Podcast appearances and mentions of king wenceslas

Tap here to listen ad-free (free trial, cancel any time)While looking out on the feast of Stephen, King Wenceslas sees a poor man and decides to help him. Email: hello@funfablespodcast.comWebsite: www.funfablespodcast.com Created and produced by: Horseplay ProductionsNarrated by: The Narrator Man Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

God must be the center of our lives and His glory our chief consideration. #daybydaylw Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org! ~~~ Recently, Kristi and I have been discussing the desire/need for a centerpiece in our home—a work of art that stops people in their tracks, causes them to stare and observe, to reflect and think; a piece of art that represents what we want to be the atmosphere of our home, a visual representation that reminds us of what our lives are to revolve around. This is not an idea that Kristi and I came up with. The idea of a centerpiece has been around for a long time. The church in which I grew up had a huge stain glass window that couldn't be missed when you walked in the door, of three angels in worship. It was a statement piece, a centerpiece. Prague, Czech Republic is known as the city of 100 spires. One look across the landscape of the city reveals why it is known as such. Cathedrals and historical buildings alike have spires, or what we might call steeples, on top of them. One such cathedral is St. Vitus Cathedral. Construction started in 926 under King Wenceslas, and wasn't completed until 1344. And for certain, the building was designed to cause your neck to crane way back until you see the spire. As you walk into the courtyard of St. Vitus Cathedral, everything about the landscape and architecture slowly draws your eyes upward towards the spire, towards the heavens. But we can go back even further to trace the idea of centerpieces, back to the formation of Israel as she traveled in the wilderness, setting up their tabernacle on their stops. And in the center of the tabernacle, there resided the ark of the covenant. It was the centerpiece. And all of Israel would camp in very specific formation around the tabernacle. The idea was that the tabernacle being in the center of the encampment, the tabernacle which housed the ark of the covenant, would be a visual reminder, a living symbol that the worship of Yahweh was to be central to the life of Israel, the centerpiece of their lives. Everything revolved around God. This is worship—when God is the centerpiece of all of your life; when the honor and glory of God is the chief consideration in every aspect, every action, every decision. How much of your life needs to be reoriented in this way?

While looking out on the feast of Stephen, King Wenceslas sees a poor man and decides to help him.  Email: hello@funfablespodcast.com Website: www.funfablespodcast.com   Created and produced by: Josh Newth Narrated by: The Narrator Man Published by Kinderling  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who was the real good King Wenceslas? The Duke of Bohemia who was made famous by the Christmas carol was also a pivotal figure of European history. He was the first modern Christian Czech ruler who brought the region into being and established it within a developing Europe. He is revered as an Arthurian figure in the Czech Republic today and his importance and reputation extend far beyond the Christmas carol.Dan is joined by Dr Eleanor Janega, a University lecturer and History Hit favourite. She is a lover of Czech and Bohemian history. We are very excited to be welcoming Eleanor to the History Hit family! She is joining Matt Lewis over on the Gone Medieval podcast as his new co-host from August 1stProduced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.PLEASE VOTE NOW! for Dan Snow's History Hit in the British Podcast Awards Listener's Choice category here. Every vote counts, thank you!Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world-renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code DANSNOW. Download the app or sign up here.If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email us at ds.hh@historyhit.com, we'd love to hear from you!You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to December 26th, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate extending the flavor and good will of the season.  Peppermint sticks have been around for at least 200 years, but the red and white striped candy cane that we all associate with Christmas did not actually appear until 1900. Many folklore tales describe the symbolism behind this iconic treat though they were assigned much later on. The shape of the cane is a shepherd's crook, the white symbolizes purity and the peppermint flavor is reminiscent of hyssop which was used for purification during biblical days. You may already be missing the fun of the holidays as you take down the Christmas trimmings but on National Candy Cane Day, we invite you to savor the flavor of the season. Boxing Day has been an official holiday in England, Wales, Ireland and Canada since 1871. Also known as St. Stephen's Day and Good Will Day in South Africa, the origins of this celebration point back to King Wenceslas, a 10th Century Duke. Upon observing a poor peasant, the Duke ordered that food, wine and firewood be brought to his subject in need. The Church of England adopted this tradition, distributing donations from a box that parishioners filled all season. Boxing Day is a great Second Christmas that folks around the world celebrate to extend this season of giving.  I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This 2012 episode from prior hosts covers King Wenceslas. He's known from a Christmas carol, but was a 10th-century Bohemian prince, known for his kindness to children and promotion of Christianity. But he was murdered at only 22.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At this time of year, many of us will find ourselves singing about a royal personage who braves the snow on the Feast of Stephen – the Second Day of Christmas – so that he can distribute alms to a poor peasant. But who was the real Good King Wenceslas and was he as pious and saintly as the Christmas song suggests? In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Cat Jarman is joined by Czech historian Dr. David Kalhous to learn about the tenth century Bohemian Duke, posthumously declared to be a king and patron saint of the Czech state. This episode was edited and produced by Rob Weinberg.We've also been nominated for Best History Podcast and the Listener's Choice Award at the Signal Awards! We need your help though - it would mean so much to the whole Gone Medieval team if you followed this link to sign up and vote. Thank you!If you're enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit. To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Celebrating the second day of Christmas in words, music and reflections.  The children of Marown Primary School, assisted by their teacher Mrs Jacqueline Shirtliff, share a selection of poems on different aspects of the Christmas story. Church leaders - Anglican Bishop Peter and senior priest in the Roman Catholic Church on the Island, Monsignor John Devine - both reflect on celebrating Christmas at the end of a particularly challenging year - and there's great music, too! As this is the Feast of St Stephen, when good King Wenceslas went out in the winter weather to give alms to a beggar, the hymn celebrating his holy and selfless life is a definite choice  today, alongside Hark the Herald Angels Sing, by The Priests, The Candle Song by Graham Kendrick and a Manx translation of The Coventry Carol by Cliogaree Twoaie - and listen out for a little bit of fun at the end, from Joseph Jennings and Santa Claws ..... If you'd like to request a favourite hymn or carol or if you have news for the Notice Board just email me on judithley@manxradio.com

Paul Harvey - King Wenceslas (Christian king was murdered)

While looking out on the feast of Stephen, King Wenceslas sees a poor man and decides to help him.  We now have merch!  T-shirst, bags, socks, mugs and the list goes on and on.  Visit www.funfablespodcast.com Created and produced by: Josh Newth Published by Kinderling See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Bluffers bring you something you never asked for....a Christmas Special!! Challenge accepted! King Wenceslas we're coming for you!! If you would like to support us please copy and paste the link below: https://www.patreon.com/operabluffsAll songs referenced can be found on our Spotify playlist:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1cyMUXduglZlcOt7X6Dr7dAnd Instagram for all our visual references:https://www.instagram.com/operabluffs/Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/OBluffs

In their Christmas episode, Doc explains the bizarre Medieval history of the carol, “Good King Wenceslas,” beginning with the pronunciation (which Nina bungles several times during this episode). They’ll discuss the confusing difference between the two Wenceslases (Wenceslii?), the real-life martyrdom of the correct Wenceslas, some fratricide, and the legend of Blanik Mountain. Plus, Nina successfully makes a connection between King Wenceslas and “The Lord of the Rings.” You can hear the version of “Good King Wenceslas” in this episode here: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Army_Band_-_Good_King_Wenceslaus.ogg) Recommendations: “The Hanukkah Anthology” by Philip Goodman (https://www.amazon.com/Hanukkah-Anthology-Philip-Goodman/dp/0827600801/)  “The Hogfather” a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett (https://www.amazon.com/Hogfather-Novel-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett-ebook/dp/B000W5MIGC/) Horse Name Generator from Fantasy Name Generator (https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/horse_names.php) Have a recommendation for us? Send Doc and Nina an email at podcast at profawesome dot com!

Who was King Wenceslas?  Why do people sing about him?  How 'good,' was he?Also - what the heck is wassail, and how do you make it?Tune in to this episode to learn all about it - and to hear Vera say, "they were being loud and obnoxious because they wanted to wake up the trees"---For this episode and the next few, we'll be talking about Christmas / Holiday tunes playable on pipes - their origins, fun facts, etc.  We'll be leaning heavily on arrangements by Timothy Cummings, which are available as single-sheet downloads and in a beautifully printed collection at birchenmusic.com...And now, some keywords: Bagpipes, bagpipe, bag, pipe, pipes, pipe, band, pipeband, drums, bass, tenor, snare, Scottish, festival, Highland, games, WUSPBA, small, smallpipe, smallpipes, SSP, advent, epiphany, Christmas, holiday

Feast Day of King Wenceslas by Museum of the Bible

Exploding albatrosses! John the Blind! People who are better than Rube Goldberg! So much stuff today for Jake Yapp & Natt Tapley to sink their fangs into.

