(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Lord, thank you for this opportunity to be here to celebrate your birth and your house this morning. I just bless everything that's done today and it will be leading in your sight bless our singing and soul winning and also preaching and good service and Jesus, I pray, Amen Let's turn to our next song Our next song is going to be in our songs hands and spiritual songs binder The remainder of our songs will be in this binder Open up there to that second page Angels, we have heard on high Angels, we have heard on high All right, angels we have heard on high All right, let's sing this out on the first Angels we have heard on high Sweetly singing o'er the plains And the mountains in reply Echo back their joyous strains Gloria In excelsis Deo Gloria In excelsis Deo Gloria In excelsis Deo Gloria In excelsis Deo Shepherds, why this truly Why your joyous strains belong Sing what may the tide be Which inspire your heavy song Gloria In excelsis Deo Gloria In excelsis Deo Come to Bethlehem and see In whose earth the angels see Come adore a man in need Christ the Lord the newborn King Gloria In excelsis Deo Gloria Gloria In excelsis Deo See within a major lane Jesus Lord on heaven Earth Mary Joseph Let us sing our Savior's word, Gloria, in excelsis Deo. Gloria, in excelsis Deo. Amen. All right. Welcome all stronghold Baptist Church. It's good to have you here with us on this Christmas Eve service. At this time, we'll go through our announcements. If you do not have a bulletin, just slip your hand up real high and we'll get one out to you. And if you open up to the first page, you will see our service times listed there. It's always Sunday morning at 1030. Sunday evening again at 5 o'clock. Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. We're gonna be in Psalm 84 this week. We've got the soul-winning opportunities listed there as well as the salvations and the baptisms for month of December as well as for the year. As you can see there, we've got 999 salvations in print to date for the year, which is awesome. Praise the Lord. It's super exciting that we've had so many people going out preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ from this church and reaching so many people. Let's count up if there is any salvations to report for the week. Yes, sir. Amen. So we had it back on Wednesday. We didn't even know it. The goal for it, we adjusted, made a new goal kind of for the end of the year to try to break that 1,000 point. So it looks like collectively as a church we did that. So praise the Lord it's good. For salvation on Tuesday, it's great. We're able to just go out soul-winning as a family or does it... Cool. Awesome. That's wonderful. And two on what day? Sweet. Amen. Excellent. All right. Very good. Now just because we made 1,000, you know, it's not a reason to slack off for the rest of the year, but let's see how far we could go with this. That's wonderful. Did I miss anyone else as far as counting up salvations? And then are we planning a baptism today or no? Yeah. No. Not today. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. And is it, well, maybe we are. Is there anyone here this morning that would like to get baptized that hasn't been baptized? You feel like you need to be baptized? Get that set up for you today. All right. Just so we're all aware that that is always easily available to you if you have not been baptized, if you decide to get baptized. And I'm gonna mention this too and if you don't mind I'm gonna use Mrs. Doty as an example here just because it's important for everyone to understand. Like, first of all, the baptism is being obedient to the Word of God. Ultimately it's what it is. Jesus Christ commanded his disciples to go forth to preach the gospel of a creature, yes, but also to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, and also to teach, right? Teaching them whatsoever I've commanded you. So Jesus commanded that to the disciples. It's something that we ought to do. Jesus himself got baptized, you know, after you get saved. Now what I'm bringing up is this a point that like maybe, you know, what happens oftentimes, sometimes people get baptized earlier in life and then they get saved later and there's confusion. Sometimes they think like, well, I already got baptized, but the baptism is supposed to happen after you get saved, after you come to that understanding of what the gospel is. And then there's some people as well that they're not quite certain necessarily exactly what day they got saved. I mean that that happens. There's people get confused about certain things. Sometimes it's kind of like, well, I think I might have understood it here, but maybe I didn't and now, you know, but now I know for sure. So to extinguish any doubts that you might have of whether or not you were, you know, saved or not before you got baptized, I always recommend it's a good idea if you're not certain just to get baptized. And don't worry ever about what anyone else might think, okay? Because that's the worst reason to prevent you from getting baptized to begin with is if you're worried about what people might think about like, oh, well, I mean, what a shame that would be if someone realizes, hey, I didn't get biblically baptized, but I've been coming to church for all these years and now everyone's gonna think maybe I just got saved or something. But look, first of all, it's this foolish thought because no one is gonna be judging and looking at you on your baptism. Everyone's rejoicing at baptism. And two, there's nothing wrong if you have been coming to church for that long and you just got saved, okay? There's nothing wrong with that. So like, praise the Lord if someone gets saved and then they need to get baptized. So even if you've been sitting here in church or something, you've been coming here and then later on you realize like, hey, man, I wasn't saved and you know you got saved later, just get baptized. And don't be ashamed of that. There's nothing like, salvation being a free gift, there's nothing to be ashamed of like if you didn't realize that before. If it took longer for you to understand it, so what? So what? It doesn't matter at all. And I'll tell you right now, no one's gonna have that attitude towards you anyway. So don't be so self-conscious on things like the baptism to prevent you from doing something. And that wasn't the case with, I'm just, you know, I'm just using this opportunity because Mrs. Doty's been coming to our church for a while and has, you know, decided on her own with her husband that like, you know, this is probably the right thing to do just to get baptized now, just to make sure that that she's in obedience to the Word of God. And, you know, it's, I just want to stress that for everyone just in case someone else is having that thought or, you know, thinking that maybe I shouldn't just go ahead and do it. There's nothing wrong, there's nothing sinful if you get baptized and you didn't really need to because the first one was valid. There's nothing wrong with doing it again, but if you aren't scripturally baptized, you know, it is a commandment, so it's something we ought to do. So anyways, enough about baptism, let's move on here. We got the offering tolls received through the month of December listed down there at the bottom of the page. Prayer requests. So we added Mrs. Bacon to the list here. They visited on Wednesday, it was great to see them here, and she's due very, very, very soon, so please pray for her and that everything will go well with the delivery of the child there. Mrs. Kuvara is here and she's also nearing the end, so be in prayer for their family as well within the next month. And of course, there's many other ladies here, one, two, three, four, five others, so we had a lot of ladies who are with Child and Church, so please be in prayer for all of them, and then unfortunately also a lot of family members who are struggling with cancer and other major health issues, so please continue to pray for everyone who is on our list. Do we have any updates for the people who are on the prayer list at the moment? Anyone have any updates? All right, please, please pray for these people. Down at the bottom of the page, Pure Words Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. We're praying for their church. It's pastored by Pastor Jonathan Shelley, and then on the next page is the challenge. So the challenge for this month is a singing challenge, so every single day you got to sing for hymns, and then in addition to that, you can't be voluntarily subjecting yourself to worldly music. So, and yeah, I use that term on purpose, subjecting yourself to. You may, it may appeal to your flesh, but in the end, it's not, it's not good for you, so why we're doing this challenge. And then, of course, in January, just