Christmas Eve Message

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Christmas Eve Message

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the
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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�
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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the
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Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
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There�s good news for you. There are some stores open until 10 o�clock tonight where you can still buy gifts.
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I have the list. If you want to see, you know, you can check with me later. Gift -giving, as Pastor Mike said this morning, is something that we do during the
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Christmas season, and it�s symbolic. And it�s not symbolic of anything other than this, that God gives.
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God gives, and therefore we give. It doesn�t matter if the world has forgotten the purpose.
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We give because God gave first. I�m going to read from the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 9, and I�m only going to read verse 6, so by the time you turn there,
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I�ll have finished. For to us, a child is born.
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To us, a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
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Given. Jesus Christ is the greatest gift ever given.
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And my outline is very simple. It�s gift. God incarnate for us.
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The fourth one is a little tricky. Transforming. Transforming.
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So first, God. It says there Wonderful Counselor in our text, and it really is wonder of a counselor.
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The best counselor ever, and what does that mean? I just remember years ago, before I was saved, sitting in an office with a man who was trained to know things about people, and trained to give advice.
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And I remember thinking, well, he knew some things, but he didn�t know other things. This text tells us about Jesus, because Jesus is
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God, and it tells us that he is the Wonderful Counselor, the best counselor.
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Why? Because he knows everything about us. And I remember thinking about that as I first read this, and I think this was the moment where God fixed this truth to my mind, the first time
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I read it. Just thinking, Jesus knows everything about me, and loves me anyway.
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I don�t even like me, and Jesus loves me and gave himself up for me.
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That�s amazing. That is a gift, right? God.
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When we talk about Jesus being God, he�s eternally God. There�s never a moment in time where he didn�t exist.
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He always existed. John tells us that in the beginning, that is to say before time existed, when there was nothing but the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus was there.
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He didn�t come into being. He didn�t come to be God. He always existed as God.
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So when it tells us that he is mighty God, I posted this earlier, and I just think this is not profound, but it�s so deep that you can just sit there and just think about it.
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I mean, it�s not like I came up with this thought. But when you think about Jesus in the manger,
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Jesus with his mother, baby Jesus, helpless, needing to be fed, needing to be changed, all the things that are true of a baby, right?
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And at the same time, the Bible tells us he�s upholding the universe.
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He�s keeping the entire universe together. He�s allowing us to live, right?
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He�s sustaining every heartbeat and every breath while he�s helpless as a baby.
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How does he do that? The Bible tells us that he�s mighty God. Yes, mighty
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God ever -existent, and yet as a baby, helpless.
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Also in Isaiah, and we�re still on the first point, says that he�s the everlasting father.
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This idea of a father, you know, kings in the Middle East, they would say that they were the father of their people.
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You still hear that sometimes, you know, if there�s a dictator of a country, he�ll say, he�ll pretend to be the beneficent father, the all -good father.
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Jesus is entirely good. And he, in here, we see he�s the everlasting father, again, reflecting on his deity, the fact that he�s always existed.
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Jesus always has been God and still is God. Second point, he is, or he becomes incarnate.
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Fully God, but now he takes on an additional nature as man. Notice our text in Isaiah 9 says that he is the prince of peace.
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Many people would like to pretend that they are some kind of ambassador or that they have the capacity to bring warring factions together and to resolve tension and to bring peace to a particularly violent situation.
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Jesus actually does that. He is a peace bringer.
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He is a mediator between two factions who are at enmity, and those two factions are
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God and man. God is at enmity with man.
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Man is at enmity with God. And why? It�s because of sin. When Adam sinned, and we just heard that a little while ago, when
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Adam sinned, he plunged us all, every single one of us, into sin.
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The Bible says that in Adam, we all fell. We all became guilty of Adam and Eve�s sin.
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There�s no escape from that. And because of that, we face the wrath of God, and we need somebody to step in the gap, somebody to bring us together, somebody to bring peace.
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And what do the angels say? That he brings peace to mankind, all whom he is pleased.
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Jesus came in the flesh, and really, it�s a condescending, in other words, he left glory to come down to earth.
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And when we think of Jesus, we think about the baby, we think about all the things that He didn�t have to go with babies, but even as he grew,
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Israel 2 ,000 years ago didn�t have all the niceties that we have now. This wasn�t a great place to be.
