Should the Christian Celebrate Christmas

00:01 Greet you this morning in the name of Jesus. I want to give glory to God for His goodness and for His grace to us this morning and to us as a congregation. Would you turn in your copies of the Scriptures this morning to the book of Genesis, the third chapter? And I suppose possibly the message title got your attention, 00:24 at least in a little way, I hope. Not that I was trying to shock anybody, but this might start out a little bit as a little bit different message than what we oftentimes think of at Christmas. But the question I'm asking this morning is: Should disciples of Christ or Christians, those who follow Christ, celebrate Christmas? 00:46 And I would suppose that most of us do celebrate it in some way, way, form, or shape. And I'm sure that varies somewhat from family to family. 00:59 But whether or not you know it, this question has been hotly debated by believers and by Christians for just under 2,000 years, probably for almost as long as there's been a church, 01:14 and especially as long as there has been a Catholic church that developed in the 01:21 third or fourth century. And so that question continues to go on. And it seems like every generation needs to kind of come to grips with that. What does that look like in the life of a Christian? And what does that have to do with Genesis 3:15? But we'll get there after a bit. Genesis 3:15 says, 01:41 "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." He's speaking there in that verse to the serpent who deceived the woman and whom they followed, Adam and Eve followed, into sin and rebellion against God. 02:03 And he is saying, God is saying to the serpent and the spirit behind the serpent, which was Satan himself, that "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed." And that ties into what we just read from Revelation chapter 12. 02:25 And you shall bruise he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So by way of introduction this morning, I'd just like to address this question: Should the child of God, should the Christian, should the disciple of Christ celebrate Christmas? 02:44 And just give you kind of an overview of the pros and the cons of how people might answer this. The critics of Christmas are many, and they would point to the pagan origins of some of the practices of Christmas, how that Catholicism in the third, 03:05 fourth, and fifth century merged with paganism and brought many pagan practices into the church because they realized that the believers were still coming out of paganism. They were still practicing some of these things. 03:22 And so they kind of baptized those practices and made them Christian in a sense. And for instance, the celebration of the sun. We today and they have for many years celebrated Christmas on December 25th, which happens to be right after the winter solstice, which we've just come through. 03:43 And the least amount of daylight hours in the calendar in the western northern hemisphere. And so it was called the celebration of the sun, the invincible one was what they referred to it as. 03:59 And so you can see a connection there as they reinterpreted it in the church as the return of the invincible sun, S-O-N. 04:10 And of course, making the analogy between the physical sun and the world living in darkness and the darkness and the light now shining and coming back to us and the invincible sun. And then we have the practices of mistletoe and the ewe log. And those definitely have some pagan backgrounds. 04:31 And I'm not sure that any of us in our circles would celebrate mistletoe, although we may like to hang some in your doorway and your house there for your wife. But I wouldn't recommend it because it does have pagan origins. The ewe log, I don't even know what all that means. But some, for instance, the trees and the greenery. 04:52 The greenery was sometimes placed on the doors or on the houses to ward off evil spirits. And so the question is, do those things carry over into a modern-day practice of celebration of Christmas? 05:10 Is there a spirit behind those things that is transferred? My opinion is that we are so far removed from those connections that our focus of our celebration is not necessarily tied to those pagan connections and pagan customs. 05:31 So people look, the critics look to the pagan origins of some of the Christmas practices. And then some will say that Christmas is secondary importance. It is inferior and less important than the death and burial and resurrection of Christ. And I think we could see that in the Gospels. All four Gospels record the death, burial, and resurrection. 05:52 And the book of Acts points us to that. But the birth of Christ is only mentioned in two Gospels. So it does seem to be of a little lesser importance. And some people would say that we're not instructed to celebrate it. 06:06 And so they look at some places in the New Testament and say it's the difference between what has been called the normative principle of Christian living versus the regulative principle. The regulative principle says that if it's not stated in the New Testament, we dare not do it. 06:27 And the normative principle says if it's not forbidden in Scripture, we can do it. 06:32 And so you can see how that conflict in some circles would gain some traction because we're not commanded to celebrate Christmas in the New Testament. But we are commanded to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection. 