11 Reasons Why Jesus Came

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In the spirit of Advent, Jon talks about the reasons Jesus came to this world. Slideshow: https://www.patreon.com/posts/75648213 Thestandardbeardcare.com

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I'm your host, John Harris, and I have a commitment to make to you today. No politics this episode.
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None. We're not going to talk about it, whether in the church or in the United States or in the world.
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We're just not going to do it. We're going to talk instead about something that I think is extremely important, and that is
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Advent. We are in the season of Advent. If you're in a liturgical church, you have readings that you're doing.
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Maybe, as a family, you're doing those readings anyway. When I was a kid, we had the,
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I don't know what you'd even call them, but the doors that you would open every day for the month of December leading up to Christmas.
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It's just amazing to me that, as a kid, Christmas seemed to take forever to get here. I would open those doors, and you'd get a little chocolate or a little toy or something, and read a
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Bible verse. I just remember thinking, I can't believe there's 18 more days.
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I can't believe there's six more days. Then, when we finally get there, I remember on Christmas Eve, I was just thinking, it still feels like it's going to take forever.
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I have to go to sleep and wake up, and of course, you don't sleep. Anyway, I have some good memories of Christmas, and yes, gifts were definitely part of it.
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Look, I know some Christian families, and nothing against you if this is what your family does, tries to,
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I've heard of this at least, not giving gifts to try to keep the focus on Jesus. My family wasn't like that.
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We still did give gifts, and in the tradition of the wise men, we would read the
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Christmas story sometimes, even on Christmas. I go to a church that, and this year, actually, this is relevant, that didn't close on Christmas.
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Some churches do that. Can you imagine that? In the area that I live right now, as far as I know, the church that I attend is probably one of the only ones open on Christmas Day.
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We did take it very seriously, and there was usually a Christmas program, or anyway, I'm getting off track.
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I wasn't going to open the podcast with all my memories of Christmas, but now I'm on a roll. We're going to talk about the biblical reasons, though, that Jesus came.
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This is the time of year where, even in secular stores sometimes, you will hear
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Christmas carols. Sometimes it's only the melody, but you'll hear Christmas carols that do relate to the religious nature of this particular holiday, or the
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Christian character. It's literally called Christmas. It is a
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Christian holiday, and I realize this is not the purpose of this podcast, to get into Saturnalia and other traditions that have made their way into Christmas and all of that.
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I do know there is an early church tradition that says it's the 25th. That date is not necessarily a pagan—it's not sourced from pagan celebrations, necessarily, but where we are right now, where I live in the
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United States, and across the Western world—January 6th, if you're in Russia, but December 25th, if you're in the non -Orthodox,
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I would guess, Catholic or Protestant world—is the date that we have set aside to honor the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, as a baby, as a child. And it's becoming more watered down.
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There's no question about it. I was at a meeting last night, a college career meeting for a local campus that I'm involved in, and I asked the students there,
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I said, do your suitemates, roommates, classmates, do they think of Jesus, or associate
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Jesus with Christmas? And they all said to me, no, no, they don't do that.
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And they're having a club fair this Saturday where they'll have an opportunity to minister to the greater campus and share the gospel, and, you know,
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I thought it was going to be a little easier to bring up Jesus during this time of year, but for the
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Zoomer generation, and I'm in the Northeast right now, I guess, close to the
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Northeast, at least, Mid -Atlantic Northeast New York, it's becoming more secularized.
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But despite that, it still is called Christmas. There still is an opportunity here, and it could be as simple as just asking someone, what do you do for Christmas?
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What do you think Christmas is about? What do you celebrate on Christmas? Even just opening that door up can lead to places, because then you get an opportunity possibly to share about what you do, what you celebrate, what you believe, and I think it's good for us to know why
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Jesus came, because that's what we're celebrating. And if we can give good biblical answers to that, and it's like a diamond in a way, there's so many different ways to look at this.