Do you know the Christmas Carol Good King Wenceslas? Did you know King Wenceslas was a real person in Christian history? This week we learn about three rulers from; Biblical, Tenth Century, and Modern history. Their lives tell a story about what God wants us to do with the life he has given to us.

Have you ever wondered what the Feast of Stephen was when you listened to “Good King Wenceslas?” Well, never fear as Mike and Heather discuss one of the greatest Christian figures in the early Church.

Did you know the good king was actually a real king (well, technically the duke of Bohemia)? Dan O'Donnell tells the tale of Wenceslas I.

It's St. Stephen's Day, the feast of Stephen, the same day when good King Wenceslas looked out and saw the snow laying deep and crisp and even. On today's "A Day in the Life", we explore the music of St Stephen.

King Wenceslas is best known as a Christmas carol, but he was a real 10th-century Bohemian prince. Wenceslas was known for his kindness to children and promotion of Christianity, but he was murdered at only 22. Listen in to learn more about the Good King. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

The story and the music of the Christmas Carol. King Wenceslas was the Duke of Bohemia 921-935. He is patron Saint of the Czech Republic and his statue stands in Wenceslaus Square in Prague. His feast day is September 28.

sermon transcript Introduction Perhaps you have never heard a Christmas sermon from Micah, chapter five, before. Well, today, that's all going to change. You heard in my prayer, and I meditate much on the fact that God told ahead of time what he would do, that Jesus came in fulfillment of the scriptures; he came in fulfillment of prophecies. Prophecy, a supernatural phenomenon that no one can explain. A very few of us know exactly what's going to happen on Tuesday, never mind what will happen in 750 years. But God has the power to see the end from the beginning and to see it in such minute detail as leaves no doubt as to the origin, the divine origin of this book. Neither does it leave any doubt as to the divine focus of this book. The spirit of prophecy, it says in the book of Revelation, the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus Christ. Amen. And when we read the prophets, it's Christ we're reading about. And so we look today, at the eternal origin of Christmas. Now, when I speak of the origin of Christmas, I'm venturing into a very popular topic. It seems, every year, somebody writes some interesting article about some feature or aspect of our cultural celebration in December, December 25th, we celebrate. Now, I think most of us that were at the Michael Card concert, were not shocked to hear, that it's not very likely that Jesus was actually born on December 25th. Michael Card set the date at April 11th, and so I'm not sure if he's right or not, we'll find out, now, won't be. But we're not going to change the December 25th observation. The Puritans tried to do it and they failed. And so it's still here with us, and I think we ought to just use it spiritually. Amen. To focus on the doctrine of the incarnation. We know, if you do a little painful research and find that December 25th was a pagan holiday in the Roman calendar, in which they celebrated Sol Invictus, the unconquerable Sun, it was the time of the winter Solstice, and they were afraid, I guess, that the sun was going to lose out entirely and never be seen again. And yet here it peeks, it reaches the bottom of the trough and starts to get strong again, and they're excited and, "Come, let's eat, drink and be merry." Look, any excuse to eat, drink and be merry, in the pagan world. And so it was the celebration of the unconquerable sun, as they looked up at the sky. Well, that's what they did. At some point, I guess, after Constantine and Christianity became the legal religion of the Roman Empire, I guess at that point, December 25th crept in. I hope I'm not popping any bubbles. I may actually be doing that later, with Santa Claus. I'm not going to try to do any of that. I'm not here to do that. I'm just saying, that kind of research is popular, people like to look into, "What was the first Christmas tree?" or, "The first time that Christmas wrapping paper was used, or the first time that greeting cards were sent out. The first Christmas caroling." As people went from door to door and sang Christmas carols. All of this historical research you can do. The origin of the certain Christmas hymns, of knowing that it was Isaac Watts together with Handel. Eric, how can you have a better combination than Isaac Watts and George Frideric Handel, Joy to the world? You can read about this, or Good King Wenceslas. Who is he? And what is the feast of Stephen? And what was he doing, looking out over the feast of Stephen, and what does it mean? You can do this kind of research and that is fascinating to do. But here, I want to speak about the origin of Christmas itself, or really, the origin of the doctrine of the incarnation of the coming of Christ, the eternal origins, or the goings forth of Christ. In some of your translations, it speaks of the goings forth of Christ, the going forth of Christ, or the origin, the NIV gives it, in the Micah 5:2. Our text mysteriously states that Christ “…went forth.” Now, that's what the Hebrew word means. He went forth, he went forth from Heaven to Earth, he left his rightful throne, a throne of glory, a place of power, and he came and was born in the squalor, as we sing, of a stable. The poverty, the humility, he stood from that throne and took off in some sense, his robes of glory, never his deity, for that is impossible. He is always God, he always has been God, he always will be God. But he took off the outward trappings of his glory, and he laid them by, and he came to earth. His going forth. And so we're going to look back at the origins of that. What was the origin of Christmas? And I think Christmas naturally does that to us, doesn't it? It makes us think about time. Christmas and Time. Many, many Christmas celebrations and movies and books take people back in time, to think of what it used to be like. You can do that personally for yourself. Think about what it was like, when you were a child. Your favorite Christmas, when you were a little boy or a little girl. A specific gift that you received or perhaps didn't receive, or maybe a sibling got it and you didn't, and you're still hurting over it, all these many years later. Or a time that you got something completely unexpected, or a time that you went and took a trip and went to a relative. Maybe they lived out in the country, they had a barn and a horse and you got to smell the straw, the stable. Or maybe a time when you were in college and you're finishing up your exams and you did your Christmas shopping in unfamiliar urban setting, and then brought your gifts home, and everybody was so glad to see you after having been away for so many months. Or as parents, young parents, when you got to celebrate Christmas for the first time with your first born child and you got one of those babies first Christmas ornaments and put it on there and still look at it years later. It has the power to transport you back in your own history, doesn't it? To look back across those special occasions. Or perhaps, for me - I like history - church history. You can look back at Christmases past. I don't just mean the ghost of Christmas past, it does that in Christmas Carol, but that we can actually look and see. It's a Wonderful Life, gives you a little time capsule glimpse of what Christmas was like, in December of 1945, when Harry Bailey comes back and he's clearly just at the end of… or perhaps 1946, when just at the end of his service, there at the end of World War II, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor. You get little snapshot of what – a black and white snapshot - of what Christmas was like, in America, in 1945. Or you go further back, like I mentioned, to Christmas Carol and what Christmas was like in London, in the 1850s, let's say, and some of those movies that portray it with the horse-drawn carriages and the gas lanterns, and there's Ebenezer Scrooge, walking through the city of London, muttering to himself, humbug about Christmas and all that. Some of you have those tendencies; I've had those tendencies a little bit, from time to time, as the overwhelming busyness of the month can come along. But there's a glimpse of what Christmas was like, back in the 1840s. Or you can go further back, to the colonial era, to Williamsburg, come to find out they didn't do much for Christmas at all. They put a candle in the window and had a meal. New Years was actually a bigger celebration back then, than Christmas. It was seen to be more of a Roman Catholic holiday and wasn't generally observed very much in the colonial time. Or you can go back to Bohemia, as I mentioned, with King Wenceslas and the feast of Stephen, December 26, and learn some things about that. Biblically, Christmas has the power to transport you back 2000 years, doesn't it? And you can picture yourself as if you are one of the shepherds and you're kneeling down and you're looking at the baby Jesus, and we see movies about the birth of Christ, as was out a year ago, or Jesus of Nazareth, or you just read the Scriptures. And in your mind's eye, you can travel back in time, and our text does that for us, as we think about Bethlehem and the fulfillment of the prophecy that was made. But we're still moving in time because actually it was a prophecy, wasn't it? And so we go even further back in time, to the time of Micah. And Micah lived in the seventh century BC. Seventh and eighth century, so somewhere around 725 to 715 BC, around the time of Isaiah, the time of Hezekiah, and Jotham and Ahaz, the kings of Judah, that's when Micah prophesied, and he gave a prediction about the birth of Christ, that would happen over seven centuries later. And how did he do that? Because God alone knows the future, it's a glory that he holds to himself, because he is the sovereign King of history. And he knows what's going to happen tomorrow, and he knows what's going to happen in 750 years, from the time of Micah. He knows the end from the beginning. Because we have to go - our text, I believe, takes us even further back. It takes us back to the days of eternity. And if you want to know the origin of the incarnation of Christ, you have to go back to this phrase, "The days of eternity." That's the origin of Christmas, the days of eternity. Now, what's that? So this morning, I want to look at five questions that come out of Micah 5. First of all, who sent Christ? Second of all, where was he sent? Third of all, why was he sent? Fourth, when was he