Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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The Kingdom of Man vs The Kingdom of God part 1 (Luke 2:1-7)

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Luke 2:1–7

Okay, we’re in the book of Luke in chapter 2. Here’s what it says, starting in verse 1:

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

(Luke 2:1–7)

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this Advent and Christmas season where we celebrate and rejoice at what you did thousands of years ago in sending your Son to redeem a people for his own. And we thank you, Lord, that [audio unclear] there is praise prepared for you. And we saw it in part today, God. We pray your blessing upon our children. We pray that each one of them would grow up to know you, to fear you, to serve you, to love you, to seek you all their days, that they would make an impact for your kingdom. We pray the same for us as well, Lord, that we would continue to be diligent, to walk in your ways, to seek your face, God. We pray, God, that you would give us words to say, that we would be bold during this Christmas season as we’re around friends and family to share with them the good news of your Son Jesus. Wipe away any fear of man. Let it be a fear of God that we have, Lord, that we open our mouths to speak, Lord. We thank you, God, that you are gracious to save anyone who comes to you, Lord, anyone who comes to you, you are gracious to save. So bring many to you this Christmas season. Let them repent of their sins and trust in you, God, that you would give them the gift of salvation. Let me pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

One, thank you all for praying for me for the last few weeks. I had shoulder surgery. I probably should be in a sling right now, so don’t tell my doctor. He said if I was stationary, though, that I could take the sling off. So I’m stretching it a little bit. But if I do this with my right hand, I’m probably going to collapse on the ground, okay? Because that will be an excruciating pain. So you might see this hand moving a bit. This hand won’t move as much, but it’s a little bit easier to preach with at least two hands having some freedom.

Details Matter

So into the text here. When we think about stories, and we think if we stretch it out just a little bit outside the Bible, when we think of stories like Aesop’s fables, other mythical stories, how do many of them begin? Once upon a time, right? Or it just jumps in. So if you think of the boy who cried wolf, it starts out, a shepherd boy tended his master’s sheep near a dark forest not far from the village. A lot of times these stories are removed from any historical context. And here’s the thing that’s interesting. Many of the major religious texts from other world religions don’t give names, or dates, or historical [audio unclear]. So as many of you know, I was a religious studies [audio unclear]. I was required to pretty much read every single text of every single religion, except we didn’t really read the Bible. Oh, surprise. But I did read all those religious texts, and here’s the thing. When you study those religions and you bring up, how come there’s not names and dates and historical events? A lot of times the common answer is, well, it’s spiritual truth that’s being communicated. In other words, the stories you read may or may not have happened, but that’s actually not really important. What is important is the spiritual truths you learn. That works for Aesop’s fables. You know, history isn’t important, events aren’t important. You have no details, just that it happened somewhere, at some time, in some place. I mean, they might as well just say a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. At least they’d have a location. But Eastern [audio unclear]. Well, one, the more detailed you are, think about it. The more detailed you are, the more precise you are, the easier it is to prove you wrong. In the Bible, though, there’s much attention to detail. Story after story after story after story. You get names, places, events occurring, locations, tiny little details that don’t seem to be very impactful to the story, yet later on you see, wow, that was pretty key to the story, or that was pretty key to showing that that was crucial. And archaeological dig after archaeological dig, I mean, what do we see? It only shows that these stories are true. Even if you take like the story of Jericho, you know, they discovered that town and the walls. Well, guess which way the walls fell? Guess which way they fell? Usually if you’re attacking a city, right? Which way are the walls going to fall? They’re going to fall inward. Well, they found that the walls fell outward. How could a city that is attacked and overtaken and destroyed, how could those walls fall outward, unless it goes according to what God said, exactly as he said it in his Bible? Well, that’s what we see. So much attention given. And that’s why, you know, when someone lies—I know none of y’all have ever told a lie, but when other people lie, they usually keep it generic if they’re smart. Not that I’m trying to give any lessons in lying. But they know if they start to give specific information, they can be fact-checked. The story can be checked out. It’s why the police, when they bring in a suspect, like what do they do in the interrogation room? They’re just peppering him with questions, thousands of questions. Why? Because they know if he’s lying, they can eventually find that little hole in his story because it won’t all go together.