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I think the standard answer would be he came to give his life, to sacrifice on our behalf for the sins of his people, to redeem them, the gospel, the good news that Jesus has made a way for us to be right with God through his coming, which led to his death and his resurrection.
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And that's true, that's the main part of this, but there's other facets of it.
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And it was interesting to me to look up these verses where the Bible explicitly talks about the coming of Christ, and the different reasons why he came, and so we're gonna get into it.
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And some of the reasons might surprise you, some of them might be a reminder to you, but I think it'll be beneficial either way, because we're gonna be in a lot of scripture for this particular podcast.
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All right, well, let's get into this today. Let's talk about some passages in Scripture that make reference to the coming of our
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Lord and why He had to come. I have 11 reasons here. Now, this isn't necessarily exhaustive, necessarily.
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You could even divide some of these reasons up. This is just my spin on it.
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This is just my, as I'm looking at the passages that talk about Jesus's coming, these are the 11 reasons that I came up with.
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You might look at it a little differently, but here they are. Number one, number one,
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Jesus came to give His followers an example, an example. Now, this is one of the things that you'll hear a lot from even non -Christians.
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They'll say, you ask, why did you think Jesus had to come? Why did He have to come and die on the cross?
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They'll say, well, He was coming as a great teacher to give us an example to follow. That is right, actually.
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It's not exhaustive. It's not the full story, but it is right. Mark 10 talks about this.
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Mark 10, 43 through 45, it says this, but it is not this way among you. The context,
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I know we're jumping right in there, aren't we? The context here is there's arguments going on about who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
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Jesus says, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.
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For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.
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Ransom, of course, being a payment, a sacrifice that He had to make to redeem us.
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And so the gospel message is in here. One of the things that you'll see as we go through all of this is
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Jesus preaches the gospel all throughout the first four books of the
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New Testament, Jesus giving the gospel. And I realize it's not necessarily the same formulation or phrase the same way that we may give it today.
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If you use programs like Way of the Master, for example, or if you even read some of the things in the epistles, the way that Paul sometimes went about things, different personalities, different ways of going about it.
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But there's a perception, and I just want to say this, this is not completely related, but it is tangentially related,
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I suppose, that there are people who try to make a separation between Jesus' gospel, the gospel of the kingdom, they'll call it, and then the gospel of the
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Apostle Paul. I kid you not, this is a real thing. People, especially those who are more on the social justice bandwagon, love to do this because they can then say
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Jesus is, hey, the good news of Jesus was that He's coming to make this equal world.
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And so we're pursuing the kingdom of God, we're bringing the kingdom of God down to earth, or referencing perhaps the
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Lord's Prayer, sometimes they'll do that, and say, thy kingdom come, that's what we're doing when we fight for fair wages and for the elimination of poverty and all of that.
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And no, I'm not talking politics, I'm just using this one example of a misuse of Scripture to illustrate that actually as you go through the first four books of the
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New Testament, what you'll find is Jesus' gospel is perfectly consistent with Paul's, and you see it in places like this.
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He literally says what He's coming to do. This is the mission that He's on. He wasn't on a mission during His first coming, okay?
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The first coming of Christ was not a mission to bring about free health care for all.
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What was it a mission? What does He emphasize? He emphasized, and you're going to see this throughout this, giving His life as a ransom for many.
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But in that, He says that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.
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And in that context, He's telling His disciples, you want to be like me. Look, I, myself,
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I came from heaven. If anyone has a right to be in a high position, it's
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Jesus Christ, and God has exalted Him, He's sitting at the right hand of God, and that's deserved.
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God the Father. But Jesus gave us an example of submission.
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He humbled Himself, as Philippians says, to the point of death, even death on a cross. Submission to the
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Father's will, service to others, perfectly illustrating the great commandment to love God and to love neighbor, fulfilling the entire law.
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Jesus is an example. It's true. He was an example to His disciples of what we ought to be.
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So that's number one, to give His followers an example, and that example is sacrifice. Sacrifice for others.
