All right, if you would open
your Bibles to Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20. It is not often that we preach
from the book of Exodus. I've never preached through it.
Some of our brethren have. I've never done that. And it is, of course, the book in
which the law is first described. The book of Exodus details God's
deliverance of the Jews from their bondage in Egypt. And it
takes us through the history of the first part of their journey
across the wilderness. And it involves the giving of
the law, that contractual covenant. And I say contractual covenant
because the gospel is, at least so far as our involvement in
it, is not a contractual covenant. It's a covenant of promise. The covenant of the law is you
do this and I'll do that. It's like any contract you might
draw up with a business person. You enter into contract, if you
want a house built, you find a builder, and you enter into
a contract with them. Basically, you say, if you'll
do this, that, and the other, I'll give you this blessing of
money and this much of it. And that's really how the law
is written. Because in the law, God does
not promise anything other than blessing for obedience and cursing
for disobedience. There are no unconditional promises
in the law. When we get to the gospel, we
find that it's simply filled with God saying, I'm going to
do this, and I'm going to do that, and because of what I do,
you'll do this. In preaching to the people in
Africa, I'm sure this kind of surprised them. I hope they were
able to understand it, or at least they'll think on it a while
and see the truth of it. We don't believe in order to
be saved. We believe because we have been
saved. I realize Paul said to the Philippian
jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
And that's absolutely true. But the only reason anybody ever
believes is because God has begun a work of salvation in them already.
Christ has died for them. God has chosen them. And they
believe because the Spirit has called them with a life-giving
call. And God will continue that work
of salvation until it is perfected on the day of Christ. But faith
is less the cause of salvation than it is the result of it.
And so we look at the gospel and we see that in truth there
are no qualifications set forth in it
which the natural man meets and thereby the blessings of the
gospel come to him. This is a contractual covenant.
It was a fearsome thing when God gave it. It terrified the
people. And in verse 18 we read, When the people saw the thunder
and lightning, and heard the trumpet, and saw the mountain
in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance
and said to Moses, Speak to us yourself, and we will listen.
But do not have God speak to us, or we will die. Now, the Jewish people here remember
that they were, for the most part, ignorant of the God that
their fathers worshipped. And when I say ignorant, I don't
mean ignorant because they didn't pay attention. That may have
been some of it. But God had not revealed much about himself.
No scripture had been written yet. Whatever they knew about
God, they had learned by oral tradition. And not all of them,
by any means, had kept up with the oral tradition,
had kept up with learning and then passing on the truth of
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Many of those Jews living
in Egypt had taken up the worship of Egyptian gods. And so this is their first real
encounter with the God of their fathers. And even in their ignorance,
They had a better response to the Word of God than do most
religious people in our day. They said to Moses, we don't
want to hear from him again. It's terrifying. We'll listen
to you. You go hear from God. You've
been hearing from God for a while now, and you seem to be able
to survive it. You do that, and then you come tell us what God
said. But we don't want to hear directly from God. And in our day, we have people
saying, oh, that God would speak to me. Do you really want this
God to speak to you? You know, the prophets did not
consider their meetings with God to be enjoyable experiences. They were terrifying experiences.
God is greater than our minds can begin to grasp, and even
when He comes and reveals Himself to people as He did in the Old
Testament, reveals Himself to the prophets, and all He could
do then was reveal very limited versions of Himself, but it blew
their minds. Later on in Exodus chapter 34,
Moses did say to God, show me your glory. And God had to remind
Moses, no man can see my face and live. Moses, you don't know
what you're asking for. What you have seen so far is
a mere shadowy glimpse of my full person. But this mere shadowy
glimpse that Moses got on the mountain and which the people
saw at a distance was enough to terrify them to the point
that they said, you speak to us for yourself and we will listen,
but do not have God speak to us or we will die. So the people
remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness
where God was. And then in verse 22 we read,
then the Lord said to Moses, tell the Israelites this, you
have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven.
Do not make any gods to be alongside me. Do not make for yourselves
gods of silver or gods of gold. The Bible refers to God as a
jealous God. God refers to himself as a jealous
God. Now, Oprah Winfrey made a comment
about God being a jealous God. And he said, I don't understand
that. What do I have that he wants? It's not what jealousy is about.
