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00:02 We are in Matthew chapter 1. Thank you for reading the passage. Uh sometimes
00:10 reading the genealogy, we're challenged with names that we don't often come across. And so uh uh you did a good job
00:18 of catching all of those names and some of the difficult pronunciations.
00:23 Let me pray for us as we dive into the word and ask the Lord's blessing on this
00:31 time of proclamation. Father, we
00:37 we come to you with joyful, expectant hearts, Lord, looking forward to what
00:43 you will do in us and through us today. Lord, we pray that you would open up
00:50 your word to us, that you would teach us from it, but Lord, more importantly, we
00:56 pray that you would open us to your word. We want to hear your voice.
01:03 We want to see what you're doing in our lives.
01:10 Father, we want to be changed and transformed to become the men and women
01:16 that you have called us to be. Lord, use me as your servant to speak
01:24 clearly about this passage so that during this Advent season, this
01:31 Christmas season, we will celebrate Jesus.
01:36 We will celebrate him as the risen Lord and Savior, the King of all kings, the
01:42 God man who came to save us from our sins. We thank you for this time. In
01:49 Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
01:55 So several years ago, my favorite television show of all time
02:01 was one of the most popular shows in the world. It was a TV show called Lost. Some of you may have heard of it or
02:07 maybe even watched it. U if not, no big deal. But uh one of the things that was
02:14 really uh nice about the TV show Lost was at the beginning of every episode,
02:20 they always had a short recap to catch viewers up on what happened in previous
02:26 episodes. So, as I would share my love for the television show with my friends,
02:32 those who had never seen it would say,"I don't really want to watch the show because I don't know what happened in
02:38 the past. And so, how do I jump in now when there's all of these storylines?"
02:44 And I'd say, "No, don't worry. They'll catch you up. You don't have to understand everything in the past to
02:50 understand what happens now." And so whenever the TV show would come on, uh, wherever I was in the world,
02:56 whether in the US or in Malaysia, I'd watch it. When it would come on, the very beginning of the show, every show
03:03 started like this. Someone would come on black screen and they would say
03:09 previously on Lost and then there would be a short recap of
03:15 the major plot lines that were that were necessary to understand that story that
03:22 night. And I feel like what Matthew has just
03:28 done for us as he wrote this genealogy, Matthew has in essence said to all of us
03:36 today, previously in the Old Testament.
03:42 When Matthew gives us this genealogy of Jesus, he gives us a list of names
03:50 that to the original audience, the original audience that he was writing to, when he wrote to them, they would
03:57 read these names and it would be more than just names. They would read the names and there
04:04 would be stories associated with the names. Now, as we were reading through
04:09 these names today, or as our as our reader was reading, you were listening and you were probably thinking just as
04:16 she was, am I pronouncing these names right? Some of you may have been thinking, if I
04:23 was the one who was reading the scripture, how would I say that name? And you know, sometimes we we come
04:30 across names that are just unfamiliar and and difficult to pronounce because they're not normal to us. I remember
04:37 when I first moved to Asia away from the US, I moved into Cambodia and I tried to
04:44 learn people's names and oh, it was so challenging because there were names I
04:49 had never heard of before and different sounds and and so it was it becomes challenging and so we just we try to get
04:56 through the genealogy as fast as we can because we think it's it's unimportant.
05:02 Get to the good stuff, right? Uh even in some of my study and preparation for
05:08 this message, uh one of the things I like to do is I like to go and I see what other preachers and what other
05:14 pastors have done and how they preach the passage that I'm going to preach.
05:19 And it's very interesting. Some of my favorite pastors and and teachers, they don't deal with the first 16 17 verses
05:27 at all. They begin their sermon series in the Gospel of Matthew at chapter 1, verse 18.
05:36 Not everyone, but some of them do because we don't know what to do with the names.
05:44 But we need to remember that that first audience who Matthew wrote to, they knew the names. And these names meant
05:52 something. It reminded them of stories. And not only did it remind them stories of these
05:59 individuals, it reminded them of the big story that God
06:06 has been faithful to his people and that God has made promises to his
06:12 people and God always fulfills his promises and God is faithful to his
06:19 promises to his people. And so Matthew is reminding us that God is faithful to
06:27 his people, despite the circumstances, despite their sinfulness, despite their
06:34 problems, God remains faithful. And that's what Matthew's doing in these first 16 verses.
