I'm just going to change the
speed a little bit on that. There we go. Thank you. Walking in sunlight all of my
journey, over the mountains, through the deep vale. Jesus
has said, I'll never forsake thee, promise divine that never
can fail. Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight,
flooding my soul with glory divine. Hallelujah, I am rejoicing, singing
His praises, Jesus is mine. Shadows around me, shadows above
me, never conceal my Savior and God. He is the light, in Him
is no darkness, ever I'm walking close to His side. Heavenly sunlight,
heavenly sunlight, flooding my soul with glory divine. Alleluia, I am rejoicing, singing
His praises, Jesus is mine. In the bright sunlight ever rejoicing,
pressing my way to mansions above. Singing his praises gladly I'm
walking, walking in sunlight, sunlight of love. Heavenly sunlight,
heavenly sunlight, flooding my soul with glory divine. Hallelujah, I am rejoicing, singing
His praises, Jesus is mine. Thank you. Turn to Zechariah 3. Zechariah chapter 3. And he showed me Joshua, the
high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan
standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said
unto Satan, The Lord rebuketh thee, O Satan. Even the Lord
that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuketh thee. Is not this a bran plucked
out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy
garments and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake
unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy
garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold,
I have caused thine inequity, Iniquity to pass from thee and
I will clothe thee with a change of raiment And I said let them
set a fair mitre upon his head So they set a fair mitre upon
his head and clothed him with garments and the angel of the
Lord stood by And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua
saying Thus saith the Lord of hosts if thou will walk in my
ways And if that will keep my charge Then thou shalt also judge
my house, and shalt also keep my courts, and I will give thee
places to walk among these that stand by. Hear now, Joshua, the
high priest thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they
are men, they are men wondered at, for behold, I will bring
forth my servant the branch. For behold, the stone that I
have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving
thereof, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity
of that land in one day. In that day, saith the Lord of
hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbor under the vine and
under the fig tree. Let's pray. Father, we come to
you again this morning, thankful for our time together to worship.
And Father, for our time together to show our love for Christ and
Christ's love for us and our love for one another. And Father,
we again are always thankful for the pastor that you've given
us and the place that you've given us to come to worship.
Watch over this church. Lord, have it grow at your discretion,
at your will. And Father, just again, continue
to watch over our pastor as he faithfully brings the message.
And Father, we ask that you just watch over and care for us. And
Lord, let us remember this time of year, Father, is a lot of
it is just commercialism and a lot of it is just man trying
to create something, but Lord, let us understand exactly what
you came for, what you did, why you were born and why you came
to this earth, why you lived and the mission that you came
to accomplish. And you came to accomplish for
a chosen group of people. And father, we come to you so
thankful for that. And Lord, we, again, we just ask that you
watch over and care for us in Christ's name. second him what's saying hiding
in the 282 hiding in the Who's safe to the rock that is
higher than I? My soul in its conflicts and
sorrows would fly. So sinful, so weary, thine, thine
would I be. Thou blessed rock of Asia, I'm
hiding in thee. Hiding in thee. Hiding in thee. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. In the calm of the noontide,
in sorrow's lone hour, in times when temptation casts o'er me
its power, In the tempest of life, on its wide-eving sea,
Thou blest rock of ages, I'm hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee. I'm hiding in thee. Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm
hiding in thee. How often the conflict when pressed
by the foe, I fled to my refuge and breathed out my woe. How often when trials like sea
billows roll, Have I hidden in thee, O thou rock of my soul? Hiding in thee, hiding in thee,
Thou blessed rock of ages, I'm hiding in thee. Good morning. Take your Bibles and turn to
John chapter 10. John 10, and I want to look at
the truth that's being declared in two verses, in verse 17 and
18. Here our Lord says, Therefore
doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life. that I might
take it again. No man taketh it from me, but
I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
of my Father." Now, men throughout history have tried to honor God
by the works of their hands, by the wisdom of their minds
and the thoughts of their heart. They've tried to honor God. They've
even gone so far as to take the word of God. which is blessed
and true, and they look to the law of Moses to try and work
a righteousness for themselves and to honor God through that
law. But our Lord tells us that that
isn't honoring to God, not in a spiritual sense, not in a sense
that gains us some favor. Our Lord said that that when
we've done the law, when we've done that which is right, we've
only done that which is our duty to do. We're supposed to do those
things. That's what we ought to do. So
there's nothing above and beyond gained for us by doing something
in the law. So doing our best and trying
to do good works. We foolishly, for example, try
to be more religious. We try to do things that we think,
well, this is what religious people do. This is what God's
people should be doing. So I'm going to start doing that.
