The Night Before Christmas sermon argues that Jesus prioritized perfect obedience over blood sacrifice, urging believers to reject global political distractions like conflicts in Israel or Ukraine. The speaker emphasizes doctrinal unity against heresies such as Arianism and Roman Catholicism, asserting that true love begins with local families and congregations rather than distant activism. By celebrating traditions that crush paganism, Christians should focus on immediate neighbors, lay up physical wealth for future generations, and maintain hope that death will be swallowed by life for God's glory. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Christ's Passive Obedience00:13:18
Many of us are familiar with the scene of the angels and shepherds in the Christmas story long ago.
Many of us are also well acquainted with the three wise men or the magi and the star that guided them from the east.
We even know about King Herod and his evil plan to kill the baby Jesus.
But there are certain parts of the Christmas story that we may not know.
One is this What was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas 2,000 years ago?
Would you please stand with me for the reading of God's word?
Our primary passage of scripture for today is Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5, 6, and 7.
Answering the question that I've just asked, what was Jesus thinking on the night before Christmas 2,000 years ago?
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
Again, to answer this question, what was on the mind of Jesus?
What was he thinking the night before Christmas 2,000 years ago?
In order to answer that question, we'll be utilizing Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5 through 7.
The Bible says this Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
When Christ came into the world the night before Christmas, at the time of his coming, the time of his coming into the world, taking on flesh, what was on the mind of Christ?
If we could ask such a question, well, from the scripture, one of the things, at least, doesn't mean that this is exclusively what Christ was thinking, but at least one of the things that Christ was thinking as he came into the world was this.
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
It's important for us to recognize that God's premier preference from his image bearing creatures is not blood sacrifice, but rather a life of obedience.
Obedience is what God first desires.
Remember the correspondence that takes place, the discourse between Samuel the prophet and the first king of Israel, King Saul.
Saul had been presumptuous and he had taken into his own hands certain privileges and rights and duties that rightly belonged to the priesthood or even to the prophetic office that Samuel fulfilled, but not to the kingly office.
He made certain sacrifices before Samuel arrived and he blamed it on the people, saying, Well, the people, they're the ones who pushed me to do this.
But Samuel says, Well, it doesn't matter.
I'm paraphrasing here.
It doesn't matter what the people said, you're in charge.
You're the leader here in Israel.
And so then he falls back on this excuse of saying, well, I was just trying to please the Lord.
We spared certain livestock and animals, even though God told us to utterly wipe out everything that was living, including the livestock, but we spared them only so that we might perform and offer to the Lord a sacrifice.
Whereas Samuel responds and says that the Lord delights in obedience rather than sacrifice.
That the Lord would prefer, that God would prefer obedience to his word, to his law word, rather than sacrifice.
Now, the irony is that God does command sacrifices of Israel in the Old Testament because these sacrifices are, therefore, because God commands them, the fulfillment of these sacrifices is an act of obedience.
But God, He commands certain sacrifices that Israel, His people, would fulfill these sacrifices as an act of obedience, but only because of prior disobedience.
That's the point.
That Israel is called to do certain things, to commit and fulfill certain sacrifices.
As an act of obedience to God's commands, but only because Israel had been previously disobedient.
But God's preference over all of it would be perfect obedience.
That there would be no need for blood sacrifice and be no need for death.
That simply his people would in fact obey.
And that's what we find in the words of Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 5 through 7.
Notice that both elements are at play here.
We see the element of sacrifice because of disobedience.
But we also see the element of God's chief desire, which is obedience to his law.
Sacrifices and offerings, reading the text once more, verse 5 sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
Well, why?
For what purpose was Jesus given flesh?
Why does he have this body?
Well, in one sense, he's given a body so that he can be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
By his death, by a sacrifice.
But that's not the only reason that Jesus was given a body.
Jesus was given flesh so that he might die as a sacrifice, but also so that he might live in perfect obedience to the law of God.
In burnt offerings, this is verse 6 now, Hebrews 10, verse 6.
In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, Behold, I have come.
So, not these sin offerings or burnt offerings, in that you've taken no pleasure, but in contrast, Behold, I have come to do your will, to obey, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the books.
Now, this is Hebrews, the author to the Hebrews, quoting David in the Psalms.
And so, the original, the first place where we find these words, this text, appear in Scripture is David speaking of himself.
Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and in sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure.
But then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will.
So David is speaking of obedience, speaking of his own self, his own life, saying that I have not been placed here first and foremost, fundamentally, to perform sacrifices burnt bulls and burnt rams, grain offerings.
No, I've been placed here and given a body and given the kingship to do your will.
Now, of course, the author to Hebrews is saying that there's a deeper meaning of this particular text.
That it doesn't just speak of David, but that David, whether he was conscious of it or not, that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote these words, prayed this prayer to the Lord, ultimately speaking of the King of Kings, David's true heir, who would one day sit on his throne, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so this is ultimately, in the highest sense, speaking of Jesus.
But David is even saying this in the first sense, in the first instance, speaking of himself.
So even King David recognized before the coming of Christ, That ultimately, that God had given him a body, and this is representative, this could speak of all men, not just David, but that God has given us beating hearts and breathing lungs.
He's given us life in order not just to die or to perform sacrifices, but ultimately to obey God's word.
One of the chief texts that would support what I'm speaking of now would be Romans chapter 12, that tells us that we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
Let me find that text briefly and I'll read it.
This is Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 1.
By the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
This is your act of worship.
Paul writes to the New Testament church that Christ has been sacrificed as a once and for all sacrifice, as the final and ultimate Lamb of God.
There needs to be no longer any blood sacrifice.
Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient, it was enough.
But God does still demand.