06:42 And so we read these 16 verses and I find three reasons that we would
06:47 celebrate Advent, that we would celebrate Christmas in these verses.
06:54 And the first reason that I find that we would celebrate Christmas because of these verses is because of Christ's
07:02 lineage. His lineage. You see, his lineage impacts his place
07:10 in history and his lineage arouses expectations.
07:19 It prepares his place in history and it arouses
07:24 expectations. Think about this. Look at the first verse.
07:30 Matthew says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
07:37 Names have meanings. Jesus has a meaning. It's not just a name. It has a
07:45 meaning. The name Jesus is
07:50 can be traced back to the Hebrew name that we translate into English, Joshua.
07:56 So when you read the Old Testament and you read about the prophet Joshua, the same name for Joshua is the same name
08:03 for Jesus in the New Testament. And the meaning of that name is Yahweh, God the
08:12 Lord saves. How would you like that to have you like
08:18 for that to be your name? God saves. It's quite a bit of pressure, wouldn't
08:24 it? There might be some pressure on your name if your name was God saves. What if
08:30 you were a football player and your name was always scores,
08:40 right? Or what if your name was never fails?
08:46 What if you were a basketball player and your name was nothing but net?
08:55 In the Old Testament there and in the New Testament often times there is meaning associated with the name.
09:05 And right here we are told just by the very name that God gives his son that we
09:11 should have great expectations for him. God saves.
09:17 God saves.
09:22 He is Jesus Christ. Now in America, someone that is
09:28 uninformed, they might think Christ is his family name, right? You look on his
09:34 IC and it would be, you know, first name or given name, Jesus, family name, Christ. But that's not the case. That's
09:41 not the case. Christ has a meaning. Christ has a meaning. It actually is a
09:47 title. It's not a name, but it's a title that means anointed one.
09:54 The anointed one, the promised one. He is the promised one of God who would
10:03 righteously rule his people. Jesus Christ,
10:11 the one through whom God will save all people and the one who will righteously
10:17 rule all people. We look for righteous rulers, don't we?
10:23 The world is just aching for righteous rulers.
10:29 earlier. Well, last month now, America had an election looking for a righteous
10:35 ruler and there was none to be found.
10:40 I spent the last week in the Philippines and they have a new ruler. They're wanting a righteous ruler in
10:48 their country and he's ruling by an iron fist. In our country here, we know the the
10:56 desire that we long for a righteous ruler. And so when we see all the yellow
11:02 shirts flood downtown, we know that that desire is being expressed. We want a righteous
11:08 ruler. But here's the promise of the New Testament. There is a righteous ruler.
11:16 And his name is not Donald Trump and it's not Hillary Clinton. It's not Darte
11:22 in the Philippines. It's not Najib or any other ruler here in Malaysia. The
11:27 righteous ruler, there's only one and his name is Jesus Christ
11:34 because he saves his people and he righteously rules.
11:42 By his name alone, Matthew conjures up great expectations amongst God's people.
11:49 great expectations. But he does not stop there. He says that this is the
11:54 genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. The son of David. Now, if you were a
12:02 Hebrew in the first century, just saying the son of David would stir up
12:08 affections of populism in Israel. They were looking for a
12:15 leader who would come and save them from their oppressors, who would get them out
12:21 of the problems that they were in. Because they looked around and they thought their problems had to do with the Roman Empire. They did not know that
12:28 their problems had to do with the inddwelling sin.
12:35 And the son of David points to the fact that God was promising an eternal king.
12:43 an eternal king because in 2 Samuel 7,
12:48 David, King David, who God anointed to be the second king of Israel, they it is
12:56 said that David was a man after God's own heart. When there was peace in the
13:02 land, David went before God and he prayed and he said, "God, I live in a palace,
13:11 in a beautiful palace and God, you stay in a tabernacle
13:19 that we move. You don't have a permanent home." And so God, I want to build for
13:25 you a beautiful temple that is worthy for you. I want to honor you by building
13:32 you this temple. And God sent word to David through the
13:38 prophet saying, "David, did I ask for a home?"
