The Crises of Christmas

Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? >> Good, good, good. I was telling first service that in case you're wondering, the white stuff on the ground, that's called snow. Um, I'm not sure if you guys are aware. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but I am Pastor DJ, the pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. And if I haven't met you yet, welcome. Come find me after service. I'd love to chat with you and get to know you. Um, at this time, I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 1. And we have Bibles in the seat back in front of you. If you don't have one, feel free to use that Bible. Make it yours. It's It's yours. It's our gift to you. Um, just we ask that you use it, read it, bring it back next week. uh we'll gladly replace it. But um that can be yours. And while you turn to Matthew chapter 1, I want to thank all of the ladies who are involved who came, served, and uh were part uh part of the ladies Christmas brunch. I heard that it was amazing. I heard that it was awesome. I wasn't there. Well, I was here doing some other stuff, but um you know, the the ladies had a great time, I heard. And so, uh, praise God for that. And, um, I I just want to express my gratitude to those of you who serve and to, um, you know, I just want to take a second to thank this church for its generosity. You know, we really do take care of each other. And I get to hear stories, even ones that kind of remain anonymous, like, hey, somebody totally helped me pay my bills this week. And you won't tell me who it is, and that's fine, right? Your rewards in is in heaven. But I get to hear cool stories about how we take care of each other. And I am so grateful for this church and its generosity. Um well, if you're new with us, um you uh this is not anything new than to you, but we have been going through the book of Nehemiah. And we are putting that on pause uh through the month of December and we'll pick up Nehemiah in January. And we are starting a new Christmas series this morning titled It's a Wonderful Christmas. And if you kind of haven't picked up on the theme, it's from uh the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. How many of you guys have seen It's a Wonderful Life. Uh most, but not everyone. Um well, if you haven't seen it yet, I won't spoil it for you, although I don't know how you can spoil like an almost 80-year-old movie. Uh but the essence of the movie is the main character, George Bailey, is down and out on Christmas. He's depressed. He's dealing with a lot of financial issues and he's overwhelmed. He's the kind of guy that has made all kinds of sacrifices for other people. Um he I won't give it all away, but he's done things for his family. He's done things for business. He's done things for others and makes all these sacrifices for everyone else and yet is overwhelmed by the financial issues and sorrow and um troubles that he's facing. And so he's contemplating ending his life. He's contemplating jumping off of a bridge. And as he uh is contemplating and thinking about this, he meets his guardian angel whose name is Clarence. And um I won't tell you how he meets him, but you can find out you're on your own by watching it, but he Clarence then shows him what life would have been like if he never existed. So it kind of does that alternate reality thing where the effect that he's had on his family and friends and co-workers is no longer there. So then he, you know, his brother or something, something happens to his brother. Why? Because, well, if you weren't there, then this would have happened. So the whole thing kind of wraps up with George valuing his life and getting excited for Christmas and living happily ever after. So there you go. I'll spoil that for you. It ends well. Um, but it can be easy to forget all the ways that God has blessed us when we face our own crisis. Um, and the movie resonates with a lot of people because it kind of brings you back to the reality that, you know, God has blessed me and used me in many ways. Well, no matter what crisis you faced or present tense, you know, are facing, there is no greater crisis than the one faced by all mankind. Sin. Sin is a crisis we cannot take care of on our own and that is why we need Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning and thank you for your word. I pray God that you would give us ears to hear what the spirit has to say to the church at Cross Church this morning. God, I pray that you would speak through me. Be your word and not my own um that is heard, God. And that you would apply your word to our lives. help us to see the point of Christmas in Jesus name. Amen. Well, we are going to cover all of Matthew 1 this morning. You say, are you going to read all those names? Yep, I am. Uh, but if you'll follow along, let's read verses 1- 25 because I think it is. So, I feel um it is so important to read everything, whether it's um a bunch of names or narrative, we'll read it. But let's read what Matthew has to say. And it's important he put it in here. Let's read it. Verse one. In account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac. Isaac fathered Jacob. Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers. Judah Perez and Zer by Tamar. You take note of that. Perez fathered Hezron. Hezron fathered Aam. Aam fathered Aminadab. Aminadab fathered Nishan. Nan fathered Salmon. Or maybe Salmon. I don't know. But Salman uh Salman fathered Boaz by Rahab. Boaz fathered Oed by Ruth. Oed fathered Jesse. And Jesse followed King David. David fathered Solomon by Uriah's wife. Take note of that. Solomon followed Rahoboam. Rahoboam followed Abayah. Now we're in the book of Kings. Abijah Asa. Asa followed Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat followed Joam. Joam followed Uziah. Verse 9. Uzziah father Jotham. Jonathan followed Ahaz. Ahaz fathered Hezekiah. Hezekiah followed Manasseh. Manasser fathered Aman. Aman followed Josiah. And Josiah followed Jeaniah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. A monumental point in Jewish history. Verse 12. After the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah Shield. Shield fathered Zerubbable. Zubbable father. Debay fatherathered Eliakim. Eliakim fathered Azor. Azor fathered Zadok. Zadok fatherred Akim. Akeim fathered Elude. Elude fathered Eleazar. Eleazar father Mathan. Mayan father Jacob. And Jacob father Joseph the husband of Mary who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Christ. So verse 17, all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David until the exile to Babylon 14 generations. from the exile to Babylon until the Christ 14 generations. Verse 18, the birth of Jesus Christ came about this way. After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together, that is sexually, that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. So her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly. But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you are to name him Jesus because because he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet uh spoken by the Lord through the prophet. See the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son and they will name him Emmanuel which is translated God with us. When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord's angel had commanded him. He married her, but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son, and he named him Jesus. Take a look back at verse 21 once more. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus because, or some translations will say for is the purpose for. Why? Why name him Jesus? because he will save his people from their sins. The name Jesus comes from the Greek Yesus. Yesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew Yahosua or Joshua Yahosua. Yosua which means Yahweh saves. The word the the name Joshua simply means the Lord or Yahweh saves. And so name him Jesus Christ. Why? Names are important. They have meaning. Why? Because this is what he's going to do. Save people from their sin. The primary purpose of Christmas is salvific. It is salvific. Jesus is coming to save people from their sin. In his own words, Jesus said, "The reason he came was what? For this reason I came," Jesus says. And then what does he say? to seek and to save the lost. What does that mean? It means we're lost and he has to come seek the lost. What does that mean? The it means the lo because the lost won't seek him naturally. And he has to save the lost. Why? Because the lost can't save themselves. So he comes fully God and fully man to seek and save the lost us. Jesus says uh himself in John 10:10 11 he says you know why the thief came the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came why? That they may have life and have it abundantly. And you say all right well how's that going to happen? And then in verse 11, he says, Jesus says,"I am the good shepherd." What does that mean? The good shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. Again, Jesus own words, his own purpose statement. This is the reason I came to give life to what? Dead people spiritually to give life. How's that going to happen by him being a good shepherd? What does it mean he's a good shepherd? He lays his life down for the sheep. Once again, it is salvific in nature. The purpose, the point is salvation from sin. Yes, Jesus came and did miracles. Yes, he came and raised people from the dead. Yes, he came and cast out demons. But all of that is second place, a distant second place to his primary purpose to save his people from their sins. Our greatest need isn't physical healing, though we desire that and ask for it, right? If you're sick or not feeling well or something happens, you pray for healing. We do it all the time. Yes. Our greatest need isn't financial blessing, though. We would welcome that if it came, right? There's a lot of people experiencing financial hardships. We would be like, "Hey, thanks, Lord." If we were blessed financially, but that's not our greatest need. Our greatest need isn't for all of our problems to go away, though. That would be nice if they did as well, right? The Lord just took all my problems away. Oh boy, that would make Christmas nice. Our greatest need is to be saved from sin and the penalty of sin. That's what we see in Matthew chapter 1. You remember Romans 3:23 3:23. The wages of sin is death. What does that mean? It's not simply just a consequence, right? Like the consequence of sinning results in death. Yes. But he uses the word Paul does wages. Imagine your whole life's work. Everything you've done. Maybe you gave to such and such a charity and you were just kind of, you know, generally a nice person and you die apart from Jesus Christ. Well, Romans 3:23 is telling you that all