Of his people, sacrifice, but not the sacrifice of blood, not the sacrifice of death, but the sacrifice of obedience, the sacrifice of life an obedient life.
And Jesus has modeled and not only modeled, but also fulfilled as a substitute in our place for all those who trust in him not one, not only his death, his blood sacrifice, but both.
Also, this Romans 12 living sacrifice.
It's important that we recognize the significance and the absolute necessity of both the passive obedience of Christ, as theologians would refer to it, and the active obedience of Christ.
Now, what those two categories, those terms represent, the passive obedience of Christ is his obedience unto death, his obedience at Calvary, his obedience on the cross, his obedience to be as a lamb led before the slaughter, to be silent.
Before his accusers, to not call down a legion of angels as he explicitly says he could, it was within his authority and power to do so, but rather to relegate himself to his false accusers, to entrust himself to men ultimately, because he never entrusted himself to men, but rather knowing the sovereignty of God standing above all men, he entrusted himself to God, he entrusted himself to his father,
he handed himself over to his accusers, he did not put up a fight, but rather he went.
Willingly and passively to the cross in order to bleed out and die as a sacrifice for sin.
That is what we would refer to as the passive obedience of Christ.
And we are saved by this obedience his obedience in death, his obedience at the cross, his obedience in allowing himself to be handed over, to be bloodied and bludgeoned, and to bleed out and die for the sins of his people.
We have salvation because of this.
All right, it's nothing less than this, but it is more than this.
That's not the only reason that you and I are saved.
We are saved because of Christ's passive obedience in death on the cross, but also his active obedience for the 33 years, give or take, leading up to the cross.
Jesus' willingness to die would do nothing if he wasn't willing first in every moment of his life to live and obey.
If Jesus had sinned against God even once, then it would have invalidated not only his life, but his death.
His death could not atone for us, you and I, if it was not the sacrifice of a perfectly obedient and righteous man.
So it's both Jesus' active obedience in his life, living a life of full obedience to the law of God, and his passive obedience in his death, being willing to go to the cross to bleed out and die as a sacrificial lamb that is the substitute, meaning in our place.
So, Jesus didn't just die as a moral example of sacrificial love.
No, he actually died as atonement, payment, a substitute in our place.
But Jesus did not only passively obey in his death as a substitute, but he actively obeyed in his life also as a substitute.
The life of Jesus does serve as a moral example of how you and I should live, but it doesn't only serve as an example.
Jesus didn't just live.
To provide for us a model of a life of obedience that we could follow.
Now, he also lived just as he died as a substitute.
He died in our place, but he also lived in our place, which means that he took our punishment in his passive obedience, in his death, but he also fulfilled on our behalf all righteousness in his life.
An Infinitely Superior Righteousness00:03:46
So, the work of Jesus, both his life and death, the work of Jesus does not merely bring you and I. From a state of being guilty to now a state of moral neutrality and innocence, but rather if you are in Christ, if you have faith in Jesus, you are not only morally innocent, but you have the very righteousness of God.
So, not just an absence of guilt and immorality and sin, but you have a presence of righteousness.
Whose righteousness?
Not the mere righteousness of angels or cherubim or seraphim.
Or the righteousness of the four living creatures with six wings covered in eyes that surround the throne of God.
Not merely the righteousness of 24 elders seated on 24 thrones that cast down their crowns and sing to the Lord and cry out to Him day and night, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
All these angelic beings are righteous to the degree that they have never, ever, ever, ever sinned against God, even once over the course of eons.
And your righteousness.
Infinitely surpasses theirs.
It is not an inferior righteousness.
It is not a comparable righteousness.
It is an infinitely superior righteousness because your righteousness is the kind of righteousness that these angelic beings, who again have never sinned, they are sinless, right?
That's pretty righteous.
They are sinless beings and yet they must cover their faces and cannot look upon the holiness of God because his righteousness is so brilliant.
So blinding, so superior to their own that they can't even directly gaze upon it.
God's righteousness is infinitely superior to a sinless angelic righteousness.
Now, whose righteousness has been given to you?
Not angelic righteousness, not human righteousness, if there were such a thing.
No, divine righteousness.
You have been given.
The righteousness of the second eternal member of the Godhead, namely Christ Jesus.
It's his righteousness.
It's God's righteousness.
It's the brilliance, the same righteousness that is so brilliant and so blinding that angelic beings cannot even look upon it.
It's that righteousness.
That is your righteousness.
It's an alien righteousness, as theologians would call it, in the sense that it's foreign.
It's not your own, in the sense that it is not manufactured or made or conjured by you.
It comes from outside of you.
But it is, although it is an alien righteousness, a foreign righteousness, it is at the very same time your righteousness.
It is yours.
Yours because you conjured it, yours because you created it.
No, yours because you were given it.
And you were given this righteousness by grace through faith in Christ.
So back to the original question what was on the mind of Christ on the night before Christmas?
Well, the mind of Christ, what is he thinking?
What is his purpose?
What is he aware of?
Well, he's aware of this sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
In burnt offerings and in sin offerings, you have not taken pleasure.
The Cost of Divine Obedience00:15:04
But then I said, Behold, I have come to sacrifice, to kill, to bleed out and die.
That's true of Christ, but what does he say?
I have come to do your will.
Jesus came.
Brothers and sisters, did he come as a lamb to be led to the slaughter to bleed out and die?
Yes.
But he also came to obey God, to be the first man in all of human history to ever love the Lord his God with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind and all his strength, every second of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every year, of all his life.
Jesus is the first.
Time that God ever received from humanity what he deserves.
God waited patiently, in long suffering, in great patience, for thousands of years to receive from his image bearing creatures what he had deserved since before the foundations of the world.