13:49 He said, "You will not build me a temple,
13:54 but your son will build me a temple." and Solomon did. But in that,
14:01 David uh God made David a promise. He said, "David, you won't build me a
14:07 temple, but I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to build for you a kingdom. I'm going to establish your
14:16 throne, David, forever. And you will always have a son seating sitting on
14:23 your throne forever." And so when there is a king in Judah, his name is son of
14:32 David. We read this morning in Psalm 89, didn't we?
14:37 You have said, I made a covenant with my chosen one. I have sworn to David, my
14:43 servant. I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all
14:50 generations. So in the son of David, we see that
14:57 Jesus because of his lineage, he is royal.
15:03 He's royalty. He's royal. And because
15:09 he's the son of David, the throne that God is establishing for all eternity,
15:17 not only is he royal, but he's also eternal. Jesus is royal and he's eternal. But
15:24 Matthew doesn't stop there. He says this is Jesus Christ, the son of David, the
15:32 son of Abraham. And by saying that he's the son of
15:38 Abraham, he is saying that yes, Jesus is the royal king who will sit on the
15:45 throne eternally for all the peoples. He is a global
15:52 king. You remember the promise that God made to Abraham when he called Abraham and he
15:59 sent him out to a land that I will show you and he made a promise that I will be your God.
16:06 He said I will make a great nation from you. And then he said all the nations of the
16:13 world will be blessed through you. You see, Matthew was not interested in
16:20 building up a populist movement amongst the Israelites during the first century.
16:26 He wanted the Israelites to know that it was through the seed of Abraham, through the promise to David, through the fact
16:32 that God would save all the peoples through Jesus, that Jesus was global,
16:39 that the hope and expectation for Jesus wasn't just about Israel. It wasn't just
16:44 about Jerusalem, but it was about all the peoples of the world, all the tongues, all the tribes, all the
16:50 ethnicities would be blessed through Jesus.
16:57 All of that in one verse. Three names. Jesus Christ, son of David, son of
17:04 Abraham. He is eternal. He is royal. He is
17:10 global. It's good news for the world.
17:17 But Matthew does not stop there. He says, we're talking about Jesus, the
17:22 son of David, the son of Abraham, and then he begins with Abraham, and he begins to tell the lineage of Jesus, the
17:29 human. He follows the human trajectory. The Gospel of Luke has a genealogy.
17:36 It's a little bit different. It emphasizes uh sorry, Luke emphasizes the human
17:43 lineage, but in in Matthew, he emphasizes the royal lineage beginning
17:48 with Abraham and going to David and then through David all the way to Jesus.
17:57 Luke begins in Adam. So, we have something different. Matthew
18:02 is trying to convince his readers of Jesus being the one to fulfill this
18:08 kingly royal promise. So the first reason that we can celebrate Advent from
18:14 this genealogy is because of Jesus lineage. But the second reason that we
18:19 can celebrate Jesus from this passage is because it shows that God is gracious,
18:26 full of loving kindness and faithfulness to his people and his promises.
18:34 Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac the father of Jacob. Jacob the
18:41 father of Judah and his brothers. Judah, the father of Perez and Zarah by Tamar.
18:47 So on and so forth. We have name after name after name, story after story after
18:53 story. Now, it's important to know that this genealogy is arranged in such a way to tell a story. It's not an exact
19:01 lineage as though you might try to figure out every step in a family tree.
19:07 Okay, Matthew skips over some generations and skips over some names to
19:13 show the royal lineage to make his point.
19:18 The point is this royalty. It's not chronology.
19:24 But the descendants are historical descendants. These are real relatives.
19:35 They promote provoke reminders and images from the Old Testament.
19:41 You know, I mentioned earlier that names have meaning. I've given my children
19:46 different names at different times for different reasons. Well, not at different times. I guess at different
19:51 times. I had five kids. So, I gave five names at five times.
19:57 My first son, I named him Thaddius Andrew because I wanted him to know that
20:03 he had a purpose. And the name Thaddius means to give praise. Andrew means man.
20:11 And I wanted my son to know that he was a man who would give praise to God. My
20:16 daughter, her name is Lydia Joy. We named her after Lydia from the book of
20:21 Acts who was a god-fearer whose heart was open to the gospel and who was very
20:26 hospitable to the people she encountered. And so we wanted our daughter to know that her purpose in
20:33 life is to be hospitable and joyful and welcoming to many different people. And we remind her of that all the time. My
20:41 second son, my third child, we named him Josiah. Josiah means God brought forth.