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Man, that's a hard one sometimes, isn't it? People who don't deserve it, too. But we didn't deserve it when
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Jesus sacrificed for us. Number two, Jesus came to do the will of His Father.
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John 6, 37 -40 says, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me
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I will certainly not cast out, for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.
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This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
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For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise
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Him up on the last day. By the way, John 6 is one of the passages, one of the reasons that I hold to, some call it
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Reform Theology or the Doctrines of Grace, but it is one of those passages that I just don't see how you get around it.
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Jesus says He loses none. There's no allowance for even us choosing to walk out of His hand, and I know there's even some listeners in this audience who probably believe that, and I'm not going to do a whole series on the
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Doctrines of Grace in this podcast, that's not the point, but I do think that you have to grapple with this if you're going to take that position.
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I find this to be a big comfort, though, and I think that's why it's given, that Jesus—man, when the
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Father gives the Son the gift of believers, followers of His, disciples, this is an exchange between them.
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The Father—it doesn't make sense to give someone a gift that is contingent on their own choice or volition, not that volition or choice don't play into it, but that someone can just choose to reject
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Jesus. I mean, what kind of a gift is that? The Father gives the Son, us, those who are in Him, those who believe in Him, and Jesus says
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Himself He's not going to cast any out, He loses none. It's a comforting thought. And this is the will of the
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Father. The will of the Father is for you and me, those who are in Christ, to remain in Him. And that's one of the things
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I think we can celebrate this Christmas. Jesus came to do the will of His Father, and the will of His Father is to give
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His Son this precious gift of redeemed individuals, redeemed people.
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Number three, number three, Jesus came to fulfill the law.
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Matthew 5, 17 says, Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.
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Now this is in the context of Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount, right? Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.
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If you look with lust, it's adultery. If you hate, it's murder. I mean, Jesus makes this incredibly high standard in the minds of the
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Jewish audience that He had, and He starts off the whole thing with, blessed are, and He has a whole list, but poor in spirit, a peacemaker, you know, people who aren't necessarily the scribes or the
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Pharisees. They were not part of the religious establishment. They know that they have empty pockets before God and nothing to offer.
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And Jesus creates a contrast between these two groups to some extent, but He also creates such a high standard that what it illustrates is those who are humble, who know they can't reach the standard, those are the ones that receive grace.
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And in this whole context of Jesus talking about this, He says, Do not think that I came to abolish the law, because some people would think that.
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I mean, you're coming in here, you're making your own rules here, right? You're saying stuff that goes beyond what
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Moses said, higher standard, things that cut right down to the heart. What are you doing,
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Jesus? Are you abolishing what we've been following? He says, No, I'm not doing that. I didn't come to abolish.
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I came to fulfill. Fulfill the law. Fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament.
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Fulfill the ceremonial law. That pointed to Him that we do not need to appeal to anymore, to appease the wrath of God, to illustrate something that's already taken place.
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Jesus fulfilled the law. He appeased the wrath of God. Nor does
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Jesus take away from the character and nature of God that the biblical principles flow from.
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The law, I would even say here, I venture to say, I don't even think the laws when it comes to civil laws, or at least the principles behind them, the general equity of the civil laws,
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Jesus didn't come to take those away either. He wasn't a revolutionary figure that was overturning what had come before.
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He was in continuum with it. He was in continuum with it. He was the Jewish Messiah.
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And I think it's important to understand that. There are Christian traditions that seem to neglect this, that think
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Jesus was, they create such a chasm between what was before and then what
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Jesus implemented. And Jesus is continuing in the true authentic religion of God that goes, that stretches back literally to Adam.
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So Jesus came to fulfill the law. Number four, to point people toward the truth. John 18, 36 to 37.
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Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. My kingdom were of this world that my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the
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Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king?
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Jesus answered, you say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born and for this
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I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.
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So why did Jesus come? Testify to the truth? What truth? Well, we're going to see some of that.
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We've already seen some of it and we're going to see more. But clearly there was a problem.
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There was a problem with humanity. There's a problem in the Jewish world. Even at that time, they're believing lies.