Namely, again, not first and foremost blood sacrifice, but first and foremost a life, a living obedience.
Obedience.
This is what Samuel is saying to King Saul.
The Lord does not delight in sacrifices as much as obedience.
Now, it is true that in one sense, God delighted in the sacrifices of Israel, insofar, which was not always very frequent or often, but insofar as during those times when Israel performed these sacrifices obediently, when they did the sacrifices according to God's word.
Not according to their own stipulations or preferences, but according to what God had spoken through Moses, and also not only on the exterior, performing the sacrifices with the right method, but also with the right motives.
That on the interior, insofar as Israel, in the exterior sense, performed the sacrifices rightly, and in the interior sense, they also possessed, by the grace of God, the right and proper motives.
Right, actually, humbling themselves before God, honoring Him as God, seeing the sacrifice as what they rightly deserve, namely death for their sin, and offering this to God as a pleasing sacrifice.
When that was done, that was obedience.
And that obedience, in a sense, was pleasing to God.
But it was not sufficient for salvation.
Because Hebrews goes on to say the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin.
It's not a sufficient sacrifice.
God demanded sacrifice, He commanded it, prescribed it.
Israel, at times, obeyed it.
And sometimes, certain individuals in Israel, by grace, they obeyed it in the exterior sense and the interior sense.
They actually possessed the right motives.
They actually desired to be pleasing to the Lord and to honor him rightly.
But even in this, it was pleasing to God in one sense, but not salvific.
It was not sufficient for salvation.
But all this is because of prior disobedience.
That's the whole point of Jesus, his coming to earth, his life, and his death, and resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of the Father.
It's because we disobeyed, it's because mankind rebelled against God.
God.
That's why God demands blood.
Because the wages, as Romans says, the wages of sin is death.
The wages of sin is death.
It was the only way to pay the price for our iniquity.
It was the only way to set the record straight.
It's the only way that God can pardon man and maintain not only mercy, but his perfect justice at the same time.
Apart from a sufficient sacrifice, atonement just means payment, a sufficient Payment, apart from that, God could not pardon and forgive our sins without compromising His own righteousness and justice at the very same time.
Jesus is the way, He is the way, God's way, to where both mercy and justice can be simultaneously upheld.
That God can exercise mercy to you while maintaining His perfect standard of righteousness and justice without an ounce of compromise.
That's the purpose, the reason for the death of Jesus.
But the desire of God, the desire of God for us as New Testament Christians who have already been paid for by Jesus and his sacrifice 2,000 years ago on the cross, God's desire for you and I is not that we would offer up to him the sacrifice of blood and bulls and goats.
And God's desire for us is not that we would reinstitute the Old Testament, Old Covenant sacrifices of Israel.
And God's desire for us certainly is not that we would come every single week and perform another sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself.
Shout out Roman Catholicism, right?
That's not his desire either.
No, God's desire for you, as a New Testament Christian who has already been sacrificed for Jesus' work, is finished.
He said it is finished.
God's desire for you is a sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice not of death, but of life, and not atonement for sin.
But willing obedience to his law.
God's desire for you and for us is Romans 12, verse 1 and 2.
I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not be conformed, verse 2 says, to this world, but rather be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.
What is good and acceptable and perfect.
That's God's plan for your life.
That's His desire for your life.
If you want to please the Lord, his desire is obedience.
It's the same thing that Samuel said to King Saul long ago.
It is not sacrifice, but obedience.
And the sacrifices, again, that were pleasing were those sacrifices that were done in obedience.
And they were only commanded to be done in obedience because of prior disobedience.
In our case, as New Testament Christians, all of our disobedience, every ounce of sin that you've committed in the past, That you will commit in the present, that you'll commit in the future, all of this has already been sacrificed for.
It's already been atoned for.
So, what is it that you and I can offer to the Lord this Christmas season?
What is it that we can give back to Him because He's given so much to us?
It's not a suicide mission, it's not that we would sacrifice ourselves or sacrifice something else.
What God desires from us.
To return as an act of gratitude for the grace that we've received is that we would live.
Not that we would die, but that we would live and that we would live in such a way that our lives are marked by righteousness and obedience.
That we would actually live out of the righteousness that we've received by grace through faith in Christ alone.
That righteousness that Christ lived to provide and died to give, that this righteousness would actually be manifest.
In the people of God, that the world would be able to look to us and see holiness, that they would see obedience, that they would see people who are living a life of obedience.
That what David is speaking of himself in Hebrews, chapter, well, in the Psalms, quoted by the author of Hebrews, what David in the first sense spoke of himself, in the truest sense, is Christ speaking of himself.
And yet, in another sense, an even further sense, we can say that the words of Christ in Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 5 through 7.
He's speaking it ultimately of himself, but we, as little Christ Christians, his ambassadors, his representatives going out in the world, this is our marching orders as well that we might be able to say to the Lord sacrifices and offerings you have not desired.
The blood of bulls and goats you have not desired.
They can never ultimately take away sin.
The only sacrifice you ever desired was the sacrifice of your son Jesus, and you only desired that in order to make payment.
For the disobedience of your image bearing creatures.
But what you've desired truly in your inmost, what you've desired from the very beginning is obedience, righteousness, a fulfillment of your word.
Burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure in.
Behold, we, the church, the New Testament church, we have come to do your will, O God, as it is written in the scroll of the book.
It's not the truest sense.
The ultimate sense is this is speaking of Christ.
But there is a sense in which the New Testament Christian can say, We have come to obey.
We have come to be righteous as He is righteous, holy as He is holy.
We know that we will fail in many ways and at many times, but all of that has already been atoned for by Jesus Christ.
All of that has been already paid in full.
The payment was sufficient and it is finished.