Well this is why we talk about, when we come to the Bible, we talk about the history of redemption. A lot of times theologians will use maybe three, sometimes four main categories of creation, fall, and redemption. But even though we have a specific story in front of us today, the birth of Jesus Christ, it’s part of a much bigger history of what God has been doing. And unlike all the other world religions, save Judaism, we see a story woven from the very beginning of what God is doing, from the very beginning. So it allows us to see a much bigger picture. Why is this important? Because if the facts check out, it gives credence to other things the person says or writes down. There’s no hole in the story. All the details, they check out. Well, why is it important in the Bible? Because the event itself matters, especially this one, the history of the Israelites. That history, it matters. When we talk about the birth of Christ, that event itself matters. When we talk about God sending his Son into the world, that makes all the difference. That event is very important. I was sharing with a couple people earlier this week, and I said, if Jesus is who he claims to be, that changes everything. It changes everything. If he isn’t who he claims to be, then it changes nothing. In fact, C. S. Lewis said essentially those same words. He said, if Jesus Christ was who he claims to be, he died on a cross at a point in time in history, then for all history past and all history future, it is relevant because that is the very focal point for forgiveness and redemption. Our faith rests on the actions that God has taken in his world since the beginning of time. Those events did indeed take place. They’re not fanciful fiction or simply a story that communicates truth. Note the story itself, with all its details, is true. And that makes a difference. Why? Well, if you make up a random story about someone that communicates truth, like so what, it might be a nice story, but why believe anything about the story if the foundation of the story itself isn’t true? You might learn some things, gain some valuable life lessons, but completely altering the entire way I live because someone wrote a nice little story that’s fiction doesn’t make sense. But completely altering the way you live your life because the story is true and impactful still today, well, that makes sense. And when we talk about the Christian setting here, we find out that when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to the religion of Christianity, details matter. It matters what happened to the empty tomb on Easter Sunday. It matters. Details matter. Facts matter. And you can’t argue for objective truth if it’s built around a wall of myths or invented fairy tales. So a lot of the core claims of Christianity are historical realities. There’s things that you can investigate, that you can look into. They’re not just metaphors or nice sayings. They’re actually objective truths. There really was a person named Jesus who was born. It gives you reasons to believe. It doesn’t say believe in spite of the evidence, it actually says believe because of the evidence. Come see the baby born, the shepherds; come see the future king, the wise men, they travel from afar to see this baby. Many times if you’re watching a TV show and they’re trying to portray religion, if you’re watching a movie, right? If the person is struggling with their faith, like the idea or the response given from the priest, sadly, is usually something along the lines of, well, you just need to believe. You just need to. Just believe. So it’s not like faith is over here and facts are over here. No, they go together. God’s not contrary to who he is. He’s a truthful God who speaks truth and he wants you to believe true things. It would be crazy to think God wants you to believe things that aren’t true, because he doesn’t.

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Now, years ago, there was—you guys heard the term fundamentalist in regards to Christianity, a fundamentalist. Not today, it’s kind of a derogatory term, usually used for a Christian that’s meant to imply they’re rigid or legalistic. But even as short as maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago, that term was really just someone who held to the fundamentals of the Christian faith. And it has its root going back to Princeton Theological Seminary when Princeton was still somewhat conservative. And a commission was given and they gathered 97 conservative church leaders from around the Western world to write 12 volumes on the basically fundamentals of the Christian faith. And they took these writings and published it in two volumes and they distributed it free to over 300,000 pastors. Because they felt it was that important, they wanted to get these—as they saw progressivism, liberalism creeping into the church—they wanted to get these pastors solidified on the truths of the Bible. Well, what were those things? The fundamentals of the faith that you’ll sometimes hear talked about, in part, traces it back to these guys narrowing it down to those things. One was the Bible is literally true, associated with the tenet that it’s inerrant. It doesn’t have any error. The second tenet was the virgin birth. That’s what we’re looking at today. Linked with that, the deity of Christ. The third was the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross, that he paid the penalty. He took our place. He was the substitute. Fourth was the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and then fifth was the authenticity of his miracles, including his resurrection and coming again. That’s the fundamentals of the faith. Now when people walk away from the faith, what do they end up denying? They deny those things, right? And the term that we’ve heard probably the last, I don’t know, five, seven years, is deconstruction. Are you familiar with the term? But think, think about this: when so-called Christians deconstruct, they don’t go elsewhere. I don’t know a Christian who claimed deconstruction and ended up anything other than an agnostic or an atheist. I mean, they don’t end up Buddhists or Hindu or Muslim or Jewish. Well, what’s happening? It’s not so much that they’re deconstructing from Christianity, as if they’re deconstructing from God. That’s really what’s happening. One reason is that Christianity holds such a high standard regarding truth and objectivity. That’s the culture that they’ve been brought up in, inside the church. So Christianity holds such a high standard regarding truth and objectivity that when you compare it to other religions, the bar is quickly seen to be how high it actually is, and that Christianity meets the bar. So many of them realize they have nowhere else to turn. So where do they turn? Well, to themselves, right? I mean, if you don’t have a God, you’re going to make yourself to be the God, whether you acknowledge that openly or not. Now granted I get some people end up in all sorts of different places. But it gets back to this: who makes the calls? Who gets to make the call on how you live? Who makes the rules?

