The True Meaning of Christmas: God Saves Sinners - [Matthew 1:18-21]

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Well, you know, we are, of course, approaching the Christmas season, as you might have noticed looking around here.
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And it got me to thinking, you know, here are some things that we hear. We want to get to the true meaning of Christmas.
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We hear that a lot, even on the secular television. Or how about, you know, the miracle of Christmas.
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And typically when they talk about the miracle of Christmas, I mean, of course, the true meaning is, for the secular perspective is, it's learning to help one another.
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It's learning to get along. It's learning to make the world a better place. And the second one, the miracle of Christmas, well, you know, that might be personified by some stories that we hear.
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For example, in World War I, the soldiers on different sides on Christmas Day, they would stop fighting and they would actually eat together.
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And, of course, then the next day they would proceed to try and kill one another. But isn't that a miracle of Christmas that for one day they were able to put that aside and celebrate the holiday together?
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But, you know, as I went through our Texas evening, which is going to be Matthew 1, and then we're going to go from there and do a few different things.
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But I thought, you know what, it's not even right. And I think there's a book called
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The Miracle of Christmas, but I thought it's not even right to call or to say that there's only one miracle of Christmas because there are several that are embodied by it because the
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Christmas event itself is anything but natural. What is a miracle? Who knows what a miracle is?
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Unexplained event. Okay? We're on the road. Brian? Okay.
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Something supernatural, something outside of the category of the norm. Maybe if I could make it a little bit more specific,
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I would say it is God intervening in the space -time continuum in such a way as to upset the natural course of events.
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Don't ask me to repeat that because I just made it up on the fly. But that's what a miracle is. It's when God supernaturally intervenes in the normal course of things.
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A miracle would be, say, parting the Red Sea. That's a miracle. Why? Because it couldn't be done normally, and it wouldn't be done normally.
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The Red Sea would just stand as it is, and it's only the power of God that enables it to be split. Again, Matthew 1, and I'm going to read verses 18 to 21.
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Very familiar verses. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.
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When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the
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Holy Spirit. And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
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But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
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Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take
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Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the
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Holy Spirit. She 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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Now, even in this text here, we have a few what I'm going to call miracles, and I'll explain that.
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And miracle number one, we're going to walk through three miracles. Miracle number one is the conception of Jesus by the power of the
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Holy Spirit. Again, in verse 18, it says, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
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Why is this a miracle? She was a virgin, of course, which meant that by natural means she could not have had a child in her.
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But Jesus could not be conceived by the natural order of things, by anything natural, because he had to be free from sin.
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If he had a human father and a human mother, then he would be, like all of us, tainted by the curse of original sin.
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But that's not what happened. The text tells us that that's not what happened, that it was the
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Holy Spirit. By agency of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was conceived.
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Now, to step outside of this specific context for just a second, what we would see if we studied all of it in a systematic fashion, all of the conception of Christ, the coming of Christ into human form, we would see the
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Father sending the Son. God the Father sending the Son. Then we would see the
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Son submitting to the Father and taking on an additional human nature. That is the incarnation, that is the kenosis, that is
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Jesus Christ still being God, but taking on an additional human nature.
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And we would also see the Spirit creating supernaturally the human body of the
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Son. So all three members of the Trinity taking part in this action.
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Now, just to give you an idea, the betrothal period was usually about a year, and it was after the marriage was arranged.
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The groom would cut a deal for his wife, and all the arrangements would be made, and then there was a waiting period.
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And this waiting period, we think of it as an engagement, but it's far more, and some of you are already familiar with the aspect of they were considered married in every possible way, except that they didn't live together and they didn't have relations.
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But there is one unique thing here. The real purpose of this period of betrothal was not so they could get to know one another.
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The main purpose was to show that the wife, the wife -to -be, was a woman of virtue, that she could pass this test period of a year.
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But they were considered in every way married. So the
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Greek here, where it says that she was found to be with child, could be translated this way, that she was found in the womb to have.
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That's kind of the Greek way of saying that she was pregnant, and I thought that was interesting. Was found in the womb to have.
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There was something in her womb that was found, and that something was a baby. And if we only had the
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Gospel of Matthew, if that was our only record, we might well wonder what Mary thought of all this, how she felt to be suddenly with child.
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But Matthew doesn't tell us. But if you keep your finger in Matthew and turn over to Luke chapter 1, verses 26 to 35, we'll see how
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Mary responded to this. Luke chapter 1, verses 26 to 35.