to just to get you prepped and aware of this as we go into the new year, we do this every year, we do this every year in January, and that's not gonna change for the foreseeable future as far as I'm concerned, but there's a the New Testament Bible reading challenge to complete reading the entire New Testament within the month of January. So I bring it up now, but it's not to give you a head start. You have to do it within the month of January, so you can't start reading in Matthew now, and then be like, oh look, I finished the New Testament before January 31st. No, you've got to read all those chapters within the month of January. So, and of course, we'll be giving a prize away if you do that. I have it listed out here. If you just read without worrying about how many pages you do, if you do nine chapters every single day, you can accomplish this with two days to spare as buffer days in case things don't go exactly the way you want them to with your schedule and being able to read those chapters. So I hope you participate. That's a great way to start off the new year of having the entire New Testament read. I almost said memorized. That would be a great way to start off the new year. Entire New Testament memorized. Read at least, right? Within that first month, so it's a great goal. Now, before we go any further, actually there's two things, because I don't want to forget about this one particularly. Next week is New Year's Eve, so we're having a New Year's Eve service where there's nothing different with the service times. We're doing a regular church service times, and then after the evening service, we're going to be having some food and fellowship afterwards in order to bring in the new year. Now, that being said, I'm going to, we're going to have a different evening service. I'm not going to preach on Sunday evening, but we're gonna have various men from church preach on Sunday. So I'm bringing this up because I want to get some people who are interested in preaching on Sunday. Now, everyone won't be able to preach. I'll let you know, but right now if you want to preach next Sunday evening service, if you're a man and you've attended our preaching classes, then raise up your hand real quick and I will write your name down. All right, I got you Brother Michael, Brother Preston, Brother Devon, Brother Austin, Brother Peter, and anybody else? And Brother Carter, I already talked to you, so I know that you're good, you're down for that. Excellent. Well, I will speak to all of you gentlemen individually and let you know because I don't know if we'll have time to do everyone or not, but that's the plan for that Sunday evening, so it'll be nice to hear from different men in our church what God's laying on their heart and give opportunity to preach in church setting. So that is one thing. Number two is our prizes. So we have, I told you I was gonna get caught up on this, and here's what I have, okay, for everyone who's in attendance today, of what I owe. I owe some people at least all of Hebrews chapter 8. I owe the August challenge, which was also Hebrews chapter 9. I owe the first half of Hebrews chapter 10, so those are all Bible memory, one of those being Bible memory and a challenge. Not everybody received a reward or a prize for the visitor challenge because I was doing prizes for that. I was not doing prizes for the church attendance challenge, and then the soul-winning challenge I also owe prizes for. Is anyone sitting there going, Pastor Berzins, there's still something else that you did not give a prize for that you completed. I just want to be thorough and kind of make sure I'm getting all caught up today. All right, that's what I thought, so I'm gonna start with the oldest that I did not because there's all kinds of different stuff out here, and the prizes vary in their value, right, so the easier challenges have a smaller value prize and the bigger challenges, of course, have a bigger value. That's how I do the prizes here, and if you memorize, who memorized Hebrews chapter 8 and did not get a prize yet? All right, Elijah, come on up over here because I've got a special prize for you for Hebrews chapter 8, the axe toss. Good job, Elijah, and then anyone else who memorized Hebrews chapter 8, you could get anything from this side, anything on this side of the table. Anyone else memorize Hebrews chapter 8 and did not get their prize? Speak now. All right, I'm not guaranteeing that I'll have prizes for you later. No, I will, especially for those that aren't here today, so I'm gonna check Hebrews 8 off as being done. All right, now Hebrews chapter 9, who completed Hebrews chapter 9 for the challenge? I just want to get it, one, two, three, four, four. All right, Hebrews chapter 9, because it was a difficult challenge, Bible memory within just that month, you get any two prizes on the table, except for this one. This one's reserved. Come on up and get your prizes, don't be shy. Any two, yep, and the only gift card up there that doesn't have a denomination is a Chipotle, which is the lowest denomination on the card. It's usually the way I do it, 20 bucks. There's some good stuff up there. Man, everyone wants the food. This is just gonna make it easy. Yep, any two, any two, any two. We got popcorn makers, a s'mores maker, we got ratchet straps, candles, chocolate, and gift cards. Chocolate and gift cards, man, I'm never gonna learn. That just makes everybody satisfied, I guess. All right, good job on that. Now, Hebrews 10 gets you one prize from anywhere on the table, so if you memorize the first half of Hebrews 10, come on up here and get your prize. And again, Elijah did another Bible memory here. What do you think about that? All right, Hebrews 8, 9, and 10. I'm marking off as being I'm caught up to date on these prizes. All right, you can't be shy here. If you deserve a prize, you got to come up and get it. Now, the visitor challenge, I did some people receive their prizes, but I know not everybody did. If I remember correctly, Brother Keith, I don't think you received a prize yet, and then did, and Hope did not get one, because we were given prizes to the, and Johnson's, right? So, not you, Johnson, the other Johnson, Seth Johnson, and then, and yes, you did, right, so you got your email. If you, let me write down those names, because the gift, the prize for that was an Amazon gift card, and I just want, I wasn't positive on who all got it or not. If you don't want an email, because I think I have all, except for Brother Keith, I don't think I have your email address, but if you want that, I will email you after service today. Otherwise, you can get, we've got a Starbucks gift card, Dunkin Donuts gift card, or any of these chocolate bags. If you would rather have one of those, help yourself to that. Otherwise, I'll just email you the, the Amazon gift card. Alright, alright, very good. So, that will be settled then this afternoon, and then the last one is the soul winning challenge. So, soul winning challenge is gonna get anything on this side. So, whether it's a Starbucks, Dunkin, or one of these chocolate bags, come on up and get your prize if you completed the soul winning challenge. There's more chocolate, too, in the office. There's more of those in the office. Yeah, I think almost everyone has theirs. Alright, I think we're caught up before the end of the year. It's amazing. Well, good job. I'm gonna give a round of applause to everybody. Good job on doing the challenges, and participating, and doing Bible memory, and all those types of things. So, it's always nice to have a little bit of incentive, but those things are good. Now, if you, if you were too timid to come up and get your prize in front of everybody, I'll leave them up here. If you want it, if you wanted to grab it, and you did complete one of those, then you can take one after service. I'll trust that you did that. Alright, enough with the prizes. Continuing on with the announcements, we have the new church plant in Greenville. Please continue to pray that we get a good location for this. We're planning on hiring a real estate agent that's going to help us find stuff maybe that we haven't been able to find in the area, and be able to stay on top of some of the properties that become available for, for this church plant. So, what we could do is just pray that God will open up some doors for us there to find a place that will work for us for years to come. Bible memory passage, so we're still working on the rest of Hebrews chapter 10. If you're able to memorize these verses and quote them word perfect, you will earn a prize for being able to do that. Down at the bottom of the page, we have the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries through January. Now, that might not be, that's definitely not everybody in January, so it was kind of limited in how