I'm going to try to come at my God and be pleasing to God. by
doing certain things differently than how I used to do them. And
I want to incorporate things that have a little religious
flavor in them, like going to church more consistently, or
praying before meals, or reading my Bible. And those are all things
that we ought to do. But that's not honoring to God
when it's done in the flesh, when it's just a fleshly work
that we think God is pleased with because we do them. Paul actually tells us that such
attempts are are just missing the whole righteousness of God. They're missing the whole point
that we're sinners and we can't save ourselves. And he said in
Romans 10 verse 3 that, well, he was thinking of the Jews who
were very religious. who followed the law of Moses
and knew it better than most of us today do, but he said they're
being ignorant of God's righteousness and are going about to establish
their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. And that's because in religion
and trying to come at God by what man thinks are good works
and what man thinks God is pleased with, it's a slippery slope. And before you know it, Christ
is forgotten and all our focus is on that law and what I need
to be doing. And that fear grows because we're
looking to what this flesh is trying to do to please God. and it's not submitting to God's
righteousness. And the truth is that God has
provided the way. He's given us the way of salvation. He's given us all that the sinner
needs to be delivered from their debt and burden of sin and to
be reconciled unto the Father. And so the way that we honor
God in perfect righteousness is in the one whom he has sent
for the righteousness of his people, to make his people righteous
and accepted with him. He's given salvation in his son. for the remission or the forgiveness
of sins. And so our Lord said, when the
Jews asked him, well, what can we do that we might work the
works of God? And our Lord said, well, this
is the work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent. And then in John 5, verse 23,
our Lord said that all men should honor the son, even as they honor
the father. He that honoreth not the Son
honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. And so we honor
the Father by honoring the Son whom God has sent. And the only way that a sinner
can honor the Son is by trusting Him, by believing the Lord Jesus
Christ, that He is my salvation. That's honoring the Son. That's
giving all honor to Him. And in honoring the son, you're
honoring the father. you're honoring the one whom
he has sent and provided for the way of salvation for his
people. Now the natural man thinks that
he's honoring God by trying to do good works and he doesn't
understand that he's not obtaining God's favor in trying to do better,
in trying to be religious, in trying to do these things. All
he's doing is actually bringing a curse upon him. And Paul worded it this way in
Galatians 3.10. He said, as many as are of the
works of the law are under the curse of the law. They're actually
under the curse of the law because it's written, curse it is everyone
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book
of the law to do them. So you can do your best in keeping
the law, but if you break the law in one part, you've broken
the whole of it. And if you break the law in one
part, you now have brought upon your head all the curses of the
law." And that's what it's saying. If you don't do this, this is
what's going to happen. And that's the curse of the law.
And that's what men do in going back to the law for a righteousness,
to improve their standing before the Lord. And so that very thing
that man by nature is boasting in and is confident in and is
trusting in is the very thing that weighs heavy around his
neck and is going to bring him deep, deep, deep down into the
sea of God's wrath where he'll be destroyed. and separated from
God for all eternity. Our Lord said to the Jews in
John 8, 24, ye shall die in your sins. For if you do not believe
that I am, that I am the Christ, that I am the Savior, the way
of salvation whom the Father has provided for his people,
if you don't believe that I am, you shall die in your sins. That's what our Lord said. And
that's because our God has provided the way. There's only one way
of salvation. It's in His Son, Jesus Christ. He's pleased with all those who
come to Him in the Son. All those who come trusting in
Christ. They have the forgiveness of
sins. They have eternal life. They have standing with God. They're accepted of Him. Received
into the Beloved. It's the holiday season and we
think of family. You that are in Christ, you that
trust Christ are in the family of God. You're in the beloved
family of God thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ. You're in God our
creator's family. You rejoice among the heavenly
host even now where you're seated in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus right now, right now with your Lord. And so we hope in
the Lord Jesus Christ that he is the forgiveness of our sins.
