If you can turn your Bibles with me to Galatians 4.4. Okay, Alex. We're going to read just one verse and then we're going to jump in. Okay. I know all of you guys have a very busy schedule, but again, I can't think of a better way to celebrate Christmas than to come and give worship to the man who is the birthday that we celebrate.

So, Galatians 4.4. "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born unto the law." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for blessing our families, blessing our church. We thank you for your grace. We thank you, Lord God, for constantly sustaining and answering our prayers in all things.

Especially today as we remember Christ's sacrifice and him humbling himself and taking on human form, that he may come and save sinners like us. We pray that as we celebrate in the busyness of the holidays, help us, Lord God, to reflect deeply upon the sacrifice that you've made. And again, not just simply for us, but for many Christians around the world, especially those brothers and sisters who are living in places with heavy persecution.

I pray, Father God, that you give them extra strength, extra faith, Lord God, to sustain them, that their love for you would only grow stronger as a result of all that's going on. We pray, especially for our Sunday school teachers and our children, that you would allow us, Lord, not just for our generation, but for the next generation, for many generations to come, that we would truly be lovers of Christ in all things.

So help us, Lord, that all that we do may establish your grace and blessing for them and for many years to come. So we thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, so the passage that I read, I'm going to be jumping from text to text in various passages, but in Galatians 4.4, it says, Paul says, "When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law." Paul describes basically Christmas and Jesus' ministry and his time on earth as the fullness of time, meaning that it was God's ordained time.

God was waiting for that particular time in human history to send forth his Son to do what he did. So what made it the fullness of time? Why did he wait until at that time to send his Son? Human history for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. Israel had already received the law.

They had their history. They had many other things going on. But what made that particular time, the ideal time, God-ordained time, to send Jesus Christ? Superficially, we can look at that and say, well, Romans, they were in charge and everybody knows that Rome was known for their roads. So it was commonly understood that you were able to travel more than any other time in history.

That all of a sudden, that if the Gospel was going to be preached, you'd have to be able to travel from region to region. And the Romans made that very easy to do. You could argue that maybe it's because of the cultures that were united. That Alexander the Great got together and conquered the nations.

And the Greek culture dominated even the Roman Empire. So as a result of that, they were able to communicate with one another, with language, and even similar cultures. We could argue that possibly because of the diaspora of the Jewish community, that they went out and went everywhere that the Apostles and Paul went to preach the Gospel, that there was a synagogue there already ready to receive the Gospel and to spread.

And obviously, all of these things played a key role in the success of the Gospel being preached, superficially looking. But was that the reason why God waited until that particular time to send Jesus Christ? Couldn't He have prepared the roads prior to that? Well, when we take a closer look at how God works, we know that God is not frustrated by human history.

He wasn't waiting for the Roman government to be established because He couldn't get His Apostles to travel unless there was roads properly paved. Scripture says that the law was given to the nation of Israel in order to make sin utterly sinful. And He needed that to play out in Israel's history.

Scripture says that Christ came to be the light of the world. And in order to highlight the light, you need to turn off the light. The light becomes more evident and more useful when there is darkness. We can see in Israel's history, and we're highlighting three specific things that we want to look at this morning, that highlights the fact that the nation of Israel was experiencing the darkest period of their existence during the time of Christ.

The first thing we want to point out is the Roman domination. I think every Jew, every single day, was reminded that they were under pagan rule. Now, the Romans were not the first. They were maybe the fourth or fifth empire that took over. See, this domination, this captivity, happened as early as 600 years prior to the coming of Christ.

It was the Assyrians, and then after the Assyrians came the Babylonians, and after the Babylonians came the Persians, and then after the Persians came the Greeks, and then finally the Roman Empire took over. But of all the empires that took over and was dominated, no other nation made themselves more aware of their dominating presence than the Roman government.

In fact, the account of Jesus' birth in the book of Luke, chapter 2, verse 1, it says that Caesar wanted to take a census, so he had everyone who was traveling or maybe moved, had to go back to their hometown, wherever they were born, and they had to go back to wherever that was and take a census.

And the reason why they had to take a census was it was Roman government way of, one, keeping track of the people that they conquered, in order that, you know, just in case there's any kind of movement going on and they needed to make sure that if there was any kind of rebellion going on, they were keeping track of everybody that they conquered.

