Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
All
right.
Well, good evening.
Great to be able to gather together as we worship the Lord,.
Especially as we think about the great gift that he's given us in the coming of the Son
this time of year.
Not sure what happened there, but we'll just push through.
Well, as we open up our time together, let's come before the Lord in prayer and ask for his blessing as we come to our
time this evening.
Let's pray together.
Well, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us.
We thank you that we have yet another opportunity to come together and to be reminded of the great and
precious gift you gave us in the coming of the Son.
So as we read about the story of how the Son came into the world, sing and as we
reflect on your word, we pray that in all of these things that you would be lifted up and glorified.
We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake.
Amen.
If I can invite you to stand and we'll start with a song.
See, the Virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.
And then in chapter 9, verse 6,
the prophet says this.
For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the
government will be on his shoulders.
He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal
Father, Prince.
Of
God's
redemptive
plan,
hundreds
of
years
after
Isaiah
spoke
those
prophetic
words.
That we just heard, God in the fullness of time began to
implement his redemptive plan as it impacted specific
people in space and time.
And that story is told to us in Luke chapter 1, beginning in
verse 26.
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee
called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph of the
house of David.
The virgin's name was Mary.
And the angel came to her and said, Greetings, favored woman,
the Lord is with you.
But she was deeply troubled by this statement, wondering what kind of greeting this could be.
Then the angel told her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Now listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him
Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no
end.
Mary asked the angel, How can this be, since I have not had sexual relations
with a man?
The angel replied to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the
Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore, the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.
And consider your relative Elizabeth.
Even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the
sixth month for her who was called childless.
For nothing will be impossible with God.
I am the Lord's servant, said Mary.
May it be done to me according to your will.
Then the angel left her.
Let's continue our singing, if you wouldn't mind standing and.
Join
in
song
at
our
next
carol.
And
the
story
continues.
The
birth
Jesus
Christ
came
about.
This way.
After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that
she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.
So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly,
decided to divorce her secretly.
But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.
Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.
See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name
him Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.
You may be seated.
Well, as we continue, as you just heard, Mary had just given birth.
In the city of David, interestingly enough, maybe
not surprising, that birth took place in the town
where the throne of David existed, fulfilling the promise that
Isaiah foretold.
And as we continue in the story, it's interesting to note who finds out first
about the birth of this unique child, the Son of God.
I'll be reading from Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through 15.
In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their
flock.
Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord
shone round them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, Don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news
of great joy that will be for all the people.
Today in the city of David, a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah,
the Lord.
This will be the sign for you.
You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth, lying in a manger.
Suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly host, with the angel
praising God, saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on
earth to people, he said.
When the angels had left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to
one another, Let's go straight to Bethlehem and to see what has happened, which
the Lord has made known to us.
So the humbling of God to be a man was first announced to the humblest of those in
society, the shepherds.
And we'll sing about that, if you'll please stand, and we'll continue in song.
Have a seat.
In addition to the shepherds getting that news first, we have the
cosmos announcing the arrival of this baby.
And some people saw it, and they came to check it out.
Matthew chapter 2.
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from
the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?
For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.
Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child.
When you find him, report back to me, so that I too can go and worship him.
After hearing the king, they went on their way, and there it was, the star they had seen as it's
rising.
It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was.
When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.
Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling to their knees, they
worshiped him.
Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts, gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.
And you know God's word tells us that when he comes again, the cosmos will announce it.
It's
been
great
to
be
reminded
and
mighty
works
God in
bringing
about
coming.
Of the Savior and to be reminded of that both in song and by tracing the story as
we come to God's word.
In a lot of ways, I don't really have a lot to add to that, but we are going to spend a little time in God's word.
So if you have a copy of God's word, if I take it and turn with me to Galatians 4.
Galatians chapter number 4.
It's going to read four verses.
Galatians chapter 4 and verses 4 through to 7.
Galatians 4, 4 through 7.
God's word says to us that when the time came to completion, God sent his son,
born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those
under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then God has made you an heir.
I pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it.
As we come to it, let's pray and ask for his help.