We trust him. We believe God. We believe him. We have no other hope. Because
thanks be to God, he's given us a spirit and stripped us of
that hope, and seeing how we're fools trying to come to God any
other way. We're fools trying to trust in
a righteousness of our own. So in our text today, we find
the boast of the sinner. The boast of the sinner is Christ.
Paul said in Titus 3 verse 5 and 6, it's not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy God saved us by
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost which
he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. I've titled this message, Obedience
to the Command, and we'll be looking at the Father's Command
and the Son's Obedience. The Father's Command and the
Son's Obedience. So, in John 10, verse 15, our
Lord tells us His purpose. He says that He's come to lay
down His life for the sheep, and He was speaking to the Jews
that were hearing him speak there. And then immediately following
that, he says in verse 16, And other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my
voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. So he's
referring to the Gentiles that were scattered to the ends of
the earth. He's got to bring them as well,
just as he's bringing the Jews. And so our Lord here is speaking,
it's important for us to understand, our Lord is speaking of himself
as the mediator whom God has sent. Yes, he is the Son of God. Yes, he is one equal with God
the Father and God the Holy Spirit, the triune God. He is one with
the Godhead. But here he's speaking of himself
as a man. as a mediator, as the Christ
whom God has sent to save his people, to come as the surety
of his people, to pay the debt that we owed. And to do that,
he had to take upon himself flesh and fulfill all the law of righteousness. of righteousness, to be perfect
in all his ways, to love God with his heart, mind, soul, and
body, and his neighbor as himself. And Christ came and fulfilled
that all. And he says, therefore, as the
mediator, at the end of verse 18, he said, this commandment
have I received of my father. My father has given me this commandment. And what he's saying there is,
I've come as the servant of Jehovah. I've come to be obedient to the
will of God. for my people, to obtain their
forgiveness." In Isaiah 42, 1, we read, Behold my servant, whom
I uphold, mine elect, the Father speaking of his Christ, in whom
my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him,
and he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. And then again,
in Isaiah 52, verse 13, Behold my servant, shall deal prudently, wisely. He shall be exalted and extolled
and be very high. And so Jesus Christ is the faithful
servant of God. He has come the mediator, the
substitute, the surety, the salvation of his people. And he loves God
the Father. He loves his Father. He wants
to do the will of God. He delights to do the will of
God. And so he gladly, willingly,
obediently comes to fulfill all the will of God his Father. Now
there's a law given in Exodus, there's many laws, but there's
a law given in Exodus 21. And this law that's written there
was given to give us a picture, to foreshadow, to tell us of
Christ who would come as the servant of the Lord. And so it
says in Exodus 21 verse 5 and 6, and if the servant shall plainly
say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go
out free. I don't want to go out free.