of that life you earned a paycheck, you earned wages. Guess what it is? Death. Here you go. Congratulations. Good job. Because you cannot earn salvation. You can't work for it. You can do nothing on your own. Romans 3:23, the wages of sin, your payment for a life apart from Christ is death. But Romans 3 goes on to say, the free gift, free, you can't earn it or work for it. It's a gift, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We need saving from sin. And that's what Matthew 1:21 tells us. It gives us the point of it all. There's a lot of cool things we could go into on Jesus ge genealogy. Um, I'll give you one just for fun. For example, Hebrew letters serve as numbers also in the Hebrew language. So, letters are also numbers. Matthew builds his genealogy around the number 14. You might have read a few times, you're like 14, 14. Like, why does 14 matter to Matthew so much anyway? Well, 14 is the sum of David's name. In Hebrew, almost all, there's always a few exceptions, but almost all Hebrew words are made up of three consonants, and then it's just vowels and where they're placed. And so, David is simply dolllet, vav, dolllet. Those are Hebrew alphabet letters. Doll, vav, dolllet. And then there's a some dots there to make his name, right? Dollit has the value of four vav 6. So what you have in Davided is 464 which equals 14. And so what is Matthew doing? Basically he's connecting Jesus to King David in a distinctively Jewish way. We miss it and we're like what's his whole thing with 14 anyway? Right? Any Hebrewspeaking Jew would know that's why. So there's your answer, right? That's it's a cool little commercial, right? like, "Oh, wow. That's cool." And you see the significance of Matthew centralizing, what is he doing by using the number 14? He's centralizing everything on the fact that Jesus is king on the everlasting throne and kingdom promised to David. This all went back to David. Remember, your kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. No human is everlasting. Jesus will sit on that throne. And Matthew's like, I want you to know that he is in the line of David. So, we have that all the 14s is a reminder that it centers on him being the everlasting king sitting on David's throne. That's the point of 14. But if you get to verse 21, he's not like, "See what I did there, guys? That was really cool, huh? Like I did 14." No, he says in verse 21, why? What's the point? To save his people from their sin. Not one name in this genealogy can do anything to save them from their sin problem. They all had sin problems. They all needed saving from that sin. We need saving from that sin. And that's exactly what Jesus Christ came to do. Save from sin. So what I want to look at us to look at this morning is our great need of salvation from sin. That's what this is about. No one here can do it. Only one can. Jesus Christ. And I don't have time to stop at every name. Um I already went over first service. So we're going to stop at six names. So number one, we need Christ to save us from ourselves. From ourselves. We see this in Abraham. You remember Abraham? If you if you recall his story, he was given the promise, right? Isaac will be born to you, Abraham. But you see, Abraham is getting up there in years. He's getting a little old. And he's like, you know, God promised me a son. I'm getting old. I think I need to help God out a little bit. And so what he does is he has a baby with Sarah's uh servant, Hagar, and produces Ishmael. And there's a lot of history about that that we don't have time to go into, right? But he has Ishmael and God says, "Try again, right?" Like, "No, no, that's not how this is going to happen." And God fulfills his promise and uh and they have Isaac at the ripe young age of 100. You know, Abraham's 100 years old um by that time and Sarah's 90. Have you ever been there where you take matters into your own hands only to mess it up? You're like, I know better. I have a better plan than the God. I don't need to wait for the promises of God. I don't need to wait on God. I'm getting a little impatient. I'll take matters into my own hands. And all you do is mess it up. Make it worse than it began. I don't know if you've been there. I certainly have. Also, what we see in Abraham is a liar. He's a liar. Twice he lied about Sarah being his wife. If you remember, on two different occasions, one in Egypt and one in a place named Guerrar. He goes before the king. And in those days, you know, sometimes if they saw an attractive woman, they would just take her. And so if they if she had a husband, they might ask the husband and take the woman again, right? And so Abraham is traveling and he's in Egypt once and Gerrar in another. And he says, "Sarah, come here. We're about to go this way. Anyone you see, tell them you're my sister so that they won't do anything to me. They might take you into their herum." Um, which they do, uh, and have their way with you, but I'll be all right. Selfish, worried about himself. He's not trusting God in the moment. In fact, when Aimilec, one of the kings that has this interaction, God comes to him in a dream. He takes Sarah in because they lied about it. She says, "I'm his sister." Because Abraham told her to say it, right? And Aimilec takes her in and God shows up to Aimilec in a dream and says, "Don't you dare touch her or you're dead." Aimilec's like, "Got it. Um, not gonna touch