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They needed the truth. Jesus came bearing witness to it. John 12, 44 through 47 says,
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And Jesus cried out and said, He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me.
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He who sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as a light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness.
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If anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
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He came to save the world. But what else does it say here? I've come as a light into the world.
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I've come as a light into the world. This is one of the beautiful things about reading the Gospel of John and why I myself, along with I think the majority of Christian ministries engaged in evangelism, point people to that particular book as their first book to read.
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And one of the things I think appealing is this poetic imagery. That light and truth are,
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John uses them so synonymously. And you see Jesus saying in John 18 and John 12 something very similar.
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He came to bear witness of the truth, but also he came as a light into the world. There was darkness.
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There was error. We need a truth. We need a light. You know, one of the things that I know
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I used to feel stressed about in evangelism was I wanted to make sure I gave someone the whole Gospel.
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If I didn't do that, I just felt like a failure. Man, how could
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I? And maybe there's a health to this to some extent, but we want to balance.
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Jesus doesn't always do this. Have you noticed that? Jesus doesn't always give someone, here's the plan of salvation.
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I'm going to go die here. And when I die, this is the transaction that's going to take place. And then you need to repent and believe.
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Jesus doesn't really do that. You'll find all of this. And this is all stuff that you need to know.
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But, you know, often I think of Jesus with Pilate. He says things like, what he said, I've come into the world to testify to the truth.
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Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. And Pilate, of course, says, what is truth? That's kind of a conversation killer,
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I would say. What is truth? Jesus throws out sometimes little kernels.
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He throws out pieces. He throws out things that a humble person, someone who is, that God is working on their heart, that they are being drawn.
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He throws out things that they can follow up with questions on.
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And if they don't, he doesn't always give them more. Anyway, number four, to point people toward the truth.
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Number five, to preach. Now, how does Jesus get the truth out there? He preaches. Mark 1, 38 -39, he said to them, let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for this is what
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I came for. One of the synagogues throughout all Galilee preaching and casting out demons.
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Why did Jesus come? To preach. To preach the truth. That's how, and this is an interesting thing to me sometimes to think about.
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Jesus could have come in 2022. He could have sent a Snapchat to everyone.
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Well, people who are on Snapchat. I'm not. He could have made a YouTube video about the truth. There's all sorts of mediums today to get the truth out quick.
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I mean, God could do a miracle and just telepathically communicate to everyone. He chose preaching.
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He chose preaching. Why? I don't fully know. I don't have a complete answer on that, but that is the way he chose to get his message across.
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And it's always been that way, hasn't it? Since the Old Testament, it's been that way. God has a spokesperson.
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He has someone that reveals his words, explains them, instructs the people, applies to their lives the words of God, and then they go out and they live.
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And Jesus was no exception to this. In fact, he's the greatest preacher. And his preaching is very interesting to me, too.
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If you look at, if you try to outline Jesus's sermons, the Sermon on the Mountain being, of course, the most popular one, it's very unlike in some ways.
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Many of the sermons that I would even listen to today, not that those sermons are all bad, but it doesn't follow a, shall we say, strictly exegetical—he doesn't take a passage from the
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Old Testament and he's going to go through it, explain all the words and the—I mean, they would have understood Hebrew, I suppose.
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Just a thought. I'm not knocking exegetical preaching. I'm very much not just sympathetic, but I advocate exegetical preaching.
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I just find it fascinating that if you look at Jesus and how he preached, it was so tailor -made to the audience.
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It wasn't a stale—it wasn't a repetition of academic facts about a particular passage or anything like that.
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It was—man, it just hit him in the heart. It hit him right where they needed it at the time.
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Jesus knew what to say. And even then, it was—Jesus would even talk about people coming for wrong motives because their bellies were empty and they wanted food.
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And of course, even it would stand to reason that some of the people who followed him around were calling for his crucifixion.