I don't want to deliver myself. And what he's talking about is
there was a law that in Israel, if a Jew was poor and he had
to sell himself as a bond servant. He would sell himself to another
Jew and he would be kept as a slave making no wages during that time. He would sell himself to that
Jew for six years and then in the seventh year he would go
free. And if he went into that servitude with a wife, he would
leave with his wife. But if, while in that servitude,
his master gave him a bride, gave him a wife, then that wife
would be left behind. And if they had any children
together, those children would stay with their master. The wife
and the children would be their masters. And so here the servant,
if the servant loves his master and says, I love my master. I don't want to go out. I don't
want to leave my wife and my children. I love them. I will
not go free. And that's a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh, loved to do the will of
God his father, loved his bride, and love the children that he
made with his bride. That's you that believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and under the ministry of the gospel given
to the church, the ministry of reconciliation. Christ said,
I love my bride. I love my people. I'm not going
to deliver myself. I'm not going to call 12 legions
of angels to come and deliver me out of the hands of those
who came to arrest me, I'm going to the cross to fulfill the will
of my father that I might deliver my bride and my people whom I
love. And so our savior did that and
it says, then his master shall bring him unto the judges and
he shall also bring him to the door or unto the doorpost and
his master shall bore his ear through with an awl and he shall
serve him forever. I'll have one of those big gauge
holes in his ear and his earlobe, signifying that he was forever
a servant of his master. And so, that's what our Savior
did. And that's what's spoken of in
Isaiah chapter 50, verse 5 and 6, where Christ has his ear opened
in this manner. That's the picture. That law
was given to show us Christ. God isn't conveniently saying,
oh, here's a good picture of Christ. No, that was given to
show us what Christ has done for his bride in obedience unto
the Father. And it says in Isaiah 50, verse
5, the Lord God had opened mine ear. He put an awl through my
ear, because I'm his servant. And I was not rebellious, neither
turned away back. I didn't have second thoughts
and think, what have I done? I'm all in, Christ says. And then verse six, I gave my
back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off the
hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Instead he
went and obediently fulfilled all the command of his father. And so all the scriptures are
written to show us the faithfulness of our Lord to our God and our
Savior, who is faithful to do that work. And that faithfulness
shines brightly against the backdrop of us who are black with sin,
who are stained with sin, who are filthy with sin. We see the
brightness and the glory of our Lord and Savior and what he's
done. So turn over to Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews chapter 10, and we're
gonna read verses seven through 10. Verse seven is actually a quote
from Psalm 40, verse seven, but we'll just look at it in Hebrews. Then said I, Below I come, in
the volume of the book it is written of me." And what he's
saying there, what our Lord is saying is, in the beginning of
the book, it's written of me. From the beginning throughout
the whole book, it's written of me. It's speaking of my obedience,
your Lord says. to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law.
That's what my people were striving in and struggling in and couldn't
do it, bearing that yoke, that burden of the law, and they couldn't
make themselves righteous. They couldn't put away the burden
of sin. They couldn't remove the stain and filth of sin. You weren't pleased with those
things, Lord. Verse 9, Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will,
O God. He taketh away the first, that
he may establish the second. So that first covenant which
couldn't remove any sins had to be put away. had to be done
away with, that God may establish the second, the covenant of grace,
whereby he may be gracious to us because of Christ and the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. By the which will, verse
10, what will? God's will. That Christ came
to do, to do the will of God. By the which will, we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And so man who can't pay his
debt, who can't put away his sin, God in grace has done it
for his child. through the blood of Christ,
through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to
put away that sin, and who sends the Spirit of God to put away
the enmity in our minds against God, to reconcile us to our Father
in all things. In all things, God has reconciled
us. Romans 8.3 says, for what the
law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, We're
the problem. We're the weakness. We're the
weak link in the whole chain. We are the weakness. So what
the law couldn't do in that it was weak through the flesh, God
sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and force him,
condemns him in the flesh. Christ put it away. And so the
will of God always was to save his people by the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. This was always God's will and
purpose. There was never another way of
salvation. It was always showing and highlighting
and pointing out the very fact that our mouths must be shut
before the law. All we see is how sinful we are
and how desperate we are for the grace of God. And thanks
be to God who sent his son to put that sin away. And so this
was always God's will. And even before we fell in Adam,
God chose Christ. He chose to glorify His Son. They already worked out the whole
covenant of grace, and so everything that's been done is according
to the will of God, which the Son came and fulfilled as the
Savior, as the Christ, the God-Man mediator between God and His
people. And Acts 2 verse 23 confirms
this. Christ being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. God determined it this
way. He determined it, and that's
exactly the way it's being worked out. It's been worked out and
is continuing to be worked out in the day of grace for each
one whom the Father loves and continues to bless his people
in Christ. And then he said, you've taken,
you men of flesh, you've taken and by wicked hands have crucified
and slain, but it was all according to the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. Turn over to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter
1, and we'll pick up in verse 18, Peter confirms this as well.
1 Peter 1.18 Forasmuch as ye know
that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, in other words, put anything in place of silver and
gold. We haven't been redeemed by those
things. Those are corruptible things.
Even silver and gold, right? You think about how people are
persuaded by money and do evil things for the love of money. That's not how we're redeemed.