That's envy. When you want what somebody else
has, that's envy. Strictly speaking, I know we
use jealousy and envy almost like they mean the same thing,
but they really don't. Strictly speaking, you envy what other
people have. You are jealous. That is, you
protect the ownership of things you have. And I've illustrated in the past,
I said, you know, a young man can be envious of another young
man's girlfriend, but he is jealous for his own girlfriend. And so
when the Lord God says, I am a jealous God, he does not mean,
as Oprah thought, that you have something that God wants and
he's upset that you got it and he doesn't. No, it means he is
jealous of his glory. He is jealous of his position
as God. He says, I will not share my
glory with another. I am the only God there is, and
I will not tolerate the presence of any other gods with me. You
can't worship me and another God. Elijah, whose name means my God,
is Jehovah. Elijah on Mount Carmel, said to the Israelites, how long
will you halt between two opinions? Because what they were trying
to do was worship the true God and worship Baal at the same
time. And he said to them, he said, it's time to stop this
two opinions. If Baal is God, then worship
him. But if Jehovah is God, worship
him. And the worship of God requires a choice from us. It requires
a commitment. Now I know that none of us by
nature make that choice or come up with that commitment. But
nonetheless, there are none who worship God the way he wants
to be worshipped who have not chosen to do so at the expense
of every other thing that might be worshipped. because God is not gonna allow
you to carry on an affair with another God. Like a husband,
he demands that you worship him, or as a husband would demand
of his wife, he be the only husband. I see that smile. Yes, there
are some men who expect their wives to worship them, but that's
not what I meant. As men, rightly expect their
wives to be joined to them and them alone. God requires that
his followers worship him and him alone. And so, of course, we say requires. Well, since God has revealed
himself to me, why would I want to worship anybody else? And
you're right. It's no trouble for the believer
to worship only God. Do you find that a trouble? Are
there other gods that really you find attractive in the presence
of the God whom you worship? But so dull was the heart and
minds of the Jewish people, they had to be told, if you're going
to worship me, it's only going to be me. So no other gods alongside
me. Don't make for yourselves gods
of silver or gods of gold. Then he says, make an altar of
earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship
offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. And so he says
to them, of course, there would come an altar, an official altar
for the whole Jewish nation, which would be set up in the
tabernacle and later in the temple. But this was just talking about
when individuals made offerings to God in worship. And he told
them how. And it was just to be, you know,
you heap up the earth. You know, make an altar of earth.
Just pile up the dirt. And you make an altar out of
that. Or a pile of stones or something
like that. He said, That's how you worship God. You worship God through sacrifice.
There is no such thing as safely approaching God apart from a
suitable sacrifice. And then the Lord said, whenever
I cause my name, this is verse 24, the last part, whenever I
cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless
you. Now, our translation uses the
word honored. Actually, the word means simply
remembered. It is the same word we find when
the Lord says, in their iniquities I will remember no more. Now, when God causes us to remember
him, It's certain that we will do so in an honorable fashion
or in a way that honors him. Our reminders of him always involve
us honoring him. But I'm going to stick with remember
because it has broader application than simply that his name be
honored. Honored is just one of the applications
that you might get from remembering him. There are a few general observations
to make from this text of scripture. And first of all, that the worship
of God is a remembrance of His name. Now, not just a remembrance of
His name is Jehovah or Yahweh or whatever, however you want
to pronounce that. or El Elyon, El Shaddai, or any
of the other names by which our God has identified himself. To
remember a person's name in the way that our Lord is speaking
of is to remember that person, what they are and what they do.
Because all of the names of God tell us what He is. All of those names are DESCRIPTORS. They DESCRIBE Him. Even that
name, Jehovah, derived from the word, I AM, or the phrase, I
AM. And it's how God sets Himself
forward as the Eternal One. He's not just WAS, IS, and SHALL
BE. He is I Am at all times, the
ever present tense person. And that name is coupled with
a lot of other words to teach us about who He is. Jehovah Tzedkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals. I think I'm getting any of these
right. I think Jehovah Nissi is the
Lord, my banner. But all these names of God, we
don't learn them simply so we know how to vocalize His name.
