St. Nick & The Heretic

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If you would like to take a Bible, there should be one in the seat in front of you, if you didn't bring one of your own.
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And turn with me to the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
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And just hold your place there at John chapter 1.
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Every year on this night, December 24th, children all around the world, and particularly here in the United States, go to bed with excitement about the visitation of a special person.
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He goes by several names.
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Many of you know him as Kris Kringle, Father Christmas, and of course, the most famous, Santa Claus.
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It is known by many of you that the story of Santa Claus began with the person known as Saint Nicholas.
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His name was actually Nicholas of Myra.
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Santa Claus is a derivation of the word Sinterklaas.
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Sinterklaas means Saint Nicholas.
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So that is where the term Santa Claus comes from.
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Nicholas of Myra was known for being a benevolent man.
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One of the most famous stories of his charitableness was when he saved three girls from a life of poverty.
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Their father was a very poor man.
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And at this particular time in history, in the 4th century, if you came from a poor family, and your father did not have a bride price, a dowry to be able to give, then oftentimes a lady in that situation would herself fall into poverty, would be unable to be married, and would be in a situation where she herself would be in a very low state in society.
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So Saint Nicholas of Myra chose to secretly give bags of gold, little bags of gold coins to these three women for the purpose of providing for them a dowry, providing for them this thing that they needed to be able to go and be married in society.
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And he didn't want to be known, so he threw it through the window of the home.
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Now I know now we think of the chimney, and we think of the stockings, and all of those things, but according to the tradition of the church, he would come along at night and he would toss the coins through an open window.
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And where the idea of the chimney comes from, according to certain sources, is that he did this three nights in a row.
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Remember there were three women, so the first night he threw it through the window, and the father of course came out looking, didn't see him.
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The second night he threw it through the window, the father came.
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Well the third night the father's waiting on him, so he decides to go around the home.
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At that point in time they could get up high, and he got up and dropped it down the chimney.
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Well, how true that is I'm not sure, but I know that's where the tradition comes from.
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He was also known for going through impoverished areas, and leaving gold coins in the boots of people that they would sit outside.
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They didn't wear their boots inside the home, so he would leave the gold coins in the shoes.
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And of course that's where they get the idea of the stockings.
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But there's another part of the life of St.
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Nicholas, with which people are very unfamiliar.
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He was a serious churchman.
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He was a bishop of Myra, which is in Asia Minor.
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And he was one of 300 or so bishops who were at the council of Nicaea.
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If you're unfamiliar with that council, I want to encourage you to give its examination sometime in your life.
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It was the first universal council of the church after the apostolic age.
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It was the first time that leaders from the church from all over the world gathered together after the death of the apostles to help solve an issue which had arisen in the church.
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It was formed because of a sinister heresy, which had made its way into the church through a man named Arius.
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Arius challenged the teaching of the church.
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The teaching of the church was that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man.
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That He was God in the flesh.
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That He was the second person of the Trinity.
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That God is one in essence and three in person.
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And Jesus Christ is that second person.
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That He is in every way God.
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And in Him dwells the fullness of the deity bodily.
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Arius said, no, that is not true.
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Arius said, Jesus is special.
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He is a created being.
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But He's a special created being.
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He's the first one.
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He's the first one God created.
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But God created Him.
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And then God used Him to create other things.
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And so that was the teaching of Arius.
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That yes, Jesus is important.
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Yes, He is in a sense divine.
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But He's not completely divine.
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He's not fully God.
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That was the argument of Arius.
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Well, that was not the teaching of the early church.
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The teaching of the early church from the earliest writings we have was that Jesus was fully God and fully man.
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I want to read from Justin Martyr.
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Justin Martyr lived right after the age of the apostles.
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Between 100 and 165.
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The last apostle who would have died in the late 90's would have been John the Apostle.
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So, Justin Martyr lived the next generation of believers.
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And this is what he wrote.
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The Father of the universe has a son who being the Logos and first begotten is also God.
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This is not scripture, but it tells us what men who believed the scripture in the 2nd century believed.
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Another man named Hippolytus wrote this.