This flesh is corruptible. We twist and ruin. everything
we put our hands to. That's not how we're saved, not
by corruptible things, not by this flesh, but by the Spirit
we now know. It's with the precious blood
of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times for you. And then in the
next verse we see the fruit of our Savior being born of the
seed of Christ where we bring forth fruit unto our God by Christ
our husband. He says, verse 21, who by Him
do believe in God that raised Him up from the dead and gave
Him glory that your faith and hope might be in God. And there's
a two-fold understanding in that phrase that says, who by him
do believe in God. In one sense, it means that it's
by the power, the resurrection power and glory of Christ, that
we now believe God, that we now trust and believe God. And the
other sense there is that in trusting the Lord Jesus Christ,
Through Christ, we do believe God. Through Christ, we worship
our Father. We worship and honor our God
and are obedient to Him in all things through Christ. It's by
Christ. We come trusting Christ. That's
how we honor. We honor the Son and that's how
we honor the Father, by honoring the Son. And so we've forsaken
the way of flesh. We've forsaken trying to please
God by the works of this flesh. We have no confidence in the
flesh. We count it all dung because we see it doesn't save. But God
has provided the way of salvation freely and abundantly in His
Son, Jesus Christ, by whom we come, by whom we know these things,
the way of salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the way
of salvation. And so our God purposed this
for us in Christ, just as he said at the end of verse 18 in
John 18, this commandment have I received of my father. He gave me this commandment.
This is his commandment. This is his will, and I've come
to fulfill the will of my father by obeying him and all things
that he's purposed and determined for me, for his people, before
the foundation of the world. And so he came and fulfilled
that commandment and that's what he's doing here. He's declaring
it to the Jews that are standing there. He said, verse 17, therefore
doth my father love me because I lay down my life that I might
take it again. And just as He knew the Father
loved Him, therefore we do know the love of the Father, in that
He sent His Son and spared Him not, but delivered Him up for
us all, that we might know the fellowship and mercy and grace
of our God. That's how we know the love of
God for us, brethren. 1 John 4.10 Herein is love, not
that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we
the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. He purchased His church with
His own blood. That's how we know the love of
our God. Alright now, our salvation is wrought by Jesus Christ through
his obedience to the Father and sacrificing himself for our sins. And so he says, let's read verse
17 and 18 again. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me. but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of my father." You know, I think
it's impossible for us in the flesh to fully comprehend just
how pleased our God is in putting his son to death. Just how pleased
he was, how willingly he did that to save his people, to do
what he did in saving his people. We're told in Isaiah 53 that
it pleased the Lord to bruise him. God was pleased to bruise
his son, to come to that time, to that moment when Christ would
fulfill the will of God in saving his people, to put away our sin. The father delighted in the son,
never loving him, any more than when he was pouring out his wrath
in judgment to put away that sin, that God would redeem us,
reconcile us to himself, to put away that mountain of sin that
stood between us and our God. He put it away. He delighted
to do that in order to reconcile us. And so we rejoice in our
God. In Zechariah 13, verse seven,
the father cried, awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against
the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts, smite the
shepherd. Smite him, put him to death. not because he himself is a sinner.
He did nothing wrong. He obeyed the Father perfectly
in all things. He obeyed him wondrously. But he was put to death bearing
the sins of his people, taking them to himself and paying that
price, paying the debt that was our due, dying our death that
we should go free in life eternal by the Spirit of God to know
Him. for what he's done. When Adam
sinned, God drove man out of the garden. He drove him out
from the garden where he was to labor under the curse by the
sweat of his brow to bring forth his living. It says in Genesis
324, so God drove out the man and he placed at the east of
the Garden of Eden cherubims. and a flaming sword which turned
every way to keep the way of the tree of life." And the picture
there is that no matter what man does, no matter how he comes
to God, no matter what he tries, what inventions he makes, no
matter what he does to come unto that tree of life, that flaming
sword turns every way. battling every way so that man
is unable and frustrated to reach out with his own hand from the
tree of life and take unto himself eternal life. And our God said,
lest he do that, I'm putting this, I'm driving him out, lest
man put forth his own hand and take of that tree. And the sweet
truth is that God loves his people so much that he would be reconciled
to them. He's not letting man save himself
because God would be reconciled unto him. God loves his people
so much that he wanted to reconcile them unto himself. And so there's
nothing that we can do. There's no way we can do it.
