All right, thank you. Merry Christmas. I'm glad that you're here this morning. And hard to believe, only two more dates. It's going to be here and then it's going to be over. Well, all right. Take the Word of God and open to Galatians, please, chapter 4. Galatians, chapter 4. The mighty Word of God. You hold in your hand a wonderful book. Sometimes we forget that. We say, oh yeah, it's the Bible. Well, it is the Bible, but it's God's Word, man. It's God's Word. And every bit of it is true for our instruction. Galatians chapter 4, okay? And I'm going to ask that you stand with me, please, if you're willing and able to. We're going to start reading in verse 4, okay? Galatians 4, beginning reading in verse 4. Follow along as I read aloud to you. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth His Spirit, of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Well, let's pray. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for your Word. We thank you for its truth. Now we come at this time in our worship today to have your Spirit talk to us through the Word of God, giving us instruction, drawing us closer to you, helping us to understand what life is really about. Help us, Heavenly Father, to take seriously this time to worship you and to and for those who need to draw closer to you as a savior. And that's what we pray for, that's what we really want. So we praise your holy name, open our ears and eyes and hearts to your word, in Christ's name we pray, amen. Well, the book of Ecclesiastes tells us there's a time for everything. And I guess that's true. There's a time to buy Christmas gifts, obviously. And then your finances dictate when it's time to stop. You know, maybe you're there. There's a time to observe the gift under the tree. There's a time to wonder what's beyond the wrappings and the bows. And then, of course, there comes a time when you actually pull the Christmas gift out from under the tree and you begin to open it. There is a time for everything, as the scripture says. And this is a time in America when we observe the Christmas season. It's part of the American fabric. Today, at least anyhow. It hasn't always been. You know, Christmas hasn't always been a part of our American culture. But today, it's a time of celebration. It's a time of gift giving. It's a time to be with your friends. It's a great time to be with your families and reacquaint yourself with each other. Enjoy each other's company and reconnect. There's nothing wrong with it. That's a good that's good I am NOT trying to be negative about that whatsoever This morning, but Christmas as we know it today really is an evolutionary process As we observe Christmas today, it hasn't always been observed like we observe it today. It's kind of a menagerie of ideas and events and traditions that have come together. Some of those events and traditions are Christian, some of them are not so Christian. But it's all a conglomeration today. Christmas in America really didn't begin to take the shape that it does until actually the early 1800s. Matter of fact, they didn't like Christmas much before the 1800s, you know? But in the 1800s, all the traditions began to combine and gather together, and then came the Civil War. The Civil War was a time, you know in your history, that America was torn apart, the South and the North. Well, after the war, they needed something to kind of help draw things together. And believe it or not, one of those things that drew our country back together was this idea of Christmas. And it started really in the Northeast and it began to be promoted up there and then it kind of spread across the country and gained steam as it went. Until finally in 1870, it was in 1870 that Christmas actually became a national holiday. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking in my mind, that's kind of late. You know, I thought Christmas has always been around in our country, but it hasn't. It wasn't formal until 1870. And then, of course, then it's been, you know, taken off and a lot of other traditions have been added to it, you know. But as big as Christmas is, and Christmas is big, not just commercially, But it's big. And it's something that everybody looks forward to all year long. But as important as Christmas is, there's something even more important. There's something even bigger than Christmas. And that's what we're reading about this morning. Another time. The Scriptures speak of another time. So for just a few minutes this morning, I'm going to beg that you, you know, tolerate me this morning, you know, as we try to close the curtains on all the parties and close the curtains on all the buying and close the curtains on the gift opening and even the spending of time with our family and the spending of time with our friends and let's concentrate on what I believe is the greatest gift of all. that we're reading about this morning in this book of Galatians. It's wonderful to have time off. I'm glad that you have time off and, you know, and I hope that you