much space there was and things like that, so don't worry if your name, if your birthday is later in the month. Did I, did I miss anyone that's here today? It has a birthday coming up either at the end of this month or in January that I missed in the bulletin. All right, on the back we've got the upcoming event. So, right after the morning service, we have a Christmas cookie exchange for everyone who signed up for that. Looks like some of the cookies are set up over here. I don't know where that's exactly going to take place, so just be mindful of each other because I'm sure some people are gonna be eating in between the services as well. We've got the Soul Winning Marathon in Greenville. Brother Austin is heading that up next Saturday, so December 30th. Speak to Brother Austin to get all the details for that Soul Winning Marathon in Greenville. Watch Night Service already went over that December 31st and then January 19th is a homeschool field trip and a pizza movie night and of course the camp. One last announcement, we have a small gift for all the families. We have a calendar here if you're here with us to this morning to bring home to have for your household. It's got some KJV scriptures now. These are from the sword of the Lord. It's not from Amazon, so last year we gave out some calendars that somehow some other Bible verses crept into the calendar like the the one that was advertised was KJV but then as you went through some of the months it was like wait a minute that's not that's not the right Bible verse so there's there's a certain type of calendar last year that we gave out that had that in it unfortunately I wasn't able to see everything be able to vet it before I purchased it this time it's a little bit more of a trusted source so we've got those available and if you did not get one for your household you could slip up your hand one of our shows will get one to you and then they'll also be anything that's left over will be available out by either entrance and if you have I just want to make sure everyone gets at least one but if you have multiple people in your family and someone else wants one okay just use some discretion we're gonna be evening service too but feel free to go ahead and and you know let you can allow other people in your family to get a calendar as well it looks like we have quite a few extra so that's not a problem if you want to have more than one for your household to go ahead and pick up another another calendar I just want to make sure everyone got at least one per household so that's about it for our announcement so I'm gonna ask brother Peter if you come up and lead us in our next song so I'll send this first song to the binder to open up towards the last page. We'll be singing, O Holy Night, of O Holy Night, of O Holy Night, of O Holy Night. O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night. O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night, O Holy Night But which cometh women professing godliness with good works? Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived. But the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding, she shall be saved and childbearing if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you. Thank you for us being able to celebrate the birth of your son. Thank you for having us to be saved, for us to be gathered here, to not forsake the assembly of ourselves together, God. And thank you for just salvation in general, that we have a right to the tree of life. Feel past the birth with your spirit. Allow for him to preach of boldness, and let our ears be attended to your word. Allow for us to enjoy this time together as brothers and sisters in Christ. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so this morning, of course, it's Christmas Eve, and I like to preach sermons near Christmas or Sunday, usually before Christmas, service before Christmas, just about Jesus Christ and what he did for us. I think it's great that we set aside a day to honor and to recognize the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ, and nothing necessarily new, right, in the sermon, depending on how much knowledge you have. I'm covering a lot of basic truths from scripture, but the goal of the sermon is to tell you in advance is just to kind of bring honor to our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and what he did for us, and just to recognize, and that we all can understand why we celebrate, why do people put in so much effort, and we do the decorations, and oftentimes, people will be spending money getting gifts and things like that, and preparing big meals, and having feasts, and just enjoying time with one another. People, when you ask, if you just went out and just asked random people just about Christmas and what's it all about, some people say, well, it's all about family, or it's all about the presents, or it's all about all these different things, and look, family's great, and fellowship is great, but it's not all about that. I mean, Christmas is literally all about Jesus. At least, it should be all about Jesus. Now, we should rejoice in the fact that a savior was born as a man into this world to bring salvation to all of us, right? And that's what we want to focus on, and that's what we wanna honor, and revere, and just call to remembrance, and be able to humbly and solemnly be able to recognize what was done for us, just even as a human race, that God loved his creation enough to send his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to come and die on the cross and pay for our sins. So, now, this morning, what I wanna cover a little bit is the title of my sermon is The Man, Christ, Jesus, which is derived from verse number five there in 1 Timothy chapter two. The Bible says, for there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. So, if you would, to Luke chapter two. And I'm not gonna get super deep in this. I did this last year. I preached on the deity of Christ. I also preached on how Christ also became a man because both are true 100% that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, and he was born of a woman. Of course, the Virgin Mary had a miraculous virgin birth, but his father was not Joseph. That was just like his stepdad because his father is God the father, right? And he was conceived of the Holy Ghost in Mary's womb when he was brought into this world, thus making him the son of man and the son of God simultaneously in this world. Now, I'm gonna cover some of that, but I really just wanna highlight, as we go through this, understanding the man, Christ Jesus, because what he did for us is so incredible, right? And taking aside an entire day to just focus on Christ is not enough, right? Because it's every day, really, we should be focused on our savior, Jesus Christ, for how awesome he is and what he did for us. But this understanding, this knowledge of Jesus Christ being a man and being born into this world as a baby is also just, it's incredible, it's astounding to think that it's one thing for, if we just were to, in our mind, just think of God just coming to this earth. If you were just, if someone were to make the statement, not just think about the Bible, just think of God coming down this earth, you're not gonna think of God being born as a baby, as an infant, as a suckling, as someone that needs to be taken care of and brought up and raised and everything else. You would just think God just showing up and like, boom, being able to have lightning coming out of his fingertips or whatever, right? That would just be what we would probably think is God's almighty, God's all powerful and would make his power and authority known, which is how God normally does present himself to mankind. I mean, when people come face to face with God in the scripture, they fall down on their face, their knees are smitten, but what's special and unique about Jesus, about the son of God coming into the world was that he came as a man, right? And he came in the form of a human being and lived amongst us. And there's so many great reasons for this and it's gonna be hard to kind of get into everything that I would like to this morning. But let's just start here in Luke chapter two, which covers the birth of Christ, of the man Christ Jesus. Of course, he was born of a virgin and he literally had to be nursed and grow as a human being because he was a human being. And when I make these statements, we're never forgetting that he's God in the flesh, right? So just for clarity, you gotta be able to take all of it, but you still have to be able to speak to the humanity of it and not have to always say like, of course, he's God in the flesh, of course, he's God. So just keep that in mind. It has nothing to do with trying to... Don't ever form a doctorate of like the Jehovah's Witness or the Mormons or something that