And when we fail, when we sin, when we rebel, our response is to ask for forgiveness.
To repent of our sin and to get back up and to go back into life, back into our vocation, back into what God has called us to do and to seek to do it with obedience once again.
There are many similarities.
Landing the plane here will be shorter this morning.
There are many similarities between the night before Jesus' death and the night before his birth.
In both of these instances, Christ, we could say, in a sense, as it were, you always got to throw that in, as it were, Christ is thinking on the same things.
Here are the three primary things His love for his Father and eager desire to obey, to do his will.
Number two, the immense cost that would be required in order to do God's will.
And number three, Christ's great love for his people.
So, what was Jesus thinking on the night before his birth?
The same thing he was thinking the night before his death.
He was thinking about God the Father, how to obey him and please him.
Number two, the immense cost that that obedience would incur for himself.
And then number three, his immense love for his people.
This is Luke chapter 22, verses 41 through 44.
This is Jesus on the night of his arrest.
And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup.
That is the cup of God's wrath.
Remove this cup from me.
But nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.
And being in agony, he prayed even more earnestly.
And his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
The night of Jesus' arrest, before his crucifixion, before his death, Jesus is thinking about the immense cost.
And I think there's also a sense in which we can say that David prophesying, whether he was conscious of it or not, the Holy Spirit of God inspiring David, prophesying, speaking the very words of Christ, that shows us not just the night before his death, Jesus' death, but the night before his birth.
That before Jesus died, he's saying, This is going to cost, this is going to hurt.
This is going to cost me everything.
If there's any other way, then God let your cup pass from me.
But if there's no other way, then not my will, that is my human will, but yours, the divine will be done.
That's what Jesus says before his death.
And it's similar to what he says before his birth.
He says, Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.
And that body is purposed twofold.
One, a body to live, Romans 12, a body to live a life of perfect obedience.
As a substitute in our place, but also a body to be torn apart, to bleed out, and to die as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Jesus was given a body that he might live and obey, also that he might die and pay for our sins.
This is his thought process, we could say, in a sense, as it were, his thought process before his birth and his thought process before his death.
The thought process, again, is threefold.
God, I want to honor you more than anything else.
Number two, honoring you in order to redeem them is going to cost.
It's going to hurt.
And number three, I'll do it for your glory first and foremost, but also for their good out of love for his people.
And that's where I want to end right here with John chapter 17, going a little bit more into the words, the prayer, and the mind of Christ, as it were, before his death, because I believe that that frame of mind is very similar.
To what Jesus was thinking before his birth.
This is John 17 in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before Jesus' arrest, right before his death, similar thoughts that he was thinking in the mind of Christ before his birth.
He says this I do not ask for these only.
These only, the context there being the disciples who were physically with him, the 11, right?
It's the 12 minus 1 minus Judas.
I do not ask for these only, but also, here comes in, you and I, for those who will, in a future sense, will believe in me through their word.
That's why we believe, because of the apostolic testimony that has been inscripturated for us and inspired and preserved by the Holy Spirit these last 2,000 years.
So Jesus is shifting, transitioning now in his prayer to his Father right before his arrest, his mock trial, and his crucifixion.
Unity in the Father and Son00:06:56
And he's praying now not only for his disciples who were physically with him at that time, the 12 minus 1, but now he's praying for all future disciples, which includes.
You and I, all those of us who would one day believe in him through the apostolic witness, the word of the apostles.
Verse 21 That they may be, so what?
We've already discussed who he's praying for future disciples, New Testament Christians, you and I. What is he praying?
That we may all be one.
That's one of his chief prayers, a prayer for unity.
That we may be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you.
That they also.
Christians, disciples, may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, and they may be one, even as we are one.
I and them, and you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you have loved me.
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, May be with me where I am to see my glory.
Let me pause there for a sec.
This is again some of the last moments of Jesus' life before his crucifixion.
He's praying to the Lord, and in this particular context, he's praying for you, future disciples.
And one of the things he prays for is unity that we may be one as the Godhead is one, but also, and that's a oneness with each other and a oneness with God.
That's unity with God, right?
Peace on earth, goodwill towards men, because we've been reconciled with God first and foremost, but also reconciled with one another.
So, unity with the church.
The people of God, but also unity with God Himself.
So that's one thing that He's praying for unity.
But He also prays that we might be with Him.
It's a prayer of love.
It's a prayer of not just unity, but intimacy.
He prays that the church, the people of God, His own, those that the Father has given to Him, that we might be with Christ where He is.
That is, be with Him forever in eternity in heaven and in that place that we might have eternal bliss and joy and peace.
How?
By seeing.
His glory that God has given to him because you loved me, going back into Christ's voice now, you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Verse 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.
Jesus' prayer in John 17, right before his death, is the same thought process that he has before his birth.
And what he's praying for is you and I. He's doing all of this, his life of obedience and his sacrificial death, all of it, he's doing one, because of obedience to the Father, love and commitment to the Father.
But number two, for the good of his people.
God actually loves us.
And right there at the end of John 17, what Jesus prays for, he says, I have made it known.
I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that what?
For what fulfillment?
What purpose?
That the love with which you have loved me, the love of God the Father that he has for his son Jesus, may be in you, in us, New Testament Christians, and I in them.
Jesus did all of it.
He came to earth, he lived a perfectly righteous life, not just an absence of sin, but a fulfillment of full presence of righteousness and obedience.
And he died a substitutionary death, bodily rose from the grave on the third day, and ascended to the right hand of God the Father.
He did all of it for the glory of his dad, for the glory of God, for the glory of the Father, in obedience to him, but also so that you and I might have the love of God in us.
And what kind of love?