These names teach us who God is in His nature. And so when
He says, when I cause my name to be remembered, He says, when
I'm causing me to be remembered, I'm causing my character, my
nature, my attributes to be remembered. There are many who vocally use
the name of God and haven't got a clue who God is or what He's
like. There are even those who think
it's very, very important that you know how to pronounce His
name. When Bonnie and I did a lot of
driving back and forth back when We had kids in the house and
we'd be going and visiting family and churches back east. We'd
do that stretch going across Missouri on Interstate 70, I
think it is. I remember going across there
and there was a Jehovah's Assembly and Christ or something like
that. Wasn't long, I saw Yahweh's assembly
in Christ somewhere else. And then there were two churches.
And either that or it was even something so subtle as either
Yahweh or Yahweh, I can't remember. But here's what had happened.
This is one of those churches, and there's a name for them,
but I can't remember what it is, but they believe to call upon the
name of the Lord, you gotta pronounce it right. It's like, And that's
like a magical spell, really, isn't it, you know? But you got
to learn to pronounce it right. And so they were saying Yahweh
or whatever, you know, and somebody got it in their mind. Maybe they
took a little bit of Hebrew or something and found out that,
well, that W can be pronounced like a V. It's really Yah-vah. They split over that. And so
you had Yahweh's assembly in Christ and you had Yahweh's assembly
in Christ. And it's all over how to pronounce
God's name. Got nothing to do with that.
Nothing to do with that. It's got to do with knowing what
he is like. And when God calls, God causes
his name to be remembered among the people, that means he's revealing
himself to them. as he actually is, not as they
imagined him to be. So the first thing is worship
is or certainly begins with a remembrance of the name of God, with God
being called to mind as he actually is. The second thing about it is
this, we can't make that happen. We can't make it happen. Now,
churches go to great lengths trying to establish what they
consider to be a worshipful atmosphere. I was reading a speech made by
Justice Clarence Thomas at the dedication of Christ's Chapel
at a college they built a new chapel
and he was there to give the speech at the dedication of this
new building and he was talking about the architecture and how
you know churches over the ages have been designed with their
lofty ceilings which give us aspirational feelings and all
this but he says you come into a place like this and it causes
you to be near God I beg your pardon. I know the effect that
architecture can have on people. It can affect your emotions. We get trained that certain looks
indicate, well, this is a church. But God is not worshipped in
things that can be seen or felt. You cannot build a place. to
which people will go, and by the mere act of going there,
they are more likely to worship God than if they hadn't gone
there. The same thing when it comes
to music. I love singing hymns. And indeed,
the singing of good hymns is helpful in beginning our worship. You may not realize this, but
when we gather for meetings like this, singing the preliminaries,
and I know you get something out of them too, but even if
you didn't, I get something out of them. It prepares my heart
and mind to stand up here and speak. I've gone places where
everybody's just milling around. They say, all right, let's get
started. They say, all right, our speaker today is Joe Terrell,
and I just got to stand up there and start speaking. And I think,
man, I wish they'd sing a hymn or two. It does help us focus
our thoughts. And because we have been brought
up with certain styles of music that we associate with religious
music, those styles, when we hear them, can do kind of like
a Pavlov's dog response, we hear that music played and we're immediately
put in what someone might consider a worshipful mood. But the truth
of the matter is, while these things may focus our mind and
cause us to begin thinking on certain things, there is not
a thing in this world that can instigate worship. When I was
in Africa, and the same thing was true when I was in India,
I never heard them sing one solemn song. Everything is designed
to get you jumping, and they do. Now, I could wish that they
would add some to the repertoire because God is not only to be
worshipped with such joyful and exuberant expressions, he is
worshipped also, as the scriptures say, in the solemn assembly.
I mean, when you read the Psalms, which were intended for singing,
it's obvious that you cannot sing all of them to a jumpy tune.