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Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called
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Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David, and the virgin's name was
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Mary. And coming in, he said to her, Greetings, favored one, the
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Lord is with you. But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was.
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The angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name his name
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Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the
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Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.
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Mary said to the angel, this is her reaction, How can this be, since I am a virgin?
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The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and for that reason, the
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Holy Child shall be called the Son of God. So her initial reaction was, one, she was perplexed, she didn't really understand this, and he said, the angel tells her not to fear, that this is going to be a work of God.
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And we'll get back to Mary here in a little bit. But miracle number two, back in Matthew 1, miracle number two is the visitation of the angel, in verse 19.
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And Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly.
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But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Now again, when we understand what the purpose of the betrothal period was, that it was a time of testing, that it was a time of gauging the purity of a potential wife, we see why
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Joseph was going to divorce her, even as Pastor Mike said this morning. This would have been, actually, a kindness to her.
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What could he have done to her? He could have taken her to the judges at the city gate and said, this woman, you know, is with child, we haven't been involved, and she must have been involved in adultery, because, again, adultery, because she was considered to be married in every way.
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But he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to put that shame on her. He really cared about her.
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He didn't want to have her be forced to turn to a life on the streets, and so he was going to give her a divorce so that she could marry someone else.
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And the angel tells Joseph not to be afraid, and he tells her this not so much, he tells
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Joseph this not so much, because Joseph might be in a panic, because of the angel himself.
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I mean, when you think about it, if there had been no divine revelation for 400 years, and all of a sudden an angel comes to you in a dream, you might be a little bit upset, but that's not even the point.
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The point, the Greek makes it pretty clear, that Joseph should not be afraid to take an action.
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In other words, don't be afraid to take her for your wife, don't be afraid to continue on in this relationship, don't think for a second that she's not pure, that she's not worthy of being married, because she is.
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She is. This is a supernatural visitation by an angel, obviously there are no natural visitations, but directed by God to tell
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Joseph not to continue to do the natural reaction, to follow through with the natural reaction that he had.
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Kistemacher says, Joseph would never have accepted it, had not an angel been sent by God, to convey this information to him.
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So if God had not intervened by sending an angel, the natural course of events would have been divorce, or even worse.
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So you say, well, that's all well and good, but what does that have to do with the
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Lord's table? I'm getting there. Miracle number three. The purpose of Jesus.
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Verse 21. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
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Jesus means, Yahweh saves. The Lord, the covenant God, saves.
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And notice what it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean, Yahweh, plus the free will of man saves.
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Yahweh plus the good works of man saves. Yahweh plus baptism saves.
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But Yahweh and Yahweh alone saves. Notice also that our text tells us that Jesus will save his people.
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Jesus was sent with a purpose, and he will accomplish that purpose. We never read, of Christ making salvation a possibility.
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Jesus Christ did not come to the earth and die, so that people might be saved. Jesus will save his people.
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There is no doubt about that in the Greek language. Jesus came into a human body, so that he might suffer, so that he might be subject to all the frailties of human existence, so that he might die on our behalf.
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Hebrews 4 .15 says, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
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He was tested. How was he tested? He went through emotions, he wept, he was hungry and thirsty, he got tired, and he suffered pain, pain unlike anyone else ever before him or after him.
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So Yahweh saves. Who does Yahweh save? Well, the text tells us his people.
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Now back in Luke 1, after Mary has been visited by this angel, and she goes to speak to her relative
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Elizabeth, in Luke 1 .46 and 47, and they discuss this situation,
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Elizabeth tells her how blessed she is, and Mary says, verse 46, and Mary said,
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My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my
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Savior. Well, we can draw some immediate conclusions from that.
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First of all, that Mary understood that she was not sinless and that she needed a Savior. She rejoiced in God my
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Savior because she needed one. In fact, these verses, Mike and I were talking about this earlier, these verses basically,
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Mary wrote, tell out my soul. The word exalts can be defined this way, to cause to be held in greater esteem through praise or deeds.
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In other words, her basic premise or her basic action was she was shouting, she wanted to shout about the greatness of God and the greatness of God her
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Savior. Think of all the things that were going on here. Prophecy was being fulfilled through Mary.
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A lot of responsibility in a young girl. What was she doing? What was her response? She was bursting with joy, delighted.
