Faithbase

When the fullness of time came, as the text says, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we may receive the adoption of sons. The fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, to redeem us. God made a promise from the beginning of time, from the foundations of the earth, before the foundations of the earth, that we would be with him. It was a promise. And when sin took Israel hostage, he had that promise in state. He had that promise there, that he would redeem us. Because when he created us, we were supposed to be with him, and nothing was supposed to separate that. And when that separation came, he had a promise to keep us with him. This is what we see in Galatians 4, 4-5, when the fulfillment of time, the fullness of time, not the fulfillment, when the fullness of time, God sent his Son. And how did he send his Son? As it says in Isaiah 7-14, 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Matthew, it says it again, Matthew 1-23 15 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son. They shall call his name Immanuel, which means being, interpreted, is God with us. Immanuel means God is with us. When God told Israel to make a temple, to make a sanctuary, so he could worship with us. Do not forsake the forsembling of ourselves, so God can worship with us. But God is with us all the time. And that's what he wants to make sure. The birth of Christ is one of those, it's hard, I can't even say it, it's hard to understand. How could God separate himself and become human? The birth of Christ, the inconception is a mystery, but it's connected with the mystery of his love, which is a promise that he loves us. That mystery of the inconception is connected with that promise, that love. What love does a man have that he lays down his son? That he would give his life for another? That love is what Jesus had. The world has been taken hostage through sin. Throughout the time, history shows how sin was ravaging the world. But the promise was made back in Eden. When Adam and Eve had their first son, they thought Cain was the promised son. But it was not. But still, the prophecy was still told throughout the generations. Every prophet, every individual, God had telling the promise that Jesus would come. Enoch, all the way down to from the Old Testament leading up to the New Testament. The promise of Jesus is coming, and God does not lie. In Numbers 23, 19, God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. His promises are sure, and that promise he made that he was going to come came fulfilling in the time of the New Testament. Now, how could Jesus, the Savior, pure, the Godhead, separate himself to become human? That's all love. It's hard to understand, but yet he put down his... He sought not robbery to separate himself from his divinity, which he always had, but he separated it to put on the cloak of humanity. He created us in his image, and now he came in that image. He came in that image, born of a virgin, a woman that had no... She was engaged to her husband, Joseph, betrothed, but they had not conceptualized the wedding. They then had sex, but then Jesus came into her. The Holy Spirit came into her to show that the promise was there, that he was coming, born of a virgin. How then when they were put in a manger because there was no room in the inn, the hatred and the wickedness that was going on, a pregnant woman about to give labor, and they couldn't find no place for her and her husband to be where they can have this child properly. So they put them in a manger with animals, homeless. The king of kings who said he wanted to be with us was subject to be born with animals, but yet shepherds heard. Shepherds saw when the angels, when the announcement of heaven said that Jesus was coming, that the birth was there and came to acknowledge him. The church knew, but some didn't want to listen. But when Joseph and brother... But before that, there was truth known. Zachariah and Elizabeth, when they were told that they would have a son, John the Baptist, they prophesied that Jesus was going to come because when Mary saw Elizabeth, both of them were expecting child. When Jesus was born and he was brought into the temple, the prophets and the prophecies, Simon and the prophecies acknowledged that this was the son of God. So the church, people knew, but some did not want to accept, but some still accepted. Several, about a year later, the wise men came, foreigners that weren't of the house of faith, but believed. God had believers all through this world that believed and they came looking for the Messiah, came looking for the king of kings who said he will redeem humanity from his sins, from our sins. God came to save the entire human race. And that was a promise he made that he kept. You see that with the birth of Christ. The world had been captured in their sin. The way time seems like it just was going on and that promise was not going to be fulfilled. Life just kept going on and the wickedness just kept building and building and building and Satan in his wicked aspect was trying to separate man from God for eternity by corrupting the world to the point he was trying to get the world to not even believe in the truth, not believe that God was going to come. And in turn, he was also trying to say that God shouldn't come to save the world. Hardness of the heart, the lack of accepting the truth was becoming more and more pronounced. But yet in all that time span, there was people still looking for the truth. There was followers of Christ, followers of the truth, preaching the word, saying that God is going to come. There was faithful people of other regions believing because they heard the truth. With Israel being dispersed, the truth, despite their behavior, the truth was still being placed so people can hear. Just like now, Christianity, despite the way the devil has corrupted Christianity, Christianity is still