Why Is Christmas Precious to You?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, happy Christmas Eve, everyone.

00:00:05.880 | Thank you for joining us on the podcast.

00:00:08.120 | Pastor John, last time in the last episode,

00:00:10.760 | I shared a clip from you preaching

00:00:12.280 | on Christmas of 1981, 40 years ago,

00:00:15.720 | at the youthful age of just 35.

00:00:19.080 | A clip that's older than you were when you preached.

00:00:21.320 | It's amazing to hear your voice

00:00:23.720 | as a rookie pastor back then,

00:00:25.140 | but we're now zoomed into real time here in the studio.

00:00:29.200 | You are 75 now, and Christmas 2021 is tomorrow.

00:00:34.140 | For a lot of Christmases,

00:00:35.160 | you've been thinking about the implications

00:00:37.000 | of Christ's coming, but particularly this year.

00:00:40.320 | I know you've been giving a lot of thought

00:00:41.580 | to the holiday over these past several weeks

00:00:43.880 | leading up to Christmas.

00:00:45.180 | Tell us why and what's on your mind on this Christmas Eve.

00:00:50.180 | - Tony, I learned back in October

00:00:53.520 | that I'd be preaching at my own church at Bethlehem

00:00:58.040 | the Sunday before Christmas, last Sunday.

00:01:01.280 | From that time in October until now,

00:01:04.320 | the wonder of Christmas that has taken hold of me

00:01:08.800 | in a fresh and powerful way is the amazing reality

00:01:13.800 | that the personal, infinite, eternal,

00:01:18.720 | holy creator of the universe

00:01:22.720 | sent his son into this tiny speck

00:01:27.320 | of human habitation called earth

00:01:30.320 | in order to be condemned to death in my place.

00:01:35.320 | Sometimes we just have to do what Psalm 46 says,

00:01:41.760 | namely, be still and know that I am God.

00:01:47.960 | In other words, we have to just pause

00:01:52.760 | and let staggering reality sink in.

00:01:57.720 | Christmas Eve is a really good time, I think, to do this.

00:02:02.680 | So what reality do we need to let sink in today?

00:02:07.680 | Reality like this, before and above

00:02:12.600 | and outside of all created reality,

00:02:17.200 | outside of the entire scope of the universe

00:02:20.920 | with its countless light years of expanse,

00:02:25.280 | outside of all that, there is and there always has been

00:02:30.280 | a personal, infinite, eternal, holy God.

00:02:36.920 | He is absolute reality.

00:02:40.480 | He is the most real, real.

00:02:44.760 | The most ultimate thing he ever said was,

00:02:47.640 | "I am who I am."

00:02:49.680 | He is simply there.

00:02:52.120 | He's there, like Francis Schaeffer said.

00:02:55.200 | The God who is there, above, before, outside all reality.

00:03:00.200 | Think of it, eternal reality could have been a gas.

00:03:05.600 | Nothing existed before the original reality

00:03:10.200 | to make it what it was.

00:03:11.680 | It just was.

00:03:13.360 | Only we discover it's not an it.

00:03:16.960 | It's not an it.

00:03:18.400 | Ultimate reality is a person.

00:03:21.600 | It's just mind-boggling.

00:03:23.240 | I am who I am.

00:03:26.120 | We don't create him.

00:03:27.040 | We don't define him.

00:03:28.520 | We don't counsel him or help or enrich him

00:03:32.880 | or initiate anything with him.

00:03:36.040 | He is who he is and he reveals himself.

00:03:40.400 | Long ago and in many and various ways,

00:03:43.200 | God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

00:03:46.000 | but in these last days, he has spoken to us by a son.

00:03:52.200 | Hebrews 1, 1 and 2.

00:03:54.880 | We must be still today, it seems to me.

00:03:59.400 | I must be still and let this sink in.

00:04:02.720 | From all eternity, the infinite, eternal, personal,

00:04:07.720 | holy creator has existed as father and son and Holy Spirit.

00:04:12.780 | Now, what could that possibly mean?

00:04:20.200 | Son, son, God has always had a son.

00:04:25.200 | These are mysteries that make Christmas breathtaking.