Two Paths

Those same people I was sharing with, I told them if you believe there is a God who created you, then it starts to take you down a path. Like that’s the first question, do you believe in God? But if you believe in God and you believe he created you, that starts to take you down a path. And I said there’s really two paths, because if you believe that, it starts to take you down a path. If you believe that there is no God, then it starts to take you down a very different path. But if you believe there’s a God who created you, it starts to take you down a path where you have to answer questions. Like, does this God require something of me? Now you’d think if he created you, he probably has a purpose for you. So then it begins, well, why did he create me? What is that purpose? And then if he created me, there’s probably some responsibility I have towards him. But if you deny this and it quickly becomes about you doing your own thing, however you want, whenever you want, you’re on that other path. Those two paths are very, very different. Also, some of them simply want to do whatever they want and not be beholden to any rules, principles, or deities. That’s kind of what it gets down to. You need to be aware of what path that you’re on. We’re on a path. And many people get off on side paths. Trust me, brothers and sisters, and you know people who claimed the name of Jesus, and they started to slide a little bit, and they started to slide a little bit, and they got off on some side path thinking they can easily come back to the main path if they choose, but what happens is they wander so far off that the main path is no longer a thought in their mind. Now if that’s you, you need to be careful because that’s your trajectory. The side path will become the main path for you and that side path doesn’t lead anywhere good. So if that’s you and you’re on the road, you’re on the road to deconstructing. You’re on the road to denying the faith. Now if you’re like, I don’t want that, well then it’s really simple. Come back to the main path. We’d call that repentance. Repent of the ways that you’re thinking unbiblically. Repent of the ways and actions that you’re doing that don’t line up with the Word of God.

Slay the Dragons

Our theme for this year, we talked about it a couple months ago, but our theme for this upcoming year is slay the dragons. Slay the dragons. There’s a phrase in Latin, it’s hic sunt dracones. It means here are dragons. If you ever look at really old maps, you’ll see that phrase on there actually. Hic sunt dracones. It was in reference to uncharted and dangerous territories. So they didn’t know what was there, or maybe they did and they knew dragons were there. But they didn’t know what was there, and so they were warning, like over here, we haven’t charted that, hic sunt dracones. There’s danger. Listen, it’s easy for us to stay at home and not fight the dragons out there. It’s easy for us to get comfortable, but there’s cultural dragons out there that need to be slain, and they’re all around us. Second Corinthians chapter 10, it says this:

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

(2 Corinthians 10:4–5)