her." And he goes back to Abraham. was like, "Why didn't you tell me?" Right? Abraham's like, "Cuz I feared for my life and he didn't care what happened to Sarah." But he put her in harm's way. He was a liar. And yet God showed up and saved Sarah from her husband's stupidity. Really? But we need Christ to save us from our own selves. Number two, we need Christ to save us from speaking of lying, lying, cheating, and deceit. Jacob, you remember Jacob's story? Like his grandfather Abraham, Jacob too was a lying, deceitful cheater. This is in Genesis 27. If you remember, his dad Isaac is old and is about to bless the oldest son, cuz that's what you did in those days. And the oldest son is not Jacob, it's Esau. And so he calls in his son, Esau, and says, "Esau, come here, bro. Come here, son. I'm going to bless you. And you know what? You make really good food. You're a good hunter. So go out, hunt some game. Bring me back some yummy stew, some yummy meat, and we will eat together, and I will bless you." So Esau's like, "Sweet. Going out to hunt." Well, Jacob and um Rebecca um see this. Yeah, Isaac's wife, Rebecca. So, Jacob and his mom are like, "Isaac's about to um bless Esau. We got to do something about this. So, what do we do?" Well, Rebecca knows how Esau makes dinner. So, she makes up a nice yummy stew. And then they put coats of skin, hairy skin on Jacob. Why? Because Esau is hairier than Jacob. Jacob's a smooth skinned young man. And well, you know, Esau is a little more ready. So, what happens is Jacob puts on Esau's clothes and goat skins on his arms and his neck to feel hairy like Esau. And he goes in and says, "Hey, Dad. I'm here with the food, with the game." Isaac's like, "How did you get that so fast?" You know what Jacob says? God, the Lord hath blessed it. The Lord blessed me as I went out and hunted this game down and brought it in. Isn't that great? He brings God into his lie, right? He lies about being Esau and that God blessed his hunt and he steals the blessing. Now, we know that God ultimately uses that and his whole point is to go through Jacob, but still Jacob's name means deceiver. Um, more literally heal snatcher because of what he was doing in the womb. But his name means deceiver. How have we lied? How have we cheated? Stolen? Have you ever been there? We need Christ to save us from our own lying, cheating, and deceitfulness. Number three, we need Christ to save us from sexual immorality. Judah. And I had an in my uh thoughts last night, I I added a second one. Um but it was too late to send it to Jordan. and it wasn't going to bother him. But if you if I could add, we need Christ to save us from sexual immorality and hypocrisy. And hypocrisy. If you remember the story of Judah, Judah married a Canaanite woman. This is Genesis 38. We haven't even gotten out of Genesis and we need to be saved from ourselves. All this lying, cheating, murders to we are not even out of Genesis. And so Judah marries this Canaanite woman and he has three sons, Er, Onan, and Sheila. And so he gives a a wife named Tamar. And the scriptures say basically this. This is what the Bible has to say about. He's an evil man and the Lord killed him. That's what it says. So God um takes life because he's so wicked. And so second in line because you still have lever marriage which there's a lot there but basically long story short lever marriage is if your oldest son and his wife if he dies and they don't have kids the second one in line is supposed to marry her to carry on the family name and have kids. So Onan So Judah's like on you got to marry Tamar. All right we need to have kids and stuff. Well on refused to have kids with her. And what what do you think God did? Killed Onan. said, "The Lord hath taken his life." Right? If you're Judah, think about it. Uh, I just gave this girl two of my sons. They both wound up dead. I don't know if I want to give her my third one. Right? And Sheila's still growing up. Well, some time passes and um, Jacob's wife dies and he decides that he's going to head out to a place called Timna to oversee the shearing of his sheep. So, he's going to go on a little journey. Sheila has grown up into an adult, a grown man who is marriageable age, but he has refused to give her to Tamar because he doesn't want him to die, too. On his way to Timna, Tamar knows he doesn't want anything to do with me and he's not going to do what God's word says to do. She knows that. So, she dresses herself up as a prostitute along the way. Hides herself and she's dressed up and Judah sees her. doesn't know it's his daughter-in-law and sleeps with her and gets her pregnant. He doesn't know it's her. She does and she uh goes away. Well, word gets out, you know, gossip, which we'll get to as well. Word gets around um Judah, your supposedly chased daughter-in-law waiting for another marriage, is um pregnant out of wedlock. He is furious. I'm not making this up. You can read this. He is furious. And you know what it says? Judah says, it says he's filled with rage and says, quote, "Bring her out and have her burned to death." This is really convenient for Judah because if she was sexually immoral, he has a reason to put her to death and he could like, you know, save his third son, his only surviving one, Sheila, from her, bring her out and have her burned. And she's like, "All right. Well, um, you know, before you burn me to death, Tamar," she's