sent? And fifth, what are the final effects of his being sent? We're going to get all of that, or try to, from just three or four verses from Micah. Can it be done? I think it can. Who Sent Christ? “For Me” He Will Come… Who is the “Me”? First of all, who sent the Christ? Look at Verse 2, "But you Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me, one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." For me, it's just one little Hebrew word, 'Li', in the Hebrew, 'for me', that's what it means. Now, it'd be easy to say that it's for me, Jesus came from me. Don't do that so simply and so quickly. Just because it says 'me' and you read it aloud, doesn't mean me is you. You could do this. When it says, "Today, in the city of David, a savior has been born for you." I think you should find yourself there. Or in John 17, when Jesus prays for those who will believe through the apostles word, find yourself there. But don't find yourself in the me, here in Micah 5:2. The me is the one who's speaking, the one who's issuing a decree, frankly, over Bethlehem Ephrathah, a kingly decree. He's making a statement about Bethlehem. "But you. Bethlehem," he's speaking to Bethlehem, and he's making a pronouncement. And who has the right to do that but Almighty God? And so Almighty God is saying, "For me, will this king come. He will come for me, for my purposes, he will come for my glory, he will come to do what I tell him to do." Jesus Christ was Sent by the Father And so who sent the Christ? It was the eternal Father, it was the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It was Almighty God, who sent the Messiah. Now, what we get just in one Hebrew word here, we get openly taught in the Gospel of John and in many other places. But it's openly taught that the Father sent the Son into the world. John 5:23, Jesus said this, "He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father who sent him." John 6:57, "As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me." "The living Father sent me," he says there. John 8:16, "I stand with the Father who sent me," said Jesus. John 8:18, just two verses later, "I am one who testifies for myself. My other witness is the Father who sent me." John 8:42, Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God. And now I'm here, I have not come on my own, but he sent me." John 10:36, "What about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world." So there's the picture of the father, setting apart his only begotten Son and sending him into the world. John 12:49, "I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. Out of Bethlehem will come for me, one who will be ruler." So the king, Almighty God is saying, "There will be a king of Israel who will be there for me and for my glory." And Jesus says, "I don't even speak a word, except what the Father has told me to say." The father sent Jesus. John 14:24, he said, "These words you hear, are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me." And then in his prayer, "Righteous Father," John 17:25, "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you and they, the disciples know that you sent me." You want to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, this is foundational. You must know that Jesus is not just an ordinary man, he's not just a great leader or a great prophet or a great teacher of Israel, a great moral figure. He is Almighty God, sent by the Father into the world. And God chose Bethlehem to be his gateway of entry, his port of entry into the world. But it was the Father who sent him. John 20, verse 21, again, Jesus said, "Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you." That's our Great Commission in John's Gospel, the Father sent the Son into the world, and now he sent us into the world as well. And so the entrance of Christ into the world was at the bidding of the father, he saw that the world was choking in its sin, drowning in its sin, that no one could work salvation, and so his own arm worked it, by sending his only begotten Son into the world. Who sent the Christ? It was the father who did it. Where Was He Sent? To Bethlehem Ephrathah Secondly, where was he sent? "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come from me, one who will be ruler over Israel. Whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Where was the Christ sent? He was sent to Bethlehem Ephrathah. Now, Bethlehem is a small town, five miles south of Jerusalem, located on the edge of the Judean desert, 2500 feet above sea level, a rather nondescript place, called by a double name, Bethlehem Ephrathah, to identify it from another Bethlehem in Galilee. Bethlehem is Noteworthy for its History Now, Bethlehem is noteworthy for its history, even at the time of Micah of Moresheth, it was noteworthy for its history. It had a fascinating history, beginning with the death of Rachel. Rachel, of course, was the one that Jacob had set his heart on, and he worked for seven years to gain. You remember. You remember the story of his wedding night, and how Laban tricked him and switched out Leah. It was Rachel that he wanted, but it was Leah that he got, and then he had to work another seven years to gain his beloved Rachel. Rachel had a lot of trouble, giving birth, she had a lot of trouble conceiving. Finally, she was able to conceive and give birth to Joseph, but now she's pregnant again, and she was having great difficulties, using great pain and suffering. As a matter of fact, she was dying and she gave birth to his son, and the midwife handed the son to Rachel. As she was breathing, her last breath, said, "Do not be afraid, you have a son, another son." “And with her last breath, she named him Ben-Oni, which means 'son of my sorrow',” and then died. And she died there in Bethlehem. Her husband, Jacob, filled with grief, renamed that boy, Benjamin, son of my right hand. Isn't it amazing, how Jesus is both? Isn't it amazing, how he is both the son of sorrows and a son of the Almighty God's right hand? He is the son of sorrows, because he was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. No one ever suffered or was filled with sorrow like Jesus. When Jesus was on the cross, God poured out on him, all of our sins and all of the wrath that we deserve, and he suffered and he died. He was the son of suffering, on the cross. But now, raised from the dead on the third day, by the power of Almighty God, he sits at the right hand of God, and from that place, he will come to judge the living and the dead. He is the son of God's right hand. It says in Hebrews 1:3, "After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven." And so that's the beginning of the history of Bethlehem. Joshua's cohort, Caleb, had a son, and Caleb's son built the City of Bethlehem and established a city there. There wasn't a city there. When Rachel died, it was just a place on the map, but it was Caleb's son that built it, and it became the home of - a center place - of the tribe of Judah, but not a major place. And there it was, that Naomi and Ruth returned to live, in the Book of Ruth. In Ruth 1:22, it says, "So Naomi returned from Moab, accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law arriving in Bethlehem, as the barley harvest was beginning." It was a famine that caused Elimelech, Naomi's husband, and her two sons, Mahlon and Killian, to leave and go to Moab. And they went to moved the two sons found wives there, one of whom was Ruth, a Moabitess. In due time, there came an ending to the famine, and Elimelech and Mahlon and Killian had all died. Naomi was in great distress, so she went back to her home area, Bethlehem, went back there to live, because there was now food. And there it was, that Ruth met Boaz, and the two of them were married and they gave birth to Obed, and Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse, of course, the father of David. And so it was also in the course of time that David was born in Bethlehem, and around the vicinity of Bethlehem, he learned how to tend sheep and to be a shepherd, and it was there that he fought the lion and the bear, and to learn how to use a sling. And it was with those tools that he went out and met Goliath. In 1 Samuel, 17:12, it says, "Now, David was the son of an Ephathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem, in Judah." So David, the greatest king in Israel's history, came from this tiny insignificant place. But by the time Micah came and was making his prophecy, he wasn't looking back at this interesting history, he wasn't looking back to the death of Rachel, he wasn't looking back to Ruth and Boaz and how they got together, he wasn't even looking back to the origin of David. No, he was looking ahead. In effect, he was saying, "You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, your best days are yet to come. Your greatest glory is yet to come, all of these interesting features of your history is nothing, compared to what is yet to come. You will be elevated. This little town of Bethlehem, you'll be elevated. For out of you, will come a ruler." Bethlehem Noteworthy for Its Name Bethlehem was also noteworthy for its name, the name literally means house of bread, Bethlehem is house of bread. It was known as a bread basket area for Jerusalem, 5 miles south of Jerusalem, and of course, it was that barley harvest that brought Naomi and Ruth back to live there. Wasn't always a place of aplenty, of course, because it was a famine that caused them to go, but there it was, a house of bread, and then Ephrathah means abundance. So it's really a sense of a house of abundant bread, a place where you can go and be fed forever. Could it be, that Jesus fulfills that as well? Oh, I think he does. After he fed the 5000, with five loaves and two fish, you had the feeling that without breaking a sweat, he could have done that forever, he could have fed them forever, no more toil out in the fields and the vineyards. Just come to Jesus and he'll feed you. The greatest chef in history, the freshest bread and the best fish, and he would feed you forever, and they came back the next day, looking for the next meal. Isn't it funny, how we cyclically get hungry? More so this time of year, I don't know what it is. So there's plenty to eat. When you come to hear Jesus, all you have to do is just come and just like that, he can feed thousands without any effort. You remember how Jesus changed their whole way of thinking. He said, "I tell you the truth, you're looking for me not because you ate the loaves and had your fill or because I did the miracle, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill." He said, "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to the eternal life." “Set your eyes off of your stomach. I'm not here to give you that kind of bread. I'm going to give you a different kind of bread.” John 6:35. Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." Jesus has the power to satisfy you to the depths of your being for ever and ever. He is the feast. He won't just spread a feast, he is the feast. And he will satisfy you deeply and richly. He says later in John 6, "I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died, but here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Jesus is the Bethlehem. He is the house of bread. He is the one we come to and feed on forever and ever. And in his name, we will live. Bethlehem Noteworthy for Its Lowliness Bethlehem is also noteworthy for its lowliness. But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are least among the thousands of the clans of Judah. Not a noteworthy place. A small place. An insignificant place. God delights to do this. He chooses Gideon, the warrior. And he says, "I am the smallest in my family, the least of my family, our clan is the smallest. Why do you do this?" He did the same thing with Saul. You know, he chose him and he immediately was small in his own eyes. God could have chosen Rome, which was the center of the world, at that point. He could have chosen Athens, the center of the philosophers of the world. He could have chosen Alexandria or some other rich city, a center of wealth. If he just wanted to stay within Judea, he would have gone to Jerusalem, the capital city, the palace of the great king. But instead he goes to a tiny place, an insignificant place, Bethlehem. God delights in elevating the lowly. It says in James 4:6, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." And concerning the way that the church in Corinth was made up, Paul takes this principle and elevates it up to be the way that God assembles his church. 1 Corinthians 1:26 through 29, it says, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." God delights in elevating the humble. Bethlehem Noteworthy for Its Fulfillment Choosing the small and lifting it up. Bethlehem, finally, was noteworthy for its fulfillment. Why was the Christ born there? Why was Jesus born in Bethlehem? Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, the other end of the country. Now, don't imagine that the prophecy wasn't well known. The prophecy was well known. It's quoted in Matthew 2:“When [King Herod] had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘For this is what the prophet has written. ‘But you Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people, Israel.’’" Well, they knew the prophecy. Quoted again in John 7:41 and 42. The others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee?" Does not the scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" So everybody knew this prophecy. They knew that he would come from Bethlehem. So Joseph would have been, I think, apart from a direct command of God presumptuous to make sure that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It would have been manipulative. "My son is going to be the Messiah. I'm going to see to it." That's not the way prophecy works. He would have just gone about his business in a normal way, unless external circumstances conspired to make him go to Bethlehem. He wouldn't have taken upon himself in a direct way to fulfill a prophecy. But something did force him to go, didn't it? Far away from Bethlehem, far away from Nazareth, far away from Judea, in the halls of power in Rome, there was Caesar Augustus looking over a map of the entire Roman world. And two things motivated him, I think, to have a census. The two things were taxes, money, and distribution of power, troops. So where were the population centers? How many people lived in a certain area, and where did the legions need to go? Power and pleasure, that's what rules the halls of power here in this world. That's what motivated Caesar Augustus. He's not sitting there saying, "You know, but you Bethlehem Ephrathah." Oh, she's pregnant. Okay, Mary is pregnant. We need to be sure. We get her down there. He's not thinking that at all. He's not aware of Micah. He's not thinking of the prophecy of Micah. He's thinking about his own coffers. He's thinking about his own power. And so he issues a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. And this census, “This was the first census that took place when Quirinius, was Governor of Syria.”And so Joseph, it says in Luke 2, went with his pregnant wife Mary and traveled that long and very uncomfortable journey to go down to Bethlehem to the city and town of David, because he was of the house and lineage of David. That's what made him go. So Bethlehem was noteworthy for its fulfillment. Why Was He Sent? To Be a Ruler Thirdly, why was he sent? It was God the Father who sent him. It was Bethlehem, that would be his portal of entry into the world. His gateway of entry into the physical world. Why was he sent? Well, look what it says in verse 2. "Out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel." He was sent to be a ruler. God establishes a throne over Israel. He yearns to establish a throne based on righteousness and holiness. A throne of power, and of purity, of compassion. A throne that will last forever. That's what he wants to establish. Israel's kings were for the most part, corrupt and self-serving. They had no sense of the glory of God. But God wanted to establish a ruler over Israel who would rule in righteousness. Isaiah 9, verse 6, and 7. "For to us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this." He wants to establish David's throne, and he wants to put his only begotten son on it. He was sent into the world to be a ruler, to be a king. Hebrews 1, it says, "But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, oh God will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and therefore God, your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.’" He wants a throne based on righteousness established forever. And so Jesus was born a king. I was reading a sermon by Charles Spurgeon recently, and he said, no one else in history has ever been born a king. You're usually born a prince, and in due time, you become a king. Jesus was born a king. And so the Magi said, "Where is the one who has been born King over Israel?" he was born the rightful king. He was sent to be a ruler. To Be a Shepherd But he was also, according to verse 4, sent to be a shepherd. He will be a shepherd. The kings of Israel, were called to be shepherds of the people. And David was the best fulfillment of this. As I mentioned, when he went out to fight, Goliath, he went out with the tools of a shepherd boy. 1 Samuel 17:40, "He took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, and he put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag." No wonder Goliath said, "Am I a dog?" - that I'm here to harass the flock? Yes, you are, you're a wild dog spiritually, and I'm here to be sure you don't harass the flock. He had a shepherd's heart. Those are his father's sheep. He was responsible for them. And he went out and fought. And so when the time came for David to take the throne, 2 Samuel 5:2, "The Lord said to David, 'You will shepherd my people, Israel, and you will become their ruler.'" He is there to be a shepherd to the people. Now, not all of the descendants of David were good shepherds. As a matter of fact, most of them weren't. And so the prophets were sent to speak out against these false shepherds, these kings, and the way they shepherded Israel. Ezekiel 34, "The word of the Lord came to me. 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says. Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves. Should not shepherd, take care of the flock? You eat the curds. You clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals. But you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak. You've not healed the sick. You've not bound up the injured. You've not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd. And when they were scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.' This is what the Sovereign Lord says, 'I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep.'" And so Jesus was sent into Bethlehem to be a shepherd of God's sheep. To be God's shepherd. To look after his people. So God raised up a righteous shepherd. Look at verse 4. "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth." This is in direct fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 23: 5 and 6. "The days are coming declares the Lord, when I'll raise up to David a righteous branch. A King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called the Lord, our righteousness." This is the one, the branch of David who would shepherd the people and stand and they would be secure. Jesus is this Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, who is sent into the world in Bethlehem to be the shepherd of the people. Listen to this in John chapter 10. "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep." To Be a Savior So therefore, he was sent also to be a savior. He was sent to lay down his life for us. Because we were threatened with infinite loss. We were threatened with eternal death. And so Jesus came to pay the death penalty on the cross. He came to suffer and die on the cross, a cross of wood, to be our savior. A body was prepared for him, it says in Hebrews, that he might be the servant of God to have his body broken on the cross. To have his blood shed for the forgiveness of sins, to be a savior. It says in verse 4, “He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God.” Do you see a picture of strength? Your Good Shepherd standing on your behalf. I was reading recently about David's mighty men. I love reading the stories about these mighty men and all the things they achieved. And there's this one guy in particular that I'm interested in. His name is Shammah. "And he took a stand," it says, "in a field of lentils, when all Israel forsook him and ran away." So there he is fighting the Philistines alone. He took a stand in a field of lentils and he kept fighting until the battle was won. Now it says that they came back and found him there, but only to strip the dead. So he gave his life for his nation, at that point. He took a stand in a field and he wouldn't be deterred. Everybody else was running away, but he took a stand. That's a picture of Jesus, isn't it? He will stand and shepherd his flock. He's not running. You can't make him run. He has taken a stand on our behalf and he will not run. He will take on all of our enemies until every one of them is defeated, until every one of them lie dead at his feet, he will be victorious. He will save us from our sins. He will save us from Satan's accusations. He will save us