spread where God's truth is being told so everybody can look for it. And because the truth is being there, people are looking. The same thing happened. The wickedness that was going on, as much as people accepted it, people were looking for a new hope. Same as today. The wickedness may be pronounced across the world and human hearts may be becoming more and more shallow and cold and pushing away the truth. There's still people looking for the truth because there's no hope in what they see. This was the same thing. And we see it happening now. And Jesus was coming and came. And when he came, he came in a human form. He took on the mantle of humanity to save us. He was born as a child in a manger on that great day. The star show for the wise men to come, the star show first with shepherds, as we said, to come and share that truth to the world, to let them all know about Jesus coming. His message of him coming to redeem this world is sure. His message of him coming to save us from our sins was promised and fulfilled because only he could redeem us. Sin had separated us so deeply that there was no way for us to be connected back with the Lord. Human being couldn't bring us back because it was humans that accepted the falseness of sin and were lost. So it took that to bring us back, but it couldn't be an angel that did it. It had to be of the Godhead, but it couldn't be in their majestic state. He had to be through a human, that connection. And he said he will sacrifice himself to save us. This is a surety that God had that he was going to save us, that light of the world that he brought in to bring us back to redemption. He said he would do this. He promised it and he fulfilled it all through history. We read about different great people and magnificent events, but yet the greatest event was the birth of Christ to come on this earth and save us. And the greatest event to happen is next greatest event to happen is for him to come back and save us from this world of sin and redeem us in terms of a whole new world. It's factual. People may not believe it, but if you look in history and you read about different people, history shows that a man named Jesus lived on this earth. Now, whether you accept him to be the son of God is up to you, but the truth of the matter is he did exist and he still exists because he's in heaven advocating for us. He came to this earth and when he came to this earth, it was based on his love for humanity. When he saw us lost and there was no hope for us, he said, I'm going to bring back hope. There was a saying that we say in the black community, keep hope alive. Well, hope has always been alive since Jesus was there. Hope has always been alive. When you put it in a connection with Jesus, that is the hope that will never leave us as long as we hold on to him. He came down on this earth, fulfilled it by saving us. He showed us that he could bring back redemption to man. When we look at how he came in human, in every way, he took on humanity. He paid the debt that sinners own by being human. He showed that he was able to cover us by being human. He showed that the sins that were breaking us down, we can overcome them by just holding on to him. Because when he came and took on that mantle, that was a redeeming aspect. When we look at how this year, in terms of at this time of season, everybody gets the Christmas seasons, as they would say. And yet, yes, it's stoked in paganism. Yes, it's not the actual day that Jesus was born. We know he was not born on the 25th of December. We know that it's really connected with paganism and worships of every single God that's on this earth, that people worship on this earth. It's all boiled down into that December 25th. And it's just been practiced through every other religion, even though they don't realize it. But yet, Jesus did come and he did come to save this earth. So even though the devil tried to mask it, as people in ancient times were looking for truth, we see the same thing now. Even though this is not the day that he actually was born, we see that people are gravitating towards that aspect of goodwill on man, peace on earth, and Jesus coming. In that, we see that there's people looking for that truth. And this is why we acknowledge Jesus coming. Not the day, but that he came. And if this is the time where we see an opening, where we can bring people to the actual true events of Jesus coming, you grab hold of it. You don't have to say you believe in the Christmas day, but you believe in Christ's coming, that he came and he will come. And we show people that the truth of his coming actually happened. And he's coming again. You grab onto these things so we can promote the truth and bring that truth to others. Because in the fullness of time, God will come back. God does not break his promises. And just how he promised that he was going to come to save us, he's promised again that he will come to fulfill, to save us again for the whole aspect of never having to deal with sin again. The devil has put us in a hole that sometimes we feel like we can't get out of. He's put us in a pit that seems like it's just going to be covered as time keeps going on. And it seems that there'd be no way that there's going to be able, that we can be rescued from the hole. But then all of a sudden a light comes down and it shows that the hole is not fully covered. Where is that light coming from? A light's coming from heaven, showing that God is with us and God still holds on and he hears us and he's reaching out to pull us out of that hole and he's doing everything he can to save us so we won't be lost. He does not want any one of us to be lost. He wants us all to be saved. God has a love that no man can understand. No man can understand God's love, but God's love is for us. And that love is trying to bind us closer and closer with him. And he wants us to be closer and closer with him. The promise has been