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Probably not the exact same crowd, but there were probably—there was some overlap there. And so was
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Jesus—Jesus wasn't a failure as a preacher by any stretch. I mean, it says in the first part of John that men love darkness.
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And so Jesus exposes light, and he does so, though, in a way that is so—it is so fit for the time in which he exposes.
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He gives them exactly what they need in that moment and no more. We can't handle everything.
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Sometimes we need milk—meats not digestible, and Jesus knew that. And then the brilliance of using parables to reach the humble and prevent the proud from understanding his meaning.
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A lot could be said about Jesus' preaching, but that's one of the reasons he came—to preach. So if you're going to look at the greatest preacher and try to emulate him,
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I would suggest, sure, look at Charles Spurgeon. Look at some of those great preachers of the past, but look to the greatest preacher.
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Look to Jesus. Number six, to save the Jews. Oh, wow, to save the
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Jews? John, what are you talking about? I thought it was to save everyone. Well, sure, it was all kinds of people, but there's something special about the
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Jews. Luke 19, 8 -10, Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my possessions
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I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.
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And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.
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For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Now, have you ever—you've heard this, probably.
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I've heard it, but I never noticed the verse before. I think it's verse 9.
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Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. So Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham.
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How is that significant? Well, it is. That's part of the reason salvation has come to this house.
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And that's when he says, For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Zacchaeus being a
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Jew, and I'm drawing from Romans, of course, on some of this theology, but Zacchaeus, to him, belonged the promises.
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And so many, like Zacchaeus at that time, and still today, are in disobedience, are not following the true path that God has set forward, even though there's a relationship that God cultivated with Jewish people, in particular, a chosen nation.
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I mean, even if your eschatology is post -millennial or amillennial or covenantal of any kind, you're most likely, you're at least going to see that there's something special for the
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Jews. No other people group is promised 144 ,000 witnesses that are going to be of—I mean,
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Scottish don't have that, right? So there is something that God, some kind of favor that God has displayed.
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And of course, also, that means punishment when there's disobedience. We see that all throughout the Old Testament. Jesus came as a
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Jewish Messiah for the Jewish people, first and foremost, and then to the world.
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And it's an interesting thing to think about, that the Jewish nation being this, more or less, a conduit for the salvation of—from the time of Abraham, the promise was that all nations would be blessed through the
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Jewish nation, and that is through the Messiah. Matthew 15, 21 -24,
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The passage goes on to say, in verse 23, verse 24, actually,
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But he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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And then, of course, because of her persistence, and her humility, and her great faith,
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Jesus says to her, O woman, your faith is great, it shall be done for you as you wish. You see in Jesus, even this, in his ministry, a care for those beyond his own people.
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And the apostles take this farther. But Jesus was sent as the
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Jewish Messiah. So there is an importance here. There is a relationship here between the coming of Christ and the
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Jewish people. And for those who know Jewish people, I mean, this is—I know this is the rock of offense, this is the hard thing to communicate to them.
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I mean, Isaiah 53 is the go -to passage on this, because it clearly is talking about Jesus in their own
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Tanakh, their holy writings. But with everything else going on, and I'm not going to talk politics today,
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I just think it is important to remember that, to remember that. 7.
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To call sinners to repent. Jesus came, it says in Luke 5, 29 -32, and Levi gave a big reception for him in his house.
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And there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with him. Pharisees and their scribes again grumbling at his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?
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Jesus answered and said to them, It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.
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I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Which, by the way, makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
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Jesus came to call sinners. You know, I was thinking, Mark 2 talks about this as well, where the
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Pharisees are giving a hard time for tax collectors and sinners and eating with them. And I was thinking, what's the equivalent today?
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What would be the thing? I mean, that was the worst thing you could be back then. But what about today?
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And I'm thinking, well, maybe for some, like, former pedophiles or something, but, you know, repentant pedophiles, racists, right?
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We've learned, and I'm not getting into politics, but we've learned lately that, man, you shouldn't even be able to feed your family.