06:47 And so however, the manger without the cross or Christmas without the cross is really meaningless. And the cross without Christmas or the birth of Christ would be impossible. And so you have both that need to kind of go hand in hand. 07:09 And while we're not commanded to celebrate Christmas, neither are we forbidden of celebrating and rejoicing in the coming of Christ to the earth. 07:18 And then what I think would be some of the more practical and contemporary criticisms of Christmas is the secular practices that are tied to Christmas, the worldly partying and drinking, which was very prevalent in the time of the three, four hundred years ago in Israel, 07:39 not Israel, but in England, Britain, and France and the western European countries, which got very out of hand and revelry and partying and drunkenness. And then of course, there's the Santa Claus issue. In fact, 07:59 if you look at a lot of modern-day Christmas videos, they all kind of, if they're made by the world, most of them kind of gravitate around Santa Claus. And we never taught our children about Santa Claus. In fact, we taught our children against Santa Claus because Santa Claus, in my opinion, steals the glory of Christmas from Jesus. 08:18 And so we didn't want that. And neither do we like to lie to our children because my opinion was always if I lie to my children about Santa Claus and one day they find out there is no Santa Claus, what does that say about telling them about Jesus, who also is invisible and a good giver of gifts? 08:37 And are they going to wake up one day and say, "Well, Dad lied to me about this. Then maybe he's lying to me about this. I don't want that." And so we made it a practice in our family to teach against Santa Claus. 08:49 And in fact, our oldest daughter, who's not here this morning to defend herself, really popped the bubble on one of her distant cousins when she told her as about a five or six-year-old or four or five-year-old little girl to another little girl, "There is no Santa Claus." And really they still talk about that today, how that popped the bubble of her cousin. And so we were getting it right there. 09:11 We're getting it right. Elves and reindeer and snow and all that stuff is a good reason to take a step back and say, "You know what? This has gotten way out of hand from what it would be of a biblical celebration of the birth of Christ." And then of course, there's the commercialization, the extravagant, 09:30 expensive gift giving, not giving to the poor, but giving to each other so that you give a gift, I get a gift, we all get kind of warm fuzzies. 09:42 And in the meantime, the secular companies are getting wealthy by conspicuous consumption and the commercialization of Christmas and producing an entitlement mentality of materialism and frivolity. And for some of these reasons, even the Puritans and many of the reformers did not celebrate Christmas in any way, 10:05 shape, or form. So how do we get where today we're even talking about it? Well, the promoters of Christmas, even that name causes some people problems because it is Christmas, Christmas. And so that would have Catholic connotations. And so that causes some of the critics' problems. 10:24 But so it is true that if you celebrate Christmas, you're a problem to some people. If you don't celebrate Christmas, you're a problem to other people. And so it is a confusing thing that must be worked through. One of the reasons that I believe in a limited celebration of Christmas is it is a celebration of the incarnation. 10:45 It is a celebration of the incarnation, Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God coming down here to earth and taking on the form of man. I don't think we fully understand the impact of that because we kind of talk about that during Christmas time. But do you realize that that forever, 11:07 forever changed the way Jesus Christ, the Son, is presented for eternity to come? 11:17 There is no evidence that before the incarnation that Christ had a body other than he would take on some sort of a physical form and then leave it and disappear beforehand. That was called Christophanes, visions of Christ in a physical form, but was not permanent physical form. 11:37 But in Jesus, in the incarnation, now forever, for eternity, Jesus will have a body, a human body. That is significant. There's something going on in the incarnation as we're celebrating. And then secondly, it's a celebration of the reality of the light that has come into the world. 11:58 As Brother Trevor preached about last Sunday, the moral light, the spiritual light, the intellectual light, the understanding, the truth, Jesus said, "I came to bear witness to the truth." We didn't know the truth before God revealed it to us. We didn't know all of the truth even as the Old Testament was being revealed. 12:19 We didn't know all of the truth even when Christ came, although it was all there before us in a package. And now we know the truth of what God has tried to teach us through the pages of Scriptures as it came to us through his Son. 12:34 So the lights at the darkest time of the year, shining forth the lights and welcoming the Son of God, the invincible one, does have spiritual merit and biblical merit as well. Number three, it reveals the gift of love from the Father to us. 12:54 Seeing us in our spiritual poverty and being moved with our helplessness, hopelessness, and sinful condition, he came to do something about it as only he could. He came to set us free. He came to teach the truth. 