And again, it was a vast empire, so they had to do this quite frequently. But another more practical reason was in order to collect taxes. So they had to go back to their hometown and be counted so that they know exactly how many people were in this hometown, and then they would exact a tax from wherever they were from.

The account of Jesus' birth begins in the book of Luke by telling us that because Caesar enacted this census, that Joseph and Mary, who was in Nazareth at the time, had to move back to Bethlehem to give birth, to be counted. Now that distance is about 100 miles. 100 miles would be from here to, I don't know, Northridge, the grapevine?

I don't know, is that even further than that? But imagine traveling that distance on unpaved road, for the most part, without a motor vehicle, while your wife is pregnant, a young family traveling that distance. I mean, it was a tremendous burden, just that journey alone. And the whole reason why you're doing that is not to visit your parents, is not to celebrate a holiday, just so that you can be counted by the Romans, so that you can pay tax.

It's the end of this journey, all of it was so that you can give money to this pagan nation that you resented. So can you imagine that every single person living at that time who was moving around just to be counted in the census, that every single time that they walked, every step that they took, they had in their mind, "We have to do this because these Romans are making us do this and pay taxes." They were very aware of the situation that they were in.

In fact, Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, verse 41, Jesus says, "If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." In modern day culture, you and I, how do we even apply that? When was the last time somebody said, "Hey, go with me a mile." And then, "Oh, Jesus told me to go two miles, so I'm going to go two miles with you." Right?

How does that even apply to us? What does this mean? Well, in order to understand what Jesus is saying, you have to understand what the people were going through at that time. Another law that the Roman government exacted upon the people that they conquered was because in order to keep peace in this vast empire that they were overseeing, they had to spread their soldiers out everywhere.

So, it was a common scene to see the Roman soldiers roaming around wherever you were at. And because the Roman soldiers were burdened to carry all of this equipment around, and all of this was a public demonstration that if you ever rebel against God, we're going to come and squash you.

So, in order for them to make it easy for the Roman soldiers to be able to travel between places, they made a law that if the soldier asked you to carry their equipment, that you have to stop whatever it is they're doing. You may be in the middle of business, you may be in the middle of farming, you may just be moving from house to house, but if the soldier asked you to take his equipment and take it for one mile, you had to do that by law.

So, Jesus was speaking specifically to that law, and he says, "Well, I know that you resent this, but if they ask you to go a mile, instead of responding in anger and frustration, he said, 'Go an extra mile.'" He was referring to that particular frustration of the law that they exacted.

But beyond that, beyond what the Romans were doing, beyond the constant reminder of the burden of being conquered by this pagan nation, and seeing a statue of Caesar and being forced to bow before they enter the temple, their very king of Israel was an Idrumite. And Idrumite, the history goes back, and basically he was an Edomite in the Old Testament, their history.

So, if you read the Old Testament, you'll know that the Edomites basically were the archenemy of Israel. They were the closest, and yet they were the biggest antagonist of the nation of Israel. So, if you read the prophets carefully, you'll notice that the Edomites are often mentioned as rejoicing over the fall of Israel.

And he said, "God is going to judge the Edomites for rejoicing instead of mourning." So, can you imagine that above the Romans conquering them, that the very king that the Romans placed to oversee the nation of Israel came from their own enemies, the Edomites. The nation of Israel was existing during that period of Jesus' coming, in a very dark period.

Now again, they've been under dominance for over 600 years, but nothing was more prominent, no other kingdom was more prominent and made their presence known more than the nation of Israel, than the Roman Empire. Not only was there a constant daily reminder that the nation of Israel themselves were split into four separate groups.

Again, anytime hardships come, you see people reacting in a different way, their solution is very different. Some people coil up and they just kind of disappear. You have some friends who are like that, when hardship comes, they just disappear. You have some friends who become very verbal, they're always reaching out, and they just can't sit still.

I have friends like that, whenever they drive, and for whatever reason, when there's something going on in their life, they drive very erratically. So, everybody has their different ways of responding, and their own solution to how to solve this problem. And Israel was no different. Because of this frustration, because of this pagan dominance, they had groups that came in, one group called the Sadducees.

Their answer was, "Well, let's make the best of it." They were the aristocrats, they were the ones who were rich, the landowners, and they were the leaders of Israel, the Sadducees. These were the liberal people who basically gave up on God. What's the point in praying to God? What's the point of being religious and all this stuff?