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You should be ground into powder. If you've ever, even on the off chance, harbored a thought that might have been even interpreted as hating, in some way, minorities or other people,
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I mean, it is the sin today, the great sin that everyone would condemn someone for.
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And then Jesus would be the kind of person who would willingly associate with those people.
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Right? This isn't, you know, it's often phrased like, oh, it's like the biker dudes. It's like, no, no, guys, no, no.
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This is social stigma stuff. Jesus would hang out with the pariahs.
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All the people that J .D. Greer thinks are, you know, our thought was we're ruining the
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Southern Baptist Convention because they're a bunch of terrorists and horrible racists, misogynists, whatever.
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Jesus would be the kind of person that would spend time with people, repentant sinners, of course, but he would spend time with people who have that scarlet letter about them.
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That's what we need to be. I hate to say that we're failing in this in some ways, I think, broadly speaking, but we're afraid.
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We don't want to have those associations, do we? Jesus was fine with it, wasn't he? Obviously, there was a condition, though.
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Repentance. Repentance for the things that God forbids. 1 Timothy 1 .15, it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom
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I am the foremost. Jesus came to call sinners to repent. Number eight.
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Jesus came to offer eternal life to his people. John 3 .15 -18.
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Actually, I won't read this whole thing. We know the passage in verse 16. God still loved the world. He gave his only son that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
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For God, verse 17, did not send his son into the world to judge the world, so that the world might be saved through him.
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The reason Jesus came was to offer eternal life. And this goes...
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I mean, he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel, but with a plan in place, in the providence of God, that that would go beyond the lost sheep of Israel, especially upon rejection.
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John 10 .7 -10. Jesus said to them, Again, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
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All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
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The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
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Of course, used out of context so often, the abundant life is the eternal life that Jesus offers.
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It is a spiritual life. It is not getting a Mercedes, right? Number nine.
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Jesus came to defeat sin, redeem, and adopt his people. These are the fruits, or the, I should say, aspects of this justification and what it produces.
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And so 1 John 4 .10, and this is love. Not that we love God, but he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins.
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Galatians 4. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
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Romans 8 .3. For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh.
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And as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. I mean, the amazing thing here is
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Jesus defeated sin. As if that wasn't enough, he redeemed his people.
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And as if that wasn't enough, he adopted us as sons. So we're his brother and sisters.
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I mean, that's an incredible thing. Number 10. Tenth reason
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Jesus came into the world. To judge the world. Oh man, I thought Jesus said he didn't come to judge. But, well, yeah.
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But what happens is, what did John 3 say would happen?
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The judgment's already come. That the judgment is, what do you do with Jesus? Depending on how you answer that question is going to determine a lot of things.
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There's a judgment that comes when you reject the son. Matthew 10 .34 -39.
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Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I came to set a man against his father, and his daughter against her mother, and a daughter -in -law against her mother -in -law.
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And it goes on. The man's enemies being in his own household. The context is the cost of discipleship.
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What does it mean to be a disciple of Christ? And it means that even those who are in your own family, who you do have responsibility for, who you do love, but there's going to be conflict there.
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If they do not know Jesus Christ, if they are of darkness and you are of light, darkness does not like light.
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My heart goes out to people in situations like this, especially marriages in which one spouse is saved and one isn't.
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It's a hard thing to navigate. But Jesus, he predicted this.
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This is going to happen. It's why we pray that the spouse who is not saved would become saved.
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Again, God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble. And there's a humbling element to Jesus' coming.
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You see it in the way he even treated the Pharisees and Sadducees. And then number 11,
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Jesus came to die. John 12, 27, Now my soul has become troubled, and what shall
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I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. I don't know at what point in Jesus' life he realized that he was there to accomplish a mission.
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That mission involved dying. But at some point he understood that.
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And the love that that took is incredible. Well, those are the 11 reasons that Jesus came.
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And I hope this Christmas season, this is something that will benefit you as you have conversations with those around you about the most important thing, the most important, really central figure and central event, the life of Jesus.
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But obviously starting with his arrival as an infant. And so anyway,