The same degree, caliber of love that God the Father has for his own son.
We're not being shortchanged here.
It's not a cheap deal.
We are getting the divine righteousness of Christ.
In salvation, and the divine love of God the Father that He has for His own Son.
And we get to relish in that and bask in the love of God, the same caliber of love that He has for His own self.
We get to relish in that, not for a few years or even a few millennia, but for eternity.
And all this is on the mind of Christ.
It is His purpose, His desire, His aim when He comes into the world and when He goes to the tree.
All of this.
The last thing that I want to draw out of John 17, because it's another purpose of Jesus coming, it's a purpose of the Christmas story, his incarnation, his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
One of the purposes, as we saw in John 17, is that we might be with him where he is in heaven for eternity, share and bask in the love of the triune God that God has for himself, that that same love would be in us.
But also, as I said earlier, one of the purposes.
Is for unity.
And not just a unity that represents reconciliation between man and God, but a unity with one another.
A horizontal, not just vertical, but a horizontal unity between believers.
That the church would be united with itself or herself.
That the church, Christians, would have unity with one another.
In all my living, in all my experience, first and foremost, as simply a follower of Christ and disciple myself, Christian, but then also my experience pastorally, I have found that unity can only be achieved one of three ways.
This is important for us to understand.
Number one, the first one is not charity, it's not niceness.
The first way to achieve unity is persuasion.
Unity that comes by charity, there is a biblical precedent for this, and I'll get that's the number two way.
I'll get to that in a moment.
But unity, first and foremost, where you begin with unity, unity is not Common care in the midst of divided convictions.
I'll say that again.
First and foremost, premier unity, top shelf unity, is not common care in the midst of divided convictions.
Persuasion Over Common Care00:14:40
That's not unity in its first sense, in its greatest degree.
The greatest form of unity, the one that Jesus came into the world to achieve and died on the cross in order to purchase on behalf of his people, that unity is not just charity toward one another, even though we disagree with one another.
No, the first sense of unity is a unity of what theologians refer to as common conviction, or you might call it this not the unity of love, that's important.
I'll get there in a moment, but the unity of faith.
This is what Ephesians 4 speaks of.
Ephesians chapter 4 says that Christ, who is the head of the church, he gives to his body, the church, good gifts, and among these good gifts are leaders.
He gives men, fallible albeit, but men, Who have been saved by the grace of God and are called by God to lead his church.
He gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers.
I'm going to say I don't believe in the fivefold ministry.
Sorry.
I believe it's four.
Shepherd teachers, I think that in the Greek there it's actually shepherd teacher.
It's like two sides of a singular coin.
So it's not shepherds and then also teachers as a fifth role, but the shepherd teacher.
So apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherd teachers.
And I believe shepherd teachers are pastors, essentially.
Those are the two primary roles.
They're teaching and they're shepherding.
Evangelists are evangelists, they're sharing the word.
And then you have apostles and prophets.
That's Ephesians 4.
If you cross reference and go back to Ephesians 2, namely, I believe, verse 20, Ephesians 2 20, the foundation of the church is laid on the apostles and the prophets with Christ Jesus as the capstone or the cornerstone.
So I believe, this is my conviction, that what we have is, The foundation of the church laid 2,000 years ago by the prophets and the apostles and Christ Jesus as the final word from the Father.
That's Hebrews chapter 1.
Long ago, He spoke to us by our fathers, the prophets, in many ways, but in these last days, God has spoken to us through His Son.
He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of the Father's nature.
If you want to know what God is saying or what God is thinking or what God looks like, you look at Jesus.
And we have Jesus, His life, His ministry, His teaching.
All encapsulated in scripture, the apostolic testimony.
So the apostles and prophets is the foundation of the church, with Jesus being the cornerstone of that foundation.
And then these last 2,000 years, we have been building on that foundation, and it's the saints themselves, the church, that is executing the work of ministry.
Ephesians 4 says the work of ministry itself is given not to leaders, but to the saints, to the church itself, so that the church is actually building itself up in love.
But the church does this work.
Successfully, because it's being equipped by leaders, and the leaders who are functioning primarily now in this gospel age, New Testament age, is evangelists and pastors, shepherd teachers, evangelists and pastors.
So, you have the foundation of the church laid 2,000 years ago, prophets, apostles, or apostles first, then prophets, with a capstone, cornerstone being Christ on the foundation for 2,000 years now.
You have building, and the workers that are doing the building is not the evangelists and pastors, but the Christians themselves.
But the Christians are being equipped, resourced by the evangelists and pastors.
And all of that, here's the point, all that towards a specific end.
And in Ephesians 4, we're told, we're explicitly described for us what that end is.
The end is unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.
I'll say that again.
To the point, to the end, to what aim are we building and resourcing and all this stuff, this living temple of living stones to the Lord?
What is the aim of all this?
That we might achieve a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, which means it is not a pro.
It's not something to brag about when the church says, hey, you know what?
What's so cool about the Christian church today is that there's, you know, 30,000 different denominations.
No.
That's not a win.
That's a loss.
That's a massive loss.
It's not a win to say, well, in a local church setting, for instance, in that context, locally, to say, well, what I love about this church is that we all disagree with each other.
Well, if you all disagree with each other, then you're on, statistically speaking, And this is a best chance, this is a best case scenario that one of you might be right.
Because if you all disagree with each other, it's likely you're all wrong.
In a best case scenario, you have one Christian in the entire church with decent theology.
That's not a brag.
That's not a win.
That's not something to boast of.
The goal of Christian unity, first and foremost, is a unity of the faith.
It's a unity not of common care, but a unity of common conviction.
It's a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.
When we have a bunch of Christians who have different ideas about the nature and character of God, when we have different ideas about who Jesus is, then we're not united.