And after 600, 700 years, this is all we got. So, they learned to adapt. They became the senators of Israel. And they were the ones who were the most afraid of losing their power, because they've learned to hold on to power within that system. And obviously, because of that, they were very resented.

Even though they were the leaders of Israel, all of Israel resented them for that. There was another group of people called the Essenes. Now, other than the fact that you're learning about this at church, you never hear about the Essenes, because these people basically went to the cave and disappeared.

These are the kind of friends that when hardship comes, they just disappear for a while. When everything is okay, they'll come back. Those were the Essenes. Right? And the only reason why we know so much about the Essenes is because we found a cave where they were dwelling, and there was all these artifacts that they found, and that's where we get the Dead Sea Scroll, because they preserved it in the caves.

They basically disappeared. They just dropped out. We don't want to deal with Rome. We don't want to deal with the Sadducees. So they just dropped out, so we don't see them. We have a small group of people called the Zealots, and they are mentioned here and there through the New Testament.

The Zealots were the people who were like, "Okay, do or die. I know humanly we can't, but we're not going to let them. These are the bravehearts of Israel. Give me freedom or give me death." So they were carrying swords around them constantly, just waiting for an opportunity to get into a holy war.

And these Zealots are the ones who got Israel in trouble later on, and then they ticked off the Roman Empire, and they come and destroy the nation of Israel as a result of their rebellion. And the people that are the most prominent, the fourth group of people are the people that we hear the most about in the New Testament, and they were the Pharisees.

The word "Pharisee" basically means to be set apart. And their answer to what was happening to the nation of Israel was that maybe if we kept the law perfectly, maybe if we prayed more, maybe if we gave more, maybe if we apostatized and we kept the law of God perfectly, that God would be appeased, and maybe He will come, and He will deliver us.

Now each one of these groups didn't get along with each other. Not only was there a constant reminder of the Roman dominance, even within the nation of Israel, there was no consensus. They were divided even within their own families. But all the trouble that the nation of Israel was under, the greatest and the most darkest part of Israel's history was the 400 years of silence.

The Scripture tells us that after Malachi finishes his prophecy, that there is no prophet for 400 years until John the Baptist shows up. Theologians often call this period 400 years of silence. There was no prophet sent by God to speak on his behalf. And it was a clear judgment that God brought upon the nation of Israel.

In Amos chapter 8, 11 through 12, Amos shows up during a period when there was a lot of religious activity going on in the nation of Israel. And this is the final judgment that God pronounces upon the nation. It says, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a hearing of the words of the Lord.

They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it." Now we may look at that and say, "Well, that was 400 years of silence, and maybe because they lost the scroll." Maybe the temple worship got shut down.

Maybe there was no place to go because of the judgment of God. But on the contrary, if you look at that period of Israel's history, they were more religious than any other period in their life. There was more activity happening in the temple. Pharisees were actually committed to memorize Scripture.

They fasted twice a week. They were even proselytizing, sending people out to make disciples. They set up a synagogue in almost every city. So if you trace Apostle Paul's ministry, there's only one or two cities that he went to where there wasn't a synagogue. Every single city that he went to in the Roman Empire, there was already a synagogue there.

So he would go into the synagogue, and he would be given basically the pulpit to preach and to share about the Gospel. So the fact that there was silence for 400 years doesn't mean that the word of God wasn't being preached. In fact, Josephus, a Jewish historian, actually has the exact number of lambs that were sacrificed in a particular year during the time of Jesus' ministry.

And the reason why we have the exact number, that he was basically hired by the Roman Empire to take a census of how many animals were being sacrificed, the lambs were being sacrificed, in order for them to take a census. So he has the exact number that was given to the Roman Empire, 256,500 was the exact number that he gave the Roman Empire.

And each one of these lambs represented at least 10 adult male. So basically what that means is that the sacrifices that was taking place at the temple was probably more numerous than any other time in their history. And part of the reason why is because there was a prophecy, or there was a teaching going around in the Jewish Empire, that the Messiah was going to come during the Passover.

And so this was beginning to spread, and it became a popular view. And during the Passover there was a stir upon Israel. So can you imagine when Jesus was riding on the donkey during the time of Passover, and people thinking that he was the Messiah, and the stir that must have created.

The 400 years of silence from Malachi to John the Baptist wasn't because the Word was not being taught. It wasn't because the temple got shut down. It wasn't because they didn't have enough permittings. That in the context of doing all of these things, Jesus says, "You call me Lord, Lord, but your heart is far from me." It was a lot of religious and a lot of smoke screen, but not genuine worship.