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Why? Because God, her Savior, was about to be born to her.
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So Yahweh saves his people. Now, what does Yahweh save them from?
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From his own wrath. From his own wrath. The Greek word that appears most often in the
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New Testament to talk about the wrath of God is the word orge. And it can be defined as the divine reaction against evil, bringing judgment and punishment, both historically and in the future, as a future culmination of judgment in an outpouring of the stored up anger of God.
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This is what God himself came to earth to save his people from, was his own wrath.
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We have a God who loves his people so much that his infinite wrath can only be assuaged by his perfect death on a cross.
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Yahweh saves his people, us, from his wrath.
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Yahweh saves. Why does he save? Why does God save anyone? Why does he not just pour out his wrath instantaneously?
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Or why not just save it all up for the end and just pour out his wrath and then be done with it? To display his endless capacity for grace.
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God is not only a wrathful God, he is a gracious God for which we can all be thankful.
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Ephesians 1 .5 and the first part of 6 says, He predestined us, talking about God, to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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God saves so that his people, us, might worship him for his graciousness.
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That we might recognize that in light of the great wrath that we deserve to have placed on us,
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God's grace is an amazing intervention into the natural course of events.
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And if salvation was even 1%, or even .001 % of our free will, then we are in some way, shape, or form, robbing
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God of his proper glory. He says he'll share his glory with no man. And yet, this verse here, in Ephesians 1, tells us that he predestined us to adoption as sons, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise, why?
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To the praise of his glory, the glory of his grace. His grace gets praise.
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His grace is on display because he interposes himself in between us and his wrath by the sheer grace, by his sheer grace.
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His infinite grace shields us from his infinite wrath. Now, there are other miracles in the
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Christmas story. I'm sure we could name a number of them, including God appearing to Joseph and telling him, the person of an angel, and telling him to take his family to Egypt.
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I mean, there's miracle after miracle after miracle. So, the miracle of Christmas really should be the miracles of Christmas.
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But the greatest miracle of Christmas is that God the Father sent his
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Son, who submitted into a body wrought by the
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Holy Spirit for the express purpose of saving the elect of God from the wrath of God, that they deserve by violating the holy standard of God.
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To put that in shorthand, God saves sinners, and he saves them through his Son, Jesus Christ.
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He sent his Son to accomplish the salvation of his people, and he will not fail.
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The implications of that are great. It means if you're saved and you're sitting here tonight, you can't be lost.
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To be lost would imply that somehow Jesus Christ, who is supposed to save you, somehow failed.
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That the God of the universe, who set his affection upon you, somehow failed to bring you to salvation in the end.
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All of these truths begin with the miracle of the incarnation.
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And we can celebrate both the season of Christmas and this truth every day.
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You ever do that? You ever turn Christmas music on in May? I mean, one thing we can be pretty confident of is that Christmas wasn't on December 25th.
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But it doesn't really matter. This is a truth that every single day is absolutely mind -boggling to contemplate.
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Salvation is of Yahweh. Salvation is of God, and it is of God alone.
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And if you are a believer, you recognize that truth, and you understand what you deserve, and in light of what you deserve, this is a great, great blessing.
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Now, as we come to the Lord's Table tonight, just a couple of reminders.
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First of all, it is the Lord's Table, communion is for believers only.
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I can remember in the previous church I was in, the church that was not a church, the cult
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I was in, you know, kids would take it even at age 2 or 3 or whatever, because nobody understood.
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But the Lord's Table is designed for believers only, because only they can appreciate what
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Jesus Christ has accomplished on their behalf. We're also to have no unconfessed sin.
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When we think about it, as our pastor said on many occasions, if you've declined to be baptized, if you've failed to be baptized, that is really the first step of obedience, and lack of obedience is disobedience.
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If you have unreconciled strife with your brother and sister in Christ, that is something that you need to take care of before you take the
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Lord's Table. And this is really a joyful time, a time, again,
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I just think, to reflect on the greatness of God in saving people who, left to themselves, would not want to be saved.
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But God intervenes in our own space and time continuum, and gives us a heart of flesh to replace our heart of stone.
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He takes our sinful inclination and He gives us a heart that longs to obey
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Him. Tonight we've seen the
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Incarnation. I mentioned briefly the perfect obedience of Christ. He died a substitutionary death, and on the third day was resurrected from the grave.