FBC Daily Devotional – December 23, 2020

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A brief bit of encouragement for your day from God’s Word

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Well, a good Wednesday to you. We are in the middle of the week, a couple of days before Christmas, and one of the special things that comes at this time of the year, at least in our church calendar, is our
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Christmas candlelight service, and we're planning that at 7 o 'clock this evening at the church, and it'll be an in -person service if you're inclined and feel comfortable in attending that.
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If not, that's fine, we plan to live stream it, so you can live stream it on Facebook Live or at the church website or on the church
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YouTube channel. But our planning, that's 7 o 'clock tonight, a good time of Christmas readings and music and devotional, all centered around Christmas and keeping things in the right spirit, right attitude for Christmas celebration.
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And so we've been talking this week about the rightness of the first Christmas. I remember years ago, it was actually,
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I think, it was our first Christmas, just after we were married. We were married in August, and that Christmas my wife was working for a real estate company as a secretary and had their
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Christmas party. So we went to the Christmas party, and everybody's supposed to give up a gift to give in the grab bag.
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And so, you know, we got our gift and opened it up, and were less than excited or thrilled about it.
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You know, I suppose we should have been grateful, right? I mean, we didn't deserve it. But, you know, you go to these things, and you can kind of tell when somebody gives a grab bag gift because they had to give a grab bag gift.
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Well, we got one of those, okay? It was a plastic plate.
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It was supposed to be a decorative thing. It was a plastic plate, like maybe eight or ten inches in diameter.
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And it was black on the backside, and the front side of it was painted gold. And it came with a little wooden stand.
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And probably the wooden stand was worth more than the plate itself. I don't know.
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But I mean, it was like, what are you going to do with that thing? It's certainly not something you're going to put out and display as like a great piece of a great work of art or, you know, one of those.
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I mean, it was like, you just got the impression that somebody gave that gift because they had to give that gift.
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They had to give something. And so they just went to the store, and they found something for $2 .99 and, you know, got the job done.
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There's a lot of reasons why people give gifts. Some of them are noble. Some of them, eh, not so much.
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But that's not the way it is at the first Christmas. Remember, we're talking about everything right at the first Christmas.
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Jesus Christ came at the right time. He came in the right way.
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And our text we've been looking at, Galatians chapter 4, verse 5 tells us that he came for the right reasons.
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Again, let me remind you of the text. It says, But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his
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Son, born of a woman, born under the law, here's the purpose statement, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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Christ came for the right reasons. He came to redeem you.
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And in his coming, we need to realize that this coming for this purpose was born in the heart of God.
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Listen to what John writes in 1 John 4. It says in verses 9 and 10, Do you get the motivation behind this?
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This isn't like, oh, well, I got to do this, or this is expected of me.
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No. This is the love of God made manifest to us that God sent his only
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Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love.
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Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his
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Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This was not something
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God did because he had to do it, that we were entitled to him. No. We were entitled to it.
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No. No, no, no, no. He was not indebted to us. He sent his Son because he loved us.
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This was born in the heart of God. And this coming of the
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Son to redeem us, it ended up making possible our access to God.
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1 Peter 3, 18 says this, So his coming made possible our access to God.
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And this, born in the heart of God, out of his love for us, he came to redeem us.
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And his coming also to redeem us was to destroy Satan's death grip that he had on us.
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I mentioned this passage yesterday. Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15 says, He was subject to lifelong slavery.
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His coming to redeem us destroyed Satan's death grip on us and released us from that ongoing, constant, lifelong fear of death.
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And his coming to redeem us was to pay the penalty of our sin.
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Titus 2, verse 14 points that out. All lawlessness, all iniquity.
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He paid in his death on the cross the penalty for sin that we deserve to pay.
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This is something done because God sent his
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Son. He gave us this gift to redeem us for the right reason.
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And that, of course, if he's going to redeem us, it required his death.
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Matthew 20, verse 28, Jesus said himself, Listen, Jesus came for the right reasons.
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And one of those reasons is to redeem you. And he came because God loved you enough to send his
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Son to pay the redemption price for your soul. He came to redeem you.
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But there's a second reason given for Christ's coming in our text, in Galatians 4, verse 5.
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He came not only to redeem you, but to adopt you, that we might receive adoption as sons.
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And this is something that occurs the moment that you receive
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Christ as your Savior. As many as receive him, John tells us, to them
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God gives the right, the authority to be called his children.
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He came to adopt you. He came to redeem you. Christ was born for the right reasons.
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Think about that as you give and receive gifts this holiday season, this
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Christmas, couple of days. Think about why you're giving the gifts that you give. You're giving them for the right reasons.
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Let that gift giving remind you of God's gracious gift for your soul's salvation.
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He gave that gift for the right reason. Let's give thanks to God for his indescribable gift.
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And we do thank you, Father. We thank you that you gave Christ, you gave your
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Son, for all of the right reasons that we might be redeemed, that we might be adopted into your family.
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We thank you and praise you for this gift. Bless these thoughts to our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.
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All right, well, the Lord give you a good rest of your Wednesday. And again, if you can make it to the candlelight service this evening at 7 in person, then join us.
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You're welcome to come. And if you can't make it and you're just not comfortable in this COVID climate, understandable, but join us at 7 on livestream.