20:50 So we wanted to know that he's he's God's choice. God brought Josiah into
20:57 our life. His name is Josiah. Barnabas from the New Testament. You know, Barnabas means son of encouragement,
21:03 right? So we want him to know that into our family, God brought forth a son of
21:10 encouragement. Names have meaning. Names have meaning.
21:17 And these names in this genealogy have meaning.
21:25 Perhaps you recognize some names. If you've been in church for a while, you've been to vacation Bible school.
21:31 You might have recognized some of these names. You might recognize many of these stories. Some of these stories you may
21:36 not know. You may not know the names.
21:42 Some of the stories are good stories. They're fun stories. We like to tell the stories. Some stories we we try to
21:49 pretend didn't happen. For example, the story of Judah and
21:55 Tamar. If I was to write an email telling that
22:01 story and I sent it to you at work, I would probably in the re uh the uh
22:08 subject heading, I would probably put not safe for work.
22:14 It's a despicable story about a woman
22:21 posing as a prostitute to trick her father-in-law
22:28 into providing her with a child. That what a strange story. That's not
22:35 the kind of story that we're not telling that one at VBS, right? I mean,
22:42 Matthew's not trying to hide anything in this genealogy because the genealogy is not about the
22:49 people and their goodness. And it's not about what they did to deserve God, to
22:55 love them. The genealogy is to reveal what a great God this is, that he would be faithful to his people despite
23:02 their inability to be faithful to him.
23:07 That's good news, brothers and sisters. That's good news that God remains
23:14 faithful when we do not. It reminds us that God is faithful to his people. He's
23:21 faithful to himself. He's faithful to his purpose. He's faithful to his purpose.
23:29 You see, he has always planned this plan.
23:37 And so when we read this genealogy, Abraham the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of
23:42 Judah, we go and we remember God's faithfulness to each one of these
23:48 people. It might do you well this Christmas season to remember how God has been faithful to you.
23:58 You know, I think it's really interesting. We come to church on Sundays and we meet and greet and we talk and everyone wants to know, "How
24:03 was your week? How did you do? And and we're always putting on our best face, right? We come to church, we want to
24:10 wear our best clothes, our biggest smile because we don't want anybody to think
24:15 there's anything wrong with us. And yet, we know when we look in the
24:22 mirror or we search our souls, we know that there's really no reason for God to
24:28 love us. There's nothing lovable about us. We're self-centered people.
24:35 We're motivated by selfishness and self- ambition.
24:41 Yet, by the grace of God, he might transform us. And so, when we see these
24:46 stories in the Bible, we're reminded that there are stories, too,
24:52 that God is faithful to us. God is faithful to me when I fail him.
24:60 God is faithful.
25:06 These stories remind us of his faithfulness. You know, it's interesting. Matthew
25:12 doesn't try to hide anything. He doesn't try to bury the bad stories.
25:19 You know, sometimes uh maybe you have tried to draw out a family tree of your
25:25 own. You ever done that? Try to draw out your own family tree. trace your family heritage. It's always exciting when you
25:33 find that treasure in your family tree, right? Someone who is like a really
25:39 well-known person, a very successful businessman or maybe someone who, you
25:45 know, was very well-liked in society. But then sometimes we come across that
25:50 relative that's well, we just don't want to talk about. They bring shame on the
25:55 family name. We call them sometimes the black sheep, right? And so when we're
26:00 sharing our family stories with other people, we always tell them about the successes, but we never talk about the
26:06 failures because we don't want to be embarrassed and we don't want to bring about shame.
26:12 But Matthew's not worried about that because Matthew is not emphasizing the
26:18 people. He's emphasizing the God. He's emphasizing the God.
26:25 Notice that he includes women in this list. He includes women in this list.
26:34 Today, it may not seem like much that a woman is included in a list, but in the first century, women were not seen as
26:40 equal to men. Women were often considered to be property of men.
26:47 So, it's quite unusual for Matthew to give the women equal
26:54 billing with the men. But he's saying something, isn't he?
26:59 He's saying this God who has a plan who sent Jesus
27:05 didn't send Jesus just to save men, but he sent him to save men and women.