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He said, And the blessed John in the testimony of his gospel gives us an account of this economy and he acknowledges this Word as God when he says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
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If then the Word was with God and was also God, what follows? Would one say that he speaks of two gods? I shall not indeed speak of two gods, but of one.
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Of two persons, however, and of a third economy, the grace of the Holy Spirit.
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Now, this is a man who lived 200 years before the Council of Nicaea and he just expressed Nicene faith.
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He just expressed the same belief and teaching as what would be expressed in 325 and he did it in the 1st century.
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I'm sorry, the 2nd century.
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Clement of Alexandria wrote this.
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He said, Both as God and as man the Lord renders every kind of help and service.
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As God He forgives sin and as man He educates us to avoid sin completely.
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And this is talking about Jesus.
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He's God and man.
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As God He forgives us and as man He shows us how to live.
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What the Nicene Creed teaches is what the church believed from the very beginning.
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Arius was a heretic who was bringing in a false teaching.
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Now, here's what I want to bring up.
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Because here's where the story takes a left turn.
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Most people are familiar with what happened at the Council of Nicaea and the giving of the Nicene Creed.
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What most people are not aware of is how St.
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Nicholas was involved.
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St.
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Nicholas, this little 5 foot tall bishop of Myra.
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When Arius was giving his proclamation about Jesus not being fully God.
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When Arius was saying, Jesus has not been forever.
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Jesus is a created being.
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Jesus is not God in the flesh.
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Arius got up and his little 5 foot self walked over to that man Arius and St.
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Nicholas punched him in the face.
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Not the picture of Santa Claus that we're used to.
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But according to the traditions, and I've looked and I've scouted several sources, according to tradition, he was then arrested and stripped of his bishopric, his position.
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So it was a serious assault.
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He didn't just walk up and, like you see in the movies where you take off a glove and pop somebody in the face as kind of a challenge.
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He knocked him down.
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Now, why would I tell this story? Well, one, I think it's a great story.
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But also, in the 4th century, Nicholas was so concerned about the person and work of Jesus that he was willing to go to blows over it.
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And while I don't condone punching heretics, always, always, I do appreciate the passion that he was exercising because today people are passionate about things that are so inconsequential and they're not passionate about the things that have eternal consequence.
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We will fight over our favorite sports team.
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We will come to blows over theater seats.
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And we will knock people down to get Black Friday deals.
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But we do not stand for the most important truths of all.
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When it comes to the person and work of Christ being maligned, what do we hear from the church in general? Nothing.
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Crickets.
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Jesus Christ's name is being maligned.
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Crickets.
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The testimony of who Christ is is being tarnished.
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Crickets.
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Nothing.
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Where have the churchmen gone? Where have the saints, the biblical patriots gone? Where are we? And why are we hiding? We've reached a time in history where the need to stand for truth is greater than ever.
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People are misinformed, deceived, and led astray more quickly than ever because of the advent of things like social media that have allowed into our homes false teaching at a rate we've never seen before.
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It's being poured in.
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We're used to it.
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It might trickle in.
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False teaching might trickle in through something like a Mormon visiting a doorstep on a Saturday morning or a Jehovah's Witness talking to you at work.
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That's the way it used to trickle into the home.
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Now it's being poured in through media.
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It's being poured in through the internet.
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It's being poured in through every avenue possible.
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We have to be passionate about the truth and be willing to stand.
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And this is especially true about who Jesus is and what He came to do.
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So tonight I want to open God's Word.
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I want to remind us about who our Savior is.
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And oftentimes we ask the question, how many books of the Bible talk about the birth of Jesus Christ? Well, only two.
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Matthew and Luke give us the expressions of the birth of Jesus Christ.
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And people say, well, John and Mark don't deal with the early life of Christ.
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Au contraire.
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John deals with the very earliest.
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John goes all the way back to the beginning.
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And so, yes, tonight we could be talking about a stable.
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We could be talking about an inn.
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We could be talking about a virgin and a barn.
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But we're going to talk about Jesus and who He truly is.