from the grave, from death. He will save us from hell. He will take his stand as our Shepherd, as our king and he will be victorious. He has come to be our savior. When Was He Sent? From “The Days of Eternity” Well, when was he sent? When was he sent? Well, in the New American Standard, in Verse 2, it says, "His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity." Now, we come at last to this mysterious phrase, the days of eternity. Now, the Hebrew phrase could simply just refer to ancient days. Way back then. The times back then. And so Micah could be looking back to David. And so he will be of the house and lineage of David. But do you think that's what Micah's saying? I don't. The Hebrew actually does mean eternity. From timeless history past. Way, way back. The days of eternity. Before the Foundation of the World I think this is speaking in before the foundation of the world. What is the origin of Christmas? It is in the mind of God the Father and God the Son, before the world began. Before God said, "Let there be light," this plan was worked out in detail. And thus it is said in Revelation 13:8, that Jesus is "…the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world." In what sense was Jesus slain from the foundation of the world? Well, he knew that it was by his blood that the people of God would be forgiven of their sins throughout all of human history. Before even Adam and Eve were created from the dust of the earth and from the rib of Adam. Before any of that happened. Any that would be forgiven would be forgiven by the shedding of the blood of the lamb. He was the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. It says also in Ephesians that the people of God, the sheep, were chosen in Christ from the creation of the foundation of the world. It says in Ephesians 1, "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will." That's before he said, "Let there be light." Before there was a sun or moon or stars. Before anything was arranged on the surface of the earth. Before any oceans or mountains or rivers. Before any of that, the plan, the salvation plan of God was crafted in the mind of God. And it included Bethlehem Ephrathah. It included this little town of Bethlehem that he would enter there. This is the origin of Christmas. When also? "When in the fullness of time…", according to Galatians. You see God isn't just a God of eternity past, ancient days of eternity. He's a God of right here and right now. He's as practical as it gets. Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. He knows exactly what's going on in your lives. He knows where the rubber meets the road. And he knows that there had to be a specific time in history that Jesus entered the world. And that was planned out too. In the Fullness of Time What was going on at that time in Israel's history? What was happening around Bethlehem. God knew exactly what was happening in the fullness of time. It says in Galatians 4: 4 and 5. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son. Born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." Christianity is more a history - a religion of history - than any other religion in the world. If the history isn't true, then neither is Christianity. And if Jesus wasn't born in Bethlehem, then Christianity is false. If Jesus wasn't physically bodily raised from the dead on the third day, our faith is worthless. It's a religion of history. And so God worked out in the fullness of time... When the Roman Empire was at its peak, when the Jews had been scattered, when Moses was being read in synagogues all over the Roman world, when there was a system, an economic system of trade and all of that... At that time when the whole world was at peace under the Pax Romana. When Caesar would be sitting on that throne... That's when Jesus was born. In the fullness of time God sent his Son. What Are the Final Effects of His Being Sent? The Worldwide Fame of His Name And finally, what are the final effects of his being sent? Look at Verse 4 and 5. "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. In the Majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth and he will be their peace." Well, first of all, the effect of his coming is the world-wide fame of his name. That his name would be great to the ends of the earth. For the glory of the name of God, he was sent. That people might think, great thoughts of God. Jesus does everything for the glory of his Father's name. And so it says, "He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God." It's for the majesty of the name, that he comes. For the greatness of his name. And his own name will be great because they're one and the same. Aren't they? Make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name. The one name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And notice how missionary success is guaranteed by this passage as well. Verse 4. "And they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth." His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth, and the missionaries will go out. And they will proclaim a Gospel in his name. They will proclaim peace in the name of Jesus and the shed blood of Christ. And his name will be held great to the distant islands to the far shores of the earth. Peace Secondly, the final effect of his being sent is peace and security. It says in verse 5, "And he will be their peace." Naturally, we are God's enemies. I spoke about this from Colossians last week. We're at war with God. We were alienated. We were enemies in our minds because of our evil behavior. It says in Colossians. Naturally, we await condemnation on Judgment Day. But now that Christ has gone forth from Bethlehem, now that he has drunk the cup of God's wrath on our behalf, God is at peace with us. And on the basis of that, we can feel at peace with God too. It says in Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." He will be our peace. He will be our peace. Not our own achievements. Not on the basis of our own works. Not on the basis of coming to some peaceful frame of mind. Not on any of that. But on the basis of Christ and his finished work on the cross. He will be our peace. Protection And from that we get protection and security, because Jesus stands powerfully as our Shepherd. And no enemy can touch us. He will stand between you and every temptation you'll face the rest of your life. And “He will let pass,” according to 1 Corinthians 10, “only those temptations that he permits to come your way and he will make a way of escape with each one that comes.” He is filtering the things that come to your life because he is your good shepherd. He's not going to let anything touch you that will destroy you. He will not let Satan have at you. He is more than just a hedge of protection. He is an almighty wall of protection around you. He is your good shepherd. And from that comes your peace, your security and your safety. A Dwelling Place And you will have finally a dwelling place. Look what it says, "And they will live securely." The Jews were a harassed and helpless people. Always, throughout their history coming over the hill was the next band of Gentile raiders. It might be the Amorites, it might be the Hittites, it might be the Assyrians or the Egyptians. It might be the Babylonians or the Greeks, or the Romans. They were harassed. And they had no security at all. They lived in un-walled villages for the most part. And they would be swept away by these Gentile marauding hordes. They had no peace and no security. And even in their walled cities, God would give them up because of their sins. But Jesus comes to dwell over a place where we will have security. We will live securely there forever. It's a future home of peace and rest. It says in Micah 4:3 and 4, "He will judge between many peoples and settle disputes for strong nations fare in wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore." Listen to this. "Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid." Are you looking forward to that? Sitting under your own vine and fig tree. Well, I think that that's a metaphor for a peaceful, rich life of security. And maybe you will get your own vine and your own fig tree and just reach up and pluck those grapes and those figs, and eat them as much as you want. It's a picture of security and rest, and Jesus alone works it. Revelation 21:3 and 4, "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God at last is with men.' And he will be their God. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe every tear from their eyes. And there will be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." The Gospel Before the foundation of the world, the Father and the Son agreed that Jesus would shed his blood for sins. Before the foundation of the world, they agreed that he would enter the world in Bethlehem Ephrathah, and that he would live a sinless life, and that he would do miracles, and that he would speak great teachings and parables, and that he would be arrested, and that he would be crucified, that his blood would be shed for the forgiveness of our sins, and on the third day that he will be raised in a resurrection body. And that he would ascend to heaven and sit at the right hand of God. And he would save a huge quantity of people from every tribe and language and people and nation. And they would live with him in security forever and ever. My friends, that is the Gospel. And that's why Jesus came. Do you know him? Have you come to trust in him? The reason for the prophecy is simple. So that you might trust him. That you might trust him completely. That you might trust him for the salvation of your sins. Do you know him? I assume today... I've prayed about it. I assume that I'm speaking to someone. Maybe a large group of people who do not yet know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Oh, I trust and I pray that you will look to Jesus on the basis of this prophecy and all of the Scriptures that we've covered today. And call on the name of the Lord for the salvation of your soul. Look to him. This will be the greatest Christmas of your life. You'll look back and say, "I remember that sermon." Micah chapter 5. What got you? It was that God had the ability to predict the exact place where a baby would be born. It's not easy to do, by the way. Some women come early. Some come late. You're never quite sure if that donkey ride is going to be what does it. Halfway between Nazareth and Bethlehem, she gives birth. Oh my goodness, it cannot be. And so God rules over Caesar Augustus, and he rules over Mary and her womb, and the exact time and brings it together. And why? So that you can trust him and you can believe in him and know that he has the power to save your souls.