13:09 He came to give his life a ransom for many and to fix these things that are wrong with our world as no one else could and can and will. 13:22 Number four, the proponents of Christmas say it can be redeemed out of the world and infiltrated and shrouded with biblical Christian virtues. In fact, there are some interesting things about December 25th. Now, it is highly unlikely that Christ was born in the month of December. 13:42 Shepherds were in the field abiding their flocks by night. And so the sheep generally were not in the field in the wintertime. They may have been in the field in the fall. They may have been in the field in the spring. There's a likelihood that Christ was actually born in April or maybe October. 14:03 But I ran across an interesting tidbit that would go something like this. 14:10 If Zechariah was tending in the temple and doing his priestly duties over Yom Kippur or the feast of Day of Atonement in October, if you add six months to that, it would make you in April when John the Baptist would have been being born. 14:32 No, she would have been carrying John the Baptist. And Mary went to visit Elizabeth at six months pregnant. And then you add nine months to that April date, you come into December. Interesting. And so when did Jesus, was he born? We don't know. We just don't know. 14:52 It just so happens that we single out a day, kind of a symbolic day in the bleak midwinter, as the songwriter says, and celebrate the incarnation. So sorting through the issues, it becomes rather confusing, even the issues of the Christmas tree, 15:13 the issues of the Christmas tree. Some date it back to Martin Luther. Some date it back to the Druids. Some date it back to the pagans. 15:21 In its modern form, it probably could be dated back to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who made it popular in Britain and then in the United States as they commissioned a sketcher to sketch the royal family of Queen Victoria around the Christmas tree. 15:41 They had a large family with decorations on it and sent that out as an indication of what royal life is like at Christmas time. And that picture became famous throughout Great Britain and even into America and popularized the Christmas tree in the home of the commoner. So lots of different things. 16:01 We don't want to get in the weeds of all that. But I do say that if you do celebrate Christmas, and we do, I believe it is we need to be careful how we commemorate the Lord's birth and what we intertwine in that. 16:18 But without getting into the weeds of all that and just kind of throwing that out for you to become aware of some of the things that and their origins and some of the arguments for and against the celebration of Christmas, 16:30 one of the best arguments that I know of for the celebration in a limited form of Christmas is it gives an opportunity to declare and celebrate the entire story of redemption from beginning and 16:49 pre-beginning to culmination and further. The entire account and declaration of the story of redemption is important for us to lay out a fully Christian worldview and a fully Christian theology, 17:10 Christology, the doctrine of Christ, who he is, why he came, what he did, and who he is now. So now with that in mind, let's come back to Genesis 3:15, "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. 17:28 He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." This can only be understood in the context of the messed up world that they were going to live in now until, well, for thousands of years. Wars and starvation were on the way, human trafficking, 17:48 sexual brokenness, refugees, oppression, drugs, alcohol, corruption, brutality. Nothing ever after this point in Genesis 3 was the same, even to the time of Christ, even to the time of us in 2024. Nothing is as it was designed to be. 18:07 Nothing is as it was created to be. And it is still a mess. Amen. You realize we live in a world that's a mess. And we are a mess. We are a mess. God's people are still a mess. And God's people, even in our sanctification and justification, 18:28 we still make messes. The amount of things that can happen in our lives as Bible-believing Christians is still an indication that we are a work in progress and the work is not yet finished. 18:46 And we could talk this morning considerably about the essence of sin, which is prideful rebellion. And this is on the heels. 18:56 This is right after the prideful rebellion of Adam and Eve, handing over their dominion of God's creation to the enemy of God and necessitating that God himself would need to come back and restore that and redeem that by the joyful, 19:17 humble submission of Jesus Christ. You get that? The prideful rebellion of Adam and Eve, the first Adam, and the humble submission of the second Adam, the last Adam, diametrically opposed to one another. And when we see this passage here, we see two distinct camps. 19:39 We see the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and all those who are loyal to God and all those who are loyal to the serpent. We see two peoples. We see two kingdoms. 