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From the first chapter of the Gospel of John, my favorite section of Scripture, one I've given more study to than I think any other, John 1 verses 1-3.
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It says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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He, that is the Word, was in the beginning with God.
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All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
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Will you pray with me as I prepare to preach this text? Father, I thank You for the Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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I thank You for the fountainhead of wisdom which flows out of just these three verses.
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And Father, as I seek to bring a very surface reading and understanding of this text, as we will not have time to dig into its very depths, as we seek to look at just the basics of this text, I pray that You would keep me from error.
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I pray that as I preach that You would use this time to instruct Your people.
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I pray that You would use it as a time of conviction and conversion.
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For Lord, if there are those here who do not know Christ, I pray that this would show them who He truly is, and why He is worthy of our praise, of our submission, and of our whole life.
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For in Him, and through Him, and by Him are all things.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.
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In the beginning was the Word.
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Bible students are usually caught very quickly understanding that John is using a phrase that is somewhere else in the Bible that we're all familiar with.
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If you open your Bible, and you don't have to do it tonight, you can probably just in your memory, if you go back to the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible, it says what? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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Now that book was written in Hebrew.
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John's Gospel is written in Greek.
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But there is a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible that was written before the time of Jesus Christ, and it's called the Septuagint.
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The Septuagint is the Greek Old Testament.
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And it is the Bible which many of the New Testament writers referenced in their writings.
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And if you read the first chapter of John's Gospel, John 1.1, it says, In Arke, Ein Halagos.
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In Arke.
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In the beginning.
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If you go to the Septuagint, and you go to chapter 1 of Genesis, and you read in the Greek, it says, In Arke.
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The same language.
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In the beginning.
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John is obviously referencing here the beginning that is referenced in Genesis 1.
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He's hearkening back to something that everyone would have understood.
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There is a time when this universe came into existence.
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Do you realize that this universe came from nothing? Do you realize that's what we call ex nihilo? Out of nothing, the world came? You see, if you ask a scientist about where the world came from, a secular modernist scientist, he will say that all of the matter and energy of the universe was once compacted into a very small, infinitesimally small space, and in a moment in time, that space erupted and created, out of that big eruption, everything that you see around you.
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In a moment in time, the universe burped, and out you came.
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Four and a half billion years ago, the earth was formed, according to the scientists.
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And they say that matter and energy have always been.
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They are the eternal things.
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They have just always been in different forms.
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And we are now just the form that the matter and energy are in, and one day that matter and energy will be in a different form, and you'll be long gone, and you won't know anything about it.
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It will just go on to be something else.
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Once it was tight in a little ball, then it became everything, and one day it will go into something else.
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And we're just along for the ride.
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The Bible doesn't say that.
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The Bible says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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In the beginning, there was nothing.
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You realize there wasn't even space to put it in? That boggles my mind.
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Because when I think of nothing, I think of something.
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Because if I think of a bottle that's full of nothing, you know what it is full of? Space.
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It's full of space.
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Even if I sucked all the air out of it, it's still space.
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There was no space.
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There was no nothing.
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God stretched out the space.
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He created the heavens, that's the space, and the earth, and everything within them.
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And He did it by speaking it to an existence.
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He created all things from nothing.
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And He did it simply by the Word of His power.
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Now, that's what Genesis 1-1 tells us.
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We look at John 1-1, and it says, In the beginning was the Word.
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Notice what it doesn't say.
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And I love to point this out to people because it's hugely important.
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I've got to hurry because I could spend all night with this.
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We're still in the first word of the first part.
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In the beginning was the Word.
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Notice it does not say, In the beginning the Word came into being.
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Notice it doesn't say, In the beginning the Word was created.
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Notice it doesn't say, In the beginning the Word came to be.
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No, it doesn't say that.
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It says, In the beginning the Word was.
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And the construction of the Greek could actually read like this.
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And it does read like this in certain translations such as the New English translation.
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In the beginning the Word already was.
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Because that is how the construction can be rendered.
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In the beginning, He was already there.
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He didn't come into being at the beginning.
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He was already there at the beginning.