made that he will save us from our sins. He came in a time of great darkness and he's going to come back in a time of great darkness. But when he comes back in a time of great darkness, it's to take us home. Just as when he came in a time of great darkness, it was to show us that he was coming to save us. The world was in a most corrupted state. Men were emboiled in sin. It was the forbearance of God that he did not let us be extinguished because the love he had for us, that he was promising that there was going to be a hope for us to be saved. You know, sin had become a science. And as we see it now, sin had become a science and it had become the vice that concentrated all religion. So even from the scientific aspect and the spiritual aspect, sin had covered the whole gambit. Men had felt like there was no more hope. Rebellion had just covered the whole world. And we see the same thing now. But yet, at that same time, it was perfect timing. Not that God couldn't come earlier, but God knows what he's doing. There was one common language at that time. The main language was Greek. The roads literally were paved in a way where traveling, as rough as traveling was, to move over. And we see this throughout time. When you look at the history of this world, when the great kingdoms of Egypt was the Mecca of civilization, and then the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Israel itself was in a position where all attention was on it, but the attention was on it for the truth. And even as all these great times, and you see going down the timeline, but in each period of those timelines, God's truth was still being manifested. God's truth was still being poured out so people could be receptive and come to his truth. And we see now the world is connected in a way that it has not been connected before. Even though we're still at odds with each other through racism and sexism and all types of hate, still we're more connected in terms of media, internet, communication, language, even though there's many different languages and they're all valid. English tends to be the dominant one, no matter where you go, even though the other language is still the language of people's tongue. We see that you could be in far more remote areas, but yet media is accessible where people can meet. communicate and see things, even if they're in a destitute area. Some areas, they may be so poor, but there's only one form of media system where everybody comes to watch or communicate through there. So we see this. We see how even though when it seemed like darkness is covering the world, a light opens up and shows. And then through that light, Jesus' truth is pronounced. Jesus' truth is shown for the world. This is what we see with the fullness of time. And we've seen it in the past as we look at history, and we see it's gonna happen in the future because we're at a point now, as we said, where we can preach the gospel and share it with others all around the world. Even though there's barriers that still exist, even though persecution still goes on, even though wickedness is coming from all high places and is trying to destroy humanity, destroy God's truth, destroy the fact that God has love for us, God still has that truth fighting against it. God still has that truth showing that humanity can be saved, showing that humanity is a valuable option for humanity to be saved. This is what God's truth is showing. And this is what God's truth is carrying out regardless of what's going on. And that promise that was made in the past is still the same promise that's made for the future, that God wants to be with us. As he said to Emmanuel, God with us, God with us. God wants to be with us and God wants us to be saved. That's the beauty of God's love. That's the beauty of him coming down onto this earth as a baby, separating himself from heaven, to be born as a human being, to come into this world in the most humble and even somewhat tragic aspect, but still having a solid family, still having a mother and an earthly father to take care of, still having those aspects, but being separated from the heavenly throne, but doing that in order to bring us back to the heavenly throne. This is where we see the humanity, how hard it is to understand that the king of kings came down in human flesh, looked like a man, walked like a man, talked like a man, but yet did not sin, showing that it's possible that human beings can live pure. Human beings can live the way Jesus said he created us to be, to be like him, to redeem us from sin when we were lost from sin, when we were lost in sin and there was no redemption hope for us to be saved. He came down, became a human being to show that redemption is right there. Redemption is attainable because this redemption is based on his love. And he was determined to save us. This is why he came. When we understand that he was determined to save us, this is where we see his love is beyond our recognition, is beyond our understanding, but it's attainable because if he loved us this much to save us, he's gonna do everything for us to be with him. This is the joy we have when we think of the birth of Christ. This is the joy and the happiness that we have when we think of Christ's birth. This is why they say it's the most wonderful time of the year, even though they don't understand why. And even though it wasn't just that time of year, it was actually before then, but it's year round. This is why no matter what time season, we know that Jesus came because he wanted to be with us. And he's still with us as he stands in heaven and he looks down home. He's bringing us closer and closer to him by having that relationship with him. So no matter what happens, he's showing that he loves us. He wants us to be with him. And if we hold on, we will be with him. How could have God created God that was always in existence? We were created, but he was always in existence. See