He said, "You're doing all these things, but yet it has nothing to do with me." And at the end of Jesus' ministry, they didn't even recognize their Messiah. That their leaders, their Pharisees, have been proclaiming and teaching. The prophets have been-- every prophet in the Old Testament almost ends with, "The Messiah is coming, Messiah is coming." And yet when he finally comes, they completely miss him.

John 1, 9-11, "The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him." See, the darkness in the nation of Israel, with all the physical signs, all the things, all the sentences that they had to take, all the taxes that they had to give to the Roman Empire, their greatest darkness was a darkness in their own hearts.

And that's why when we read the account of Jesus' birth in the book of Matthew, it wasn't the priests or the scribes or the Pharisees or even their own king. It was this group of men called the Magi. Some of your Bibles translated them as "wise men." Now, their identity is kind of a mystery, but there is a consensus that they believe that these are Persian scholars, maybe astrologers.

Why did they know, and why did they recognize the coming of a foreign nation's king? Well, again, it's a common view that they believe that there was a prophecy given by Daniel and that they were studying that Daniel was a prominent figure during that period, during the captivity. And they think, again, this is a theory, that possibly these guys were looking into this intently, and they were able to calculate, based upon Daniel chapter 9, that this was a period when the king of Israel was going to appear, based upon Daniel's prophecies.

Now, again, all of these things are theories. We don't know that for a fact. But what we do know is that the whole nation of Israel was completely blind to his coming, and that these three pagans, outside of Israel, were the ones who were coming. They recognized the coming of the Messiah.

Not only that, we see in the account of Luke, that the angels appear, not to the chief priests, not to the Pharisees, but to the shepherds. The shepherds, at that particular time, was considered the lowliest job that you can have. Because they were out in the field, they couldn't bathe, they had to tend to these animals, and so they didn't smell good.

It was not a job that young men and women would aspire to be. So if you say you're a shepherd, automatically they say, "Oh, you're a shepherd." So the fact that the account in Luke emphasizes that the angels showed up to the shepherds, lowly people, who have no significance, humanly speaking, in this world, that they were the ones that God reveals the coming of the Messiah.

They were the first ones to come and want to give worship to their king. It is a slap in the face to the nation. And there's a reason why John the Baptist, when he comes to preach about the kingdom, he doesn't go to Jerusalem. He goes outside the Jerusalem, and he brings everybody out.

Because all of this is to convey what was happening with the nation of Israel. The 400 years of silence wasn't simply because the material wasn't being exposited. Their hearts became so hardened that even though the Word of God was being taught, even though the sacrifices were being made, God was not in their midst.

In the Matthew chapter 2 account, it says, "Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.' But when King Herod heard this, he was troubled." We understand why King Herod would be in trouble.

Because he was already unpopular with the nation of Israel. So if the true king of Israel comes, the Messiah comes, of course he would be the first one who would be threatened. So we understand why he was threatened, but if you continue reading, it says, "Not only was he troubled, but all of Jerusalem was troubled with him." All of Jerusalem.

And then in verse 4 it says, "And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophet.'" Now what that reveals to us is that the revelation of the coming of Christ was made clear.

So the scribes knew. So when Herod gathered them together and asked them about the coming Messiah, they knew what the Bible said. But it reveals the darkness of their heart. You notice that it says that it doesn't say that all nation of Israel was troubled, it said all of Jerusalem was troubled.

And the significance behind that is that Jerusalem represented the spiritual elite of that time. And again, as I said, this is the reason why John the Baptist doesn't enter into Jerusalem. That he's outside of Jerusalem. Because there was a spiritual darkness in the temple. There was a spiritual darkness in the teaching.

There was a spiritual darkness among the Pharisees who was fasting, who was praying, who was even evangelizing. But there was a spiritual darkness in them that they did not recognize. That in the midst of all this religious activity, they did not know God. The name of God was coming off their lips.

They were reading it. They were memorizing scripture. They had it written on their sleeves. They had it written on their doorposts. And every opportunity they got, they were talking about the coming Messiah, how He's going to come during the Passover. And yet, three years after Jesus' ministry, after healing the sick, opening the eyes of the people who are blind, walking on water, calming the storm, even raising the dead, after three years of revealing Himself to them, at the end of three years, they reject Him.