So if you can't get unity first and foremost in conviction, beliefs, content, substance, then you go to number two.
The number two method of unity is charity in the midst of disagreement.
So long as that disagreement is Is not top tier primary theological disagreement.
You cannot have unity, even a unity of common care, or we might call it a unity of love, if your unity of faith is so lacking that you actually have heretics in your midst.
In that case, you need to go to the third way of achieving unity, which is separation.
And I know that sounds ironic.
It sounds like that's not unity at all.
But one of the ways that Paul and Barnabas, for instance, and they didn't even have a disagreement on primary truth.
But Paul and Barnabas, just to use them as an example, the way that they gained unity with one another is that they left one another.
They realized we are going to continue to disagree so sharply that if we minister on the same team, in the same place, in the same way together, we're not going to do any good.
We are going to be at each other's throats constantly because we can't see eye to eye.
I've given this example several times, but I'll give it again.
People talk about John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul when he was living.
Oh, they had such a beautiful relationship.
You know how they achieved that relationship?
2,600 miles of distance between them, two separate churches, two separate denominations, and two separate ministries.
John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul, they had unity the way that a lot of us have unity.
For instance, some of you might have family in town and say, We're going to have a great time together by the grace of God.
And how are you going to achieve it?
You're going to achieve it because you're going to be together strategically for 48 hours and not a second more.
Amen.
And then that person's going to leave and get their 2,600 miles of separation.
And that's the way you'll be able to love them for the next 364 days, right?
So that you can go and see them again.
That is unity, but let's just admit here's the point that's not the kind of unity that Jesus is praying for in John 17.
That is the third and final way of attempting to get unity, which is I'm sorry, but we have to part ways.
Sometimes you do this through Matthew 18, church discipline, with somebody who's actually not in the faith at all.
And sometimes, sadly, you have to do it even with someone who is a brother or a sister in Christ, like Paul and Barnabas did.
Paul didn't say that Barnabas was a heretic, and Barnabas didn't say that Paul was a heretic.
But they still had such a sharp disagreement that even as two brothers, they had to part ways.
They had to bless one another to go and labor in different portions of the Lord's vineyard.
And that is a kindness and a mercy of the Lord to us.
It's a mercy of the Lord to us that his vineyard is large, and it's large enough to accommodate R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur 2,600 miles away.
That is a mercy.
But that is not top tier unity.
That's not our aim.
We settle for that because of sin in this life.
But when we settle for it, it better be because we first exhausted all our other options.
And we need to start at the top.
And the top, again, number one, is not charity, unity of love, unity of common care in the midst of theological disagreement.
That's number two.
That's the unity of common care.
Then there's the unity of separation.
And then there's the unity top tier, first and foremost, the unity of actually being on the same page.
The church doesn't even talk about that form of unity anymore because we think it's a pipe dream.
We think it's so far gone, so outside of the realm of possibility that it's rarely even preached.
It's rarely even preached these days from the pulpit to the people of God.
Hey, you know what, guys?
We should have the same theology.
We should believe the same things about Jesus.
We should have a unity, as Ephesians 4 says, a unity of the knowledge of the Son of God.
That we know the same Jesus and we know the same doctrine, that we actually have the same views and interpretations of this book.
That we're aligned not just with warm, fuzzy feelings in our heart with love, but we're aligned with truth.
With truth.
And I believe that by the grace of God, what Ephesians 4 is getting at, I don't believe it's just a description.
I believe it's a promise.
That it's something that we don't just strive for, but it's something that's going to be done.
And it's something that started 2,000 years ago when Christ came into the world in a manger.
This unity is what Jesus prays for, it's on his mind before his death.
I believe it's on his mind, as it were, before his birth.
This is what he came for, what he was born for, what he died for.
And it's what he's praying for, even at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
He is praying that his church would be united.
And I know it's discouraging when you look at the church today, but let me go ahead and just give you guys a little bit of a white pill right here at the end.
The church is way more united today than it was 2,000 years ago.
It took the church about 500 years just to figure out the Trinity.
For 500 years, Christians were killing themselves, killing one another.
Not all the time, but some of that.
There was literally killing one another, wars and battles going on because they didn't even agree on the triune nature of the Godhead.
And then there were battles and fights over the nature of Christ.
Is he part God, part man?
Or is he fully God and not man at all?
Did he just appear as a man, right?
This Arianism idea.
Was he just an apparition like a ghost?
But he was really only divine and never human?
I mean, people, again, they fought wars.
They died over these things.
So it took the church about a thousand years just to get united on the doctrine of God.
Now, are there still people today that bear the name of Christ that are heretics on the doctrine of God?
Sure, of course.
But here's the difference in today and 2,000 years ago 2,000 years ago, those people were taken seriously.
Today, we mock them.
Praise God.
That's winning, that's victory, that's progress.
In 2,000 years, One of the things that's been accomplished is instead of an ecumenical council where a heretic gets a hearing, we laugh that guy off the stage.
We boo him, we mock him, we mark him as a heretic, and we tell people that if anyone follows him, they're going to go to hell.
It is a blessing.
It is a blessing of Christ and his work that you don't have, speaking of Christmas time, that you don't have St. Nick having to punch Arius in the face.
Did you know that happened?
If you want to teach your kids about Santa, teach them the most important characteristic of Santa is that he punched a heretic in the face.
That's a wonderful thing.
So you have St. Nick punching Arius, the heretic, in the face over the doctrine of God.
We don't have to do that anymore.
We don't.
Yes, there are sects and cults.
That's true.
But there are literally millions, if not arguably two to three billion Christians who believe right, correct, triune doctrine.