19:59 We see two destinations as this is unpacked throughout Scripture. And this has more to do with those camps and those kingdoms than it does just explaining why women are afraid of snakes. Yeah, this is probably one of the reasons it's rooted in this. 20:17 And then women aren't the only one that are afraid of snakes. People are kind of afraid of snakes because they kind of tend to do bad things to people. And I will put enmity between you and the woman. There will be a distance. 20:31 There will be an enemy status between you and that represents your seed and her seed. So this is bigger than just the immediate situation. Of course, the enemy of God is Satan and beyond that, all who will align with him. 20:50 And this enmity includes all of the natural sons and daughters of Adam. The enmity is broad. The enmity involves the carnal mind. 20:59 Romans 8:7, "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." James 4:4 says that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. And so if you're in the world's camp, you are an enemy of God. 21:21 If you are carnally minded, that carnal mindset is an enmity against God. And Philippians 3:18 talks very specifically about those who are enemies of the cross. But the seed of the woman also represents a people. You picked it up, 21:40 I hope, in the reading this morning from Revelation 12, that it represents the people of God who love him and keep his commandments, even all the way to the very end of the apocalypse, the seed of the serpent, 22:02 all who align with the spirit of prideful rebellion, and the seed of the woman who align themselves with the humble submission of Jesus Christ to the Father's plan and to the death on the cross. In this, I find implied here the virgin birth. 22:22 Notice it does not say the seed of the man because man was not involved in this transaction, this interaction between God and Mary giving his son through the womb of a virgin. Man was not involved. 22:39 He was simply a caretaker for this new life that needed a father, an adopted foster father to take care of him. And so we have the virgin birth. We have the Savior without the involvement of a male figure, a male seed. 22:59 And notice how deep this goes. In the first part of the verse, he said, "Between you and the woman," that's local, "between your seed and her seed," that's general. But then he goes very specifically and he says, "He shall bruise your head." Now, 23:19 he didn't say it, the seed of the woman. He says, "He." Who's the he? It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ who Satan went to war with. And he will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. 23:40 The word bruise here means to strike, to crush. And certainly, Satan was nipping at the heels of Jesus his entire life. In Bethlehem, he nipped at the heels of Jesus. In Nazareth, he nipped at the heels of Jesus. In the wilderness, once again, he nipped at the heel of Jesus trying to grab a hold. 24:01 And in the cross, he crushed the heel and the feet and even the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, which to this day remain nail-scarred. But oh, did he have his crushing blow as the Lord Jesus Christ crushed his head, 24:22 raising his head in pride, which had been exalted in pride when he said, "I will be like God." And the rebellion that comes along with that in the serpent and in the Satan of the serpent, "I don't need God. I will not surrender to God. I will not bow to God." And Jesus crushed his head. Doesn't mean that he's not still active. 24:43 In fact, I learned a little bit about snakes preparing for this message. I had heard it before, but I actually saw some verification of it. I read accounts. There are accounts out there of venomous snakes that have bitten people to the point of making them extremely sick and maybe even taking their lives after the head was decapitated from the body. 25:06 Wow. A crushing blow, but he's still biting people and spreading venom. One account that I read was of a missionary from a steamy tropical climate who bore witness to the fact that one day a large snake, 25:27 larger than a man or longer than a man, found its way into their kitchen, into their house while they were on the mission field. And so they immediately yelled and called for help. And someone in that village came and took a machete and cut off the head of the snake and severed it from the body. 25:47 And then he said, "Now be careful. Don't go in there for a while because that body," and there's something about the neurological makeup of a snake that doesn't know that the head has been severed from the body. 25:57 And that body went berserk and thrashed around in that home, breaking things, strewing things all over the house until finally it realized it had no more strength. And in a sense, that's what Satan's doing today. The head has been crushed. He's been decapitated. 26:17 But he can still do a lot of damage if we allow him to have a hold in our lives. And in the world around us, he's still thrashing and conniving. 26:30 But Christ came to bring a reversal of the fall, of the curse, and return us to Eden with access to the tree of life. Again, notice the tree, the tree of life. Was the tree of life an evergreen tree? Probably not because unless you're eating pine cones, 26:50 there is no fruit on the evergreen tree. But it can represent the tree of life, which was in the midst of the garden, which Christ came to open the way for us to once again taste of its fruit, both spiritually and one day literally in heaven, in the kingdom. 