There's a reason why in the book of Isaiah, why false religion is highlighted. And why in Jesus' ministry, He highlights the Pharisees' hypocrisy above the prostitutes, above the tax collectors. He said, "They were made righteous, but you were not." These were the ones who were praying. These were the ones who were giving.

These were the ones who were proselytizing and making disciples. And yet, Jesus says, "You are blind." He tells His disciples, "Do what they tell you to do," because they sit in the seat of Moses, yet do not do what they do. Because they are blind, leading the blind. Think about the harsh message that Isaiah had to give to the nation of Israel.

After seeing the glory of the presence of God in chapter 6, he sent to the nation of Israel, and the primary message that he has to the nation of Israel is of judgment. We have the prophecies about the Messiah coming more written in the book of Isaiah than any other book.

But the primary sin of the nation of Israel wasn't paganism. It wasn't idol worship. It wasn't about following God. All these things did exist, but it wasn't the prominent sin of the nation of Israel. It was false worship. And he begins in the book of Isaiah, chapter 1, 11, he says, "What to me is a multitude of your sacrifices," says the Lord.

"I have had enough of burnt offerings, of rams, and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or lambs or of goats." What's interesting about everything that he says in chapter 1 is everything he says here is prescribed in the Mosaic law. Moses, because it was given to the nation of Israel through God, they were doing all of these things because God prescribed them.

But instead of describing them as worship, God says, "They are nothing than blood of bulls." Their singing was just noise to them. Their assembly for worship, they called it evil assembly. Instead of delighting in their gathering, he says, "They have become a burden to me." In fact, he uses the term of their religious gathering as hate.

I hate it. I think there's a reason why Jesus emphasized it. It wasn't Jesus. Jesus didn't all of a sudden come and say, "You know what? We've been tolerating this up to this point, but now this false worship, I've had enough." God has been saying this throughout the nation of Israel's history.

Their primary sin was a deception that because of their many sacrifices, because of their temple attendance, because of all of these things, that they were somehow right with God. Why was it the fullness of time? It was the fullness of time because the law of God became utterly sinful.

The sin of Israel, the darkness that was upon the nation of Israel, was darker than any other period in Israel's history. Imagine how darkened they must have been. Imagine how hardened their heart must have been when their own Messiah, the creator of the universe, stands before them and says, "I am." And the response that he gets from them is they pick up stones and they want to kill him.

That's how hardened their hearts were, even in the midst of all of these sacrifices. See, in any way that we look at it, no matter what angle we look at the nation of Israel, they were absolutely without hope. Politically, financially, and especially spiritually, they were absolutely without hope. It would only make sense that God would wipe them out and start over with somebody else.

It would only make sense if God would just wipe his hands clean and walk away and do something else. These people are not worth salvaging and just to move on. But the reason why Paul says and God says that this was the perfect time, because it is in darkness where his grace and his light shines the brightest.

He waits until we're so desperate. It isn't until that we see the need for a Savior, we see the need for saving, where the gospel in Christmas makes sense. Why would a God of the universe take on human form and walk on this earth? Why would he give himself to these young teenagers with no money, traveling 100 miles just to get home to pay the pagan nation taxes?

Why would an all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing God place himself in the shoes that he placed himself in? See, it was the perfect time because mankind was without hope. The nation of Israel is often quoted in the scriptures saying they represent all of us. Everything that happened with the nation of Israel and it's explained to us in 1 Corinthians 10, it happened as an example for us to look at and see, "Well, those people, I'm glad I'm not like them." He says, "No, all of this happened as an example for the rest of mankind.

Their spiritual darkness represented all of us. Their need, their situation without hope represents all of us." See, every single one of us, when things happen, when darkness comes into our lives, we have a tendency to react just like the nation of Israel. Some of us become more determined, we're going to work harder.

Some of us think that we have to be more clever. Some of us think that we have to align ourselves with the right people, that maybe we need to do this, we need to do that. And we can easily miss the point that maybe the reason why God places us in certain situations is the same reason why God says this was the fullness of time.

Because it is in our desperation where we need and long for God the most. See, 400 years of silence, 400 years of hardening their hearts, 400 years of giving false worship, 400 years of God being silent. Christmas represents the day where God breaks into that silence. Hebrews chapter 1, 1 and 2, it says, "Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers, to the prophets.

