Who Is He Jesus and Immanuel

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Please stand for the Scripture reading this morning. Isaiah 7 .14,

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1 Timothy 1, 5 -17 Therefore the

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Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name

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Immanuel. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom

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I am the foremost. But I receive mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost,

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Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

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To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.

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Amen. You may be seated. Well, good morning.

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Thank you for venturing out this morning among the sickness. I ask you to open your

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Bibles to Psalm 67 and also make your way to Matthew 1.

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I'll read both, and hopefully we'll capture both themes here,

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Lord willing. It is, if my math is correct, it is a week from Christmas Eve, and so we have the pleasure to talk about the first coming of our

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Lord. It is a pleasant time of the year. It is a joyous time of the year. It is a happy time of the year.

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And anything that has much anticipation like Christmas does, we anticipate it being a happy season.

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Sometimes it could be the most depressing season. And so how important it is for us to remind ourselves of what

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Christmas truly is. And I love Psalm 67 in light of what

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Christmas really is. I think it is such a joyous, happy Psalm in light of what

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Christmas truly is. And so let us read that. Let us capture that joy. And let us go on to Matthew 1.

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Psalm 67. To the choir master with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song.

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May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.

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Salem. That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.

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Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

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For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.

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Salem. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you.

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The earth has yielded its increase. God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us.

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Let all the ends of the earth fear him. Matthew 1, 18.

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Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the

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Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

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But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying,

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Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. For that which is conceived in her is from the

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Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

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For he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the

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Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name

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Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the

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Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name

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Jesus. Oh God in heaven, what a wonderful thing that the son of God took on flesh.

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True God, true God, true flesh, true flesh. And this God taken on flesh, his name is

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Jesus. His name is Emmanuel. This Jesus is a forgiver of his people's sins.

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He shows himself to be a God of all grace. And so I pray

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God that this Christmas season, Lord, we would remember that we are celebrating this mystery that God, you took on flesh and ransom us from our sin.

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We praise you and we thank you. And may we not be so nearsighted to forget or to be blinded to these realities that are around us, but let us rather celebrate you in light of them.

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Thank you, Lord, for this Christmas season. Thank you for the joys that come with it. Thank you for joy and worship that we can have because of this

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Christ, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, I want to start this sermon off the same way that Pastor Tim started last week by asking, who is

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Jesus? As we are celebrating the first coming of this Jesus, it is a right question to ask and it is a good question to answer.

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That's a good question to answer each day, but especially as we consider this Christmas season that, as I said, is so pregnant with joy and happiness, but can so quickly let us down into depression.

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And so we must ask, who is Jesus? How you answer has implications of how you're living your life right now in this moment, what you're thinking, what you're doing, has implications for your whole existence of how you know or how you understand

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Jesus Christ from Nazareth. As we see here, we can get a great understanding of who

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Jesus is. You see these two names that are set out before us. You see verse 23 of Matthew 1,

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Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.

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So Jesus is Emmanuel. The Son of God is Emmanuel, which means God with us.

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That's one of the names we get. That's one of the answers to who is this Jesus. Well, his name is Emmanuel.

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He is God with us. That word Emmanuel, you should hear the word eminence.

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Eminence means for God to be near us or to be with us.

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So as you hear the word Emmanuel, think of the word eminence, that God is near.

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And of course, as you consider eminence, think of the other word that typically goes along with it, and that is

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God's transcendence. That is God is far off or he's not one of us or he's far distant, but yet at the same time,

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God is truly near us as well. And so as we consider, as we look at Emmanuel or eminence of God, your mind should be considering the transcendence of God or God being far off.

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And as you consider these two seemingly contradictory things, you ought to marvel and say, how can this be?

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Who is this Jesus that we can truly call God with us in light of God's ultimate transcendence?

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This is a name of Jesus. He is Emmanuel, God with us. How is God far off?

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How is God near? And you see, another topic or another thing

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I wanna look at and answer today is his name in verse 21. He will bear a son and you shall call his name

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Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

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And so we see his name is Jesus. That's who he is. He is a savior of his people's sins.

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And so we have all these things coming together to rest on Christ. God's eminence,

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God's transcendence, and God's dealing with sin through forgiveness.

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All these things are coming together happily in a nice tapestry of glorious revealing of who

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God is that we need to stand and marvel at this Christmas and have that joy, joy, joy that comes with the season.

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But of course, just like everything in life, these things are sadly mistaken, both by our culture, by the world around us, and it encroaches even in our own hearts.