And then we'll spend just a few moments thinking about this passage.
Well, Heavenly Father, we ask that as we come to
this passage, we come to what it has to teach us about this season which
we celebrate.
Pray that even in this time, your spirit would be at work using the simple message of your word to
open our eyes, to see wonderful things.
We ask all this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.
Well, I don't know your experience with Christmas gifts.
I personally think all Christmas gifts land in one or two categories, things that are useful and things that are useless.
And there is very rarely, let's be honest, there's very rarely a middle ground in between.
You usually get a gift that's actually great and useful, and you sometimes
get a gift that you feel like, I really don't need this.
I forget the number now, but it's something in the hundreds of millions of dollars that's spent every year in
returning gifts on Amazon.
In fact, they've made it so easy now that when your gift comes, they include a little note.
All you have to do is scan the little QR code.
Person doesn't even need to know you returned it.
And they'll either, you know, give the money back to them or they'll give the money to you in Amazon credit and you go use it for what you want.
I won't say how many times I've used that over the years, but let's just say I'm very well versed in that system.
The reality is we all know what it is to be given gifts that we neither want nor need.
We all know that there's an awkwardness that comes with that because you can't really go to the person who gave you the gift and say, yeah, I don't need
this.
That's just maybe not the most polite thing to do.
So you can't really do that.
So what do you do when you get a gift that you can't use or need?
Well, I'm not going to embarrass anyone.
Actually, there's no one in this room who's given me a gift I didn't need, thankfully.
But we all know people who have given us useless and pointless gifts.
But the reality is unlike useless and pointless gifts, for a few moments, I want to talk to you about a gift that God has
given that is neither useless nor pointless, that actually is the best possible gift
that He could give.
We are in Galatians 4.
We're actually parachuting right into the context of Galatians itself.
This is a letter that's written by the Apostle Paul, and he writes this letter to an area,
actually, not just to one church, to an area, to a region of churches.
And these churches have unfortunately started to lose their grip on the good news of the
gospel.
And as they're losing their grip on the good news of the gospel, Paul writes this letter to basically
remind them, this is the gospel I preach to you.
Please, if you wouldn't mind, get back to it.
And as he comes to chapter 4, he's starting to turn the page a little bit.
For much of this letter, he's been very to the matter.
He's been very factual.
He's been very doctrinal in his approach as you come to this letter.
But as you come to Galatians chapter 4, he's beginning to turn the curve a little bit and deal more
with the experience of these Christians.
But before he could even get to that, he has to ground that reality in some basic truths.
And it's those basic truths that I want us to consider for a few moments as we come to Galatians 4 verses 4
through 7.
Because in this passage, Paul is going to remind them of the gift of God that came in the person
of the Lord Jesus, a gift that never becomes useless, a gift that can truly change your life.
And the reason it can do that is because this gift, unlike any other gift, well, in a sense, all gifts originate from
God.
But there's something about this particular gift that originates in the heart and the
mind of God Himself and not man.
And so for a few moments, I want us to consider that great and precious gift that God gave us in the person of the Son.
And I want to consider this under a few headings.
First of all, I want you to consider that God's gift came at the right time.
God's gift came at the right time.
So do you see how this passage begins, verse 4?
When the time came to completion, I grew up on the King James Bible.
In the King James Bible, it says, in the fullness of time,
in the fullness of time, when the time had come to its completion, God sent
His Son.
Well, the question is, well, the time for what?
Well, I think the clue actually comes to us in the context.
Hopefully, you've got Galatians 4 open in front of you.
Look at verse 1.
Paul says, now I say that as long as the heir is a child, he differs in no way from a slave, though he, excuse me, is
owner of everything.
Instead, he is under guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.
In the same way, when we were children, we were in slavery under the elements of the world.
And then he comes to verse 4.
When the time came to completion, the time for what?
Well, the time for us to no longer be under guardians and trustees, for us to be under the law.
When that time came to completion, God sent His
Son.
It's interesting that he ties this in verse 3 to the fact that because all mankind has failed to keep God's
law, all mankind is basically under slavery.