I mean, there really isn't anything that we can do to save ourselves,
but your God purposed it in such a way so that we must come to
him through his reconciliation, through the Lord Jesus Christ,
that we might know him and have fellowship with him who created
us, who's wonderful and glorious and spend all eternity with our
God. And so no matter what man tries
to do, no matter what schemes he comes up with and what inventions
he works out, he's never, ever, ever going to obtain for himself
eternal life. Our God alone is life and there
is no life outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Christ came
and he obediently fulfilled the will of God to redeem his people
and to do so that flaming sword that turned every which way was
plunged into the heart of Christ. He died that death, that we might
find life in Him, that we would have life in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so He receives all the glory. If we're gonna boast, we're gonna
boast in the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over to Philippians chapter
two. Philippians two, verse seven. But Christ made himself of no
reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men. and being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore, God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. So, contrary to what the natural
man glories in, contrary to what we do to try and honor God, which
comes to complete failure, our God has provided everything for
his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in 1 Corinthians
1 30 and 31, that of God are ye in Christ Jesus who has made
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. That as it's written, he that
glorious, glories let him glory. in the Lord. We glory in Christ. That's how we come to the Father.
That's how we honor the Father. That's how we're pleasing to
the Father. Because by one offering, in which
Christ obediently shed his blood to make atonement for the sins,
he hath, by that one sacrifice, he hath perfected forever them
that are sanctified, them whom God set apart for himself to
reconcile to himself through Christ. And so God honors those
who honor the Son. And the way we honor the Son
is not by trying to do good works, not by trying to save ourselves,
we honor the Son by trusting Him. That's how we honor the
Son and how we honor the Father. We honor Him perfectly by trusting
the Son who is perfect and did everything necessary to reconcile
us to the Father. And so believe Him, brethren.
We rejoice in our God who works this faith in us, who put this
hope in us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I pray the Lord bless
your hearts and comfort you in your Savior, rejoice in Him.
He's all glorious. There is no other way of salvation.
There is no other hope of eternal life but by the Son. By the Son,
believe Him. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your grace and mercy in your
son, Jesus Christ. Lord, there's nothing we can
do to save ourselves. All of our works come to nothing.
All of our fruit that we bear is rotten, stinking, dead fruit.
But Lord, we thank you that you have provided the way of salvation
in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for for separating
us unto this gospel and giving us faith whereby we believe and
rest in our Savior. Keep us ever looking to him.
Keep us walking in faith, trusting in our Savior. Help us, Lord,
to bring forth those fruits which you've ordained for us from the
foundation of the world being wrought in Christ. Lord, we do
want to serve you and to serve one another, to love you, to
walk in love and faithfulness and trusting you. Lord, you know
the weakness of this flesh. You know how foolish we are and
how easily we're ensnared with fleshly things. But Lord, You
are God and You are sovereign and almighty and have done all
things well. Keep us, Lord, ever looking to
the Lord Jesus Christ because we're so confident in Him. We're
so confident to know that He is life and salvation, that He
is the way You've provided. Keep us in that way, ever looking
to Christ. It's in His name we pray and
give thanks. Okay, brother. If you would, let's stand and
sing out of our soft back, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Christ
is born in Bethlehem. O the Son of God, assuming human
nature, stoops to earth. Heavenly hosts proclaim His coming,
and a virgin gives Him birth. Angels tell us, angels tell us,
Christ is born in Bethlehem. Now God's promise He's fulfilling,
Jesus Christ, the woman, seen. To redeem our souls is willing,
to perform what He decreed. And the shepherds, lowly shepherds,
worship Christ in Bethlehem. All the prophets to appointed
types and sacrifices said, That on Christ, the Lord's anointed,
our offenses must be laid. To fulfill them and redeem us,
Christ is born in Bethlehem. Satan trembles, though he rages,
bruised by Zion's mighty king. Saints shall through eternal
ages this triumphant anthem sing. Alleluia, alleluia, Christ was
born in Bethlehem.