So there’s false, false, false ideas out there. There’s dragons out there in the world that need to be slain, not physical ones, but spiritual ones, conceptual ones. Things like toxic empathy. Things like abortion. Things like relativism, feminism, transgenderism, critical race theory, secularism, progressivism, therapy culture. What do these things attack and undermine? God and his people. It attacks the family, it attacks marriage. It attacks society, it attacks the church. But here’s the thing. There are a lot of dragons out there and they need to be slain, but guess what? There’s a lot of dragons in here. Sins. And they need to be slain too. Things like pride, lust, fits of rage, unrighteous anger, jealousy, envy, the list goes on. We need to slay those dragons as well. And that’s going to be the focus really for the next 12 months is us talking about and looking at what are the dragons out there in the culture that we need to attack, but also what are the dragons in here that we need to attack. If you think about it for a moment, I mean, who was the biggest and best dragon slayer of all? Jesus, right? How is Satan described as a serpent? What does Jesus do? We get the hints, the first hint. It’s a different thing in Genesis, the first hint of the gospel, where God is cursing them. Just look at it briefly if you have your Bibles in Genesis. Genesis 3. Look what it says here. He’s cursing the serpent, Genesis 3:14:

Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

(Genesis 3:14–15)

All right, so he shall bruise your head. What, the offspring will bruise the head. So Satan’s going to strike, right? He’s going to get the heel. But what does Jesus come? He comes and crushes the head of the serpent. And that’s what we read in Romans 16. We even sing about it sometimes:

For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

(Romans 16:19–20)

Listen, Satan wants false religion and false worldviews and false beliefs to flourish. Yes, God wants his servants to stop it. Yes, pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Satan wants it to flourish. God wants his servants to stop it.

The Plan of Redemption

Listen, brothers and sisters, right here back in Luke, we have the plan of redemption, a plan that’s been going on since before [audio unclear] of time. Right? Man falls, God sees what? They’re headed to hell. They will perish. So what does he do? He sends his Son. He sends his Son. All of us, every single one of us, deserves an eternity apart from Christ. And where is that place? It’s in the lake of fire. It’s hell. That’s where every single one of us deserves to be. But God, who is rich in mercy, sends his Son. And Jesus goes willingly, right? Does he come to earth willingly? Yes. Does he go to the cross willingly? Yes. Why? They covenanted together. The Father and the Son from all eternity past covenanted together and agreed, I will send you to redeem my people. And Jesus said, I will be sent and go willingly to redeem a people. Who are those people? All who believe. All those who would believe and trust. The gift of salvation is given. So here we come into a story, but it’s a story placed in a much larger story. Now this is one of the key stories because this is like the beginning. It’s like the beginning of the culmination of the end if you want to look at it that way. So for thousands of years, man had suffered, man had fallen, there’s wars, all sorts of atrocious things. And what does God do? He sends his Son into a time, into a place, into a very real place, and it’s sitting here a few thousand years ago. Person after person had been born, king after king had come and gone, the prophets had foretold what? All of this making way for the King of Kings. And so here he arrives.

David McNeil a few weeks ago covered the birth of John the Baptist. David, did you have as many guests two weeks ago as you do today? I’m just kidding. Much better to hear these kids sing, right? You did a good job, by the way. I listened to it. David covered the birth of John the Baptist two weeks ago. If you just read that story for the first time, you’d actually think that maybe John is the Messiah. Go back and read it. There’s nothing that indicates that he’s not. It talks about, well, he’s going to be the forerunner, but even then, it’s like the forerunner for the Lord, well, you’re like, okay, well, I mean, yeah, God’s coming back at some point, so maybe he’s the one. Think about it. Zechariah, his dad, is a priest. I mean, all the setting is there for it to be like, yeah, that makes sense. Zechariah is a priest. Elizabeth is barren. And Zechariah, he’s offering incense. That was a high honor. And an angel appears to him. I mean, this story has been being set up perfectly for John to be the Messiah. And an angel appears. And again, notice all these details that were being given. Detail after detail after detail after detail. And a person reading Luke, the gospel, 2,000 years ago, they could go fact-check these things. They could. A lot of these people were still alive at that point. They could see if Zechariah was indeed a priest. They could see if Elizabeth indeed had a son named John. You could fact-check it. Even today, you can fact-check these things. Ironically, that’s what Luke was doing. How does his gospel begin?