27:12 And not only did he send Jesus to save men and women, women actually played a very key role
27:19 in the coming of Jesus in his lineage. They played key roles. They were key
27:25 characters. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah we know
27:34 is Ba Sheeba. Mary,
27:42 I'm so grateful for godly women. I'm grateful for a godly wife.
27:50 I'm grateful that in our current culture and context, we value women. But did you
27:57 know there are cultures and there are contexts and there are place in the world today where women are devalued
28:06 and women are hidden and ignored. Women
28:12 need to hear this promise. Women all over the world need to know that God
28:17 loves them and God has a plan for them and God is not going to forsake them and God loves them.
28:28 It's interesting. I was reminded recently uh a friend of mine was teaching an Old Testament class at a
28:35 school in the US and they were going through the the book of Joshua when
28:40 Joshua went into Jericho. He had sent some people to scout out Jericho and
28:46 they met Rahab and Rahab made promises to to them and and anyway the the
28:51 professor asked the students, um, can you name one good thing about Rahab?
28:57 And a little guy sitting in the front row raised his hand. He said, "Yes, yes, I know, teacher. I know." He said, "Okay, Ben, what what can you tell me
29:04 about Rahab?" Rahab was a prostitute.
29:10 We don't usually celebrate prostitution, right? I mean, we wouldn't say that's a good thing, but it is a good thing to
29:15 know that God loves the prostitutes. It's good to know.
29:21 But notice, not only does he mention women, but he also mentions nonHebrews
29:28 in the lineage. This is very important. I said Matthew's not trying to draw up a
29:34 populist pure Hebrew movement, right? He's including people. He understands
29:41 that God has included people in Jesus lineage who were not Hebrews. Ruth was a Moabitete.
29:50 She was considered the Moabitete people were considered impure. And yet we have the story of Ruth
29:58 where she just so happened
30:03 by luck to end up in Boaz's field. And Boaz saw
30:09 her and fell in love with her and redeemed her and married her. And they
30:15 had a child. Boaz and Ruth had a child who was named Oed.
30:22 And Oed had a child named Jesse. And Jesse had a child named David.
30:30 See, Matthew's not trying to hide anything here. He's trying to make a point.
30:37 Men and women are important. Jews and Gentiles are important.
30:44 We celebrate at Christmas because God is so faithful not just to Hebrew people, but he's faithful to all people. He's
30:51 faithful to all his promises. He loves men and women. He loves Chinese and Indian and Malay and Americans and every
30:60 people of all over the world. He loves every people. All of them.
31:06 And some people know and some people don't know. And we need to make sure that they know
31:13 because God is faithful. God is faithful.
31:20 Third, we celebrate Christmas because Jesus is the climax
31:26 of redemption and missions. This lineage shows us that Jesus is the
31:34 climax of redemptive history and he's the climax of mission history.
31:42 He's the expected one. He's the one that everyone all the prophets were
31:48 prophesying about in the Old Testament. He is the one who would come. As Isaiah said, he would be the lamb of God who
31:56 takes away the sins of the world. It would be through him and his death
32:02 and his burial and his resurrection that Ezekiel could say, "I will replace your
32:07 heart of stone with a heart of flesh." Because Jesus establishes a new covenant
32:15 through his blood and the breaking of his body, which we celebrated this morning.
32:21 See, Jesus is the climax. He's the center. He's the climax. He's the yes.
32:28 He's the amen. He's the final word when it comes to redemption and when it comes to mission.
32:34 God shows us that he is a God on mission because he sent his son.
32:44 See, Matthew communicates to us that this story of redemption is not just a
32:50 small story, but in fact, it's the story of the entire Bible.
32:55 We have 66 books in our Bible. multiple authors written over hundreds of years
33:02 in different context in three different languages and it's all these various
33:07 types of genres of literature but it tells one story.
33:15 The creation of the universe by an almighty loving God. He created everything and those who he created
33:21 rebelled against him and fell. And then he enacted a plan to redeem them through
33:26 his son so that those who profess faith and belief in him as Lord and Savior
33:33 could then pursue restoring their life back to God's
33:39 design. Four words to remember the story line. Creation, fall, redemption,
33:45 restoration. Creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
33:52 That's the story line of the Bible. And here we are right at the climax of the
33:58 story. Redemption. Jesus came to redeem and to allow us to
34:03 res pursue restoring God's design to all of creation.
34:12 Isn't it interesting that in this storyline
34:19 Jesus isn't the end, right? He's not the end.