sermon transcript The Heritage of Christmas Let me ask you a question. Are you looking forward to tomorrow morning? Come on, tell me the truth. What are you looking forward to? Already we have some gifts under the tree. There’s one in particular that has piqued my interest. I’m looking forward to opening it. I’ll admit it, it’s true. I think we enjoy Christmas gifts, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Of course, to a point. I think any good gifts of God can become an idol, and we have to watch that all the time. Our hearts are so idolatrous. We’re always moving toward that, and we have to fight it every day. But it says in James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavily lights.” He’s the one who’s shown us how to give, and lavishly too. He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Lesser blessings. It says in 1 Timothy 6 that God has given us all things richly to enjoy. So that’s fine. The question is, are we idolatrous? That’s something we have to watch all the time. This morning I want to try to beguile you away from considering what might be in some of those mysterious packages that are under the tree right now, to consider the infinitely greater gifts that Christ came to give. And I’m going to begin by considering just a time that I spent overseas a few years ago. In the summer of 2003, I had the privilege of going to the Czech Republic. I was there with Mike Waters who’s listening to me. We had a wonderful time, and what he said, and it was true, although I gave a little trouble at the time, “The most beautiful city we had ever seen.” Now it’s true, I think, that Prague, at this point, is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. I know in the end, it won’t be. I think the new Jerusalem will top it. I’m looking forward to that. But Prague was a beautiful city. We went into the old town, and we were near the magnificent castle. It’s just a huge castle. And there, in the square outside the castle, was a bronze statue of a warrior on a horse, and it was King Wenceslas, whom they considered the patron saint of Bohemia. Now, every Christmas we sing a song that was written in 1853 by John Mason Neale, Good King Wenceslas. As I looked into the lyrics of the song and the truth behind it and the story behind it, I became more intrigued and drawn in. You see, Christmas is a time for giving gifts, but for the most part, throughout history, Christmas at its best has been a time for those who are rich and powerful and able, to bless those who are poor and needy and without and not able. That’s its heritage. That’s the heritage of Christmas. Now, all along, it’s had to battle that pagan Bacchanalia mid-winter thing that’s always been there too. It’s so for us as well. But at its best Christmas was a time for those who were able and those who were wealthy in positions of power to give and to bless those who weren’t. The ultimate pattern, of course, is Jesus Christ. Good King Wenceslas Who is this King Wenceslas? He was born (we think) in 907 AD. He lived just 22 years. Isn’t it amazing how God in his providence cut short the lives of so many of his choice servants, men and women, and takes them home? This man was assassinated by his own brother Boleslav, who wanted to be king of Bohemia in his place. But in his brief life, he used his influence and his power to spread Christianity through that part of Europe, where it hadn’t really taken root up to that point. Now, John Mason Neale found a story about Wenceslas. We don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it was consistent with his character, and he wrote about it in the hymn that we sing, Good King Wenceslas. He looked out on the feast of Stephen. It’s a story in which he’s standing—you envision him—on a cold bitter winter night looking out from his castle and down on the snow below, he sees a peasant scrambling around for firewood. He asks one of his pages, a servant, to come and says, “Who is this?” And he knows who he is, and he knows precisely where he lives. This King leaves the warmth and comfort and security and luxury, probably, of his castle and goes down with his servant into the snow and follows this man a good distance, a long way away from the castle, to bring him food and wine and firewood, and just to bless his home. I thought this was a tremendous picture of Christmas. I mean, there is Jesus in the ultimate place of security and pleasure and comfort, his heavenly castle. He looks down and what does he see? He sees us, the poor and needy, scrambling around and scrubbing around for firewood, in effect. In the song it’s a stormy bitter cold night and he enters into the howling storm of our sinful world, and he comes to bless us. He comes to bless us with infinite gifts. I want to talk about those gifts. You look at verse 14, it says, “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten, from the Father full of grace and truth.” And then in verse 16, which is going to be basically our meditation this morning, “From the fullness of His grace, we have all received one blessing after another,” or literally “grace in the place of grace.” Christ came to give us Christmas presents. What I want to do is I want to just kind of, like I said, beguile your minds away from whatever it is that you might be wondering about under your tree to think about the far greater gifts that Christ came to give us in Himself. I think it’s easy for us to lose sight given the deluge of material prosperity and of comfort that God has given us. It’s easy for us to become idolatrous. Lavish Christmas Gifts Statistics show that, based on a study recently, somewhere between 38 and 40 billion dollars were spent over the last month on children between the ages of 4 and 12. Well, I don’t know how much it is for everybody, I guess multiply that by three. We might be heading toward $100 billion spent on Christmas. That’s pretty lavish, isn’t it? But some of us, at least, are old enough to know that a vanishingly small percentage of those things that are waiting for you under the tree will even be part of your lives in five years. You know what I’m talking about? It could be a Christmas sweater that might still be there in five years, but there may be some other things. The fruit cake is definitely… Well, that might be here too as well. [Laughter] But anyway, the toys and many other things will be gone. For all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flower of the field. And the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the God stands forever. So also do the gifts that Christ has come to give us. So, we’re going to focus on what those gifts are. The Supernatural Fullness of Christ Christ’s Supernatural Fullness I want to begin with the supernatural fullness of Christ. I want to talk about the fullness that’s in this verse. “From the fullness of his grace,” it says, “we have all received one blessing after another.” Christ was and is fully God. Colossians 1:19 says, “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.” God is a full being. In him there is no lack at all. He is full of joy, full of wisdom, full of power, full of love, full of mercy, full of everything that He is. He’s full of, all of those things. We, on the other hand, are so used to lack and emptiness that we can’t know really what ultimate fullness is. Christ before the foundation of the world was fully God, with as in our language, a capital G. Fully God. In the beginning, verse 1, was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And thus, Christ fully participated in all the deity of God the father. He was fully joyful, fully powerful, fully holy, fully wise, fully loving and fully as righteous as the father. He is a full being. Nothing was lacking in the person of Christ. God the Father, and God the Son equally shared deity from the beginning, and they shared glory together equally as well. Then, God became man. Jesus took on a human body, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Fullness Became Flesh Look what it says, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the only begotten, who came from the Father,” and here’s this word, “Full of grace and truth.” Jesus, in taking on a human body, didn’t lose any of his fullness. I know it says in Philippians 2, “He emptied himself and made himself nothing.” I think we have a sense of that. He didn’t lose any of his deity in doing that, fully God still. It says in Colossians 2:9, “For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form.” So when taking on a body, he didn’t lose any of his fullness. Thus, Christ was the perfect display of God’s fullness in bodily form. “Full of grace and truth,” says John. Full of grace. Now, I don’t mean gracefulness. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not something most males aspire to, okay. We’re not looking necessarily to be graceful and it’s hopeless anyway, isn’t it guys? For the most part even if we wanted it, but we don’t. We don’t, okay. We’re not looking for it, you know, like Anna Pavlova up on point, like some ethereal angel floating across the stage. That is better for the women and that’s wonderful. Or like a figure skater, that’s fine. Delightful. That’s not what we mean, full of grace. Really, what we mean there is theologically, that God is lavishly generous to people who deserve his wrath. That’s what grace is about, and Jesus was full of grace. You see it in his bodily life, you see it in the things that happen to him, and the things He did in his reactions. He’s just full of grace in dealing. You just see the way he dealt with children, the way that children felt comfortable to come and sit on his lap and just wanted to be with him. You can’t fool a child and they knew he was full of grace. They wanted to be with him. You can see it in his kind and gentle manner to a leper from whom most people would run screaming, who is ceremonially unclean because of his disease. He said, “Lord, if you’re willing, you can make me clean.” “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean.” There’s just such a fullness of grace there. Or in his kind and gentle demeanor toward the parents of a dead girl, Jairus and his wife, and they were mourning over their dead 12-year-old daughter. Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid, only believe. And she is not dead, she’s just sleeping.” And he has the power to wake her up, and then gentle with her when he says talitha cumi, “Little girl, I say to you, get up.” You see the fullness of grace there in Jesus, in his tenderness. Filled with compassion over hungry people, 5,000 and more of them, and said, “They don’t need to go away, you give them something to eat.” You just see Jesus as an open conduit of God’s grace to a needy world. Then full of grace as he’s nailed to the cross and says, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” You see, Jesus filled with grace, full of grace. And it also says, full of truth as well. Jesus was truth embodied. But he always spoke the truth, even if I got him into great trouble. “I charge you under oath by the living God,” said the high priest, “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” “I am,” he said, “And in the future, you’ll see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest tears his robes and condemns him to death, as if Jesus didn’t know what would happen. Of course, he knew, he was just telling the truth. And he would also give the good confession in front of Pilate as well: “For this reason, I was born and for this, I came into the world to testify to the truth. All on the side of truth. Listen to me.” Jesus is full of grace and full of truth. He told his disciples the truth. Like Peter, “Get behind me, Satan. You’re a stumbling block to me.” Oh, that’s a sharp word of rebuke to a good friend. Satan is using you right now—stop it. He always told the truth, whatever it is we needed to hear. In all of these ways, we see Christ full of grace, full of truth. Christ Did Not Come to Receive but to Give He’s a full being in the flesh, and thus Christ had not come to receive but to give. He didn’t need