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Because Christ, the Word, by the way, that word logos, the Word that's referring to Jesus Christ, and how do I know that? Well, look at verse 18.
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Go down to verse 18.
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I'm sorry.
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Verse 14.
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I'm sorry.
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Verse 18 is a different one.
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Verse 14.
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And the Word did what? Became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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Who is that? That's Jesus Christ.
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So this is telling us that John is referring to Jesus as the logos.
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Logos was a Greek term.
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It meant word, but it meant more than word.
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It meant understanding.
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It meant wisdom.
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It meant power.
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It had a very powerful Greek connotation.
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And Jesus uses this title to describe Jesus Christ.
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He is the Word of God.
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He is the logos of God.
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And He calls Him that.
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He says, in the beginning, the Word already was.
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He was already there.
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He didn't come into being.
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He was already there.
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Because He, in fact, has existed forever.
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The next clause of the sentence in John 1.1 says this, And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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Now that can seem kind of complicated.
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Because in our language, and according to our understanding of human beings and personhood, it's impossible for me to be with you and be you.
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Isn't it? If I said I was with Mike, and I was Mike.
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Well, unless my name is Mike.
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That doesn't make any sense.
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In our church, that would be easy because we have like 1,400 Mikes.
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But the reason why it's making this distinction is because it's saying something about Jesus Christ and His relationship to God the Father.
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In fact, I don't want to get too particular, but in this particular phrase, And the Word was with God, and the Word was with...
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This is called an articular noun.
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He was with the God.
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And the article the is in the Greek to emphasize the fact that Christ was with someone else.
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And that's God the Father.
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But that the two of them share the nature of God.
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The two of them are both considered God because He goes on to say that.
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And the Word was God.
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You see, that is something that can confound our mind, but we must not let it.
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We must simply take it as it is.
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And it is true that Christ and the Father are together in a relationship and they share the same essence of being.
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Here's the thing I've heard people say.
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God created man because He was lonely.
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Because there's only one God.
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And God was lonely and so He created man.
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You know why that's not true? Well, one, because God's perfect and He doesn't need me to not be lonely.
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He's a perfect, full, and absolute being.
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And an absolute being doesn't need a created being to make Him feel unlonely.
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But the reality is even more precious than that.
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The reality is this.
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He was already in a relationship.
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The Holy Trinity of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have always existed together in a relationship of love.
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That's why some people say God created us to have somebody to love.
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That's not true either.
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Because there is an eternal love relationship in the Trinity.
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Within the being of God, three persons share an eternal love relationship.
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And thus the text can tell us the Word was with the Father, Jesus was with the Father, and He was God.
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Now if you read, and you may have one of these people come to your door on a Saturday morning, a Jehovah's Witness will come to you and they will have their Bible, and their Bible called The New World Translation.
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They will show you their Bible and it says this, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.
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They add the indefinite article a.
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And they say, Yes, Jesus is a God, but He is not the God.
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Let me tell you something, that don't jive.
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Because Isaiah tells us, Before me there were no gods formed, and after me there are no gods formed.
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I am God and there is no other.
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I am God and there is none like unto me.
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We know there is only one God.
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Deuteronomy 6, Hear, O Israel, The Lord thy God, the Lord is one.
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The singleness of God and the sense of singleness of essence is taught throughout the Bible.
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But the plurality of personhood, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is taught in the New Testament.
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That's what was taught in the New Testament and that was what was confirmed at the Council of Nicaea.
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By the way, your modern Jehovah's Witnesses are modern day Arians.
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They are teaching today what Arius taught 1,700 years ago.
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And even though it was condemned as heresy 1,700 years ago, it is still being held today by some.
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The same heresy continues today because there are men who cannot allow the teaching that Jesus Christ is in fact fully God of fully God as the Creed rather expresses.
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Well, like I said, I don't have time to flesh out everything, but I do want to look at verses 2 and 3 very quickly because He tells us who the Word is.
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He was with God.
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He was God.
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And He was in the beginning with God.
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And all things were made through Him.
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If I held out a sheet of paper and I said write what was not made by Jesus, you couldn't put anything on the paper.