just like to teach that Jesus was just a man, right? Because there's people out there who believe that stuff. And that's not what the Bible teaches at all. While yes, he was a man, he was absolutely God in the flesh. But look at verse number six there, just a little bit of the story surrounding his birth. The Bible says, and so it was that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And we see the humble beginning of Jesus Christ. His family was essentially on the road. There was a time of taxing and they were going to have to show up and to pay their taxes. And on the way, of course, there was no room in the inn. The Bible says right before that. And there are, yeah, right before that there are, or in this verse number seven, excuse me, there was no room for them in the inn. So like, you know, they're traveling, hotel's booked, essentially. There's no rooms available to actually take. So they have to just find shelter somewhere else as they're traveling. That's not quite as nice accommodations. And hey, when the baby's coming, the baby's coming, right? As we all know, you know, we like to plan as much as possible for births and the pregnancies. But when that baby wants to come out and it's time, then it's just gonna happen. You know, many people I think have had their babies delivered on the side of the road. They're driving to the hospital or whatever. You know, we had ours at home, a couple of them, prior to our midwives being there. And just, it's time to deliver, that's it. There's no going back, there's no waiting. Yeah, good luck telling mom, hold on a minute, just wait a little longer. You're like, yeah, right, not happening, right? This baby's coming out and you're just gonna have to catch. Something's gonna, there's no holding off on this. So when this happened, of course, you know, Jesus was born and they laid him in a manger. And we know, you know, we're very familiar with this story kind of in general. But one point real quick too, we can see there's evidence in scripture that the humble beginnings were really humble, that, you know, there's no appearance that his family had a lot of money. In fact, when we see also in Luke chapter two, when it talks about his purifying and it talks about bringing him into the temple and the circumcision on the eighth day and the sacrifice that needed to be given for a male child, it lists off, and I'm not gonna go through, I wasn't really planning on talking about this, but the offering that they gave was like two turtle doves. And in the law, this is one of the few sacrifices where this is the sacrifice, and I forget if it was like a kid of the goats or a bullock or something for the male child, but if you're not able to do that, then it's two turtle doves or, you know, like it was for those people who didn't have or maybe weren't able to afford, because let's face it, you know, you could have children and not necessarily have a lot of money and you're not gonna be able to produce the offering that might be required, so being able to have this other offering, and I'm looking for the specific verse, there it is, verse number 24. It says, and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Two young pigeons or a pair of turtle doves is not that hard to procure, right, for people of any means, just to get a couple of these birds to be able to offer as a sacrifice, and that is what they did here for Jesus, which indicates that they probably didn't have a lot of resources, a lot of money to them, and it kind of makes sense just knowing Jesus anyways that he did have humble beginnings, you know, his dad was a carpenter and he followed in that trade at least for a little while, and just a hardworking, you know, you would imagine that just a hardworking family, but just not really rich, not having a lot of goods in this world, and the humility of Christ as it is, that matches up perfectly from birth. Now look down there at verse number 46 in Luke chapter two. So Jesus was born as a baby, as needing to be cared for, and someone else looking after him in this world. Oh, and that was another point I wanted to make too. You know, we see in the scripture that when Mary conceived seed, that she was also referred to as being with child, and you know, I've preached sermons on this before, and how wicked abortion is, when you're literally taking the life out of a woman, that there's a life inside, that life is a child, and it doesn't matter how far developed the child is within the womb, it's still a child, and I just say this, I mean, those lives that are exterminated, what life could they have been if they'd been allowed to be born and grow? Like, imagine this, a family with humble beginnings, with a humble home that doesn't necessarily have a lot of money, because that's one of the reasons why people will choose to murder babies, is because, oh, I can't afford this, oh, I can't do this right now, oh, I'm not in a place to take care of a child or whatever. You know, what if Joseph and Mary just decided, you know what, we shouldn't have this baby, let's just go through and have an abortion, I mean, that's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Obviously, God wouldn't allow for that to happen, but with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, like, there's no way that that would have happened, there was a reason why Mary was chosen, they were God-fearing people, they loved the Lord, they were raising Jesus in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but just think about that, of who might be coming into this world that then just gets exterminated, I mean, that's crazy, it would be, we'd all be doomed if that happened to Christ. But look at verse number 46 here. But then it came to pass that after three days, they found him in the temple, so this is, later on, Jesus is still a child, he's still subject to his parents, and they were all leaving, and they thought that he was with other family members and just part of the group that they was traveling, but he hung back in Jerusalem and he was there talking with people in the temple, and when they realized that Jesus wasn't with the group, they came back to come and get him, and it says, this is what we're picking up in the story, verse 46, and it came to pass that after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions, so we see Jesus as a younger child, and I don't think it mentions specifically how old he is at this point, but obviously he's able to have conversations with people and talk and learn, and he was old enough for them to not be super worried about where he was in the group, so you imagine he's not just four or five or six years old, necessarily, just kinda like, oh yeah, well, maybe he's around here somewhere, right? But definitely still not so old where, you know, obviously he's still part of the family and they're coming back for him and he's remaining subject unto them and everything, but they see him in the temple and he's asking questions and hearing what they had to say, what these, the doctors of the law, what I mean, doctors isn't talking about like a medical doctor like we think of today, everyone that we usually deal with today is like medical doctors, we kinda think about that, these are doctors of the law, so these would be like, you know, people who just study the scripture and would know the Bible really well, these are the people that he's listening to what they have to say, and then also then asking some really good questions, and they're amazed, it says when they saw him, they were amazed, and his mother said unto him, or excuse me, verse number 47, and all that hurt him were astonished at his understanding and answers, so he's speaking to people who, you know, their life is kinda wrapped up in the word of God and being able to explain and expound the Bible and looking at the law, and they're amazed at, especially for his young age, I would imagine his understanding, so when they're talking about things, he's understanding, he's picking it up, and his answers, so when he's kind of talking back with them, talking back and forth, he's able to, they're amazed at his ability to understand things, and but what we also need to remember is that yes, he's God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, but he still was increasing in his understanding and his learning, he didn't come as an infant just having all knowledge, like, you know, the attributes of God is having all wisdom, knowledge, understanding, knowing everything, being all powerful, and being everywhere, but Jesus confining himself to human form took on some limitations. Now, God is still omnipresent, right? There's still these attributes, which is also why the Bible talks about it being a great mystery, so that, why my brain is just not firing on all cylinders this morning. Bible says great, there it is, great is the mystery of godliness, right? God was manifest in the flesh. I don't know why I could not just, I'm like turning the passage, like no, no, that's it. Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh, right? So the fact that God was even manifest in the flesh is a mystery for us, it's hard to really nail down and pinpoint and be able to specify how is this possible, right, that God can be, can have these confinements of being in the flesh, but at the same time still retaining his godhood and being God, it's hard to explain, we may not fully understand it now, and we might not ever fully comprehend it, but we believe it because the Bible is true and the Bible tells us about this. So I try not to get too specific on trying to nail down all the details on how that could be possible, because the Bible even says it's a mystery how that could happen, but we see from scripture, apparently, Jesus did have to grow and he had to increase in his wisdom and his understanding and he had to grow, and the reason why I'm making such a point of this is because that it helps us to be able to relate to our creator, to God, to Jesus directly, and that in itself is this incredible thing, I mean, as a god, and just think about the heart of God, the character of God, the love of God, if we were to think of ourselves, which would be a wicked thought to think of ourselves as a creator, but in our own small minds, the thought to even come up that, hey, I made all this stuff and the Bible says that we are and we're created for his pleasure, for God's pleasure, he made us, he made everything, he made the earth, he made the universe, he made mankind, he made all the creatures of the earth, but then had it in his heart and in his mind to then not just rule over us and lord over us, because, I mean, hey, he's God and God can do whatever he wants and we're his, we belong to him, we're his creation, God can do whatever he wants to do in all power, yet it came into his heart to come and be like one of his own creation and to live through this life. That, to me, is fantastic, it's amazing, it's wonderful to think that we have this God that does care so much for us as his creation and it isn't just some, you know, like some people look at the Bible like, oh, he's a mean God and everything, no, no, not at all. The love of God is awesome and he didn't have to become one of us in order to know us because God knows everything, right? He built us and created us, so he could still have that understanding, which to me implies he did that for our benefit also for us to have that connection to him, even in our minds of being able to comprehend that, that God isn't so distant to us and whether he became a man or not, for him, I don't think that would change anything. Do you understand what I'm saying? Because God knows everything and he knows our hearts, he knows our thoughts and he from his side can be just as close with us whether or not he became a man, right? But from our perspective, that makes it so much more incredible and so much more close that he decided to do that. And going back then and thinking that that came into God's heart, into God's mind to do that because he wanted us to know that he is a close savior and a God that's close at hand and someone that does care about us and love us to the point of humbling his own godhood to be born into this world as a child. Of course, God gets all the glory for this but it still demonstrates his love for his creation, his love for mankind and that is deserving of all praise from us, from his creation. Luke 2, 48 there, I didn't finish reading here, verse 48. The Bible says, and when they saw him, they were amazed and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that ye sought me? Wish ye not that I must be about my father's business. And so Mary sees him and says, hey, you know, why did you do this to us? Like, you know we were leaving and we left and we had to come back for you. Like, why did you do this to us? And then she says this and look, this is another reason why we are King James only because these words do matter a lot. We said, Mary says thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. Now, is that true? Is that what it, well, that is what Mary said. But how did Jesus respond to Mary? He said, well, how is it that you sought me? And then wished ye not, like, didn't you know that I must be about my father's business? So she said, you know, your father and I were looking for you. And he's like, no, don't you know that I need to be about my father's business? Now, was he talking about, was he out there building stuff as a carpenter? No, he wasn't there about Joseph's business because he wasn't referring to him. He was referring about the Heavenly Father, right? Because that's what he was about and it's a rebuke to Mary because, and the reason why I bring this up, modern versions will refer to Joseph not just in a quote by Mary, this is a quote of Mary, right? But as the narrator would refer to Joseph as being Jesus' father, but he really wasn't. He raised him as a father would, sure, but he wasn't his father. And that is a very important distinction when we understand the deity of Jesus Christ. And it's important enough, we know it's important because Jesus corrects, specifically saying, no, I must be about my father's business. When she addressed him with, hey, your father, you know, your father and I were looking for you. He answers about his father and corrects who that really is. And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. They didn't get it. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them because Jesus was without sin and still as a child in his parents' house, he was supposed to be in submission to their authority. And again, just that act of humility. As he's growing and understanding all these things and doctors are amazed at his understanding, at this point, you can argue that he probably knew more than Mary and Joseph did just in general with some wisdom, but he's still subject unto them. Which also, as a side note, highlights when God ordains subjection or submission, it doesn't matter who knows more or who's right. So in the household, you know, ladies, when the Bible says that you're supposed to be in subjection to your own husband, it doesn't matter if you're right and he's wrong and your way is better and his is worse. Doesn't matter. The only time where it would matter is if your husband would be commanding you to sin against God. If he's telling you something sinful, then that would be an area that's out of bounds because the husband is then outside of his realm of authority because he's in subjection to the Lord in all things and should never be commanding his wife to do something that would be against God's commandments. But here, which, and again, Joseph and Mary weren't telling Jesus to do anything that would be against God's commandments. He's subject unto them though. Hey, it's time to go. We have to go. Okay, we have to go. And then he was subject unto them and went along with it. So just, I mean, if Jesus can do it, right, we ought to be able to do that. And that goes, it's not just ladies at the home. I mean, that goes on the job. That goes with your boss. You're in a position where you're underneath someone. And look, I've had to deal with this my whole life. I've always worked for someone else. I've never owned my own business. So there's been times where I felt or was convinced that my idea was better and that my way is better or whatever, but it didn't matter because if the boss tells you to do it different and to do it a different way, then you say, yes, sir. It's okay. Doesn't mean you can't offer an alternative and say, well, you know what? I think this might be better. Oh, okay, yeah. No, I still want you to do it this way. That's when subjection gets tested, right? Because it's easy to be in obedience when you agree. Oh yeah, well, yeah. This is the right way, of course it's the right way. So I'm gonna do that. Great, everyone's happy. Subjection is really tested when you don't agree. That's when it really becomes apparent whether or not you have chosen to put yourself in subjection as would be commanded. Anyhow, this is Christmas time. I'm not trying to make anyone feel too bad, but it's just, I mean, I don't know. The Holy Spirit's leading me, I guess, because this was not specifically in my notes, but it is in the scripture. I was really just trying to get to verse number 52. I'm just reading context here, and it just kind of came out. Verse 52 says, and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. And they're just showing us, Jesus is still, so obviously he wasn't all knowing because he's increasing in wisdom, and he's increasing in stature, just meaning like physically, like he's physically still growing. He's not fully grown as a man yet. He's growing in stature. He's growing physically. He's also growing in his understanding and gaining more and more wisdom, also demonstrating the humanity of Christ, how he was a man, even though he's God in the flesh. Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter five. Romans five, we're gonna start reading in verse number 14, and this is a little segue, a little bit different from kind of the rest of the sermon. I wanted to bring it up anyways. There's a good point here that I think we need to understand because in the effort to keep our mind focused on Christ, at Christmas, right, to give the honor and glory to him, it's also a time, and we can't get around this, of giving of gifts, right? And I know for myself as a child, that's all I thought about. Like, you ask as a kid, what's your favorite holiday? My favorite was Christmas. Why? Because we all got gifts, you know? Like it was just fun. And obviously there's other things that play into that, but as a child, the answer was never, had anything to do with Jesus. It was, well, yeah, we gotta go to church. The church that we went to, they would have a Christmas Eve service regardless of the day, and it was like a candlelight service and stuff. So we did that every year, which, you know what? That was a great tradition. Unfortunately, the church didn't bring salvation, but there was an effort made to keep Jesus in Christmas, even with my family in my upbringing. But that's not what my thought was, okay? And hopefully I'm speaking more to the children now and less to the adults, but hey, if the shoe fits, you know. Gift giving is great. I'm not against it. I'm a big fan of it. I love buying gifts for people, or making gifts for people, or just giving gifts in general. It doesn't have to be the money at all. The giving of gifts is wonderful, but let's give them for the right reasons. One thing we should never do, I don't ever think, is just hang a price tag over a gift over someone's head. This is why I despise Santa Claus and the teaching of Santa Claus of like an elf on the shelf and everything else that's like, okay, look, you better be good or else you're not getting a gift. That is not a gift. And it works, and this is what's being taught, and it's sad, and look, I get it. I think most people probably don't think about this very much in depth. As with many of the other teachings of the world, many other influences of the world, a lot of times they're very subtle, but they get accepted as a culture. They get accepted as a people without really thinking about what does this really mean? And Santa Claus is probably one of the biggest things. I mean, we've got this holiday where we are honoring and celebrating the life of Jesus Christ and his birth into this world. Why? Because he's the savior of the world, and we're gonna give gifts to celebrate that, to just bring and honor and to recognition. We're celebrating the birth of Christ. It's a birthday, right? And as we would give gifts on people's birthdays, this is the best birthday for mankind, for everybody to celebrate. So we would celebrate in that giving of gifts, but then what does that turn into? Now all of a sudden you've got this other guy who has been given attributes of God. You've got this other guy that can see everything. You've got this other guy that somehow can just appear in your room with all the doors locked or in your house, right? Now look, who sees and knows everything? God. Who is able to appear in a room of people with the doors all being closed? Jesus. Right? Who knows whether you've been naughty or nice? God does, right? God knows all of our actions. He knows everything that we've done. But how do you receive the gift from God? Faith. Believe. Do you have to be good? Do you have to live a certain way? Do you have to follow a certain set of commandments? Absolutely not. But how is Santa Claus taught? Better be good for goodness sake, right? Isn't that how the song goes? Santa Claus is coming to town, so you better be good. Oh, do you wanna have gifts? Do you wanna have something good? Then you better be good, you better obey, you better do good things. Do you see how that teaching, I mean, that's, from a little child, you're telling them about this God, this lowercase g, God, that has these attributes of God, and you're teaching them about this person, and then they grow up and then they realize that's not real. But then you're also trying to teach them about the God of the Bible. Well, no, but he really does see everything. You can see where that might start to cast a little bit of doubt. And look, and I am not, I don't have problems with people kinda joking around with their kids, right, and having a little bit of fun, but this continual lying and propping up something that's false, I think that's not right. And we have to be able to draw the distinction between playing around with the kids and getting them to think, but then you always come up and be like, no, no, I'm just teasing you, I'm just joking, right? That's totally different from just propping up a lie and just building up this facade and this thing that's not real. And look, I grew up with this. I would go to bed at night and we'd leave out cookies and a glass of milk, and then you'd wake up and be like, look, look, the cookie was just crumbs left here, and the milk glass is there, and it's, you know, like, and you're led to believe, because your parents are just going right along. I mean, they're the ones bringing this to you. And for a long time, I thought it was all real. And then at some point in school, like, and I remember arguing with kids, no, no way, man, this is real. And I, like, one friend was going, no, I woke up one night and I saw, you know, my mom was out there putting the gifts under the tree, you know, like saying that he uncovered this and I just, I believed so much, I was just like, no way. Like, look, they might have been giving you gifts or whatever, maybe they knew, say, well, I wasn't coming to your house. Okay, but I know that this is real, you know? And why would I have such a conviction on that? Why would I ever think that my parents would deceive me so? And then I felt like such a fool when I finally did come to that conclusion realization. Like, I don't think they ever just came out and told me. You just kind of got old enough and figured out, like, wait, that's not real. And, you know, if you do this with your kids and you brought your kids in today, and now you're worried or upset that I'm spilling the beans on this, I'm not sorry. I'm not, you know, now I don't intentionally go out and try to like, you know, mess with how people are raising their kids. But if you bring your kids to church, you're gonna hear the truth. And I refuse to lie up here in the house of God, especially about something like this, and especially at this time of year. It's, this is what you're going to get, okay? And the kids deserve to know the truth and have no reason whatsoever to doubt. And look, parents don't do these things to make your children then, you know, just feed them a lie and over and over and over again over the years to just realize later and then feel like a fool. I felt like a fool. When I finally got old enough and understood, like, no, that's not right, that's hurtful. And like, I'm not a snowflake, or like, oh, I was abused as a child because, you know, like, but it does shake the faith, okay? And it's not that hard to then see how, it's like, well, what else isn't real? The Easter bunny ain't real, the tooth fairy ain't real. And you're trying to tell me God's real. And I can't see any of these things, right? But look at Romans chapter five, and this is why it is such a big deal. I talk about the gifts and I talk about, you know, not, you don't have to be good to receive the gift. And I know as a parent, you love having those incentives, right? But I don't hang the gifts over the head because I don't wanna confuse the concept of a gift with my children. And it can be hard sometimes because you might just be quick to, you know, it's easy to take some things away from kids when they're not listening, when they're not doing right, you wanna punish them, like, oh, you're spending too much time on this device, so I'm gonna take that device away from you for a while because it's gotten out of control, you have these boundaries, you know. But don't do that with gifts. And I would say even especially at Christmas time. I don't think I've ever done it, I'd like to say I never have. At Christmas time for sure, like, where I've ever said, well, you're not gonna get any gifts if you don't clean your room or do this. Because I have a conviction on this, that we're driving home the importance of the freeness of salvation and what the gift of God is. And that there's not this association with having to do good works in