27:12 Mark comes along in Mark 1 and introduces the king. Oh, we talk about him. We read the Gospels. We studied his birth this morning, the king, Mark, who presents Jesus as a servant, not a king, but just a servant. 27:32 That's his message is the servant Jesus. And the servant is on the move. And he's doing and he's working and he's helping and he's teaching. And that's why in the King James version, a lot of the chapters, I think 14 out of the 16 chapters in the book of Mark start with the word "and." It's just continual working. 27:51 And, and, and, and, and, and, and Jesus was just out there. And he did this. And he did that. And he did this. He's a servant. And so the servant comes along in Mark 1:14, "Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God." Gospel, gospel. 28:12 The 28:15 evangelium in the Greek. Genesis 3:15 has been called the proto-evangelium, the pre-gospel. And here he comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. 28:35 Repent and believe in the gospel." In the seed of the woman who will yet in the life of Jesus coming forward would crush the head of the serpent. Repent, repent of your rebellion, repent of your pride, 28:54 and trust in Christ and his submissive hum humility as he hung on the cross and calls us to take up our cries, our cross in humble submission to his authority. So he introduces the king, a gospel of repentance from rebellion, the rebellion from the king, 29:15 a gospel of repentance from pride that led to that rebellion in the process of bringing all things under the humble submission of the under the authority of the king. But what I really want you to do this morning in the few minutes that remain is turn to the book of 1 Corinthians 15. 29:36 Because in order for us to really appreciate this proto-evangelium, the pre-gospel in Genesis 3:15, we need to begin to see the work of Jesus as more than personal salvation. Now, thank God for personal salvation. 29:56 Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for your sin and for mine. Every sin that has ever been committed, every sin that ever will be committed has the potential of being forgiven because of the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. However, the death, 30:15 burial, and resurrection of Jesus means more than just my personal salvation. It has a cosmic dimension to it, a cosmic dimension. Young people are into cosmic things, many of them, cosmic, cosmic things, Star Wars, or maybe that's old-fashioned. 30:36 I don't know. 30:36 Oh, Star Wars, something that involves a great struggle between evil and good. 30:48 And that's what the death of Christ, that's what the person of Christ has come to solidify that that struggle has been won and will be won by our Lord Jesus Christ. So Ephesians, or excuse me, 1 Corinthians 15:24. Now, 31:07 he's talking in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrection. And of course, that was the crushing blow. That was the crushing blow to the serpent's head. That decapitated the serpent. That severed his head. It crushed his head. He's still thrashing and writhing around trying to make as much havoc as possible. 31:29 But death has been overcome by Jesus Christ's resurrection. But there's even more yet to come. Then, verse 24, comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 31:52 He's going to put an end to every rule, every authority, every power in a cosmic drama and dramatic ending to this scenario called Earth. 32:09 There is this higher, loftier, more universal dynamic which will be manifested like the grand finale of an orchestral masterpiece, like the glorious ending of a fireworks display, 32:21 like the final chapter of a novel or mystery where the pieces of information all come together and are wrapped up in one last surprising display of blazing glory. He will put an end to all rule, that is rank, order, magistrate, and principality, to all authorities, 32:42 to all legal rights that people have assumed and authority, privilege, magistrate, jurisdiction, and powers, all powers, all force, all strength, almighty works. It will all be put to an end under the authority of Jesus Christ. 33:03 There is no question in the mind of God that Christ will win this final cosmic battle. Is there a question in our mind? Is there a question? Probably the bigger question in our mind is not if Christ is going to win at the end, but can he take care of my problem today? 33:24 Can he win in my struggle against addictions, against pornography, against sexual sin, against lying, against cheating, against all the sins that we tend, the baggage that we tend to take with us even away from the cross at times? Can he handle that? We'll leave the big stuff to him. 33:45 We know he can handle the big stuff. If he can handle the big stuff, why can't he handle my stuff? This implies an end to all governments, legal systems, corporations, kings, false religions, high thoughts, vain imaginations that will come under the authority of Christ. 34:04 Verse 25, "For he must reign till he has put all things under his feet. He must continue to reign until all things come under his feet. And that all things is the last enemy," verse 26, "that will be destroyed is death." Now, 34:25 death has been de-clawed and defanged, but it has not yet been destroyed. Okay? It has been de-clawed, defanged, but not yet destroyed. At least the last time I checked, churches are still having funerals and Christians are still dying. 