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All things were made by Him.
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That's a precious truth because that tells us something.
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It says all things were made by Him.
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And just in case you didn't get that, in case you didn't get that all things were made through Him, it says without Him was not anything made that was made.
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Jesus Christ created this world.
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He was the instrument of creation.
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Beloved, that's a precious truth.
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And that's why you have to understand that on Christmas Eve when we look at that manger and we think about those little hands and those little feet that were given birth to that night, that's the hands that created the world.
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That's the feet that have walked where angels trod.
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This is God in the flesh.
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And that's what makes Christmas so special.
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It's not just that a virgin gave birth.
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That's a miracle and that's special.
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But the miracle is not just in the virgin conception.
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It's in the incarnation of God in the flesh.
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And that is what we celebrate when we celebrate Christmas.
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When you gather with your family tonight, when you gather with your family tomorrow morning, and you gather around and you worship together.
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Hopefully, I pray that Christmas is a day of worship for you.
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Not just a day of gift giving, but a day of praise to God.
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I hope that you praise Him that He saw fit that in the fullness of time He broke into our world and He came in as Savior and Lord through the manger to the cross.
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And that's the precious truth of Christmas and something that we oftentimes overlook.
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We get so caught up in the miracle of the virgin birth that we forget about the miraculous incarnation.
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I want to begin to draw to a close.
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And I want to read to you something from Melito of Sardis.
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I've been reading a lot tonight of men who are 2,000 years dead.
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But these are precious, precious things that have been written about Jesus Christ.
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Melito of Sardis was a bishop in 180 A.D.
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Which means he would have lived almost 200 years after the apostles.
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But he lived well over 100 years before Nicaea.
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The Council of Nicaea.
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I want you to hear what he wrote about Jesus Christ.
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This is his Easter sermon.
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His resurrection sermon.
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And this is a portion from it when he's talking about who Jesus is.
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And I want you to consider this.
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As you worship the Lord Jesus tonight, I want you to consider the words of Melito of Sardis as he wrote.
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And so, he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed.
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Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling.
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But listen as you tremble before Him on whose account the earth trembled.
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He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
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He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
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He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
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The sovereign is insulted.
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God is murdered.
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The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
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This is the One who made the heavens and the earth and formed mankind in the beginning.
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The One proclaimed by the law and the prophets.
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The One enfleshed in a virgin.
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The One hanged on a tree.
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The One buried in the earth.
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The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven.
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The One sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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The One having all authority to judge and save through whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
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This One is the Alpha and the Omega.
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This One is the beginning and the end.
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The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
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This One is the Christ.
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This One is the King.
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This One is Jesus.
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This One is the Leader.
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This One is the Lord.
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This One is the One who rose from the dead.
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This One is the One sitting at the right hand of the Father.
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He bears the Father and is born by the Father to Him.
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Be glory and power forever.
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Amen.
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And on that we celebrate this Christmas Eve.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank You so much for sending Your Son Jesus Christ in this world.
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God of God.
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Very God of very God.
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Begotten, not made.
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And we thank You Lord that You have promised that every person who believes on Him will never perish, but will have everlasting life.
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Lord, we thank You for who Jesus is.
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We thank You for the salvation that He came to bring.
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And we pray that every day of our lives, and especially on this day that we celebrate His birth, that we would exalt Him.
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That we would take up our cross and follow Him.
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And that we would never forsake what He has called us to, which is faith and His blessed work.
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The work by which the only work by which any man will ever be saved from his sins.
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Father, thank You.
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Bless You Lord for all that You have done and are going to do.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.
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We are now going to sing our song of reflection, which is Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
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And as the guys get ready, I want to just tell you why we chose this song.
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In Hark the Herald Angels Sing there is a special passage.
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And here is the part that really gets me.
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It says, Hail the incarnate deity.
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Veiled in flesh, the Godhead be.
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Hail the incarnate deity.
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Beloved, that is theology.
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We often think of it just as a Christmas carol.
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It is not just a Christmas carol.
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It is theology set to music.
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And theology matters.
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So as we sing together, let us stand and sing together, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.