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We can mistaken it as well. So as we look into this, what it means for us, let us look at how we easily misunderstand it or how it's been misunderstood because this is how

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God uses misunderstanding, by the way. It's not like he's not powerful enough to stop misunderstanding.

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He allows it so that the great truth can then be fully revealed even in it.

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So how is, let's take the first one, transcendence misunderstood? If God is,

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Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and that denotes his transcendence as well, how is it misunderstood?

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How is transcendence misunderstood? Again, God is transcendent. He is outside of us.

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He is, to use very biblical language, he is most high over creation.

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So much so that our minds cannot fathom just how much he is not of this creation.

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I remember talking with an unbeliever and one of the major things he had against God is that he couldn't use his five senses to get a hold of God, right?

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He couldn't touch God, can't see God with his eyes, he can't taste him, he can't smell him, can't do all those senses.

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And so he says, well, why should I then believe in him? And so what he was wanting is a God that was not transcendent.

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And if he had a God that was not transcendent, he would not be God, he would then just be part of his creation, he would just be one part of his creation like everything else.

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But God is unique in that he is far above, he's far outside, he is not of his creation, he is transcendent.

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Now, that's been twisted and misunderstood. Modern man then concludes that God is unknowable, right?

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I mean, it kind of makes sense logically, you could see how you could get there, right? If God is so far away from us or distant, then he must be unknowable.

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We can't know him. And the postmodern man takes that and they say, there is no

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God, right? And that's a logical step from there too, right? If God is unknowable, well, what's to stop us from just simply saying there is no

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God at all? And so we have a society or a culture around us that stemming from the misunderstanding of God's transcendence of being far above us, that he is unknowable and it then equates to there is no

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God where atheism flourishes in our society today.

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And the implication of that, now remember, what's the third theme, right? Transcendence, eminence, right?

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And then sin, how God deals with sin in his creation. And so what's the implication of sin in creation if we don't believe that there is a

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God who is here? Well, I live as I please. There's no authority over me.

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I do as I please. There is no God who's near. We can't know him.

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He's too distant. He doesn't know about my sin. I'm my own authority. So sin then becomes nothing, or at least it comes centered in your own authority as an individual.

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That's where sin lies in this misunderstanding. Psalm 14, one speaks to this.

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The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They do abominable deeds.

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There is none who does good. Again, I've said this before, but there is no such thing as your modern day atheists back in this time.

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Atheism, this is a beside the point and I'm still trying to work through this in my brain, but atheism is a

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Christian heresy and there's a lot there. But atheism only comes, exists after Christianity has been abandoned.

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It only comes in the fabric of Christianity. It's very unique. Without Christianity, there is no atheism.

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There's a lot there. I probably shouldn't have even said it, but it's nevertheless true. And so here in Psalm 14, one, it's not literally talking about your modern day atheists.

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That doesn't even exist. It's talking about a person who lives as if God doesn't exist, right?

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He lives in a life of sin as if God is not there, not present, doesn't see.

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Perhaps another Psalm to help us with that concept is Psalm 94 .7. And they say, after talking about sin, they say the

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Lord does not see, the God of Jacob does not perceive. So misunderstanding of transcendence,

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God's transcendence is God is so far above us that he does not know or care about sin.

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And this can easily be in your life too as a Christian, right? Because I don't want this to be a bunch of bashing on the people who aren't

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Christians, right? How easy is it for us to have a corner of our life that we allow to be autonomous from God as if it doesn't flow forth from who he is, right?

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How much of us will give everything else to God, but there's a corner in which we allow just to fester and be autonomous or our own authority as if God cannot see that aspect, right?

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It is a very natural thing within our depravity that we would live as if God is too far to notice a certain thing or in general, right?

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That he is not near. And so that's a misunderstanding of God's transcendence. And so we can go on the other ditch and misunderstand

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God's eminence, that God is so near, right, transcendence, he's far off, eminence, he's so near, we can misunderstand the nearness of God that he's so near and not separate that he is one like us.

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There's no separation. In fact, he's just like us. And we can look at Eastern philosophy with pantheism, right?

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Pantheism literally is God and creation are one. You can't separate them. If God is so ingrained in nature and I have these natural desires, they must be okay.

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That's where sin gets equated here, right? We're talking about that third category there, sin. Well, if God is one with nature and I have these natural desires, well, if I have them, they must be all right.

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I can give in to them. Something is sin only when I call it sin. There is no outside God, transcendent

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God imposing his authority on me. Maybe perhaps a Christianized version of this sentiment is

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God just loves me so much, he just wants me to be happy. I think we've all heard that before.

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Or when we don't bother to bring every thought and action captive to Christ, we just assume that God is with us in it.