order to receive a gift. Look at verse number 14 in Romans chapter five, the Bible reads, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense, so also as the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense, death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience, many were main sitters, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And this is showing us that the righteousness, it was the righteousness of Christ that brings life, not the righteousness of man. Man brought sin into the world, Christ brought righteousness into the world. The righteousness is received as a gift. Hey, the transgression was brought in and it just passed on to all men, but the gift is brought in by one man, by Jesus Christ. He bought it, he paid for it, he lived the righteous life, he did the work for it. But for us, it's a gift. And we honor and recognize this is why I said I like giving gifts at Christmas time, just to show the great gift that Christ made for us, that's available to everyone. And to rejoice in the gift that Jesus Christ came as a man to this earth and was raised and grew in wisdom and stature and was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. And he did it and he had the victory and he led the way and he was actually able to live the perfect sinless life that we all fall short of. He was able to do it and then he offered up himself as that sacrifice to make the payment for our sins so that he could give this gift to whosoever would call on his name, to whosoever would put their faith and their trust in him. And then he's faithful and just to give them his righteousness and to give them that free gift of eternal life. Look at Isaiah chapter 53. Almost done. When we think about the life of Jesus Christ and the man Jesus Christ that was born into this world. We also have to look at the trials that he went through and the suffering that he went through for us because this was all voluntary. This was of his will, out of his love, knowing in advance what he had to do and what he had to go through, knowing before he was born into this world because Jesus Christ is God, just like the Bible talks about Melchizedek which is a reference to Jesus Christ, without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end of life. Jesus Christ is eternal because he's God. So Jesus Christ knew the plan coming into this world and what he was going to do and he knew what needed to be done and he did it and he fulfilled the whole will of God in spite of the shame. And I don't know from God's perspective what would be harder to deal with, whether it be the physical pain and suffering that he had to deal with or the fact that you are the son of God and you're being treated that way. You know what I'm saying? And I don't mean, there's nothing even proud about that. That's just a fact. I mean, this is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and you're the creation. And Jesus is like, I created you. And you're doing this, right? Like that in itself is a lot. And then on top of that, everything that was done to him and then on top of that, he did everything right and he didn't hurt anyone and he brought healing and he was only bringing good and he wasn't coming to judge. He wasn't, there's no reason for anybody to be so angry with Jesus that they would wanna do and torture him the way that they did. No reason. He brought healing. He brought the word of God. He brought goodness and light into this dark world and still that was done to him. And even in instances where he could have been the judge, right, for example, the woman caught in adultery that was brought to him, that wasn't his purpose in coming to this world. He's coming back and he's coming back to judge. Don't, you know, I mean, don't get me wrong, but the goal and the purpose of him being born into this world is why we rejoice so much, especially is just that he's coming to bring forgiveness, he's coming to bring mercy, he's coming to bring love and eternal life, ultimately. But Isaiah 53 just really gets us into the heart and the mind of Christ and before it ever even happened, prophesize all the sufferings and everything that Christ had to go through. Again, just showing, of course he knew in advance what he was gonna have to go through. But look at verse number one, the Bible reads, who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. And I mean, just speaking to just the beginnings of his physical birth here in this world, it says he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. So it wasn't this lavish ground that he was brought up in. Right, he didn't have every, it was a dry ground, sour enough to get a start in the dry ground. And then it says he hath no form nor comeliness and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Jesus didn't have this natural beauty in man's eyes of like, wow, look at how handsome that man is. We guapo, right? No, that wasn't Jesus. He wasn't that particularly nothing noticeable about him. There was nothing that made him stand out as like, well, of course this must be the son of God. You know what I mean? Just a common man. I'm not saying he was beaten with the ugly stick, he was just a normal guy. Like he was just a normal looking man, nothing that you would give him an advantage. He's born in a dry ground. Everything about him was just pretty ordinary except the fact that he's the son of God, right? But his beginnings were definitely humble. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. And just that alone, the son of God coming into this world, being despised, being rejected, he felt sorrow. He knew grief. We was well acquainted with grief. He knew what it felt like to be sad and to be sorrowful and to be hurt. And it says that his own creation were ashamed of him and would hide their face from him. Oh, I don't wanna be seen with that guy. Or I don't wanna be like, really? Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. So in spite of all of this, Jesus still went through and took all the griefs. He took that burden. He took everything. He took our sin, but he took our griefs. He carried our sorrows. Says, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. No, he's taking your stuff. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He wasn't the one that was deserving of God's wrath. No, you are. But he's taking that for you. And the people didn't even understand that and he still did it anyways. And we wanna talk about a good example on how we all live our life. You do what's right and you do what the will of God is. Even if other people don't understand that and can't comprehend that, you just do it anyways. You just do it because it's right, because it's what you're supposed to do. And look, in the end, did people figure it out and understand? Yeah, in the end, they did. At the time, they didn't really know or very few people knew. But the fact that he persisted brings that much more honor and glory. And that's what we need to remember is that you need to persist. Don't faint, don't get weary in well-doing. He was wounded for our transgressions, verse number five, and he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him with his stripes. We are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Now turn to Hebrews 2, it's the last place I just wanna look at. I wanna explain a little bit more through that. Isaiah 53 is a wonderful passage, so much greatness there. It's clearly referring to Jesus Christ. There's so many references from the New Testament that this isn't, Isaiah 53 is not like many of the other passages in the Old Testament where you might have a couple of verses that are real prophetic, but then kind of the rest of the passage isn't so much as prophetic about Jesus. Whereas Isaiah 53 is like, it's all about Christ. It's like this is all just talking about him and what he did, which is awesome because it really gives us a lot of insight into what he did for us and why we're so happy that this Savior was born into this world and why we care so much about that. And we ought to have that much more respect for him seeing, look, don't forget what he went through. And after everything, teach your children. And if you don't have children, show the respect for yourself, for him, right? Amongst yourselves at home, when you celebrate Christmas, put time aside. As you all are doing this morning coming to church and we're hearing the word of God preached, I would say in addition to just hearing the word of God from church, have your own devotion to the Lord, especially on Christmas where you can just say, you know what, I'm gonna stop everything right now for a set amount of time and I'm gonna pray to God, I'm gonna thank God for what he did for us and give him the honor and glory. And I recommend this to tomorrow, start your day off that way. If you choose to celebrate