like, "Um, can you tell me who these are?" Because when he was going to take her in as a prostitute, she said, "Well, what are you going to give? What are we going to exchange for this?" And he gives her Judah gives her his cord, a ring, and a staff. And so she produces that before he she goes to be burned to death for sexual immorality. She says, "Who's are these?" And Judah knows, "Oh, those are mine." And she's not burned to death. And he, the scriptures say, he has no more relations with her. And she gives birth to Perez and Zebra, which you see in verse three of Matthew 1. But the bottom line is we need saving from sexual immorality and hypocrisy. And sexual immorality in the scriptures in the New Testament covers all kinds of sexual sin. I don't care if it's pornography, adultery, anything else. We need to be saved from those kinds of things. Number four, we need to be saved. We need Christ to save us from murder, covetousness, and adultery. David, the great King David. Yes. Yes. As wonderful and as great as King David was, he's a man after God's own heart. Is a sinner. Cannot save himself. can't save you and I. You remember his sin with Basheba? All the other men are out to war on the front lines. David's like, "I'm going to hang back and I'm going to" and he's walking around the roof and he sees an attractive woman named Basheba bathing. And he calls to her. He knows she's the wife of another man, Uriah. He knows that it's not he's not an idiot. And he takes her in and he gets her pregnant as well. Well, now he's in trouble. Uriah's fighting. His wife's pregnant. Here's what I'll do. I'm going to call him back from the front lines and give him some RNR. Assuming he's going to go home and have relations with his wife. And guess what Uriah does? No. How can I enjoy my wife and my family and my home when the men are on the front lines? So David's like, "Man, I'm dealing with kind of a godly guy here. I'm supposed to be the godly guy, but look at this guy. Um, all right. He won't go in and sleep with his wife. The only other option now is I have to have him murdered. So, what does he do? David writes a death note. Uriah's own death note, seals it up and gives it to Uriah to deliver to the front lines. So, what's Uriah doing? Delivering his own death warrant. And he gets to the front lines and he hands it to the commander. I'm forgetting his name right now. I forgot it first service. It's all right. He gives it to the commander. What's the plan? We are going to go to the front line and when the when the war when the battle is the scriptures say hot, right, or heavy, when the battle is raging, everyone step back besides Uriah. Leave Uriah on the front line fending for himself. When the battle is hot, what do they do? Well, the commander is like, Uriah must have done something stupid on his RNR because David's ordering his murder or his death his death. And so they do just that. They go out to battle, withdraw. Uriah's dead. Words comes back to David. Uriah's dead. He's like, right? Until that firstborn dies, right? God takes the that little baby home. And Solomon is David and Ba Sheeba's second son, right? The first one does die. God is not pleased with David. You read Psalm 51. That's David. David repents. So there is hope in all this. Yes. But what am I trying to say? We need to be saved from murder, covetousness, and adultery. Do you remember? You say, "Well, I haven't like murdered anyone, right? Like, I'm good. Like, I haven't committed adultery." What did Jesus teach about those two? Do you remember what Jesus said? What did he say about murder? If you hate a brother or sister in your heart, you have committed murder against them. If you hate someone, what'd he say about adultery? If a man and or a woman looks at a man, but he uses a man. If a man looks at another woman with lust in his heart, he has committed adultery with her already in his heart. How many of us does that describe? Have you in your heart murdered? Have you in your heart committed adultery? It's Christmas time. It's ripe time to be coveting what other people have, right? Especially for our kids. But have you ever coveted someone else's Christmas and their stuff? We need to be saved from murder, covetousness, and adultery. Number five, we need Christ to save us from idolatry and witchcraft. Manasseh. If you remember King Manasseh, his story is in 2 Kings 21. And I'll read it to you quickly. I want you to pay attention. Just listen to the sins he's involved with. Manasseh was 12 years old when he began to reign. And he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hezba. All right. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. Verse three, this is what he did. For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed. It was a good thing to destroy the high places. Manasseh rebuilds them. And he erected altars for Baal, false gods, and in Asher, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them. Astrology, not astronomy, right? There's a difference between astronomy and astrology. Verse four, and he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, in Jerusalem, I'll put my name. And he built altars for all the hosts of heaven, worshiping the stars and the moon in the sky and the two courts of the house of the Lord. He brought idolatry right into God's house. Verse six, get this. And he burned his son as an offering and used fortuneelling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him the Lord to anger. Those things are sin. I don't know if you've been involved in those things. Fortuneelling, Ouija boards, tarot cards, seeking or pursuing communication with the dead. All of these are sinful. And I don't know if you've been involved with those, but they are sinful. And we need to give those things up. Repent, turn away. We need to be saved from idolatry. And I just use witchcraft because it kind of, I guess, entails all of those things, right? But whatever you're doing that is in that, if you want sound theology, sound doctrine, sound spirituality, you you you you get saved and you have the Holy Spirit indwell you and then you read your Bible, right? This will provide you all the sound spirituality you need. You don't need to go down the corner and have somebody tell you what the lines on your palm means. You don't need that. You don't need that. So, we need to be saved. And number six, we need Christ to save us from gossip. And I have Joseph and Mary. And I'm not talking about their own acts of gossip, right? The last few have been like their own sin. This is what these people did. Joseph and Mary, can you imagine the talk of the town about Mary and Joseph, right? This isn't even their doing, right? M Mary, we know, is pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. And she is truly bringing Christ, the savior of the world, into the world as a full complete human being. Remember, Jesus is fully God and fully man. And yet, what's the talk of the town? What's the scuttlebutt? You know, what's the gossip on Joseph and Mary that they fornicated, right? She's not a virgin. They they um had relations before they were married. And Jesus is the product of sin. You remember what they This lasted a while, right? This didn't go this wasn't like, oh, well, this is the talk for like a week or two and then it went away. No. Jesus approximately 30 years later is dealing with it as an adult. In John 8:es 39-42, Jesus is having a conversation with the Jewish people about who his father is, right? Who is your father? And God says, you know, the father is my father. And they're like, no, no, no, no. But this is the conversation that goes down, right? So this is the Jews talking to Jesus. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God." This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, listen, they said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality." Where did that come from? They're not even talking about sexual immorality. talking about like who his father is and stuff and they say we weren't born of sexual immorality. What are they saying? Like you are right and they say we have one father even God right? You're saying God is your father. No we know Joseph and Mary committed sexual immorality. They fornicated. They had you. We all know this. This is the talk of the town, right? We know Joseph is your dad. Don't try to skirt it. We know this about you, Jesus. You're the product of sexual morality. And Jesus says, Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God. I and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me." What is he saying? Wrong. Try again. God is my father. I come from the father, not from a fornication relationship. And it was probably difficult to deal with being gossiped about, of course. But how many of us have engaged in gossip ourselves? Gossip is sin. If you remember 2 Corinthians, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:20, he was fearful, right? He's like, "I fear that perhaps when I come, I might find you not as I wish and that you may find me, not as you wish. that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. He was worried that the church was engaged in gossip. Gossip reveals a desire to be entertained at another's expense, and it shouldn't be part of church life, right? But it's gossip. We need to be saved from gossip, slandering, quarreling, jealousy, anger, all the things that usually stem from gossip or lead to gossip. Gossip's usually wrong half the time anyway, right? Not even true. Romans 1 kind of sums everything up, and I'm not going to read the read it to you, but basically, we are filled with all kinds of sin. You say, DJ, what's the point? That's the point. We every name here apart from Christ is filled with all kinds of sin. And Christ came the eternal son of God. Emanuel, God with us, the creator of all the universe, stepped down from unimaginable glory beyond our comprehension and was born into a sin sick world to save you and I from ourselves, from our lying, cheating, and stealing and deception from our sexual immorality, from our murderous hearts, from our covetousness, from our adultery, from our idolatry, from our involvement in witchcraft and evil, occultic practices, whatever, from our own gossip and slander, jealousy and anger. That's the point of Christmas. That's the point. Christ came to save us from sin. It's fun, yes, to decorate, you know, get a tree, buy presents, and love on people during Christmas. That is wonderful, right? That's great. But we've completely missed it if we forget that Christmas is about the Messiah, Jesus Christ, coming to save his people from their sins. It's in the scriptures, right? It's what we read. That's the point. And this morning, we get to celebrate that as we observe the Lord's supper. Um we do this on the first