It just wouldn't, you know, have mercy on me, oh God, you know,
just not gonna work. That needs a slower tune, you
know, but nonetheless, I wouldn't tell those people they weren't
worshiping God. But the worship of God, the remembrance
of his name is caused by God himself. We remember Him because
He works in us to remember Him. Before we ever knew Him, we would
not have thought of Him in proper terms unless He'd come and caused
us to see Him as He is and to think upon Him as He is. And even now, in our state of
faith, of spiritual life, we would not continue to keep him
in mind, were it not that he causes it to be so. We have met
together for 32 and a half years, I guess it is, somewhere about
that amount of time. That seems like an awful long
time to us. It's nothing to God, that's for sure. But we have met, nothing much
about us has changed. And in all that time, we've met
thousands of times. And we have remembered the name
of the Lord. But that's because every time
the Lord causes us to remember his name. Because if he didn't, we would
as quickly as anybody else, our worship services would descend
into nothing but flesh. They would become the same spectacles
they have become in other churches, whether they be moaning and groaning
spectacles or dancing and so-called worship songs. spectacles
or whatever you see when folks don't have what's real they gotta
come up with something else to stir up their emotions it is
God he says when I cause my name to be remembered that's why our prayer every week
is God come bless us with your presence Send your Spirit to
take the things of Christ and show them to us, because if He
doesn't come and show them to us, we're not going to see them.
If He doesn't show them, they will not be revealed. If God doesn't come, there was
no reason, there's been no prophet to you and me coming, has there?
I mean, we may enjoy our time together on a social level, but
no spiritual benefit arises unless God comes and causes us to remember
His name. And He says, wherever I do this,
I will come to you and bless you. Now the presence and blessing
of God comes through the proper remembrance of His name. That
is, we experience it through the proper remembrance of who
He is. To whatever degree we understand
God and gather in His name as He is, to that degree we experience
the presence, power, and blessing of God. To whatever degree We meet for
some other purpose. To whatever degree we fall short
of meeting in His name, we fall short of experiencing His presence. It may be there, but we don't
have much experience of it. His blessings are yet full to
us in Christ Jesus. but we don't experience it much
if we have not met in the conscious realization of who he is, of
who is this God we worship. I do believe, and I'm sure it
applies to us as well as anybody else, but I do believe that we're
God to make himself known, with great clarity and power, it would
immediately change the worship patterns of virtually all churches,
ours included. And I'm not saying that because
I think, well, we need to sit down, what are we doing wrong?
Folks, we're doing the best we can. We're doing what we know
to do. We're doing as much as has been
made known to us. One of the reasons we keep it
simple here is so that we do not begin to take away from the
glory of our God by trying to make a spectacle of the glory
of our own worship efforts. We believe that God is who He
is whether He is worshiped with a choir of trained professionals
or just a bunch of common people croaking out a hymn the best
they know how. We may be impressed with musical
talent, God is not. Remember Henry once said, you
know, and I think it was in regard particularly to special music,
because you know, there are people a whole lot more talented than
others when it comes to music, and we hear them sing, and we
say, oh man, that was just great, you know, my soul was so blessed.
Well, it may have been great by human standards, and your
soul may have been blessed by the things that were said while
they were singing. But Henry said, but remember, God hears
the angels sing. I don't think you're going to
compete with that. That's right. God's not looking down from heaven
saying, hey, I'm going to join myself to that church. You ought
to hear the choir. Oh, man, that song leader really
knows how to get the congregation singing. Now, when he causes his name
to be remembered. What is our Lord's name? You say, well, you told us his name
is Jehovah. Yes, but you know the name Jehovah
doesn't tell us everything about God. tells us one of the most
fundamental things about God, but it doesn't tell us everything
about God. That's why he made other names in which he said,
used the word Jehovah and then attached another word to it.
And each one of those gives us a little more understanding of
the name of our God. But the name of our God is on
our lips a lot because the name of our God is Jesus. Literally. That is the name of
our God. Now, there are those, like I
said, who think it's very important that it be pronounced right. There is obviously a belief on
the part of some that it's somehow more spiritual if you will pronounce
our name, our Lord Jesus' name, more like it was pronounced.