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This was a place where life was hard, and Jesus willingly submitted to the
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Father�s will and came to earth. The Bible tells us that he set aside the full exercise of his powers.
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He left the Father�s side and came to earth. Why? Because we needed someone to save us.
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We needed that mediator. We needed somebody to do this for us.
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And because it was the Father�s plan. The Bible also tells us in John 17, Jesus� high priestly prayer, he says he has to return to the glory that he had before he came.
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He didn�t gain glory by coming here. He did the Father�s will. He left glory, came down here, did the
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Father�s will, and then he returns back to the glory he had before. The Bible also tells us, our third point, that he came for us.
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That he came for us. As I said, we�re all born children of Adam.
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We have a sin nature. And we�re unable to rescue ourselves, so we need a rescuer.
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Listen to what Isaiah says in Isaiah 53 about Jesus. He was pierced for our transgressions.
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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.
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And with his wounds, we are healed. Somebody had to take the wrath of God for us.
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Somebody had to do that. Somebody had to be able to withstand that.
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And it wasn�t us, because we�re sinners. We needed a sinless substitute.
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Somebody capable of taking that wrath, and it had to be God to take the wrath of God. We also needed somebody to bear our sins.
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Isaiah 53 again says this. He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
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Again, peace, interceding, substituting.
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Only God could pay the price. Only God could withstand the punishment.
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And yet only a man could receive that punishment as our representative in our stead, in our place.
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And that�s why he came. And finally, Jesus is also a transforming gift.
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I dare say I�ve received a lot of gifts that I�ve been excited about in my life. I remember when I first got my first real bike.
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It was a nice blue Stingray with, get this, a full -blown banana seat that was, you know, the long banana seat that was tiger for some reason.
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I don�t know why. The blue and the tiger. I loved it. You know, then again, I think I went to six.
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So, you know, there�s that. But nothing
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I ever received in my life. No Christmas gift. No birthday present. Nothing ever changed my life.
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The Bible says that when you�re born again, there is a change that takes place.
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There�s a change in your nature, a change in your desires. If you want to know tonight, am I a
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Christian? My advice to you isn�t to just say yes. My advice to you would be to do this, to think to yourself, okay, when do
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I think I might have become a Christian? Has my life changed since then? If it hasn�t changed, there�s a problem.
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Because Jesus, when he talks about being born again, it�s something that is done to you by the
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Holy Spirit. You are transformed. And you are not yet, you know, if you�re thinking, well,
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I�m not perfect yet. That�s okay. But if you�re not changed, that�s not okay.
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Something has to happen to you because the God who created everything, who spoke everything into existence, who upholds everything by the word of his power, he is at work in you if you belong to him.
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He doesn�t leave you the same. He changes you.
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Listen to Romans chapter 6 verses 6 and 7. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order or so that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.
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In other words, our old person of sin, our old sin habits might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
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For one who has died has been set free from sin. In other words, if you have died of the old self, if you have been born again, if you have had a change in nature, you�ve been set free from sin.
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There�s a change that has come over you. There�s a change that�s taking place in you. And it is by virtue of this, the finished work of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. He came to earth. He lived a perfect life.
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He never sinned. He always did what he should have done and he never did what he shouldn�t have done.
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And then he went to the cross, wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, suffered a horrible death that we only hinted at in Isaiah 53 when we read just a couple verses.
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And then he was raised on the third day. And it�s because of the power of that resurrection, by being identified with that, by believing in him, that we�re changed.
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God gives us the faith and then changes us. He doesn�t leave us the same.
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Christmas is about gift giving. 2 ,000 years ago, God gave us the greatest gift ever by sending the
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Lord Jesus Christ to rescue people in need of rescuing.
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Let�s pray. Father, we thank you for your word.
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We thank you for the clarity of it. We thank you most of all for the Lord Jesus Christ.
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What a gift. God, condescending to become a man, to take our place, to take the wrath to do us.
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To die and then to be raised on the third day. Father, what a gift. What a blessing.
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There is nothing else we need. Father, for any here who don�t know Jesus Christ tonight, would you grant them saving faith?
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Would you cause them to be born again? Would you give them a new heart and new desires, new affections?