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

(Luke 1:1–4)

I mean, Luke’s writing an orderly factual account. He did the fact-checking, and he lays it out for us. So Elizabeth is barren, but what happens? She gets pregnant. That’s what the angel says. I mean, it’s a great miracle. But she gets pregnant the way all women get pregnant. Reading it, again, you’d think, oh, this is a miracle. She’s past the time of childbearing, yet she gets pregnant. But God’s done this before, right? Sarah gives birth to Isaac. She was barren. Hannah was barren, gives birth to Samuel. I mean, all Jews would know the story. So while it is a miracle, it wouldn’t necessarily surprise any Jew. They would nod their head and say, yes, this is how Yahweh works. And they would probably be asking, is John the one? But right away in this text, like Luke answers the question for us pretty quickly because boom, we’re into another birth story. Now Jesus.

Caesar’s Census and God’s Purpose

And what’s the historical setting? An event takes place, look at the text, Luke 2. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all should be registered. So the person decreeing the event, Caesar Augustus, who does he involve? All the world. What was the purpose of the census? Well, Caesar wanted to get a count on the people. That’s usually why you do a census. Why? Well, taxation and revenue. Nothing’s changed in 2,000 years. Most governments are still concerned about how much money they can get, right? Taxation and revenue. Also, military recruitment and manpower, not from the Jews, of course, but from the rest of the Roman citizens, how can they get more military? Do they need to get more military? It would allow them to gauge how many men are available for the military. [audio unclear] of efficiency and control, accurate records, aided empire management, including over conquered or client territories. That was the purpose of the census, but there is another purpose for the census, and that was God’s purpose. God has a sovereign plan. My Son is to be born in Bethlehem. That was the prophecy in Micah. My Son will be born in Bethlehem. So what does God do? He’s still working his plan. He’s still working his plan. And Caesar is decreeing something that really, interestingly enough, God had already decreed. And so what happens is they end up, what? Well, they have to go from where they’re at. They have to travel to Bethlehem. And God’s using man. He’s using even a Caesar to accomplish his purposes. So God’s plan was for the promised Messiah to be born. God’s plan was for him to be born in Bethlehem. Listen to Matthew 2, quoting Micah:

And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

(Matthew 2:6; cf. Micah 5:2)

So Caesar had a point for the census, but God had a point for the [census]. You’re thinking this, Lord, you knew this census was coming, and the angel has appeared to us. Like, couldn’t you have the census like a month later, or a month before? Why does it have to be like right in the middle of Mary, right as she’s about to give birth? Those are the things that we ask when God’s doing his stuff, but we don’t always see him doing his stuff. God had a plan. He had a purpose. We would have written the story to make it easy. Like, why would we do that to poor little Mary? You know, every [audio unclear]. Why would we do that? That’s how we’d write this story. God is always writing a bigger story. He’s always writing a bigger story. We feel like our story is important, and guess what? Our story is important, because you’re important to God. But he’s writing a bigger story of which each one of us is part of that story, a big story. And that’s the part we need to continue to trust in, continue to walk in his ways, continue to seek him, continue to trust and have faith and walk in accordance, knowing that God’s plan is the sovereign one. We might not understand. Our heart might not want to go there at points, but God is working out his plan, and we can take trust in that. Listen, a huge part of that, of that story of redemption happens right here. This is the beginning, the birth of Jesus.

You Cannot Remove Jesus

You can remove the founders of many of the other world religions. You can even remove Muhammad, really. You can remove the Buddha. You can remove those figures. You remove Jesus from Christianity, you don’t have Christianity. You can remove the Buddha from Buddhism and still have Buddhism. He’s actually not very key. There’s no trust in Buddha. That’s not what’s called for. Same with Hinduism. But you remove Jesus and the whole thing collapses. Why? Because Jesus is God in the flesh. God the Son sent for us. So here we have the beginning of the culmination of the end. Jesus is sent and we know the end of the story. We know what happens 30 years later. We know there’s an empty tomb. We know that he rose from the dead. So what does it mean for us now? Well, let me just say, where are you at with the Lord? Where are you at with Jesus? Because this is nice for us to read, but it needs to make a difference here. And let me tell you, for the first 18 years, I grew up in the church. For the first 18 years, it was all here. I could tell you the stories really well. It was all head knowledge. It didn’t make a difference. The Lord was definitely not number one in my life. It was all here. It was not in the heart. A lot of stuff in the heart, a lot of dragons. A lot of stuff in the heart, but definitely not Jesus. So we can know this story from afar or we can know it very near. And this story needs to be one that you take and make very near, where you realize, this isn’t just some baby born 2,000 years ago, and it’s a nice little story. No, this is God coming in the flesh to rescue you. He realized you needed a redeemer. He realized you were fallen in sin. He realized that you, on your own, were separated from God and deserved an eternity in hell. And he didn’t want that. So God himself shows up to save you.

