle Paul said in Colossians 1, 16, For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things, look at this, have been created through him and what? For him. For my glory. for His appearance. For this day of His appearance. Look at Galatians 4, 4 and 5. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive the adoption as sons. So this happened on a day. The perfect day. In the fullness of time. The perfect time. appointed by God before the foundation of the world for unto you is born this day. The next thing it says is in the city of David. God also took on flesh in a particular city, not in Narnia, not in Middle Earth, not in Never Neverland, not in the galaxy far, far away. It happened in a city about 7000 miles from Gulfport. And that city still exists today. There are people there this morning. This city is real, and the city's name is Bethlehem. And Bethlehem is about six miles from Jerusalem. Bethlehem is the city where Jesse lived, the father of David, the great king of Israel. Bethlehem is the city that 700 years earlier, the prophet Micah wrote this. But as for you, Bethlehem Ephratah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. Look at this. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. The next thing it says is a Savior. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior. If you have ever sinned against God a single time in your life, then your greatest need, your most urgent need, the most important thing that you have need of right now is forgiveness. Your most important need is not more money or better health or even more pleasant disposition. Your greatest need is forgiveness. Because without forgiveness, you are eternally doomed. And this makes everybody very uncomfortable, but this is part of the Gospel. It's part of the bad news that precedes the good news that makes the good news very good. I am guilty. I deserve Damnation. I earned it. I worked hard for it. Every time I reached another level of my mental capabilities, whatever limitations they may have, I tried to conceive new and inventive ways to rebel. Nobody taught me that. My parents were doing their best to tell me to mind. And I was trying my hardest to rebel. It's in humans to rebel. Huh? Where'd that come from? The angel said to Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus. Look, for He will save His people from their sins." Not the elimination of poverty. Not the removal of disease from the earth. Not a fix for the unequal distribution of wealth. Not a solution for the inherent unfairness that humans perpetrate on one another. All of those things and more will be adjudicated in the next life. And it is good that we work toward those things now. But very narrowly, this son at that time born to that virgin in that city at that point in history when God took on flesh and became man, it was so that guilty sinners could find forgiveness for their sins and find peace with God. End of statement. Everywhere Jesus walked, there were people literally dying, starving to death on the side of the road. Children with leprous lesions all over their bodies. And He never mentioned them. So was Jesus cruel? One of the arguments that's been thrown up against me as I've gone on the radio and I've preached against the sin of normalizing sexual perversity is that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. Jesus never said anything about slavery either. Jesus never said anything about pedophilia either. He never said a word about it. So does that mean those things are okay too? No, no, no, no, no. We need the entirety of Scripture. Not just the words of Jesus. Very narrowly, this Son at that time born to that virgin in that city at that point in history when God took on flesh and became man, it was so that guilty sinners could find forgiveness for their sins and find peace with God. And until that good news is preached and taught and believed, the Great Commission is not being carried out. But unlike any other human religions or human philosophies before or since, the forgiveness that Jesus gives is based on what He alone did for us and not on what we have done. Christianity alone boldly proclaims that earthly rebels are forgiven and made righteous by what we believe in and what we trust in and what we confess and not by what we do. Now take heed that you understand that believers are absolutely commanded to go and do a lot. In fact, the Bible is clear that those who do not do after they are saved are not really saved at all and are simply deceived about what they think they have believed in. But, all of the doing of Christians is simply a loving and humble response to the work of salvation that God has already finished in us. So our doing is not and cannot ever be the cause of our salvation. But we must know that only God can forgive those sins that are against God and all of our sins have insulted and offended God. All of our sins have belittled God's glory. And so unless we receive forgiveness of sins from God, we are eternally doomed. And that is why God sent the eternal Son of God into the world, because that Son is God. And God is a forgiving God by His very nature. So it is not true, as some claim, that the God of the Old Testament was a violent, brutal, unforgiving deity, while the God of the New Testament is a gentle and loving Savior. That's simply not what the Bible teaches. God is the same. And that is why Jesus said the Son of Man has authority on earth to do what? Forgive sins. So more than a teacher, more than an example, more than a prophet, the Son who was born on that day in that city is a Savior. The next thing it says, who is Christ. Luke said, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ. And from the time that a Jew was old enough to think, he was taught that God was going to send a Messiah, the Anointed One. Misha! Misha comes! Misha comes! And they had a statement even when they were taken captive into Babylon and all the other nations that came in. They said, next year in Jerusalem! Next year, Messiah will come! Next year! And they always said, He's coming! He's coming! He's coming! He's coming! And Messiah was the Anointed One. The longer they waited, the more the understanding of the Anointed One was warped and perverted and twisted. So by the time that God actually sent the Messiah, the very people who should