anything. He wasn’t coming to receive. Now, I know the magi offered him gifts, gold, incense, and myrrh. I know that Mary anointed his feet with perfume worth over a year’s wages. I know they wanted to come and take him by force and make him king and give them all the lavish honor that they could. I know that. I know people gave him gifts and tried to give him gifts but let me tell you something. The gold in the new Jerusalem is infinitely superior to anything that magi brought. The worship that the hundred million angels give him, surrounding is thrown all the time, it’s better than even what Mary poured out on his feet. Purer, more perfect. The kingdom that he will reign over forever and ever, it’s infinitely superior to what those people who are just eating their fill of bread wanted to give him that day. Jesus didn’t come to receive these things. We weren’t in a position to give. Those gifts really, in an absolute sense, are pathetic. He only receives them because of the faith that’s behind them, or he doesn’t receive them if there’s no faith behind them. Jesus didn’t come to receive gifts rather he came to give them. He came to give gifts of grace. He was rich, infinitely richer than good King Wenceslas. Infinitely richer than any man that has ever lived, than any king that’s ever lived. We can’t imagine how wealthy he was. And so, it says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. So that you, through his poverty, might become rich.” Jesus didn’t come into the world to get richer. He didn’t come in the world to receive any gifts from us; rather he came to give. Again, Mark 10:45. It says, “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The giving, the giving. He came to give. To give his life. Jesus, as well, served in Heaven. He doesn’t need us, as we learned from Psalm 50, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you.” I have all my needs met. Even if I wanted to meet them, I wouldn’t meet them your way. Just like he said to Simon Peter, “Put your sword away. If I wanted to fight, I’d ask the angels.” They’d do it just fine. He doesn’t need us to serve him. He didn’t come to receive. He was full and he came to give. The Natural Emptiness of Humanity “We Are All Beggars” Now we, on the other hand, we are naturally empty. That’s what we are. We’re naturally empty. Martin Luther on his deathbed said in German, “We are all beggars.” Wir sind alle Bettler. That’s what we’re all, beggars. Then he said in Latin, “This is true.” Now, that’s the end of his theology. He knows he’s about to face his judge and maker, but he’s doing it unafraid, and why? Because he’s justified by faith alone apart from works. But we’re beggars. I think for this reason, Jesus began the greatest sermon that has ever been preached, the Sermon on the Mount, with this statement: “Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” We’re beggars. We’re naturally empty. We don’t have anything to give. Universal Emptiness We’re universally empty. From the fullness of his grace, we have all received. Find yourself in that word all. We’re in the receiver place. We’re in the place to receive, not to give to Jesus. Even the wealthiest, most powerful, most envied people in the world, the lifestyles of the rich and famous people, even those who have nothing to give, naturally empty. John Wesley in a journal entry, December 23rd, two days before Christmas, 1755, he wrote this: “I was in the robe chamber, adjoining to the House of Lords, when the king put on his robes. His brow was much furrowed with age and quite clouded with care. Is this all the world can give even to a king? All the grandeur it can afford, a blanket of ermine around his shoulders so heavy and cumbersome he can scarcely move under it, a huge heap of borrowed hair and a few plates of gold and glittering stones upon his head. Alas! What a babble, is human greatness, and even this will not endure.” Is that the best the 18th century could have given to Jesus if we wanted to give our best to him. That’s the best the nation of England could give to King George II, who was a man at the height of his power and who probably wanted to be done with all of it, and two years later, he was. His aorta ruptured while he was using the toilet. What a disgusting way for even a king to die. We’re all beggars. We don’t have anything to offer naturally. That’s what I’m saying. Is this all the world can give even to a king? Jesus isn’t looking for that from us. We’re naturally empty. This is a universal emptiness, and I mean that from the poorest to the richest. The poorest beggar living in Kolkata (Calcutta) who’s barely scraping by and doesn’t even know if he’s going to be alive a year from then, six months from then, who doesn’t know Jesus, is empty before God. It’s not like God naturally loves the poor. If they don’t have Christ, they’re empty. And so, also the wealthiest captain of industry who’s making billions of dollars in the stock market or in the petroleum industry or in high tech, empty if they don’t have Christ. Emptiness Proven by the Law of Moses This emptiness is proven by the law of Moses. If you look at verse 17, “The law came through Moses, and grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” But what does the law tell us? It tells us of our emptiness. That’s what it says. In Romans 3:20, it says, “Therefore, no one will be justified or declared righteous in his sight by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sins.” The law uncovers our emptiness. It uncovers our empty hearts and our empty lives. The emptiness is especially proven in comparison with Christ. Here is this perfectly full being, full of grace and truth, and here we are just side by side. How do you do? How have you done the last year? Take your best day, how’s it doing? You line it up next to Jesus, you see your emptiness there. Martin Lloyd Jones was dealing with this question of “blessed are the spiritual beggars” and he was dealing with the question, “What if I don’t feel like a spiritual beggar?” You know what he said to do? Look at Jesus and keep looking. And keep looking. After a while, you will see. Here is this being filled with grace and truth, filled with love, filled with holiness, filled with power, filled with God through the Holy Spirit and here we are by contrast. Soon, you’ll realize that we are spiritual beggars. Emptiness Especially Proven by Comparison with Christ One of the bitterest aspects of our emptiness is we don’t know how empty we are. As a matter of fact, the impurer you are the less empty you think you are. Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, “You say, ‘I am rich. I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” “You do not realize,” is the essence of our problem, although the word of God tells us the truth. We are all beggars, apart from Christ. But it doesn’t end there. Thanks be to God we don’t end up as spiritual beggars. Look at the verse again, verse 16, “From the fullness of His grace,” we have all what? “Received grace upon grace.” That’s what we were. What are we now? We are wealthy in Christ, with gifts of grace. The Lavish Generosity of Christ’s Gifts Generous in Quality: From His Fullness Now we see the lavish generosity of Christ’s gifts, generous in quality. It’s like when you pick up that gift and you’re holding it, and it’s just weighty and you’re excited, you think, “What could it be?” It’s not likely to be a granite boulder that someone got out of their backyard and wrapped up as a gift. It’s like, “What could it be?” There’s a weightiness to it. It’s even better if the weightiness is in a really small box. That’s really exciting when it’s really weighty in a small box, especially for ladies. There’s something really dense in here, something exciting. There’s a weightiness to the quality. Feel then the weight of the quality of Jesus’s gifts. From the fullness of his grace, he gives them. There are wonderful gifts, better than anything we could buy at Macy’s or JCPenney’s or Hecks, or at South Point, or North Square or what… I don’t know all of them. I always mess up. North Gate, I guess it is. Nothing you buy there can compare with the gifts that Jesus has come to give to you. They are lavish and generous in scope from the fullness of his grace, we have all received. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It doesn’t matter to me if this is your first time in church in the last year. Well, in one sense it matters, but for this, it doesn’t matter. Because Christ is willing to be very generous to you right now. Just call on his name. Trust in him for the salvation of your soul. Receive the first gift from him, and that’s full forgiveness of sins. Bring your sinfulness and your sin to the cross and receive from him the gift of grace. Generous in Scope: We Have All Received Ask him to be your savior, and he will. Call on the name of the Lord. It’s a universal thing. From the fullness of his grace, we have all received. And by this, I don’t mean every single human being on the face of the Earth, he already covered that in John 1:12. But to those who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born, not of natural descent or a human decision or the will of a husband but born of God. That’s it. Generous in Cost: At the Price of His Body and Blood By simply trusting in Christ, you have full forgiveness, generous in scope and generous in cost too. I don’t think we should… I know the word grace means a free gift. Well, it is free to us. He doesn’t want your price. He doesn’t want you paying for it. But don’t imagine for a moment that it didn’t have a price. It did. It was infinitely costly to bring to you the gifts I’m about to describe to you. Infinitely expensive, these gifts. They came at the blood, the precious blood. 1 Peter 1:18 and 19, the precious blood of a lamb without blemish or defect, Jesus Christ. He shed his blood to purchase your Christmas gifts. There’s no one here who has sacrificed that much for Christmas. It was Jesus who did it. Generous in Quantity: Grace Instead of Grace Generous also in quantity. I know Jesus Himself is the central gift, and that’s enough. But I think it’s good to kind of unfold his gifts and just look at them. Suppose, for example, you woke up and some person or a group of people had put 54 gifts with your name on it under the tree. 54. I’d be embarrassed for myself, especially if everyone else got five or six. I’d feel like, “Oh boy.” If everybody in my family had 54 gifts, that would be the 360… I don’t know. Some huge number. We have a lot of people in our family. Christy would not be able to get into the den, I think. 