What happens? Well, if you read the story, you know the ending, right? About 30 years he lives. What do they do? The religious leaders, they’re jealous. Like because he’s got the following, he’s got the miracles. So what happens? I mean, they’re jealous. They’re jealous to the point they concoct a scheme to murder him. And that’s what they do. They hand him over, Pontius Pilate, the leader of the time, Roman, okays it, and they crucify him. But that was part of the plan. That was part of the plan. It wasn’t plan B, it was plan A all along, was for Jesus to die for our sins. That’s plan A. So again, you have man thinking he knows what he’s doing, and God sovereignly doing exactly what he wants. Plan A was for Jesus to be crucified. Why? Because that’s how the story goes for us to be redeemed and saved from our sins. A penalty has to be paid. A penalty has to be paid.

The Seriousness of Sin

That same two people I was talking with, I was trying to explain to them of our sin and how serious it is and why it is punished so greatly by God by sending people to hell—and most people send themselves there really—but if you think about it, and I’m not recommending this, but if you punch someone here today in the face, there’s going to be a consequence, right? They’re probably going to press charges maybe. I wouldn’t blame them. But let’s say you punched a police officer in the face. Well, what’s happening then? You going to jail? Yeah, you’re going to jail. Dan’s going to make sure of it. But you’re going to jail. Well, why? Because, I mean, he has, the police officer has a certain authority and you’ve insulted the authority. He has more authority than any of us right here, as common citizens. Now he has authority. He’s not any better or any greater, though he has authority in him. If you punched the President of the United States in the face, is there going [audio unclear] and you’re either going to pay the price [audio unclear] when God pours out his wrath on Jesus. The wrath, the wrath that we would get apart from Christ. So let me encourage you today, brothers and sisters, God has provided a way. He’s written a story, he’s written a history. You can be a part of that story, you can be a part of his kingdom, you can be a part of his family.

Repentance and Faith

How? Well one, you realize that the story is true and you acknowledge it, and then you ask Jesus. Well, you’re like, hey, that’s a pretty good deal. That’s a good deal. My sins forgiven. Well, what does he require? You want to know what he requires? Everything. He requires everything. He requires you to lay down your life completely and entirely and follow after him. If you want to be my disciple, what does Jesus say? You got to pick up the cross. You got to pick up the cross and follow after him. So what does it require? Seeking after him. What is required? Turning away from your sins. There’s two big words that you’ll hear a lot. It’s repentance and faith. Repentance and faith. Turn away from the sins, put your faith in Jesus. What does that mean to put your faith? That you’re trusting in him that what he did was enough. That you’re trusting in him that he can do it because you know you can’t. That you’re admitting, I can’t do it. All my good works still fall short, I can’t do it. Jesus, I need you to do it for me, and guess what? He did. He did. And that offer goes to every single person here. That offer goes to every single person ever born, ever to be born. The offer is for all. The call is for all. And the message is to repent and turn to the Lord. Walk in his ways, seek after him. I encourage you to do that today. God is offering you the gift of salvation, every single one of you. He’s offering you that gift. What do you have to do? Repent and trust. Trust in him. If you make that decision today, just tell me afterwards because I’d like to pray for you and encourage you. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

Lord, you know the hearts of everyone here. You know what dragons lie beneath the surface that reside in our hearts. I pray, Lord, that as we head into 2026, you’d help us to slay those dragons. You’d help us to get rid of those sins. You’d help us to root them out by your power and strength. I pray, God, that you would make us bold for 2026 to slay those cultural dragons out there, to be willing to take them head on, to recognize them, to combat them. And Lord, I pray for people here today who might not know you, that they would repent and trust. So easy to say, and in some ways to do, and in other ways, very challenging to do. So I pray, God, you’d make it, Lord, the day that people would get saved for you, that you would make it, Lord, soften their hearts so that they can say yes to you. [audio unclear — recording ends]