And so you'll hear them refer to Yeshua. Yeshua. I've even seen threads that denounce
that we use a J for his name because there's no J in his name,
which just shows their ignorance of language because J's used
to be pronounced like a Y. So we call it Jesus because we
pronounce J's that way now, but it used to be Yesu. But that
was just because the Greeks trying to say the Hebrew name, made
it Iesu. And that was, you know, their
version of an Aramaic name, Yeshua, which was, I won't call it a
corruption, but an alteration, and I believe I'm getting this
right, an alteration of what it was originally, which was
Yahushua, which comes into our language as Joshua. So there's
all these various permutations of the pronunciation of the name
of our God, but none of that matters because remembering His
name, again, as how you pronounce it is not the important issue.
for that matter for some reason or another they started calling
him bob it would make any difference if they knew what bob means that's
what's important now the name jesus in its version is form
of uh... you know in aramaic yeshua or
yahushua it simply means jehovah is salvation it is kind of making
a name out of what uh... Jonah said in the belly of the
whale, salvation is of the Lord. And that, in that name, and in
the meaning of that name, that's where you and I learn God. And we don't learn Him aright
until we have learned that name. What it means. For it's in the
meaning of that name that our God has chosen to reveal himself
to his people. In Matthew chapter 1, what John
read for us at the beginning of today's worship service, Joseph,
a righteous man, that means he was a believing man, and also
that means he was a decent man. When he found out that Mary was
pregnant, he didn't want to make a big public spectacle of it,
didn't want her put to public shame any more than was necessary. He was not interested in trying
to vindicate his own honor. So he was going to put her away,
and back then if you were in an engagement, and they were
at this point just engaged, but it was considered pretty much
like a divorce if you broke an engagement. because an engagement
was a legally binding situation. So he was going to put her away
privately so as to spare her all the disgrace that he could.
But after he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared
to him in a dream and said, Joseph, this is verse 20 of Matthew 1,
Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as
your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Now, he's engaged to Mary, and
as was the tradition of the day, the actual marriage consisted
primarily that the woman to whom you were engaged, you finally
went and you laid claim, you brought her home and consummated
the marriage, and there you go, you're married. So what the angel is saying is
Joseph, Do not be afraid. Do not resist bringing Mary to
your home. Now, we realize from what told
us later on that, yeah, in verse 25, he took her home, but he
did not consummate the marriage until after Jesus was born. Now, why was that? Was he instructed
that way? I don't know. Maybe he came to understand the
importance that there be no question as to the paternity of the Lord
Jesus. Consequently, he says, I will
not enter into relationships with her. And if anybody ever
says that that child born of her is mine, I can say with confidence,
I tell you of a truth, it is not my son in any but a legal
way. That is the son of God right
there. So whether he was commanded not
to or merely reasoned it on his own, that it was wise not to
join with his wife until after Jesus was born, That's the way
it worked out. But the angel said, don't be
afraid to take her home, to own her as your wife. She has done
you no wrong. No disgrace comes upon you because
of what is happening. What she has conceived is from
the Holy Spirit. Now she will give birth to a
son, verse 21. And you are to give him the name Jesus. And there's a reason this would
be his name. Because he will save his people from their sins. Now, our Lord, his title is Lord. We worship him as Lord. It is
the essential character of His person that everyone in the universe
is going to have to bow to and confess. It didn't say every
knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Savior.