enjoy your time off and it's wonderful to be with your family, but I think we need to put things back into perspective. Let's look at life for a few minutes from God's perspective. Paul is writing to the Galatian church. He's writing to them because he's received some news that they're turning away from the grace of God and they're going back into the bondage of the law. They're going back into the bondage of the law. And the bondage of the law is the idea that, hey, I can save myself. I believe I'm good enough to make it. All I've got to do is follow this plan, do this part of the law, and I'm there. You know? We're in bondage. The world in which you live is in bondage, and that bondage is called sin, and that sin bondage is destroying everything. Behind the facade of what you see going on today, behind the facade of the gift-giving and the sharing and the parties and the games and the food and all the joy and all the laughing and all the carousing and singing the bright life and the Christmas trees, behind all of that is the reality of the fact that we are in sin's bondage, and we don't need to be covering that part of this season up. It is part of what we need to understand about the Christmas season. There is a bondage. The truth is that the world is in bondage and behind that are scenes of destruction and misery and sorrow and death. And I'm not trying to be a killjoy. You know, I may be hard to believe. Brother Doyle is not trying to be a killjoy. That's not why we're telling you these things. We're telling you these things because we love you. But true love, true love will have at its foundation truth. It just will. And so we tell you these things. We preach to you these things. I'm not saying that there are times that we don't need to pull away from the world and have good times. I'm not trying to say that. That's not what I'm saying, okay? But I'm saying that we need to pull away from the temporal sometimes and look at the eternal. There is an eternal. The world doesn't need another iPhone. The world doesn't need another piece of candy or another piece of fine clothing or another toy or another whatever. What this world needs is a Savior. A Savior. Someone who can break the power of sin and break the power of death. And when Christmas is over, we're all going to go back into the rut. But when you get back into the rut, you need to be in that rut with an eternal view of life. Let's look at what Paul describes here as the coming of the Savior. Paul said that Jesus was going, that he came in what he calls the fullness of time. The fullness of time. What is the fullness of time? What does that mean? That's kind of poetical. What is the fullness of time? We don't use that terminology today. Well, it has the idea of maturity. Most of y'all are old enough to know that plants start with a seed, okay? Y'all have had farming background. So you take your seed, right? You hope it's a good seed. And you plant it into the soil, and then you hope for water, and if you don't get water, you water it. And you wait. And then when it sprouts, you cultivate and then you weed it, you know. But your goal is not just to water the seed. Your goal is not just to see the seed sprout. And when the seeds sprout, it begins to grow and it begins to put on, you know, foliage and leaves. But your goal is not just the leaves. I mean, you're grateful for the leaves. You're grateful for the branches. You're glad it's alive. But that's just your goal. So as the plant continues to mature, say it's a flower, when that flower finally gets to the point where it puts on some bulbs, you know it's about ready to blossom and bloom. And so when the flower gets to the point where it actually explodes and the bulbs explode and the flower comes forth and you see the flower in all of its beauty and all of its color and all of its magnificence, it has reached its goal. That's what it was created to do. It was created to give glory to God, and it does that when it fully matures and says, boom, here I am in all my color and all my glory and all my foliage. You wait for the flower to bloom because you know that's what you're looking for. That's the height of its beauty. That's the height of its glory. That's its maturity. It's there. That's what it's done. That's its purpose. That's its goal. When are you going to enjoy the flower the most? You're going to enjoy the flower most when it's in full bloom, right? When you can go up and smell the fragrance of the flower. That's when it's the most beautiful. So what Paul is saying here, he's taking that same principle of the fullness of time. And he's saying that God planted a seed. You remember when God planted the seed back in Genesis? Back in Genesis. And God said that the seed of the woman but overcome the seed of the enemy. It was a prophecy. It was a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. And so God plants the seed in the very beginning of the book of Genesis. And he makes a promise about Jesus Christ coming thousands of years before it