That all mankind is bound by the fact that they are unable to keep God's law.
And as a result, they are in slavery to sin, they are in slavery to the devil, and even in slavery to their own
flesh.
The reality is, I say this often, but our world likes to vaunt how free it is,
allegedly.
We are very good at pounding our chests, I hate to say, especially in this country, where part of the lore and legend of this
country is its freedom from an oppressive power, who, yes, they were oppressive at that point.
But the reality is we can sometimes have this idea that we are free people, and that
means what exactly?
Because I would put it to you that actually the Bible's understanding is that the only
genuinely free people are those who are freed from sin.
In fact, Jesus said, John 8, 34, that everyone who commits sin is a slave.
I believe he was that great urban philosopher, Bob Dylan.
I believe Bob Dylan had a song, you could be a general or a private, you could
be a rich man or a poor one.
But how does that song go?
You've got to serve somebody.
There's an element of truth to that statement.
Actually, I think it's one of the best Bob Dylan's.
Bob Dylan wrote a lot of good songs, actually.
But that's one of his better ones, especially.
Because the reality is, if you're a human being, you will serve somebody.
And the question is, who will you serve?
Well, for all of mankind outside of Jesus Christ, mankind is in slavery to sin.
But there was a point in time where God had said, okay, enough is enough of that.
I am stepping in.
And so the text is that when the time came to completion, God
sent His Son.
The law had accomplished its purpose of revealing who God is and exposing our need
for a Savior.
And when that time had come to an end, the Bible says that God sent
God's gift arrived at the right time.
But not only did it arrive at the right time, secondly, I'll have you know that it came in the right form, that it came in the right
form.
Because again, look at our passage.
It says that when the time came to completion, in the fullness of time, God sent His Son,
born of a woman, born under the law.
It's interesting that God's answer to the problem of sin and the problem of our failure to keep His law was not to send an
angel.
It was not some huge cosmic event.
It was not sending another prophet.
I mean, He had sent lots of prophets up to this point, but all the prophets He had sent were pointing to the fact that there was one who would come,
and yet the ones who were sent weren't the one who was coming.
He didn't even just make a huge cosmic amnesty in the sky.
He didn't just, as it were, unfold a massive scroll over the earth and just announce, forgiveness is here, don't worry
about it.
No, God's way of dealing with the problem was, you see that in the text, says that God sent His
That God gave the most precious, it feels sacrilegious to call Him a thing.
English fails me at this point.
But He sends His Son, the best that He has.
And note what Paul says about this Son that's sent.
He highlights two key aspects of who this Son is.
He says that God sent His Son.
He says two things about Him.
Did you notice that in verse 4?
He says that He was born of a woman, and He was
born under the law.
Born of a woman, that's the first major thing that Paul notes for us.
And that's just simply pointing to the fact that He was virgin born.
That unlike the rest of humanity, where your parents came together,
and when they came together they both contributed something for you to be here.
I would comment on our society where increasingly you hear people say, we don't need men.
But you needed men to get here though.
But that's a conversation for another time.
Let me just simply note that every human being is a product of a man and a woman coming together.
But Jesus wasn't.
The Son who came was the only one of whom it could be said He was born purely of a woman.
Going all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, where God had said that He would send a
seed, an offspring that would come from the woman, and through that one
the problem of sin would be dealt with.
Well, Paul very cleverly connects the Son to that promise
and says that the Son is born of a woman.
But he doesn't just say He's born of a woman.
That is absolutely true.
In fact, we read that in Isaiah chapter 7.
But notice what else he says.
He says born of a woman, born under the law.
Born under the law.
Well, what does Paul mean by that?
Well, you've got to consider this in the light of this book.
One of the big problems that these churches in this region were facing was an incorrect understanding of the relationship
between God's law and God's good news.
They were thinking that, or they were being told I should say, that if you keep God's law,
you can earn for yourself a salvation that sticks.
And Paul's basically saying, oh no, no, no, in this letter.
Actually, that isn't how that works.
The only salvation that sticks is the one that comes through the Son.