34:25 Although he is the yes and the amen. He is the alpha and the omega, but he is
34:31 not the end. Because we're not at the end yet.
34:39 You see, the lineage of Jesus, his genealogy ends with him. Jesus never was married
34:46 and he didn't have any physical children. Why? Because he had a mission in this big story to establish for
34:55 himself a church. It's the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus
35:01 tells Peter, "Peter, you're right when you call me the son of God. and upon this confession, upon you, upon this
35:08 rock, I will build my church. And so Jesus doesn't have physical
35:14 children. He has spiritual children. And you know the cool thing about that?
35:19 Jesus never has grandchildren. There's no such thing as a second generation believer.
35:26 Every believer is a first generation believer.
35:31 Every believer is a first generation believer when they follow Jesus.
35:41 We become part of the story line when we follow him. We become a part of the story line that is Jesus has come as he
35:49 is establishing his church because of the sacrifice he made, because of the
35:54 faithfulness to his promises, because of the faithfulness to his people. We celebrate and we live for him in this
36:02 story to see his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
36:10 And so instead of following physical genealogies, now we follow spiritual
36:16 genealogies. Jesus begat First Baptist Church Subong.
36:23 Jesus Jesus begat. You fill in the church. He's establishing churches. He's establishing
36:29 people. He's establishing every believer.
36:35 So the question might be for you this morning, if you're following Jesus,
36:44 can you trace out your spiritual genealogy? Have you led someone to know Jesus?
36:54 Can you say that person is part of the story because I told them about Jesus?
36:60 Is your life being lived in such a way that it points
37:06 to Jesus? Could the mere mention of your name
37:11 remind somebody about God's faithfulness?
37:17 We hear the name Abraham and we know that God's faithful. We hear the name David. We know God's faithful. When
37:23 someone says your name is the first thing that pops into their mind, God's faithful. God's worth living for because
37:30 of the life they live. You see, here I think is the challenge for us in Christmas. I think I think that
37:38 marketing companies have made Christmas all about us, right? What can I buy?
37:43 What can I give? What can I do? What can I get? You know, we never say that, but we a lot of us like to give gifts
37:51 because we know it means we'll get something in return. We would never say that out loud, but we
37:56 think that. And marketing companies make Christmas
38:02 time the time where we go and we spend lots of money for really no good reason at all.
38:10 But really when it comes to Christmas season, it's about how can we orientate
38:15 our lives, rearrange our lives, our priorities so that our life points to
38:21 Jesus. So that when somebody mentions your name, the faithfulness of God is
38:27 what comes to mind. So what do you need to change in your
38:32 life? What priorities do you need to make so that your coworker or your neighbor
38:40 or your nephew or your brother or sister or mom or son or daughter or dad
38:50 or maybe the person you play football with or bad mitten with that they know
38:56 that Jesus is worth living for that Jesus is faithful. What do you need to
39:02 do? How do you need to change? It's not about earning God's favor. It's not about earning his trust. It's about
39:08 because he's faithful and because he loves you, how now should we live as a
39:14 response to his goodness and his grace and his mercy?
39:21 Who will you point to Jesus with the story of your life?
39:27 We celebrate Christmas because Jesus is the center of redemption history. He's
39:34 the center of mission history.
39:40 I hope after considering the genealogy that we have read
39:47 that when you read your Bible and you get to a list of names, you don't just
39:52 brush right past them. I hope that maybe you would take a moment to think about the names
40:01 and the stories of their lives because I know
40:06 that one day you want people to think about your name. You want people to think about the
40:13 influence you had. It's worth remembering them because it's
40:19 worth remembering you because we are all going to point to Jesus.
40:25 Let me pray for you.
40:31 Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this time of year
40:38 called Christmas where we can celebrate Jesus, where we can proclaim him
40:43 and his coming. Lord, we we pray that we would not make so much of his birth that we would not
40:53 or that we would forget to talk about his death and his resurrection.
40:59 We thank you that by your grace and your faithfulness, we can live for you in
41:05 such a way that you are proclaimed and and you are made much of and so the
41:11 world around us would know that you are faithful and you you are good.
41:17 God, use us at this time of year specifically to be your witnesses in
41:23 Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world because Jesus is worth it all. In his name we
41:30 pray. Amen.