actually happens. There's a maturing process going on here because later on we have a guy by the name of Abraham that God calls. Again, God is cultivating. The seed is growing. The plant is growing. The nation is coming. Israel becomes a nation. God called Abraham and said, I'm going to make a nation out of you. And out of the nation of Israel is going to come the Messiah. Then God comes along and he cults a little more and he calls a man by the name of Moses. And Moses comes along and he gets the Ten Commandments and he gets the Law of Moses, you know. And the nation of Israel lives under the Law of Moses again. He's cultivating. He's getting ready for the Messiah to come. Everything is falling in place. Everything is growing. Everything is on a path. Everything has its purpose. Until it gets to the place where it reaches its glory. Where does it reach its glory? Here. Here. Finally. Finally. The scripture says Jesus was born. the height, the ultimate, the aim, the goal, the purpose of it all. The Son of God is born. The angels have been waiting and waiting and waiting, and all the hosts in heaven have been looking. They knew the promise was gonna be fulfilled one of these days, and finally it was fulfilled. No wonder the angels came, and they filled the sky, and they began to sing, and suddenly there appeared an angel with a multitude of heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men, with whom God is well pleased. They've been waiting for this moment, looking forward to it. They were anticipating it. And then the scripture says, God sent forth His Son. God sent forth His Son. What does that mean? What does that mean about Jesus? That He is of divine origin. God and Jesus planned this time when there was no time. In the timelessness of eternity, God came up with a time in which he would send forth his son into the world. Before there was time, God had a plan in place to send Jesus Christ to be born and ultimately laid in a manger. That's God's plan. Jesus didn't begin to exist that night that he was born and laid in a manger in Bethlehem. This phrase, God sent forth his Son, speaks of the deity of Jesus Christ. The baby that laid in the manger that night was indeed divine. He is God. And the scripture says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's Jesus Christ. And never before, never again was there ever such a combination. that the body of man would envelope God, deity, the God of creation. And this is not the birth of some mere ordinary man. This is not what this is. This is not what we're celebrating. This is the birth of God, the Savior of the world. That's what we're looking at. The one who has the power to free us from sin's bondage, to break the power of sin and death. The wording, the phrase here, Who did He send? His Son. His Son. How was Jesus the Son of God? Did God get married somehow or another and have a baby? Did God mate with Mary here somehow or another and all of a sudden have a child? No! The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and it was a divine conception. And the Bible says this, the Bible says, The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the holy child shall be called, what? The Son of God. For that reason, what? The child shall be called the Son of God. God had to have a human body. If there was going to be redemption, The problem though was the sin that's in the human body. That's the problem. Every human being who has an earthly father has within them, because of their earthly father, the nature of sin. Bad news for you kids. Your dad did you wrong. You have a sin nature because of your dad and really it goes on beyond your dad. It goes all the way back to Adam. He has the Adamic sin nature that he passed on to you. Jesus didn't have a sinner dad like you have a sinner dad. You have a sinner dad. Jesus doesn't have a sinner dad. Why? Because it qualified Him to be the Savior. He was sinless. He was sinless. The same sinless God that He was in heaven is the sinless God He was on the earth. Can you imagine? Just go ahead and play a little game with me, okay? Can you imagine yourself being sinless? I mean, seriously. Can you imagine your life without any sin whatsoever? You never said anything that you regretted. You never did anything that you regretted. You never had a cross word. You never had a lustful thought. You were always thankful, you were never hateful. You always thank your mom for your Brussels sprouts. That kind of life, that's what I'm talking about. That kind of perfection. Thinking about God, can you imagine? Oh, I'm thinking about God. I'm thinking about pleasing God. This is what I want to do today. There's nothing else in my mind, nothing else that would be more important to me today than to please God. You never became angry. You never told even the smallest little bittiest lie whatsoever. None. You're always loving and you're always forgiving. We're guilty, aren't we? Christ was sinless. The Bible says, that's why the Bible says, He is the Son of God. And