But to make the point that the law is important, I think that's why Paul says here that He was born under the
law.
That He was born under the obligation that all of us are born under, to keep God's law
perfectly.
Our fathers in the faith used to put it like this.
They said that God demanded of us perfect, exact, entire, and perpetual obedience.
Perfect.
Not 99 .95, 100%.
Exact.
The very things that He asks of us.
Entire.
All of the things that He asks of us.
And perpetual.
You can't say, well, I obeyed yesterday.
That's good enough.
Nope.
Got to obey yesterday, today, and pretty much till the end.
None of us can do that.
But the beautiful thing is that Christ comes into the world under that exact obligation.
And where every single one of us has failed, He gloriously and perfectly succeeds.
That He rendered to the Father perfect worship.
That He offered to God complete reverence, even unto the end.
That even at the level of His affections and His desires as a man, that they were
submitted fully to the Father.
So Paul can say that the Son that God has sent was born of a woman.
He was born of a virgin.
And by the way, that means He didn't have original sin the way that we all do.
And He was born under the law.
He rendered to God perfect obedience.
Succeeding where we had failed.
And so God sends His Son at the right time.
He comes in the right form.
I know with you very quickly that He also sends His Son who meets the right needs.
That He sends His Son who meets the right needs.
So again, look at this passage.
Now we're in verse 5.
Why does He send the Son?
Verse 5, to redeem those under the law.
So that we might receive adoption as sons.
Two reasons that He gives, a negative and a positive.
In the negative, the Son comes to redeem those who were under the law.
We were in slavery because of our failure to keep the law.
But here's what happens.
Christ comes in, sees us in that state and says, no, I will pay the price to free them
from their sin.
This language of redemption goes all the way back to the Exodus.
That great event where God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt and brought them
into freedom out of their slavery.
And Paul picks up that language and says that we were enslaved to sin, not much different to the children of Israel being enslaved to
Egypt.
But God did a mighty thing just like He did in the Exodus.
He did a mighty thing in bringing us out of that slavery.
And how did He do it?
By paying a price.
That's what that word redeem means here in this passage.
It means to pay the price to free someone out of their slavery.
Jesus' perfect life, that life of obedience, culminated in the greatest act of obedience.
He went to the cross and as He goes to the cross, that perfect life and that satisfying death
combine together to enable a payment for sin that sticks like nothing
else.
And so in the cross, we find salvation ultimately.
That's the negative that we were under the law, but we've been redeemed from it.
But there's a positive here too.
And the positive, did you notice that in verse 5?
It says to redeem those under the so that we might receive
adoption as sons.
God doesn't just, as it were,
in 2020, I got my first and only speeding ticket.
I was, I don't even contest it, I was speeding.
So I was speeding.
I had a good reason, but again, the law doesn't care about that, does it?
I was speeding.
It was actually a state trooper who got me.
Yeah, the Roe Valley Expressway got caught somewhere on that.
And yeah, he gave me a ticket for 265 bucks.
But he did say, well, if this is your first time, which it was, you're a very cautious driver.
So if it's your first time, well, you can do, if you call the court, they'll give you some information.
Go do a online traffic course and we'll slap 50 bucks off.
And if you do the course, after a certain period of time, it will drop off your record.
It didn't drop off my record because it was during COVID, so they forgot.
Got kicked off my hot car insurance and everything.
It's not a good time.
Eventually, they did make it right.
But why did I bring that up?
When I went to the courthouse and they said, okay, have you done this?
You got a certificate?
Okay, great.
What happened in that moment?
My record was cleared.
Did I enter into a relationship with the people at the courthouse?
No.
I have fulfilled my obligation to the law.
I paid my fine.
I did my class.
One could argue they didn't quite keep their obligation to me, but that's okay.
I didn't find out, by the way, three years later, but anyway.
But did I enter into a relationship with the folks at the Jackson County Courthouse?
No, I didn't.
But here's what God does in the cross.
You see, in the cross, He doesn't just redeem us from our sins.
He adopts us into His family.
And did you notice that Paul says that we might receive adoption as sons?