have welcomed Him the most and the easiest called Him Beelzebul, devil, and rejected Him and called for His execution. The Jew of the first century wasn't looking for a Savior who would save them from their own individual sins. They were looking for a warrior king who would raise an indestructible army that would utterly annihilate the pagan Romans and bring back the glory of Israel that they enjoyed under King David. This warrior king would then march triumphantly down Main Street in Jerusalem and sit down in the throne of David and rule the world from Jerusalem with a rod of iron, as the prophets had foretold. So when the son of Joseph stood before them and told them to do silly and crazy things like forgive their enemies and turn the other cheek and do good to the very ones who were persecuting them, the most religious people on earth knew that this man was a fraud and an imposter and could never fit the bill of being the true Messiah. So they cried out for him to die. But after this anointed one rose from the dead and the gospel began to go into Jerusalem and into Judea and into Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the world, the pagan Gentile world began to hear that even their sins could be forgiven by this same anointed one. But these people were not raised under the law of God and the customs and the terms that were paramount to the Jews meant nothing to them. Very soon it became apparent to the apostles that the term Messiah meant nothing to the Gentiles. So God used the apostle Paul to coin another term, Christ, which comes from the Greek word Christos, which means anointed one, just like Messiah means in Hebrew. So even though the Gentiles had no knowledge of a Messiah that was supposed to come, they could relate to the one who was anointed above all others to save them from their sins because that is the great equalizer of all humanity. Rich or poor, free or bond, black or white, male or female, we are all sinners. And we all need forgiveness desperately. So yes, Jesus was the final anointed King of Israel. Yes, He was the final anointed prophet. Yes, He was the final anointed priest. Yes, in Jesus, all the promises of God found in the Old Testament are yes! And yes, Jesus alone would fulfill all the hopes and dreams of godly Israel. But Jesus was greater than that. Because all of the fears and all of the hopes of all of the pagans of the entire world raised in any culture under any system would be met. They would come together in this one single man. Because more than simply Savior, This one man born on that day in that city is also the Lord. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. So Jesus is much more than merely a Savior. He is also the ruler, the master, the sovereign, the mighty God, the everlasting Father and the Lord of the whole universe. There is not one inch of matter or ounce of matter that exists anywhere in any galaxy that Jesus does not look at and point out and say, that's mine. Everything's mine. I've been going around beating the bushes lately, trying to get some folks to see the need to help with the radio broadcast. And this one guy was talking to me about some things, and I said, God's blessed you, you built a nice business. He said, yeah, I have. And I said, but my daddy owns it. He said, your father owns this, the building. I said, he owns it all. You, me, desk, the building, the air. He owns it all. Amen. I don't think he got it. The Apostle John said that Jesus was king of kings and Lord of lords. So even when Jesus comes back, there will be kings on the earth. And everywhere there are earthly kings, there are earthly lords who serve under those kings. But Jesus will be a great king over all the earthly kings, and Jesus will be a great lord over all the other earthly lords. And that means that on a particular day in real history, in a particular city, in a real world, a particular child, a particular son, the Savior who would take away all of our guilt, the Christ who would fill all of our hopes, the Lord who would defeat all of our enemies and make us safe and bring us the fullness of joy forever, was born to a virgin. So Jesus was fully man, but He was also fully God, and we are fully guilty. And He is our Savior who will fully forgive anyone, no matter how bad they've been, who is granted with the power and the desire to trust in Him and in His finished work. The very doctrine that most people today are so ashamed of. Sovereign election. Limited atonement. Efficacious grace. All of these sincere, deep, profound doctrines that everybody shies away from. I want to shout from the rooftop! Because it doesn't matter how bad you've been! Hallelujah! It doesn't matter how wicked you've been! You can be saved! It only matters to you if you've been bad. And He is our Savior who will fully forgive anyone no matter how bad they've been. Who is granted with the power and the desire to trust in Him and His finished work. So, this child, this Son, this Jesus, will grant all those to whom God has placed in His grace and favor on the most important commodity in all the universe, forgiveness of sins and peace with God. But He's also fully Lord, who will sovereignly keep all of those who trust in Him. And He will powerfully vanquish all of His enemies. And He will come back to put an end to all injustice and all selfishness and all violence and all evil. It'll be a great day, right? You know how He's going to do that? By destroying all the unrepentant sinners who create evil and injustice and selfishness. So make sure when He comes back, you're not in that group. Because He will destroy you. And this Savior and Lord in Christ will do that by defeating all unrepentant sinners and casting them into everlasting damnation in hell because they refused to believe and they found pleasure in unrighteousness rather than in Him. But He will wondrously receive all those who fear Him, and all those who tremble at His Word, and all those who have been graciously allowed to possess the gift of faith unto Himself till you realize how blessed you are to be able to believe. And this Son, this Child, this Virgin born, ever living, never created, always faithful Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, the incarnate God will grant us unimaginable pleasure and joy at His side forever. Hallelujah. Let's pray.