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Jew four says ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

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There's that one ditch, right? God is so transcendent, he doesn't know about my sin.

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Do you get that? He's so transcendent, God does not know about my sin.

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It's too far off to care. Or the second ditch is God is so eminent, he doesn't care about my sin.

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Transcendent, he doesn't know. Eminent, he just doesn't care about my sin.

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He knows about it, but he doesn't care. Those are the two ditches that we see before us.

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And I want to, before we see how Jesus Emmanuel leads us safely between these two ditches on a very good road, we must first see that even before Jesus came, the first time in his birth,

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God was totally transcendent and totally eminent at the same time.

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And he doesn't and never has, never will wink or ignore sin.

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This has always been who God is and as we see this here in scripture, it will then, we'll see how

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Jesus comes and makes a beautiful display of who God is in light of his transcendence, eminence, and sin not being ignored.

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So again, we need to understand that even before Jesus came, God has always been totally transcendent, always been totally eminent and never ignored or wink at sin.

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Psalm 97 .9. Here's this transcendent God right here. Psalm 97 .9.

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For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth.

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You are exalted far above all gods. See that transcendence there?

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You are most high. It's not like just God's lofty, a little bit high like a king on earth, but he is most high, exalted high above.

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We can't even fathom how high God is. Psalm 97 .1 on the same psalm, you know what the context of that psalm is?

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It's not to get lost in his transcendence to where now his eminence doesn't make any sense. But Psalm 97 .1

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says, the Lord reigns in his loftiness. Let the earth rejoice. So we could see that the transcendence of God being so high above is not detached from his eminence, but it intimately comes together in the fact that in his exalted status, he reigns intimately on earth.

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He's not detached from earth. In fact, his transcendence is a power of reigning in which he is intimately on earth reigning.

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The Lord reigns. God's transcendence does not reveal

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God's absence ever, but his absolute power over all the earth.

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And he intimately or eminently reigns in that power.

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You see how they beautifully come together. And with his imminent reign, listen to this, with his imminent reign,

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God does not ignore or wink at sin. God's reign is not an unrighteous reign over his earth.

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He does not ignore or wink at sin in his eminence with creation.

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Psalm 7 .11 says, God is a righteous judge.

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See that? The lofty one, the high up one. He is a righteous judge and a

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God who shows indignation every day. So we can see he's a revealer of his hatred of sin every day.

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God has always been imminent or near earth in his reigning, and his reign can be defined as a hatred and a working against sin wherever he finds it.

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We read this often, but let's look at it in this particular context.

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Go to Romans 1, if you would. Romans 1. God is transcendent and he's also imminent in his reign over creation.

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And we see it's always been the case even before Jesus. Look at verse 18 of Romans 1.

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For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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And so God has always been near to earth and he is always hating sin and working against it.

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His wrath is revealed in the revealing of sin. This is how God has always been intimately close with creation in his hatred and working against the wickedness of sin.

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And look at verse 24. So therefore, in Romans 1, therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts, right?

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We see it again in verse 26. For this reason God gave them up. In verse 28, since they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God, God gives them up to these things. This is God gives up society and peoples to go deeper into their insanity of sin as a revealing of his hatred of sin and of his wrath.

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It's rightful for us to be sad over the state of the culture of the world today as opposed to how we've known it historically.

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Again, I always feel the need to say not that Western culture has ever been perfect and everything, but nevertheless it has been much more beautiful at one point.

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And it's okay to get sad over the state of affairs that we see it in, but at the same time, don't think for one moment that God is not revealing himself.

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Don't think for one moment God doesn't have a purpose in why he has allowed it to be where it's at. He is revealing himself in this age just as much as he revealed himself in any other age, and that is his wrath and hatred against sin.

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He is imminently involved with his creation today just as much as he was, and he has a purpose in how he reveals his workings against sin.

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And of course it culminates, it culminates in final judgment, right?

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Where God is intimately aware of his creation in which he will finally judge all wrongdoers.

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Jesus returns as eyes of fire, right? He sees all things.

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Nothing is past his gaze. He knows all sins. Nothing is in the dark corner.

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We cannot hide anything from our God, but he is intimately aware of every single wickedness that will ever happen on this earth.

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He is involved, he understands, he sees it, and he will one day finally judge it in holy fury.

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So God is not distant. He is transcendent and powerful, and he reigns in imminence, and he works tirelessly against sin wherever it is.

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I like what 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith says in chapter 2, paragraph 1.

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The Lord our God is one, the only living and true God. He is self -existent and infinite in being and perfection.