54 gifts. I think we’d have ought to open each one and look at it. Generous in quality. Look what the verse says. I know it doesn’t come across necessarily, but literally in the Greek, it says, “From the fullness of His grace, we have all received, grace instead of grace.” In other words, it’s grace, then another grace than another grace than another grace. I imagine a train. I remember reading on a Christmas morning, “The Little Engine that Could.” I never thought I’d use that in a sermon. It teaches human works and effort, and I can get to Heaven, that’s not what I’m saying. I just want you to imagine a train laden with gifts. Think like a child. I’m thinking, the gifts looked really good back then, now they look like… Not so good. But at that time, they looked really good. And I thought, “Wow, wouldn’t that be great?” And of course, because it’s just a little engine that they could there are only so many cars. The longest train in history is 682 cars. It was a coal car. I don’t want that much coal. But it was four and a half miles long and it moved very slowly, so imagine coming to the intersection and you see the first of the 682 cars going by. But imagine if you would, let’s get out and let’s just stand by the railway track and watch one gift of grace after another, come. Because that’s what it is. It’s just generous, generous. Grace instead of Grace, instead of Grace, instead of grace, day after day after day, on into eternity, friends. We are incredibly rich, and whatever you have under that tree tomorrow, it doesn’t even compare with the good things that God has already given you, is giving you now, and will give you up into the future. Or like what? Grace upon Grace The Past Blessings of Grace 0:25:40.9 S1: Well, let’s start way back. Let’s not start at the birth of Christ. Let’s start before the foundation of the world. When God worked out his salvation plan. He worked it out with you in mind. And the next gift of grace, he chose you. If you’re a Christian, he chose you by name before the foundation of the world. And the next gift of grace, he created a beautiful world for you and others like you to live in. He created the heavens and the earth and made them beautiful and lush and lavish. And he put Adam and Eve, created in the image of God, in that garden. The next gift of grace, after Adam’s fall, he didn’t kill the human race as we deserved, but he allowed history to continue, and he even promised a redeemer who would crush the serpent’s head. The next gift of grace, at the time of the flood, he didn’t kill the human race as we deserved then, but he preserved a remnant in Noah’s Ark, so that we would be able to survive. Then the next gift of grace, he called Abraham, so that salvation would come from the Jews. And the next gift of grace, the Exodus under Moses, in which He took the two million perhaps Jews out of Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land, a beautiful picture of our salvation. And the next gift of grace, the Law of Moses, to expose our emptiness, as I’ve already said. But also, to point ahead to the future through animal sacrifice, when we would understand the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross, so we would know how we would be saved. The next gift of grace, the kingship of David, a perfect picture of Jesus, our ruler, our savior. And Jesus is the son of David. And the next gift of grace, the words of the prophets. The servants and messengers of the covenant, who came with a lawsuit against the people of God and showed them how they had violated the Law of Moses, but they also spoke of redemption, of renewal, of restoration, and ultimately, of the Christ. The next gift of grace, the birth of Christ Himself. Born of a virgin, born under the law, born in the fullness of time. At just the right time, Jesus was born. And Mary wrapped him and swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn. The next gift of grace, Christ’s perfect sinless life that he made it through 30 plus years of life and temptation and never once yielded. And his righteousness will be and is your righteousness. The next gift of grace, powerful miracles. Healing a man born blind, healing any disease and sickness brought to him, healing Lazarus, dead in the tomb for four days, pictures of his resurrecting power. The next gift of grace, his perfect teaching ministry, parables, and teachings. No one ever talked like this man, no one ever taught like this man, perfect teachings, and we have a record of some of them, not all of them, but some of them. The next gift of grace, His redemptive death on the cross, His blood shed on the cross before you were even born. His blood shed for all of your sins, if you’re a Christian. And the next gift of grace, God didn’t leave him in the tomb, but raised him from the dead on the third day and gave him a resurrection body that will be like your body or yours like his forever and ever. He will be the first fruit from the dead, and there will be a huge harvest. The next gift of grace, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God on Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit has come to inspire the writing of the New Testament, the next gift of grace. And to convict the world of sin and judgment and righteousness. And the next gift of Grace, the steady, irresistible advance of the gospel for 2,000 years. Satan has been trying to stop it, but he can’t, and the gospel has spread from the Upper Room, 120 believers to a multitude greater than we are able to number from every tribe and language, almost every tribe, and language, and people and nation. The spread of the gospel. The next gift of grace, the way that God has sovereignly ruled over the nations to accomplish his historical purposes. To watch over the rise of this empire and the fall of that one, and to watch over the inventions and medical discoveries and the discovery of the New World with Columbus, and to watch over all of history to accomplish his ends. Part of which is saving your soul. Isn’t that beautiful? And the next gift of grace, a bunch of brothers and sisters, most of them who we have not met, who were martyrs and witnesses, and missionaries and pastors, and godly women and men who are your brothers and sisters. A royal heritage for 2,000 years. And the next gift of grace, your personal family lineage, your great-great-grandparents and your great-grandparents and grandparents and parents. And how each of them met and what kind of people they were, and what their strengths and weaknesses were, what their sins were, and what their godliness was, if there was any. All of that. Before you were born. What about since you’ve been born? Well, God watched over you and cared for you. He gave you parents to care for you, to look after you. He gave you a series of people to tell you about Christ, to teach you the Bible. The Present Blessings of Grace Long before you ever trusted in Christ, you’d heard of him many, many times, and God sent different people, whether parents, brothers and sisters, college roommates, pastors, Sunday school teachers, missionaries, who knows? But he sent them to you. And he’s given you beauty. You’ve seen beautiful things in the world, mountains and oceans, and different things. And each one of us has a different set of postcards in our minds of the beauty of the Earth, and it’s nothing compared to the future beauty of the new Earth. But it’s there, and you’ve seen it. From the fullness of his grace, we have all received. One gift of a blessing, one grace after another. And then at the right time, the Holy Spirit opened your eyes to your own emptiness. And he showed you what you’ve been unable, unwilling to face, up to that moment. You needed a savior, you needed Jesus, you needed him to shed his blood on the cross in your place or you would deserve to go to hell. At some point, you came to realize that, and you were regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. You were given the gift of faith. At that moment, God justified you of all of your sins, forgave you of all of your sins, past, present and future, and he gave you the indwelling Spirit, and He adopted you into his own family from which you will never depart. He gave you spiritual gifts in a ministry and opportunities one after the other, day after day to live a life worthy of his calling and of his name, and he’s kept a careful record of everything you’ve done by faith, and he’ll reward you for it someday. And he’s going to give you continued opportunities to serve him, and he’s going to watch over you the rest of your life, in the future. He’s going to protect you, and he’s going to keep you safe and there will be no combination of temptations that will separate you from Christ, because he will sovereignly not allow it to happen. He will protect you until the day you die. And then that day, he’ll give you grace to die well and to his glory. You may die at 93 years old in a hospital, you may die in a car wreck, you may die of a heart attack, you may die of a disease. If the Lord doesn’t return in our generation, you will die. And he will give you grace to get through it. And then on the other side, is he done being gracious to you? No. He will take that soul that has been separated from your body, which cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven anyway. The Future Blessings of Grace So good riddance, I think at that point. I want to see what he does with my body. But I’ll be separated at that point, and he will also separate me from all wickedness and all sin in my soul, and I will love only righteousness. And I will hate all wickedness, and I will be made perfect and holy. From the fullness of his grace, we have all received grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace. And then judgment day, he will give me grace. He will give me grace to survive the day of wrath, and I will get through it, and so will any who call on his name. We will survive that day. And we will even thrive on that day, because on the other side of it, we will be in resurrection bodies, and we will live in a perfect kingdom, a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness and we qualify. How did that happen? But Jesus’s righteousness was given to us. And then will it end? No. There are your 54 gifts. He intends far more than 54, friends. And a good thing too, you kind of like to get to Christmas tomorrow, wouldn’t you? I’ll stop here, but I think you could meditate far more than I have over the past and present and future gifts of his grace. And so, you will do forever, and of the increase of his government, there’ll be no end, because you will continually see more and more of his grace. He has more to show you. If you came to that intersection of the 682-car train, and you’re looking at your watch and wondering, “When is this ever going to be done?” This train, you are not going to want to end. You want to just see a gift of grace after gift to grace to keep on going past you for eternity. And you will be filled with a sense of gratitude, you can’t even imagine. Application What application do we take from this? Well, I think it’s good to open the gifts that somebody else took the time to wrap. I think you ought to do it. I think you ought to. But let your heart be already filled with light and glory of the things we’ve talked about today. Meditate on the generosity of God through Christ. If you haven’t come to Christ yet, don’t miss it, because none of these gifts of grace are yours, if you’re not a Christian. None of them. Just a fiery expectation of judgment, of raging fire that’ll consume the enemies of God. I would rather have this than that, wouldn’t you? Why will you die? Turn and repent and believe and trust in him. Don’t leave this room without receiving that first as far as you’re concerned gift, forgiveness of sins. But for those of you that have already made that commitment, then meditate on God’s goodness. Let me say one more thing. As I’ve studied Christmas, I had a whole bunch of stuff about Christmas and decided to get rid of it. If you want to know more about the history of Christmas and how it has had a rich heritage of the rich blessing the poor, find out more. The History Channel had a history thing on Christmas, look it up. There’s a lot of stuff on Christmas. Consistently, the wealthy and the positioned folks used it to bless the poor. I have talked to so many people this Christmas, saying, “They are weary of the treadmill. The Christmas treadmill.” As a matter of fact, I haven’t talked to anybody who’s not. The thing is, why don’t we change it? How do we change it? How do we get off? If you feel it’s become to idolatrous, how do you stop it? And so, I would urge that you enjoy whatever you have planned to enjoy tomorrow. Enjoy it with a free heart, but make plans to make 2007, a year from now different than any Christmas you’ve ever enjoyed. Our small group, what we did was we gave to the Persecution Project in Samaritan’s Purse. They have different ways. You can buy little chicks. You can buy a well dug in a village. You can buy all kinds of stuff for people who are barely making it, barely surviving. Maybe instead of giving gifts to people who don’t need what you’re going to give them anyway, that’s why you’re having such a hard time finding what to give them, because they don’t need anything. And if they need something, they bought it already. So, what do you give? I would urge think differently, a year from now. No, no, think differently seven or eight months from now. Make plans. Make plans. Close with me in prayer.