FBC Morning Light – December 23, 2022

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Friday morning to you, and since I don't record these devotionals for Saturday or Sunday, let me take this opportunity to wish you a

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Merry Christmas, and I trust your Christmas holiday will be a delightful one and will be a blessed one.

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I want us to think about Christmas in light of what we read in Psalm 145.

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I have no clue, obviously, what your Christmas celebration, if there is even going to be one for you, is going to look like.

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There are some people who come to this particular holiday this year and will have a great time, a great difficulty with it because of some loss, some hardship in their lives.

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Some of you may be just alone on Christmas.

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Your family's spread out, and nobody could get to your place for Christmas, and it's just going to be you.

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It can be easy to get kind of in the doldrums, get in the dumps over the situation.

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I want to encourage us to think about Christmas in light of Psalm 143 and what we read here.

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It opens up telling us that every day of our lives, regardless of what's going on, we have ample reason to praise the name of our

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God and King and to extol Him. He is indeed great and greatly to be praised.

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Do we not see that manifested on Christmas Day, that God is great and greatly to be praised because of who

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He is and what He's done? Listen to these verses. I will extol you, O my

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God, O King, and I will bless your name forever and ever. Every day

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I will bless you and I will praise your name forever and ever. Why? Because great is the

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Lord and greatly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. Try to figure out the greatness, the depths and breadth of the greatness of the

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Incarnation, that the eternal, eternal God becomes finite man.

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In the process, never loses His divinity, His deity, and His deity does not diminish

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His humanity. This is beyond our comprehension how truly unsearchable is

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His greatness. Let's continue in the Psalm and think about the greatness of our

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God and His majesty, His mighty acts, His abundant goodness and righteousness and so forth in the

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Incarnation. Verse 4 says, One generation shall praise your works to another. Here we are, how many generations since the birth of Christ, and that praise of the newborn

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King has been rehearsed and echoed down through the centuries. One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.

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I, in my case, I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty.

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Stop and think about the glorious splendor of the majesty of Christ, even as it was displayed on the night of His birth.

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He says, I will meditate on your wondrous works. Again, what wondrous works involved in the coming of Christ into this world?

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A virgin conceives and bears a child, a child who's fully

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God and fully man, a child who will grow to live a completely perfectly sinless life from infancy through adulthood.

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Yes, wondrous works. Men shall speak of the might of your awesome acts.

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Think of the awesome acts as the baby in the manger is going to perform in His life yet to come.

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Think of His mighty acts, His awesome acts. I will declare your greatness.

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I will declare your greatness. I may not have a lot of people around me on Christmas Day.

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I may be sad because of sorrow, sorrowing because of loss, but I can still nevertheless, and I should declare the greatness of the

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Christ who came into this world on that morning. They shall utter the memory of your great goodness and shall sing of your righteousness.

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Think of the goodness and the righteousness of that babe in the manger.

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Yes, even on this Christmas, regardless of your circumstances, you have much to praise your

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God about. As you continue in the psalm, you find some things to be thankful for.

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Thank you, O Lord, that you are a God of graciousness and compassion. Verse 8 says, you are slow to anger and great in mercy.

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Does this not describe our Savior Jesus? Slow to anger, great in mercy, gracious, full of compassion.

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He goes on to say he is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

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We saw that displayed over and over and over and over again in the

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Gospels, recording time after time as Jesus displays tender mercies over all his works and goodness to all.

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The psalm ends, Psalm 145 and verses 17 through 20, extolling our

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God for his righteousness and that he is near to all who call upon him.

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It says, the Lord is righteous in all his ways, gracious in all his works. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth.

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Listen, call upon him today. You never called upon him to save you. Listen, do that.

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Do so. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

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Call upon him. Call upon him regarding your hurt, your heartache, your anguish.

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Call upon him to comfort the heart, to provide solace if that's the need of the hour.

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But all who call upon him in truth, the promise is he is near to you. He is near to you.

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We have a great deal to be grateful for because of Christmas, and I trust that as you celebrate this

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Christmas in a couple of days, that what will be overshadowing everything is all that you have to be grateful for that's wrapped up in that baby in the manger.

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Our Father and our God, we do thank you today for who you are, for all you have done. We thank you for your

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Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, for his coming into this world, taking on the robe of human flesh, living the perfectly sinless life that he lived, giving himself to be sacrificed on the cross for our sins, raised for our justification, and is even now seated at the right hand of the throne of the

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Father on high as he rules and reigns over all, and as he intercedes in our behalf as our great high priest.

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We thank you and praise you for our Savior. In his name we pray, amen. All right, well listen, you have a good

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Friday and a wonderful weekend, and a joyous Christmas celebration.