It said they'll all confess that He is Lord. But Lord is not so
broad a title as is Savior. Because Savior attaches to the
Lord Jesus Christ, all the other titles necessary to bring about
our salvation. And you know all those names
that Jehovah gave Himself, I told you about by adding a word to
the name Jehovah, it includes all of those names. In order for Him to be my Savior,
He must be Jehovah, our righteousness. Jehovah said, In order to be our Savior, He
must be our banner. He must be the one that heals
us. He must be the one that's present with us. He must be our
shepherd. He must be all those things that
the various names of the Old Testament said about God. El Shaddai, God of hosts, speaking
of His power. All those names are encompassed
under that one name or title, Savior. Because he can't be a
Savior if he's not all those things. He can be a nice guy. He can try to save. He can be
an improver, but he can't be a Savior if he is not God and
if he is not the kind of God that God is. He must be the God of justice
and righteousness and at the same time the God of grace and
mercy. He must be the God of vengeance
while at the same time the God of love. Every attribute of God
is to be found in the Savior must be found in the Savior,
must be revealed by the Savior, or He is not the Savior. So when
it says you will call His name Jesus because He will save His
people from their sins, He is essentially saying you will call
His name Jesus because as Savior, He is the embodiment. of everything
that God is, indeed, he is God. I have no problem asserting that
I worship a man. I worship God and I worship a
man, all wrapped up in one individual, the man Christ Jesus. You say,
well, what about the Father and the Spirit? Well, I understand
what you mean, and we do worship the Father, and we worship the
Spirit. I almost hate saying they are
God, but that's the weirdness, if you will, of the Trinity. But whenever we worship God,
we are always worshiping God through Jesus Christ. We worship
God by worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. Men bowed to our Lord. Thomas, after the Lord showed
his hands and his feet, Thomas fell before him and said, my
Lord and my God. And that was a phrase that nobody
would have used. No Jew would ever use it unless
he believed he was addressing Jehovah God. So in this name, here is God
making his name known, causing it to be remembered by sending
his son into the world, who is called the exact representation
of his being. He said, he that has seen me
has seen the Father. In Him, all the fullness, the
complete person of the Godhead dwells in a bodily form. You cannot worship God apart
from worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ. Period. And if you worship
the Lord Jesus Christ, you are worshiping God. God in His fullness. God in His completeness. And
if you truly worship Christ, the Lord Jesus, you are worshiping
Him in His place as the Savior, as the one who is both Lord and
Christ. Now the Lord says, wherever I
cause my name to be remembered, where is that? In Christ. That's where God's name is remembered.
That's where it's learned, that's where it's remembered, and we
can't learn it anywhere else, and we don't remember it, at
least not correctly, till we remember it in Him. In the name of Jesus is the fullness
of who God is. I've heard even among our brethren,
those who say it's not appropriate that we refer to Him as Jesus.
That's too familiar. It's not honoring enough. All
the honor that a human being could ever attribute to God is
bundled up in that name, Jesus. Because everything about God
is bundled up in that name. I've heard it said, Jesus is
the name of his humiliation. Really? The Bible says that the
name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that he's
Lord. That doesn't sound very humiliating to me. I realize that people will use
the name Jesus in a kind of familiar fashion, act like Jesus is their
buddy or whatever. Well, that's just people using
the name wrong. Jesus is the glorious name of
our God. And God causes his name to be
remembered in that person, Jesus. And again, according to the promise
in Exodus, wherever I cause my name to be remembered, there
I will be present. People say, oh, I want to be
near God. Then draw near Christ. It's that simple. Oh, I want
to hear from God. Then hear from Christ. Hear from
Jesus. Listen to some preacher that
will do the best he can to be a mouthpiece for the Holy Spirit
to take the things of Christ Jesus and show them to you. And he says, there will my presence
be and there I will bless you. And he doesn't bless people anywhere
else but where his name is remembered. and that's in the Lord Jesus.
That's why it is written, praise be to the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Now I've told you before in the
many years I've been here, I love Christmas. I do. I mean I've
loved it since I was a kid. for good reasons and bad. My
mother always worked hard to make that time of year a very
special time. Some of my fondest memories come
from the Christmas season. I enjoy the whole season. I enjoy
the day. I enjoy it both in its secular
aspects and its religious aspects. But the remarkable thing is this,
remarkable thing about Christmas is this, that that little one
that was born is God, God in fullness. They called him Jesus
from the very start. Why? Because that's his name.
And when He came into the world, all God's blessings were in Him.
While He lived in the world, all God's blessings were in Him.
When He died on the cross, all God's blessings were in Him.
When He ascended on high, all God's blessings were in Him.
All of God's person is in Him. All of God's blessing is Him.
To know Him is to know God. To remember Him is to remember
God. To draw near to Him is to draw
near to God. and to know him is to be blessed
by God. I don't have any problem celebrating
baby Jesus. Not because I think in his babiness
he has become small enough for me to control or to somehow grasp,
no. It's not the baby part that I'm
impressed with, it's the Jesus part. At that point in his existence,
he may have been an infant like any other infant, but he was
at that moment the savior of his people. Wherever I cause
my name to be remembered, says the Lord, there I am present. Who is in that manger? God. What did he bring with him? Everything
God has for his people. May he be pleased to cause us
to remember him. Heavenly Father.