00:04:30.640 | God has a son.

00:04:33.140 | He has had a son forever.

00:04:37.680 | The son never came into being.

00:04:42.400 | He is not created.

00:04:45.000 | There never was a time in the infinite eternity past

00:04:48.760 | when he did not exist.

00:04:51.480 | The apostle John comes to help us as our mouths

00:04:54.440 | are agape with astonishment.

00:04:56.760 | He comes and he says, "In the beginning was the word

00:05:01.280 | "and the word was with God and the word was God."

00:05:06.280 | The word was with God and the word was God.

00:05:14.840 | So God was with God.

00:05:19.200 | Yes, God was with God.

00:05:22.420 | And the God who was with God, the word,

00:05:25.980 | was the son of God.

00:05:28.440 | Verse 14, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us

00:05:33.440 | "and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son

00:05:39.000 | "from the father, full of grace and truth."

00:05:44.800 | And we mark that moment.

00:05:47.160 | We mark that moment when God sent God into the world.

00:05:52.160 | We mark it with a celebration called Christmas.

00:05:58.220 | One day a year to be still and know that from all eternity,

00:06:04.200 | God had a perfect image of himself,

00:06:09.220 | a perfect radiance of his glory,

00:06:11.640 | a perfect essence of his nature.

00:06:14.700 | And this God who was with God was the word

00:06:19.360 | and was the son.

00:06:21.560 | And when the time was perfect, Paul says,

00:06:24.960 | when the time was full and perfect

00:06:27.640 | to accomplish all God's eternal purposes for humanity,

00:06:32.720 | God sent God, the word, the son,

00:06:37.500 | to this tiny speck of human habitation called earth

00:06:42.720 | and the foundations of Christmas were laid.

00:06:46.820 | Now the question is why?

00:06:49.740 | Why?

00:06:50.580 | And the answer God himself gives

00:06:56.180 | and that I have been so sweetly captivated by

00:07:01.180 | since October is Romans 8, 3.

00:07:06.100 | God has done what the law weakened by the flesh

00:07:12.340 | could not do by sending his own son.

00:07:17.340 | That's Christmas.

00:07:20.900 | Romans 8, 3, Christmas.

00:07:23.660 | By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh

00:07:28.480 | and for sin, and here it comes,

00:07:31.200 | he condemned sin in the flesh.

00:07:36.200 | God sent God as the God man.

00:07:41.740 | The flesh God to be condemned in his mortal flesh.

00:07:46.740 | And the one who condemned God was God.

00:07:52.520 | God condemned sin in the death of the God man, Jesus Christ.

00:07:57.520 | Whose sin?

00:08:00.700 | Jesus didn't have any.

00:08:02.800 | Jesus was the one person in the world

00:08:05.580 | who didn't deserve to be condemned.

00:08:07.980 | The rest of us did.

00:08:10.260 | John Piper has accumulated almost 76 years of sins.

00:08:15.260 | Thousands upon thousands of sins.

00:08:24.060 | Any one of which was offensive enough against a holy God

00:08:30.380 | to plunge me into eternal ruin.

00:08:33.740 | I don't stand a chance on my own

00:08:39.660 | to be acquitted before a God of justice.

00:08:43.180 | I am under condemnation, condemnation, and justly so.

00:08:48.180 | The righteous law of God that I have broken

00:08:52.280 | hangs over my head like a curse.

00:08:56.260 | What hope is there then for me?

00:08:59.880 | In a very short time, John Piper, age 75 now,

00:09:04.660 | will stand before God to give an account of his life.

00:09:09.020 | So what hope do I have?

00:09:11.300 | Be still and know the meaning of Christmas.

00:09:15.580 | God has done what the law,

00:09:19.180 | hanging over me like a curse, could not do.

00:09:22.540 | The law can't pay for my breaking the law.

00:09:26.300 | So what did God plan to do from all eternity?

00:09:31.060 | God planned to send God, the Son, the God man,

00:09:36.440 | so that in his mortal flesh,

00:09:38.540 | without any sins of his own at all,

00:09:41.280 | he might bear the condemnation I deserve.