notice next what it says. It says, He was born under the law. And you say, whoa, wait a minute. Wait a minute. What does that mean? You know, born under the law. Well, let's decipher that, okay? What does it mean that Jesus was born under the law? There are about three ways that the word law is used in the scriptures, depending on the context, depending on the point that the writer wants to make. The law can simply refer to a common principle, like we're all born under the law of sin and death. You're going to die, okay? That's the law. You're not going to get around that unless Jesus comes back. That's going to be the deal. Then there are times in the Bible when the law refers to all of the Old Testament. Then there are times in the Bible when the word, the law, refers to just the Ten Commandments. Here, in our particular context, what we're talking about is the Torah or the Old Testament. So it says Jesus was born under all the laws in the Old Testament. Now, I know that you're thinking, well, what does that have to do with me? I'm not a Jew. And you're not a Jew. You're a Gentile. You're not born under the law of Moses. I understand that. I understand that, and I get that. But what I want you to know, what you need to know, is what Paul is saying here is that Jesus was born under the law as part of the maturation process that God started in Genesis. Being born under the law of Moses was part of the culmination of what God wanted to accomplish by sending Jesus Christ to be our Savior. You say, what does that mean? It means that all the laws of God fully matured in Jesus Christ. Every law that God ever commanded, everything that God ever wanted, Jesus Christ fulfilled. He never failed one time in his obedience to God. He pictured the law. He was the living epitome of the law in everything that he did. You remember what Jesus said in the book of Matthew? I know it's been a while since you've been to the book of Matthew, but I want to remind you what he said in the book of Matthew. He said, do not think that I came to abolish the law of the prophets. I did not come to abolish, but what? What did he come to do? To fulfill. He said, I came to fulfill. I came to bring the law to its fruition, to its completeness, to live it out. I came to do it perfectly. So what's important about the law? It's the way you can measure how righteous you are. This is important, okay? This is important. The law is how you measure how good. You want to know how good you are? You want to know if you cut it with God? You want to know if you make God's standards? Then you take the law and you measure yourself by it, and it'll determine whether you're righteous or not. It's not a common word, but it's an important word. Righteous. The Pharisees and the Sadducees did that all the time. And they thought, the Pharisees and Sadducees believed, that they were good enough. But the problem with being good enough is that God requires perfection. Perfection. Good enough isn't going to cut it. You can't be good enough. If you die and you think you're good enough, you're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. Perfection. You have to obey the law completely to be righteous. God's standards. The Bible says for all of sin to come short of the glory of God. That's true. Except for one. Except for one. Except for one. And that one was the Son of God. Jesus Christ. And when God measured Jesus Christ by the law, Jesus Christ came up perfect. He did it all. He did everything that God wanted. He was absolutely... He did not fail in one point. The baby that was laid in the manger in the city of Bethlehem was perfect. Worshipped by the angels, worshipped even by the shepherds. Notice verse 5. Notice verse 5. So that he might redeem those who were under the law. That we might receive the adoption as sons. If you and I could measure up to the law, if you and I could measure up to the law, folks, we wouldn't have to be redeemed. That's what he's saying, we wouldn't have to be redeemed. But the reality is we have to be redeemed. We cannot redeem ourselves because we can't live up to God's standard of perfection. So here's the paradox. The law that condemns you justifies Christ. The law says that you're condemned It's the same law that says Jesus Christ is righteous. The law manifests the reality that God is just. You're going to have to be held on judgment day and be accountable before God on how you lived your life. Jesus Christ is eternally good and eternally right. The law says, here's why Jesus can save you. And without him, here's why you're going to hell. This is why you're going to hell. If the law says, I want you to understand, here's where you failed. Here's where you have not done what God has wanted you to do with your life. And the result is that God is just. Because of God's justice, there is a penalty. And that penalty is hell. But wait a minute. Wait a minute. It says here, In the fifth verse, we are redeemed. We're redeemed. The bondage to sin is broken. We're redeemed. The baby is our redeemer. He was born so that we could be brought out from under the bondage of sin and death. And when that child grew up and that baby got to maturity, he died on the cross. to pay for your sins, the sins that the law condemns you of, He paid for to redeem you. Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a king. And as the king was in his castle, as he looked out across the fields, he saw his youngest child, his youngest son, in the field and he was picking flowers. And as he would pick the flowers, he would put them into a bouquet and he would wrap the bouquet with the royal ribbon, with the royal colors. Of course, as the king was watching the scene unfold, he understood that this child was going to pick those flowers, put them in this bouquet with the royal ribbon and the royal colors to present them to the king. As the king contemplated and as he watched the child being the child being a child, would not only pick flowers, but he would also pick some weeds and some poison ivy that grew along the edge of the fields, some thistles and some thorns from the ditches that hadn't been mowed. And he would include them in his bouquet. And so the king thought, what shall I do to receive the bouquet from my youngest child? His eldest son sitting at his right hand, he turned to him, he said, here's what I want you to do. You got a mission. When your little brother comes in with his bouquet, I want you to take his bouquet. I want you out to my garden where my flowers are. I want you to pick out all of the weeds and all of the poison ivy, all the thorns, all the thistles. I want you to replace them with the flowers from my garden. Soon as the little brother come in, the eldest brother took the bouquet, went to the garden, picked out all the weeds, ivy, and thistles and thorns, replaced them with the beautiful flowers from the king's garden. Returned the bouquet to the young child. The young child runs into the presence of the king, runs right up to the throne where the king sits. With a grin from ear to ear, he holds up the bouquet presents this bouquet to the king. It's a bouquet that is now worthy of the king. The elder brother, actually the father, redeemed the bouquet by taking out all the bad and putting in the good. You and I are bouquet. And you got some weeds, you got some poison ivy in there, you got some thorns in your life, and you got some thistles in your life. You got some bad stuff in there with the good stuff. But there came the eldest child of the king to the earth. And he is willing to take your life and take out the thorns, the thistles, the poison ivy, and the weeds. and die for those sins. He's willing to die for those sins in order to present you before the King of Kings, the Lord, so that you can be accepted, because you cannot be accepted without the greatest intervention of God's grace, making a way for you to have eternal life. So where are you going to be this morning? You're going to celebrate Christmas. You're going to celebrate the gift-giving part of it. You're just going to go out there and say, yeah, I'm looking forward to this part of it. Or you're going to be able to say, you know, thank you, Lord. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for me. Thank you for the greatest gift of all, the gift of eternal life. You talk about a gift. that keeps on giving. You know, we all look for that gift that everybody's going to remember. You know, I want to give that gift, man. I want to get the gift that they're really going to like. So we plan to do it. You talk about the gift that's going to keep on giving, it's called eternal life through Jesus Christ. I'm going to ask Brother Doyle to come and help us with an invitation hymn this morning. And as they're coming and helping us prepare, I'm gonna ask that you stand as well. And as you're standing and bowing your heads, I'm gonna ask that you simply, for just a few moments, if you would, just close your eyes with me as we pray. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be in your house today and to worship you. We thank you, Father, for the greatest gift of all, the Lord, Savior, Jesus Christ, the very Son of God. And Lord, there may be those here who do not actually know Him personally. They have not received His righteousness in place of the weeds and the sins that are in their lives. Father, I pray that if there's one here that is without Christ and that your Spirit is dealing with, that they will give heed and they will give way to the conviction of the Spirit And they will understand with greater clarity than ever before. And before God, they have no excuse. There's nothing they can offer. And in complete faith and utter repentance of their own sins, turn to you and trust Christ as their Savior. Lord, help us to truly rejoice and the babe laid in the manger, and understand that he came not just to be born, as glorious as it was, but to die for the sins of the world and break the bondage of sin and death. In these things we pray in Christ's name, amen.