Christmas, I doubt there's any here that doesn't. I mean, if you don't, that's fine, you don't have to. Okay, you don't have to celebrate Christmas as a holiday and you're not like not right with God if you choose not to, okay? I just, just throwing it out there. I don't know if there's anyone like that here. I wouldn't think any less of you, but here's the deal, like it's not just one day. Obviously, we should always be giving our thanks and showing reverence to Jesus Christ and to God the Father and to the Holy Ghost because of what is done for us, right? I mean, this should be a part of our daily life, but if you choose, especially if you choose to celebrate a day that would honor the birth of Christ, put aside that time and make sure that that is you know, what is leading the celebration. More, that surpasses everything else. The family time, the fellowship time, the gift giving time, like all of that is all because of Christ. So don't lose sight of that. Don't lose sight of what he did. Don't lose sight of everything that he went through and his love to bring us the gospel and to bring us the eternal life that we don't deserve. Hebrews chapter two, I wanna close on this passage here. Look at verse number nine. The Bible reads, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man. The grace of God wasn't for him, it's for you. It wasn't God's grace that he tasted death. It was God's grace for Jesus to taste death. It was God's grace for you that he tasted death for every man. And I mean, if you think about it, he was made a little lower than the angels. First of all, just being made lower on the totem pole or on the power of his own creation, so he's made lower. And then what was he made for? For death. He was born to die. That was his goal, that was his mission. And obviously, it's more broader than that because he was born to bring light, he was born to bring the truth, he was born to be righteous and to fulfill the law. He was born to do many things, but ultimately, if you really just kind of encapsulate those real things, he was born to die, but he was not only born to die, he was born to die and rise again. Right, he came into this world, we celebrate his birth because it's such a great day to just think on it and look, we know that December 25th, probably wasn't the day that he was born like literally in a calendar. But that doesn't bother me whatsoever. And again, if that bothers you and you choose not to, that's fine, do what you wanna do, this isn't something in scripture tells us you must celebrate Christmas. I just don't see anything wrong in honoring our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and that's what it's, making this day about celebrating the birth of Christ, I think it's wonderful. And I still think it's a great opportunity to bring the gospel to a lost world. People talk about the pagan roots and everything, all this other stuff with Christmas and history and everything else. Look, here's what I see about Christmas. One, I see God's people celebrating the birth of Christ. Now, of course, not everyone in the world is doing that. Some people are doing all these other things and have all these other traditions and do their different things or whatever. But this is what we do, this is what I do, and this is what many, many, many other people do too. This is not unique for us or our group or our church or my family or something to just be focusing on the birth of Jesus Christ. Of course not. But it also brings out, you know what I mean, even the hymns, like the hymns that we sing, those are being out in public still. Yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff out, there's a lot of things that have nothing to do with Jesus out there, of course. But just the fact that there's this day or this time of year where there's much more exposure to the truth, to, you know, like I see that as a win. I do, I see that as a positive thing. As opposed to, let's say everyone just chose, like, no, let's just not celebrate Christmas. Now you don't have this opportunity to put good truth, scripture, great hymns, great truths out into the public very often. You'd just be eliminating one more opportunity for that. So anyways, I don't wanna go on and on about that. That's not really what the sermon's about. Let's continue reading here in Ephesians chapter two because I wanna just get through this and we'll call it a morning. Verse 10 reads, for it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him and again, behold, I and the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels. Again, this reference to, you know, he was not made in the likeness of an angel, but of men. But he took on him the seed of Abraham. Verse 17, wherefore in all things that behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. And this is just my last point on Jesus Christ being born and being born a man, not being born an angel, not being born anything higher than what we are when he came into this world. He took on the seed of Abraham, a man in the flesh, and he considers us his brethren. How much more endearing from your creator, from your Lord, from your Savior, from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords can you get than to call you a brother? Call you a brother, like that's mind-blowing. That God cares that much to treat you as family with him. That's what a brother is, is your family. And look, we're adopted children, we're born of the word of God, we're born of that seed that's planted spiritually, we have this new life and this new birth through Christ. It has nothing to do with our righteousness, but God wants that connection, he wants that with us. He's given us that choice, he's given us everything. That gift is available, it's out there, it's there. Let's let the world know. And why did he use verse 17? It behooved him to be like, why, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest. He did all this so that he could be merciful. Merciful and faithful, right, both simultaneously. God has great mercy. It's a great reason to rejoice and be happy. There is mercy, you are wicked, there is mercy. You're a sinner, but there's mercy, there's forgiveness. God loves you and he still wants, he wants to have this great familial relation with you. This is what it's all about. This is why we focus so much on trying to reach souls. The gospel of Christ, because we received that gift. And those of us that have received it, we know it's free. And he did all the work for it. And that's the best gift you could ever receive. But as we celebrate Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of Christ, hey, don't lose sight of the freeness of that gift. Let's share that gift with everyone. If you don't, and this is the best thing about this gift, you don't need any money to give that gift. To help other people receive that gift requires zero dollars. Just a little bit of your time. Let other people know about the best gift you could ever receive in the world. Gift of eternal life. Dear Lord, thank you so much for loving us. We thank you for everything. Lord, we thank you for your goodness, for your mercy. God, help us as sinners to put away the lusts of our flesh. Help us to continue to reach more people with the gospel. And Lord, thank you for the gift. I pray that you please bless these special days that we use to honor you. And Lord, help us to just be refocused in our hearts and our minds to serve you and to praise you for the great gift of salvation. We love you, it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we're gonna sing one last song before we are dismissed this morning. Brother Peter, will you please lead us? All right church, if you could grab your psalms, hands, and spirit of psalms, reminder. Open up to, O come, O come, Emmanuel. Of course, we're supposed to end with a reminder. O come, O come, Emmanuel. All right, let's sing the psalm in the first. O come, O come, Emmanuel. In rest of that dear Israel. That mourns in all the exile. O come, O come, Emmanuel. In rest of that dear Israel. That mourns in all the exile. O come, O come, Emmanuel. In rest of that dear Israel. That mourns in all the exile. O come, O come, Emmanuel. O come, O come, Emmanuel. Our spirit by thy method year, Disperse the gloomy glass of your kind, And cast your shadows full of fire. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel, Shall come to thee, O Israel. O come, thou wisdom from on high, And order all things far and wide. To us the path of knowledge show, And pause us in her ways to love. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel, Shall come to thee, O Israel. O from desire of nations bind, All peoples to our heart and mind, Will in each strife and quarrel cease, Fill the whole world with heaven's peace. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel, Shall come to thee, O Israel.