That was not the sexist book, but it is a book that reflects the reality of the times in which it was written in the ancient Greco -Roman world.
You know who had the right to inherit?
It was sons, not daughters.
When Paul says that we might receive, he could have just said that we might be adopted into the family and could have ended it there, but he
doesn't say that, does he?
No, he says that so that we might receive adoption as sons, that we
don't just become part of the family, but we become those who inherit.
It's interesting, John in his opening to his gospel, John chapter 1 verses 12 and 13.
In fact, let me read it real quick.
John chapter, if you want to turn there, it might take me a second.
John chapter 1 verses 12 and 13.
Remember what John says there if you're familiar with this?
It says in verse 11, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him, but verse 12, to all
who did receive him, he gave them the right, literally the authority,
to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of natural descent or of the
will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.
Those who come to know the son, don't just come to know the son
in a general sense.
No, they come to know the son and they come to know the father, and as they come to know the father and the son, they
become those who inherit.
That not only do we have a cleared ledger before God, as it were, he positively
welcomes us into his family.
Two of the greatest needs we have, the problem of our sin and the problem of our alienation with God, both dealt
with in the person of the son.
So God's gift that we have seen arrived at the right time.
It came in the right form.
It met the right needs.
If you follow it carefully, it will take you to the right destination.
It will take you to the destination.
So look at verse six.
He says,
Did you notice the kind of progression in Paul's words here?
So he starts off by saying that, verse seven,.
But through this mighty work of God, through which he's now
able to adopt us into his family, you are now sons.
But no longer are you now just sons.
He says, no, now you are heirs as a result.
That those who were outside, the most outside, are now the most in,
if you will.
That everything that God has becomes available to us because of
the person of the son.
How do we know this?
Verse six, he says,
There we were, outside the family of God.
In fact, we were enemies of God.
We were the furthest thing from family.
But then God acted.
And as a result, those who were once his enemies are now members of
his family.
And to give us proof of that, the Bible says that he has sent the spirit of his son, verse six, into our hearts.
The spirit, the Bible tells us elsewhere, Ephesians chapter one, that he is the down payment of our
inheritance.
When I was back in the UK, they still have this store.
We used to have a store called Argos.
Really weird name.
Argos means idle in Greek or out of order.
Never know why they went with that as a name.
But the name of the shop is Argos.
And Argos had this very interesting way of ordering.
They had a huge catalog.
And every item in the catalog had what they called a catalog number.
So when you wanted to buy your item, you went to Argos.
And in case you forgot the catalog number, they had these huge laminated catalogs you could look through.
You'd then look through, find your item.
You'd write the little number or numbers, plural.
You'd go to the cashier.
You'd give them the slip.
They'd punch the numbers in.
You'd pay.
But here's the thing.
When you paid in that moment, they didn't give you your items.
What they gave you was a receipt, a proof of purchase.
You then went to another part of the store and they'd call out your number and out would come your items from their warehouse.
It's one of the weirdest systems I've ever encountered for ordering things.
But people love it.
It's still around today.
Here's the thing.
When you make that purchase, so you just think, my mom used to send me to Argos all the time to go get like random like house
appliances and stuff.
Curtain rods, that one comes to mind actually.
I had to go pick up some curtain rods.
So I go, I pick up the curtain rods.
I pay.
I know the system because again, I've been to Argos long enough.
When they gave me the receipt, is the receipt my curtain rods or my mom's curtain rods?
It's a proof that I've paid for it.
Did I just walk out the store and say, go home and say, mom, I've got your curtain rods.
I could.
It wouldn't end well for me.
Some of you have met my mom.
Do not let her small size and nice mouth fool you.
My mom can get real vicious when she wants to.
That would not end well for me.
Something about a manual reset to the back of the head.
No, the receipt says you've paid.
You've just not received yet.
The Bible uses that language to speak of the Holy Spirit that we have not inherited yet.
That awaits for the resurrection and the new creation that we'll go into.
Until then, God says, let me give you an assurance that I'm coming back for you.
Let me give you this receipt.