us be lost. See us being purposely turn our backs on him. But yet he had the greatest love for us that he came down and said, I'm gonna bring you back. After we turned our backs on him, he said, I'm coming to get you. Because when we turned our backs on him and he saw the hole that we put in, we saw the loss that we had. We saw there was no hope out, but a promise was made. A promise that was made that he would redeem us. A promise was made that he will come and save us from our sins. That was a promise that was made. And that promise was symbolized in the lamb, that unblemished lamb that they were sacrificing. But it was pointing to the real lamb, the lamb of God, Jesus. That's why blood and art and sacrifices couldn't fulfill it. These were just types leading up to the real type. This is why when he came, he was there. That's why they said, behold, John said, behold, the lamb of God. This is why when he was a baby, the prophets acknowledged that in the temple, that this was the son of God. He said, I have my eyes on this Simon, the prophet said, I was able to see the Lord before I die. This is where we see that lamb of God coming to redeem us from our sins. Coming in the human flesh, bleeding just like human beings, laughing like human beings, crying like human beings. And his tears were that of us, of our sorrow. And he was a man that went through sorrows. He went through rough times. He was not accepted by his own. He wasn't accepted by humans, but yet his love still reached humans that they came to him. And when they came to him, to this truth, they saw that this truth was beyond our wildest dreams. This truth was based on the love he has for us. And this truth turned the world upside down. He said, my kingdom is not of this world. This is why he didn't set up a kingdom on this earth. His kingdom is in heaven that he wants to take us to and bring us back to this world. So when we look for certain aspects of this world, being the fulfillment of our earthly, desires in terms of trying to connect the spiritual, it will be in the end when Jesus comes and re-annihilate sin and put us back on perfection where he'll be able to reign with us forever. But until then, we don't need to get caught up in thinking that he's making a kingdom on this earth. What we need to do is just acknowledge who he is, believe him, follow him, share with others, and this will strengthen our lives so we can be more like him and we'll grow with him every single day. As he said, when he came as a child, he grew in stature and wisdom. Same thing when we connect with the Lord, we grow stature as humans, but with wisdom, we get connected with him. The world, the sins of this world start to become separated from us because we become closer and closer to him. He purges us in terms of taking away our desires to do sin and bringing to desires to do right by him. The things that you used to do, you don't do anymore. The things that used to be, that you thought were joyful and sin, you look at them as a test for it because you see the joy and the wonderfulness that God has for us that can't compare to the wickedness of sin. This is even better than what we consider the joys of sin. The joys of sin are no comparison to the love that God has for us and the joys he has for us. That's why when you connect with the Lord, nothing will separate us from him. Nothing will pull us away from him. That love that he has for us came down in human flesh and saved us from our sins. That love came down to redeem us and bring us back to him. This is the promise of the birth of Jesus that was fulfilled and now the promise of him coming back to bring us home with him for the permanent of life everlasting with him is still a promise. And just like the fulfillment, the fullness of time, he came to save us. There's gonna be the fullness of time when in the fullness of time, he will come. Now, when he came, it was prophesized. The time was set. He said, at first they didn't know exactly the time and then as you read through the scriptures, time was told in Daniel. All through the Bible, they talk about when he was gonna come and he came. He came just like he said he was gonna come. Now, the promise of his return has been stated, but the date has not been set. The date has not been told to us. He knows when he'll come. That's why I said only the father knows. Only God and the father, Jesus, the God that knows when they're gonna come. But we don't have to worry about when he's gonna come. We just have to be connected with him. So when he comes, he will save us. We'll be with him. That's the promise that we have. That as long as we stay with him, you won't be surprised when he comes. It will be a joyous event because when he came to save us, he connected us to the promise that, okay, the next step is now for us to be with him forever. And that's a promise that he's gonna keep. And just as he, God always keeps his promises. God doesn't lie. And the promise is that he will be with us. And if you hold onto him, he will save you. He will help you. If you hold onto him, he'll never leave you nor forsake you. This is the promise we have that God is with us. In the fullness of time, he came as a son to save us. And the fullness of time, he will come back and take us home with him. That promise that God is with us is what we thank God for, for his birth and for his redeeming blessings and that he's given to us. That promise we hold onto because we know his word is sure. And that promise will be fulfilled. On that note, let's thank God for his truth, his promise. Lord, we thank you for coming. Like you said, we thank you for redeeming us. We ask you to let us never forget that. Let us share it with others throughout the whole year, throughout our whole existence. So when you do come, as the promise that you will save us and take us home to be with you. It's our prayer in Jesus' name, amen. See you again next week.