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His essence cannot be understood by anyone but him. He is a perfectly pure spirit.

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He is invisible and has no body, parts, or changeable emotions. He alone has immortality, dwelling in light that no one can approach.

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He is unchangeable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty in every way, infinite, absolutely holy, perfectly wise, wholly free, completely absolute.

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And I'm going to read the last sentence of this paragraph. At the same time, he is perfectly just and terrifying in his judgments.

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He hates all sin and will certainly not clear the guilty. So we see that there's a

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God who is awesome in power and imminently involved in his hatred of sin.

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In absolute and transcendent power, God made heaven and earth, and he is a most imminent avenger and judge against all who would try to deface his masterpiece with sin.

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That's what God is doing. He made all things really good, beautifully good. And anyone who would try to deface such a beautiful thing deserves the holy wrath of God, and that's his imminence on display.

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Now, hopefully I've depressed you just enough. Hopefully I've depressed you just enough, especially you who are in sin and do not know

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Jesus, especially you who think that God doesn't see your sin, that God doesn't care about your sin, and that you will somehow escape his holy fire.

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You will not. He will. He hates sin, and he does not wink at it.

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He does not ignore it. And he doesn't wink and ignore at you, oh, Christian, who has sin that you just kind of let go because perhaps you can just kind of separate that as a separate category.

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No, our God hates sin, and that's why Matthew 1 is so beautiful.

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That's why as we consider this God, this is why as we consider his coming, we are filled with joy, joy, joy, because this

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God who hates sin so much has revealed himself in Jesus, who is Emmanuel, God with us, but his name is

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Jesus, the one who will, what, save people from their sins.

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Look at 1 Timothy. Go to 1 Timothy. This is good and right and worthy of all meditation and joy this

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Christmas season. Look at what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1 .15. The saying, 1

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Timothy 1 .15, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world not to ignore sin, not to wink at sin, not to judge mercilessly over our sin, like he will the second time, but Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

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This needs to be beautiful to you for those who have placed your faith upon this

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Christ, that he has came, he came, took on flesh, and saves sinners.

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Paul says, of whom I am the foremost. Look at that, the present tense.

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I am the foremost. Paul doesn't say I was. He says I am the foremost.

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So considering the joy, joy, joy of Christmas and the beautiful happiness that should flow forth from this doctrine of the first coming of Jesus, consider the fact that he came to save you, oh sinner, present tense, of your sins.

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He is a savior. He is saved, he is saving, and he will save. So why would we ever have a moment, any

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Christmas season where we're not full of joy, that he has came to save me from my sins?

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I am the foremost, and he came to save. Verse 16, but I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost,

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Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Jesus for eternal life.

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This is what it means, that Emmanuel, God with us, came to save from God's holy wrath, to give what he says eternal life.

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What is eternal life? If someone were to ask you what does it mean, what does eternal life even mean, how would you answer that?

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How would you answer that in a few short sentences? What is eternal life that this Jesus has came and given to those of his people, who he's forgiven of sins?

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Well, in John 17 three, he says, and this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true

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God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So you know what eternal life is? It is to be forgiven of sins that separate you with God to where you don't know him.

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And with that, those sins forgiven, you know God intimately. You are close to God, he is near intimately with you, and you know him.

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That is eternal life. Jesus Christ came as a baby to die as a man to forgive sinners.

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Finishing sins, ending sins, so that you can be near and know

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God. So eternal life is God's eminence being sweet to you.

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When you hear that God is near, you don't grimace. You don't say, you don't want to hide under a rock like Adam and Eve.

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Eternal life is hearing the eminence of God, and it is of the sweetest, joyous song of worship to you.

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Oh, God is near in Jesus. Eternal death, you want to know what death is?

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Eternal death is sin and God's wrath abiding on you, so that eternal death is

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God's eminence being very bitter to you. But since Jesus is

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God with us, the forgiver of people's sins, we can rejoice this Christmas. The nations can rejoice this

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Christmas because he has drawn near to forgive us of our sins, not end us in our sins, not to look away from our sins, but rather to see it in his son and forgive us of our sins.

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So with that, I'm out of energy. I'm gonna read Psalm 67 again.

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I'm saying I'm not gonna make a lot of comments on it, but we'll see how it goes. But let's see the joy again, the happiness of Christmas again in this psalm, in which again,

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Psalm 67, verse one, it is beautiful. As you consider this context, as you read this chapter, this psalm, notice verse one,

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I'm gonna make comments. May God, right? Usually we see in the psalm it's Yahweh, the capital

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L -O -R -D, which is Yahweh. That's God's covenant name. Here, the psalmist intentionally uses the word

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God. And that is, it's like, God is not just the God of Israel, but he's the

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God of the nations. And this is what Jesus came to be, is to provide forgiveness for the nations.