Oh, by the way, unlike me, I've lost the receipts before in Argos.
Not a good feeling.
Unlike a human receipt that you can lose, that stuff can happen to it.
This receipt is permanent.
It's called the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Paul says that the Spirit is there to do one thing.
He cries out that you are a child of the father,
which means one day you will go and be where your father is.
This year I've had the privilege to do a number of funerals for folks and some of the funerals I've done have been for believers.
And it's a joy to be able to remind the family in the midst of their grief that, yes, we're committing
your loved one to the ground.
That the word of God is fulfilled, that when one dies, they go back to the ground for whence they came.
But as I told, what was the last funeral I did actually?
I told the family, yes, we're committing your loved one to the ground, but let's be sure the ground doesn't get to keep them.
That one day, the one who purchased your loved one will come back and take what they paid
for.
That's the great goal.
That's the great hope of every Christian.
And until that day, when we become full heirs of all that God has promised us, he sends his
Spirit to remind us, even in our failures and even in our weakness, that we
are sons.
But here's the thing, that's not automatic.
It's not that everybody becomes a son.
It's not everybody who will inherit.
You see, all that God has done in sending the son at the right time, in sending him in the right form,
in him meeting the right needs, in him leading us to the right destination, all of that
ultimately calls for the right response.
Really, there are only two responses.
You can believe in this son and thus receive all that comes
with him, or you cannot and thus not receive
all that comes with him.
Everything, okay, but Kofi, we're all believers here.
Why do I need to be reminded of this?
Here's the thing, even as believers, we can sometimes be tempted to forget
that we are repurchased people, that we did not get here by ourselves, but that God did
everything to get us to this point.
Actually, it might be good for us sometimes to be reminded of passages like this, that God is the one who sent the son.
God is the one who redeems those under the law.
God is the one who has adopted us into his family.
God is the one who has sent his spirit.
So, the reality is, even as Christians, we need to be reminded
of the fact that what we are called to do is to rest in and to receive and to
trust the work that God has done in Christ.
And I never want to presume that everybody I'm speaking to knows this.
And so, of course, for those who, you know, may be here or watching us online or watching this
later, the glorious reality is, you have two
options in front of you.
You can receive this gift that God has given, or you can reject it.
You can choose to receive or choose to reject.
But here is the thing, whether you receive it or reject it,
this is the only way by which those who were in slavery to sin can be free.
So, let's be clear, your decision to receive or reject is not equal.
One leads you to eternal life, to the sure and certain hope of the resurrection that comes from
God who can't lie.
One leads to the destination of all of Adam's sons,
ultimately separation from God.
Those are your two options.
And so, the question becomes, what will you do with God's great gift?
Will you receive that gift, rest in it, and walk in the light of that, or
will you reject it?
Allow me to pray as we come to the end of our time.
Well, our Father, we do thank you for the gift that you've given.
We thank you that you gave the greatest that you could give, your own son,
and that in giving us your son, you set before us the option of death
and the option of life.
For those of us who know you, we thank you that by your spirit, we have chosen life.
And I pray that we would always be reminded of that reality, that we wouldn't try to, like the Galatians fell into the trap of,
try to establish our own perfect standing with you, but we would rest in the standing of Jesus who's made this
possible.
And on the off chance anybody is here or watching who doesn't know you, I pray that they
would receive this gift, that your spirit would do a work of opening blind eyes and transforming hard hearts.
And that ultimately, those who don't know you would come to know you, not just as their creator,
but as their savior as well.
Thank you once again for this time.
We ask you in Jesus name for his sake.
Well, can I invite you to stand and let's sing in response about the mighty work of God that he's done on our behalf.
It's been a joy to be able to worship together for a few moments as we approach this Christmas season.
As we get down, I invite you to receive the blessing of the Lord.
Romans 15, 13 says, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you
believe, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
And all those people said, amen.
Great to be with you.
Please stay.
We've got some refreshments and stuff.
So if you've got a few minutes, let's hang out, enjoy some fellowship.
And hey, let's do this again tomorrow morning.
See you tomorrow morning at 1015.
God bless you.