But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world." Christmas is where He breaks into that silence. He sees the hardness of His nation, and He comes to melt their hearts. He sees the lostness and the deception that they were living under, and Jesus Christ comes, and He breaks into that deception.

And He says, "No one comes to the Father but through Me. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." It is Christ, the perfect image of God, speaking to the nation of Israel for the first time in 400 years. 1 Timothy 2, 5-7, it says, "For there is one God, there is one mediator between God and man, and the man Christ Jesus." One mediator.

So the whole ministry, the whole incarnation, Emmanuel, was so that He can be the perfect mediator. If you read the Gospel, there's two very detailed accounts of Jesus' birth and what happened. One is written in the book of Matthew, the other one is written in the book of Luke.

Matthew highlights His kingship. And that's why Matthew begins with the genealogy, saying He's the fulfillment of the prophecy. He's the King of the Jews that is coming. So that's why the book of Matthew highlights the fact that the prophecy went out, the King was coming. The King. That's why when the Magi's come, they recognize that they're not bringing gifts to this lowly family, but to the King of Israel.

So the frankincense and myrrh and oil, all of these things were gifts that you would offer to a king. They were not cheap things. But you look at the book of Hebrew, the book of Luke, it's completely the other side. It's the shepherds. The lowly shepherds are the ones who hear about it, and they come to Him, and then the account of Him being born in a manger, this lowly family.

You see one highlighting His kingship, the other highlighting His humility. And the reason why that is written in that way is because Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. Because only a fully God and fully man could be the perfect mediator between us and God. He had to represent God to us, and He has to represent us to God.

And that's what His sacrifice was, is to become that mediator. Because we could not go to Him, He came to us. Hebrews 4.15, it says, "For we do not have a high priest "who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, "but one in every aspect, every respect, "has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

"Let us then, with confidence, "draw near to the throne of grace, "that we may receive mercy and find grace "to help in time of need." You know how difficult it is for us to be humble. We can fake humility. We can say certain things. Our whole life is about elevating our status.

We may not, some of us are good at hiding it. Some of us are a little bit more sophisticated than that. But everything about human existence is to elevate our status. That's why we work hard, we get a better education, right? We want to look a certain way, you buy certain clothes, certain house.

All of these things, in some way, obvious or not obvious, is a way to elevate our status. And the scripture tells us that our pride and that innate, natural desire to elevate ourselves is what's killing us. That was the sin of Satan. That was the sin of Adam and Eve.

That was the sin of, at the Tower of Babel. That was the sin of mankind. Christ knew that the only way that he can save mankind is to humble himself. He did exactly the opposite of what you and I naturally do every single day when we wake up. He who knew no sin became sin, that he might become the righteousness of God.

The Christmas that we celebrate today is a day that we celebrate the Lion of Judah became the Lamb of God. That sinners like you and I can be reconciled to a holy God. As we celebrate Christmas, as we think upon what this day represents, I know that there's a whole culture and everything going on.

I don't think any of that stuff is wrong and I'm not here to put a guilt chip because you bought presents for your family members. These are all blessings that God has given us. You know I thank God that we are able to come and worship and don't have to worry about this church being blown up.

I was reading an article even yesterday about how the Indians are having a hard time in India celebrating Christmas because they are being persecuted for celebrating Christmas. And I thank God that we live in a country where we can provide for our family and gather together and worship and have Bible studies without the threat of these things.

But if we forget, if we forget, if we think that that's our hope, God's blessing can easily turn into a curse. If all the blessings that God has given us turns us into superficial worshipers of God, every gift, every blessing, every freedom that we have been given can easily turn to harden our hearts.

I pray that as we celebrate Christmas today, that we would take some time to consider carefully why He had to come. He had to come. Not because of their sins, not because of Israel, but because of the darkness that resides in you and resides in me. And that the only way that He could have reconciled us was by taking on human form.

He humbled Himself because we would not. He humbled Himself because we could not. He who knew no sin became sin, that you and I may become the righteousness of God. Let's take some time to meditate and think about that, again, as we invite our worship team to come up and lead us in worship.

Take some time to pray, to come before the Lord in honest prayer. And if you are in a dark place, it may be the fullness of time that God is calling you. There's no other time in your life where you are in desperate need of the grace of God than when your heart is the hardest, when you've drifted so far.

This is when we need to plead. This is when God draws near. So let's take some time as we meditate and think upon His grace as our worship team leads us.