00:09:45.360 | By sending his own Son for sin,

00:09:48.100 | he condemned sin in the flesh.

00:09:50.360 | Or as Paul says in Galatians 3.13,

00:09:53.800 | Christ became a curse for John Piper.

00:09:58.800 | So what does Christmas feel like for me?

00:10:03.560 | It feels like a man standing on the gallows

00:10:07.860 | with the rope around his neck,

00:10:09.480 | and the King's Son steps forward,

00:10:13.740 | takes the rope off my neck, puts it on his own,

00:10:16.860 | looks me in the eye,

00:10:18.560 | and just before he drops to his own death in my place,

00:10:23.900 | he says, "I love you.

00:10:25.900 | "I love you.

00:10:29.920 | "Go show what I'm like now to the world."

00:10:34.300 | What does Christmas feel like to me?

00:10:37.300 | It feels like a man drowning in the icy Atlantic

00:10:42.020 | after the sinking of the Titanic,

00:10:44.160 | desperate to be taken into a lifeboat, but being refused.

00:10:48.000 | Why?

00:10:48.840 | There's no room in the lifeboat.

00:10:50.240 | It's full.

00:10:51.220 | And a man, the wealthiest, healthiest,

00:10:56.060 | most influential man on that ship,

00:10:59.700 | pulls me in as he jumps overboard to make room for me

00:11:04.700 | and looks up as I float away in safety and says,

00:11:11.460 | "I love you."

00:11:12.420 | What does Christmas feel like for me?

00:11:16.380 | It feels like a courtroom where your life,

00:11:18.740 | my life, hangs in the balance.

00:11:21.140 | The prosecuting attorney is the unassailable law of God.

00:11:24.860 | The defense attorney does not exist.

00:11:27.060 | There is no defense.

00:11:29.020 | It is manifest to everyone in the courtroom

00:11:31.780 | that all evidence is against me.

00:11:33.980 | And the judge, the son of the king of the realm,

00:11:36.520 | brings down the gavel, guilty,

00:11:38.660 | sentenced to execution, everlasting ruin.

00:11:41.300 | And as they leave the courtroom with me in bonds,

00:11:45.100 | the judge follows me out, pulls me aside and says,

00:11:48.880 | "I'm gonna take your condemnation.

00:11:52.420 | "You go now and show the wonder of this moment to the world.

00:11:58.020 | "I love you."

00:11:58.980 | So, Tony, that's where I've been now these months

00:12:04.820 | leading to this moment on Christmas Eve.

00:12:09.380 | Romans 8, 3, "God has done what the law could not do

00:12:14.380 | "by sending his own son, Christmas,

00:12:19.860 | "in the likeness of sinful flesh,

00:12:21.740 | "and for sin he condemned sin, my sin,

00:12:26.760 | "in the flesh."

00:12:28.260 | What Christmas stands for is infinitely precious.

00:12:33.260 | It is.

00:12:35.220 | And I would simply plead with all our listeners,

00:12:38.940 | come to Jesus Christ this Christmas.

00:12:42.500 | If you will embrace Jesus Christ,

00:12:45.340 | the son of God as your precious savior,

00:12:48.860 | all that God is for you,

00:12:52.860 | all that God is for you in Christ, in him,

00:12:57.860 | will be yours, no condemnation ever.

00:13:02.040 | And it will be a very Merry Christmas.

00:13:07.040 | - Amen.

00:13:08.180 | Infinitely precious.

00:13:09.320 | That's no overstatement.

00:13:10.320 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:11.960 | Well, on behalf of John Piper and the Desiring God staff

00:13:15.320 | in Minneapolis and around the country and around the world,

00:13:18.160 | we would all like to wish you a very Merry Christmas

00:13:21.520 | and a Christ-filled Christmas weekend,

00:13:24.140 | relishing in all of these glories

00:13:26.400 | that we talked about today.

00:13:28.280 | I am Tony Reike, and we'll see you back here on Monday.

00:13:31.560 | (upbeat music)

00:13:34.140 | (upbeat music)

00:13:36.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why Is Christmas Precious to You?

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