They believe that God is three persons, one essence, and that the second member of the Trinity has two natures that are not divorced from one another, not severed, but also not mixed.
That he is fully God and fully man as a second member of the three persons in a one essence God.
One God, three persons in the second person, two natures.
That's huge.
That's a lot of victory.
All you have to do, I think, to be encouraged is you just have to pan out.
You just have to pan out.
I know that we're divided right now.
But I think, and I know it's been said before, I'm not the first person to say it, but I think it's worth saying again.
I think part of the reason the church is still divided today is because, in a very real sense, we are still living in the early church.
If Jesus tarries, no man knows the day or the hour.
I'm not making any prophecies.
That would be a foolish thing to do.
No man knows the day or the hour.
I don't know.
Jesus could come back tomorrow.
That is entirely possible.
I think it's unlikely, but it's possible.
But if Jesus tarries, what would the church look like in 10,000 years?
There's a song, many of you guys are familiar with it, where it says, Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground.
It doesn't feel like that a lot of times, but we are.
And you need to be hopeful.
All the time, you need to be hopeful because you're commanded to rejoice.
You're commanded to believe, to trust, to hope.
But beyond just that, you need to be hopeful, not just because God commands it in order to fulfill His will, but because you need it.
Hope Like the Good Samaritan00:03:39
Life is not sustainable.
It's not sustainable the way many conservatives and sadly even Christians have been living these last three years.
And I'm not talking about sustainable in the sense of our draconian political elite.
You know, totalitarian leaders pressing down on us.
I'm not talking about that.
That's bad enough in its own right.
What I'm saying is not sustainable is every day spending hours on the internet looking at the worst things in the entire world.
You can't live that way.
You can't.
People were not like, we were just finite.
It's not even about our fallenness or our sin nature.
It's about our creatureliness, it's about our finitude.
Not fallenness, but finitude.
You, as a creature, a mere creature, redeemed.
Praise God, but still a creature.
There are some things you just can't know.
And if you do know those things, you can't respond.
You're just not meant to.
You're not supposed to.
People, you know, all the time pressing on you for a response.
What's your view?
What's your position?
How do you feel about this?
Are you mourning this?
Are you mourning that millions of people are dying over here?
And my answer is no.
What?
You don't care about millions of people?
No.
I can't care.
It's not I won't care.
I'm doing everything I can right now to care about the five other people in my family.
To care about my mother and my father, to care about my local congregation.
I'm doing everything I can to care about the relationships that God, in His sovereignty, has actually placed in front of my face.
Because I know precisely who God has called me to care about.
Yes, we live in a universal neighborhood.
Children in Uganda, they are your neighbor.
But there's something to be said for the Good Samaritan.
Notice, the Good Samaritan in that parable is not someone on the other side of the planet with a smartphone who puts a black square on their Facebook.
And then Jesus says, you know, this is the Good Samaritan.
No.
The Good Samaritan noticed one element in that parable is proximity.
Do you know why he was morally bound to do something for his neighbor?
Because he was there.
He was there.
This is not America in Israel.
This is not America in Ukraine.
This is not America in whatever.
The thing that will happen in the next 15 minutes.
We'll find out tomorrow.
There'll be another thing and then another thing and another thing.
Care about this.
Care about this.
Post this flag.
Post this square.
Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers.
And it's just like a whip behind you.
You're a slave.
Do it.
Do the thing.
Say the thing.
Say it.
Say it.
Feel it.
Feel it.
Cry.
Cry.
Care.
Care.
You can't live like that.
You can't.
Care about your kids.
Care about your wife.
Care about your husband.
Care about your church.
Israel, who cares?
Don't care.
Ukraine, don't care.
I don't care.
And I don't care what's politically correct.
I don't care about that either.
I don't.
And every single thing that happens in the White House, I don't care.
And that's not to forgo civil responsibility.
We do have that, but even that, it starts with proximity.
It starts locally.
It starts at home.
It starts with your city council.
It starts with your county.
It starts with that.
Who's your neighbor?
Wisdom Starts at Home00:05:53
Yeah, it is technically true, biblically, theologically true.
You have 8.2 billion neighbors, and if you think you can love them all properly, then you are an arrogant fool.
And I don't even know where to begin to help you.
The only person who can help properly, perfectly, 8.2 billion people is God, and you're not Him.
You're not.
And this is not just because you're a sinner, it's because you're a creature.
Even when sin is done away and you have your glorified body in heaven for eternity, You still couldn't care for 8.2 billion people because you're not divine.
You're not the creator who is to be forever praised.
Amen.
You are a creature, you are finite.
And so many of us, we fail with what God has placed right in front of our face because we're spending so much energy and so much time with something happening on the other side of the planet and we don't even know if it's real.
You don't, by the way.
You think you know everything, you don't.
You don't know everything.
You know exactly what you're supposed to know, decided by some other group at a specific time.
You know what they want you to know, when they want you to know it, and that's all you know.
We don't even know proper history, and I'm not talking history from the Crusades or history from ancient Babylon.
We don't even know proper history of things that happened 60 years ago in this country.
You can't even find that information.
Everything's been revised.
The victor goes the spoils.
One of the spoils is getting to write the books.
It's not just gold, it's not just cash.
One of the greatest spoils of war that goes to the victor is narrative.
The greatest spoil is not wealth, it's truth.
Who gets to decide what is truth?
That's what Pilate says to Jesus What is truth?
And in 2,000 years, that question has only been muddied.
What is truth?
We don't know.
Yes, we want to be involved.
Yes, we want to give our lives as a living sacrifice, but give it at home.
Charity starts at home.
Your neighbor starts at home.
What about your literal neighbor?
Do we even think about that?
What about your next door neighbor?