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He says, may God be gracious to us, that is the world, and bless us, and make his face to shine upon us.

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You see, instead of his frown, instead of his negative disposition against us, instead of his wrath that continuously abides on sinners, in which we just talked about and got depressed over, this is the

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God who instead is gracious and blesses, and his face shines upon us.

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That your way, in verse two, your way, right? Your intimacy, the way you reign, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.

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Not his wrathful indignation every day, but notice the contrast here, that this is the

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God who has revealed himself and his saving power among all the nations who have defied him.

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Let the peoples, instead of weeping and gnashing of teeth, like we see in scripture a lot, right?

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The weeping over God's judgments, the gnashing, the anger over God's judgments, here we see, let the peoples praise you.

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Oh God, let all the peoples praise you. I hope that you sang the hymns today and that you'll sing this hymn coming up, saying,

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God, I could have been weeping and gnashing of teeth. Instead, I am singing praises to you?

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What God is this Jesus that would show his face, your face upon us in such a happy way?

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Oh, what a God we have. Verse four, I like how it's not just simple, it gets to the emotion of it, right?

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In verse four, let the nations be glad. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.

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For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.

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There's a lot there, but what an awesome thing it is that God judges the people with equity and the nations can be rejoicing and glad.

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Why? Why? Because Jesus has taken our guilt and shame so that God can show his judgment in total.

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And instead of us weeping and gnashing and judgment and wrath because of that judgment, because Jesus Christ has taken on our sins and our judgment, we can see that great judgment outpouring forth from him and we can rejoice and sing with happiness because of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, the forgiver of sins. Let the people, verse five, praise you,

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O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase.

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God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him.

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You know what it means to yield the increase? It's alluding to plant life, right?

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You plant and then you want an increase from that, right? But obviously that's not the direct context.

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The direct context, it's an analogy towards the idea that God is looking for an increase on the earth, an increase of righteousness.

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God still reigns on high and he still hates sin every day and he is still ending sin every day.

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That hasn't gone away. It's not like God all of a sudden doesn't care about sin. No, he intimately does care.

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He is yielding a great fold of righteousness in Jesus Christ. Are you among that number?

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Have you looked to Jesus Christ for salvation? Are you looking to Jesus Christ today, right now,

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O believer? And have you found your joy and happiness in the fact that he has taken your sins away so you can joyfully proclaim the excellencies of his forgiveness this

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Christmas season? Are you doing that? O unbeliever, I know there's a few in here.

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Would you turn away from your sin now and go to this Christ this Christmas season? Would you stop the insanity of your sin thinking it will give you happiness and joy?

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It will not. It will only lead to disaster and wrath because God is intimate in his wrath upon you.

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But do you know that there's a Savior who has came? He is Emmanuel. He is God with us and he is the forgiver of his people's sins.

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Won't you be his people and believe upon him with the saints and cry, Holy, Holy, Holy is the

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Lord God Almighty, the one who has came and forgave his people of their sins.

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Let us pray to our God. Thank you, O Lord, for truly you are not a

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God who is so far off that you're not imminently near. But instead,

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God, in your transcendence you have a power that is revealed. No one can contend with you.

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No one can stay your hand. No one can stop your powerful revealing. Lord, and in your reign and in your sovereignty,

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Lord, you are working against sin. But what a great reality it is that in your working against sin you have offered a love offering, a peace treaty in Jesus Christ, who is truly

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God with us but one who forgives. Again, Lord, what an amazing thing that you don't wink at sin.

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You don't ignore it. And you didn't come to completely end us in judgment.

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But instead, Lord, you have came to do away with our sin through him. So let us all,

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Lord, I pray that you would give us a heart of belief upon this Savior, we would look upon him in faith, and that faith is realized in the fact that we don't just believe in once and then we just go on with our sin, but instead everything we give to you and say,

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God, I'll take it, and may I just live a life of gratitude for this great gift of love you've given to us, to me and Jesus.

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I pray, God, that the people here would be encouraged, that they would see that this is a great time of year to be happy and full of joy with the nations as we consider this kindness that you have given to us.

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And I pray for those who do not know you, God, oh, may they see the happiness of your people and may it just be contagious.

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May they say that my sin doesn't give me any of this that I see in these people. And may they respond in faith to Jesus, knowing that he is

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Lord, he reigns, and he is worthy of all worship. Thank you for being so good to us in him.