Sunday of every month. And so, if you haven't already, you can grab one of these um communion cups in the back. There's some Don't worry, you're not interrupting anything. It's fine. You can go back and grab one. Um, and I will give us some admonitions. If you're joining us online, you can uh grab your own elements as well. Um, and if you'll if you look at it, there's the bread and then the juice. If you would uh open the the top with the bread, and I want to give some admonitions as well for this. Um, if you're here, if you've trusted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, you are invited to join as we celebrate the Lord's Supper. However, if you are here and you don't know Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, like you would say, "No, I I like I like this. I like Christmas. I like, you know, the story about Jesus, but I don't know him personally as my personal Lord and Savior." Um, number one, you can today, right? Come talk to me. I'd love to introduce you to Christ as savior and lord. But number two, I would also say that we would invite you to watch us, but not to partake with us because we can do this in an unworthy manner. 1 Corinthians 11 says, so three things I like to say um and teach during this time is we there's three things, right? Communion, Lord's supper, we look back remembering Jesus and what he's done. We look forward proclaiming the scriptures say this is a proclamation. We proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So you kind of have to be alive to come, right? So he proclamation of his resurrection and then Paul says in the scriptures, he said, "Then examine yourself." So we look back, we look forward, then we're called to look within. That's what I want us to do right now. Take a moment before we pray and partake and read the scriptures. Take time now to examine yourself. And what I mean by that is simply this. Are there sins that need to be confessed to the Lord? Is there anything in your life that you need to turn over to him? Take time to do that right now. Paul says, don't let me interrupt you if you're talking with the Lord. Keep going. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:23 and 24, he says this, "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the broken body of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins. You were born to die. You were born the purpose to come save your people from their sin. And God, we thank you for your body which was broken for us. We do this in remembrance of you in Jesus name. Amen. Let's partake. And if you'll flip it over and we can open the the juice side, Paul continues to write in 1 Corinthians 11:25, "In the same way, he took the cup, Jesus, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. This is a proclamation, right? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the shed blood of Christ on the cross. God, we pray that you would save us and we thank you that you have saved many of us and continue to save us with your keeping power, with the Holy Spirit's guiding and leading our life. Lord, we confess our sin to you, whatever that might be. I pray, God, that you would rid us of our lust of the flesh or lust of the eyes or pride of life, those things that are not from the father but are from the world. That you would fill us with your Holy Spirit. Lord, fill us with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, and self-control. God help us in Jesus name. Amen. Let's partake. Um at this time we also get to celebrate not only the Lord's table. We don't often get to do both uh which is Lord's table and baptism but this morning we get to celebrate both. And I want to invite uh Gabe to uh be ready to go here and I'll introduce you to him and then invite the worship team uh to come up and be be ready to lead us in our last song. We have had, this is the third week in a row that we've had baptisms. Um, this is awesome. I love it. God is doing amazing things. Yeah. Amen. In people's lives. So, everybody, this is Gabe. Everybody say hi, Gabe. >> Hi, Gabe. Um Gabe is a an awesome guy and God has done um an amazing work in his life and um just kind of talking to him and he he's recently there has been a major change in his life and he's kind of knew of the Lord, knew about God, knew about Christianity, knew knew about Christ for for a while, but only recently has he's been like uh I need to make this real serious, take it seriously and um live like a believer, live as a Christian. Um, one of the things, um, that we talk about is getting baptized. Then if Christ has saved your life and changed you, made you a new creation, we got to baptize you, bro. He's like, "All right." Um, so if you want to step in, um, we do this um, at the Lord's command. Um, we baptize disciples of Jesus Christ. And so that's what we're here to celebrate this morning. It It's nice and warm, huh? >> It's good. All right. Um, but Gabriel, is Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior? >> Yes. >> Do you believe that he died on the cross for your sins personally and that he rose again on the third day, showing his power over sin and death, and that he has authority over your life? >> Yeah. >> Well, then, Gabe, upon your profession of faith, I baptize you, my brother, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For we are buried with him by baptism unto death. and raised to walk in newness of life. Drive.