And first and foremost, what about your family?
Thinking about that.
So, one of the things that we need, I preached this last week, but we need hope.
We need hope.
And one of the ways that you get hope is you get off the internet and you get into this book and you look at the big picture.
And the big picture is I don't care who tells you, I don't care what story you read.
Here's the big picture In 2,000 years, Christ and his kingdom has advanced.
Shout on, pray on.
We are gaining ground.
There has been an advancement.
There has.
There is more theological unity today.
Well, what about all these people that disagree?
Yeah, they're wrong.
They're heretics.
They're going to hell, apart from the saving grace of Jesus.
I'm not talking about them.
There'll always be enemies of the church, but we have millions that are aligned.
Millions that are on the same page.
Here's the math is simple.
Okay?
2,000 years, things are just getting worse and worse and worse.
Jesus is coming back next Thursday and, you know, give whatever cash you have to Israel.
Bad theology.
Stop that.
Stop that neoconservative, dispensational.
Get that out of here.
That is trash.
Garbage theology.
No.
Here's the deal 2,000 years, the math is simple.
12 followers of Jesus, 2 billion.
Let's pray.
Shout on, pray on.
We are gaining ground.
Jesus, you came into the world as light, and you are casting out the darkness.
It is not always a perfect progressive increase.
There are dips along the way, there are dark shadows, dark moments, moments of despair.
But you are the final word.
You get the final word, and you have spoken that the light has come into the world, and that the darkness has not overcome it, and it will not overcome it.
That Christ, you are pushing your crown rights forward over every single square inch of all of your earth.
And you're using your body, the church, to do it.
Lord, I pray that you would make us wise.
And Lord, I echo your own prayers in John 17, what was on your mind before your birth and what was on your mind before your death, that your people would be in unity.
That you would unite us, Lord.
And that you would not just unite us with charity and love in the midst of disagreeing on truth.
But that first and foremost, you would unite your church, not just that we love the same people, but that we believe the same truth.
God, I pray that you would raise up many biblically qualified, gifted men to preach truth and to preach it so persuasively, so powerfully, like a double edged sword, that it would slice through lies, that it would reveal darkness, expose corruption, and that people would come to faith.
come to conviction, come to truth, and that we would be united with, yes, a unity of love, but a deep love for one another that ultimately is undergirded by truth.
You say in 1 Timothy that the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth.
The truth.
Father, truth is so, it's like a needle in a haystack.
Knowledge Applied as Wisdom00:04:38
We are the most informed generation of people who have ever lived on the planet, and yet we are the dumbest.
Informed, but information and knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is knowledge applied.
Wisdom is knowing what to do with a matter.
Wisdom is not just knowing information about a certain topic or subject, but wisdom is knowledge that comes from you.
Wisdom that comes from above that tells us how to live.
That's what we need.
We have so many people patting themselves on the back, pretending and humoring themselves that they're informed.
That they know what's really going on, that they took the red pill, that they see the truth, they realize how bad things are, but these people still don't know what to do.
The sons of Issachar were mighty men, and what made them mighty is they didn't just know the times, but they were those who knew the times and who knew what Israel ought to do.
Father, I pray that you would raise up such men, sons of Issachar, that Israel, the true Israel, the church, that we would not only know the times, but that we would know what To do, how to act, how to live, what are our marching orders, what do we do today?
And Lord, I pray that we would start where we're most certain, the things that we know with sure, sureness from your word.
What do we do right now?
What do we do?
We go home, we hug our kids, we tell them Merry Christmas, we give them a candy cane, we drink some hot chocolate, we sing some hymns to the glory of God, we talk about Christ born in a manger.
To come to live and to die for the sins of the world.
And we wake up on Christmas morning and we give presents, good gifts to one another because you gave us the perfect gift of Jesus.
And we look at a Christmas tree and we say, yeah, maybe it was pagan with the winter solstice and all these kinds of things, but that's the tradition, the great tradition of Christianity is crushing paganism.
And so we're celebrating that today.
We're celebrating what pagans have done for 2,000 years convert to Christianity.
And this tree, this evergreen tree, represents the everlasting life that we have with.
Christ and we love one another.
Now let's go outside and play with that scooter or play with this or do that.
Let's smile, let's love one another, and let's honor Christ.
If we eat or we drink, whatever we do, that we would do it all for the glory of God.
Lord, I pray, I pray, I pray against the demonic power of despair.
I can feel it every day, and I feel it on this church.
And as one of its pastors, it's not about me, I'm nothing special, but you've given me this position.
As one of its pastors, for a moment, going back to some charismatic days, I just rebuke in the name of Jesus.
The Lord rebukes a spirit of despair over this congregation and over Christians around the world that are hopeless, that death keeps swallowing up life.
That's not the book.
The book is true.
Though every man be a liar, let God be true, and every man a liar.
The book doesn't say that life is one day eventually swallowed up by death, but that death is swallowed up by life.
That darkness is expelled by light.
That life wins, that light wins, that Christ wins.
So, no matter what we've been through, no matter what we're thinking, no matter what loved one has died, no matter what kid is sick, no matter what job was lost, no matter what the news said yesterday and will say tomorrow, that the ultimate narrative, the ultimate truth in all the universe is that you, oh God, gave your son, and he is the hope of the world, and we win with him.
We believe this because you said it.
You said it.
And it's the only anchor we have.
There's nothing else that we can even really, we don't know what's true.
But this book, we can believe it is true.
It is certain.
Help us to believe it, to know the times, and to know what we ought to do.
And if there's things where we don't know, then let us start closer, closer to home.
The things that we're sure about loving our wives, loving our kids, having kids, laying up an inheritance, physical wealth for future generations, buying property.