34:47 Their eternal destiny is sealed. Their spiritual death has been paid for by Christ's death at the cross. And their victory has been secured by his resurrection. But they're still physically dying. And this says the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For, verse 27, 35:06 "He has put all things under his feet." But when he says all things are put under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. 35:17 Now, that's kind of a complicated translation to simply say that when it says that all things will be put under the feet of Jesus and then put under, yeah, under the feet of Jesus does not include God being under the feet of Jesus. 35:36 This excludes the Father being under the Son. But what it does include is all else being under the Son. And verse 28 then comes into play. 35:50 "Now when all things are made subject to him, then the Son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him that God may be all in all." In other words, the Father is putting all things, is in the process of putting all things under the authority of the Son except himself. 36:13 He himself will not be under the authority of the Son. Everything else will be. And then the Son, when it's all under the authority of the Son and everything has been wrapped up, the Son will present all of it to the Father and take his place for eternity in submission to the Father. 36:30 The question has been asked, will Christ be eternally subject to the Father or as a member of the Godhead now that he's done his work on Earth? And when he finishes it all up, will he be equal with the Father and on the same level as the Father? 36:50 And I think this answers that question. It answers the question very well. It says, "If he will himself be subject to him," that's the Father, "who put all things under him that God may be all in all." Now, I'm not saying that Christ is not equal with the Father. He is equal. 37:08 But he has taken to be subservient to the authority of the Father. And that is an eternal position as it will be for us. We will eternally be submitted to the Father. And death, the final enemy, will be put under his feet. 37:29 "Oh, his heel has been bruised. There are scars in his hands and on his feet. But the head of the serpent will be crushed once and for all. And those who in prideful rebellion have refused to bow the knee, the head, and the heart will be destroyed along with the crushed head of the serpent. 37:49 And those who have come under the authority of Christ and the Father will rule and reign with him forever." God having put all things under the authority of Christ but himself not under Christ's authority. The Lord Jesus Christ having by his humble submission to the Father reversed the curse. 38:08 And then Christ as the head of the new humanity will deliver the kingdom back to his Father and take his place under the authority of the Father and assume his rightful place as the eternal Son who with the eternal Father and the eternal Spirit fill everything everywhere with their unrivaled authority and presence. 38:30 Somebody ought to say amen by now. One insight that I had this morning, and I'm not sure quite what to do with it. Maybe some of you can help me. 38:39 Go back to Genesis 3, verse 14. This is the serpent. And remember, the force behind the serpent was Satan. 38:54 "So the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. 39:02 On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.'" Now, verse 19, he's talking to Adam, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, 39:21 for dust you are and to dust you shall return." Down where this serpent is creeping and crawling, we have been committed to the dust. I'm not quite sure what to do with that analogy except to say this: that as long as we are in our human body, 39:43 in this flesh, and our bodies, even after they have been disinhabited or we no longer are in them, they're committed to the dust where Satan still has a certain amount of influence, decay, 40:06 disease. You take and put a body in the ground. You may fill it with all kinds of preservatives and formaldehyde. 40:17 But in five years, ten years, twenty years, fifty years, a hundred years, that body, even after five days, will look a whole lot different than what it was when you put it in because of the effect of sin in this realm of the serpent. But thank God. Thank God we have been seated with Christ in the heavenly realms spiritually. 40:39 "And though worms after this flesh do eat this body," Job said, "yet in my flesh I shall see God." So coming back to the question, should the Christian celebrate Christmas? 40:58 My opinion is we're the only ones who should celebrate it because we're the only ones that understand what it means. And it should be a declaration from those of us who celebrate it to the world that Christ has come to set right everything that is wrong, 41:19 have a more long-distance view of the gospel. And if he can set it all right at the end, he can set it right now. And that's what he's attempting to do as we yield our lives to his authority in humility, humble submission. Brother Trevor, 41:40 you come and close the service this morning.