The True Story Of Christmas

This is the teaching about the truth of Christmas. Pastor Joshua is teaching the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ. Please invite all to listen to the podcast to discover the lost truth.

Chapters

• 0:19 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:33 The True Gift of Christmas
• 3:14 God's Drawing vs. Human Choice
• 8:17 Enemies Reconciled to God
• 14:19 The Quest for Control
• 19:30 Justice, Mercy, and God's Will
• 26:19 The Story of Hell and Redemption

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:19

Live from the Saints Headquarters in Tolleson, arizona, spreading the Gospel, equipping the Saints, standing for the word of truth, proclaiming God's grace. Now on a podcast near you, welcome your host, pastor Joshua, on. The Saints Will Overcome Ministries, thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are back. God bless you. I want to say Happy New Year. This is going to be a combination between a Christmas slash New Year's podcast. I just want to say God bless you all. I've been thinking about all of you. I'm finally back. Things have been tenuous, things have been busy, but today we want to get in some meat and we want to get in some potatoes about why Christmas is what it is, why we worship God, what is the meaning of what we do and our worship behind Christmas and the new year? Hey, you know what? We're a new creation, so we're going to wrap them both up in one Instead of going the route of a baby in a manger. We're not going to go that route.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Ladies and gentlemen, there was a lot that was done with that just recently, through the churches, through the radio, through Christmas. But what was the actual gift of Christmas? Christ mass, worshiping Christ in the mass. What was the actual meaning behind it? Most people, probably many people, don't even know. Well, god sent His only begotten Son, jesus Christ, so we can all experience salvation, and we got what's called a distinguished. Well, we can distinguish between two different things a general call versus an effectual calling. We'll get into that later John 3, 16, not today. We'll probably do that subsequently, after this podcast. But let's talk about the gift of salvation, shall we? Ladies and gentlemen, I love you, I missed you. So, ladies and gentlemen, here we go. We just want to praise God, worship and bless him for this morning. Now we're going to get into some meat and potatoes.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Ladies and gentlemen, this might throw some people through a loop. They might have a hard time discussing this. They might have a hard time just recognizing this situation for what it is. And so whenever I talk to somebody about the gift of Christmas, the gift of God, the gift of Him sending His only begotten Son, I hear in the church a lot this statement. Well, I responded to the call. I chose to accept God when the preacher minister, when my friend, when an evangelical brought the gospel to my attention. Now I must admit and preface this before I start with this statement I am reformed in my theology, so let's get that right out of the way. Even though I can debate with my brothers and sisters, I choose not to divide.

Speaker 1: 3:49

But I believe that the Scripture shows us unambiguously that God does 100% of everything. But what do you mean by that, joshua Kapia? I believe that God searches out, I believe that God calls and I believe the Scripture teaches that God regenerates and faith is a subsequent reaction from an inward reality that we call regeneration. So regeneration precedes faith. So when somebody says precedes faith, so when somebody says, well, I made a declaration to accept God and chose Him and demonstrated my faith, my question is how can a dead corpse respond in faith when they're at enmity with God, when it comes to original sin and when it comes to defiance and when it comes to total depravity? The tea and tulip and total depravity doesn't mean that we exercise the full extent of evil, ladies and gentlemen. What it means is sin has corrupted every part of our being and it's alienated us from God.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So we want to take this verse and springboard off this verse. So what we're going to use, ladies and gentlemen, and I want you to just understand what John 6, 44 has to say about God's drawing us A disciple of Christ walked with them on the boat, saw Christ walking on water, saw Him raise the dead, cure the blind the only person, a prophet's never done that. Now let's read John 6, 44 out of the ESV. Here we go. This is John 6, 44, verse 44, chapter 6. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Speaker 1: 6:04

There's a lot of theology packed in this verse and there is a benefit of knowing Greek, knowing Hebrew, and even if we go to the authority of the theological dictionary, which is known as Kittel's Greek Dictionary. We're going to break this down. We're not going to get too deep, but I want you to see how, reading it in English, you kind of go ah, okay, I chose a verses Wow. And as I was explaining to my wife which, after she understood God's grace, his justice and his mercy because we had a Bible study on it, she actually broke down crying and she said it's so much sweeter when you understand what God rescued you from versus what you thought you did for yourself, based on one's own arrogance, which is true. God rescued us through a life preserver to us when we just wanted to drown, when all we were doing was drowning.

Speaker 1: 7:02

So let's read this verse again, ladies and gentlemen no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day and we might say, well, okay, god draws me, he woos me with the Holy Spirit, he woos me with the Holy Spirit and I simply have to respond. But let's look at that Greek word, translated draw, and that word is helkuo. Okay, and that word means to drag, literally or figuratively meaning, ladies and gentlemen, or figuratively meaning, ladies and gentlemen, that clearly the drawing is a one-side affair. God draws all of us to salvation. We don't come to Him, we don't make a decision, we're not there to respond.

Speaker 1: 8:04

There is no doubt that God does 100% of the work and he does not have to use us. And if we look at how cool, how it's used in John 21.6, and let's go back to John 21.6 when it says he said to them cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some he's talking about fish. So they cast it, the disciples, and now they were not able to haul it because of the quantity to fish. And we look at the actual word, when he casted the net, and it's haul. But if you look at the same word how it's used in the Greek in John 6, 44, as compared to John 21, 6, it means they dragged it to the shore. When we look at what God did for us, when we look at God's love, we take that word draw, which is translated in the English. That's how it's translated. And we look at the Greek and it's translated drag. God does all the work and people. It just boggles my mind and baffles me that they say I chose him.

Speaker 1: 9:20

I heard the call and I've gotten some tenuous debates with my evangelical brothers, with my semi-pelagius brothers. You know prescient view brothers and sisters, and, like I said, I'm a, I am reformed in my theology. I love Edwards, calvin, you know Martin Luther, st Augustine, thomas Aquinas. You know the juggernauts that we stand on their shoulders in history. So let's look at 510.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Why does God need to actually drag us, based off His grace in His predestinated plan? Why, well, let's look at Romans 5.10. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life? So we were enemies, we were at enmity, we didn't want God, we actually despised that call and Jeremiah, if you think about it, says it in Jeremiah 17, chapter 17, verse 9, and he talks about the heart, the condition of man, the sin of man.

Speaker 1: 10:46

And Jeremiah says this the heart is deceitful, above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it, ladies and gentlemen? And you know what we go to Ephesians 1.18, and this is what we read "have in the eyes of your hearts, enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints". So if you just think about it, ladies and gentlemen, that word helkuo, and how we were at enmity with God, how we were forsaking Him, god came to us and he promised us a new life in Romans. He predestined us, he called us, sanctified us, he glorified us. And you got to remember something God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one, but I understand they're separate but they're one. And it's something that we can apprehend, rest in thought, but we can't comprehend and deduce with our finite mind, because God is infinite. And we got to remember God promised Jesus Christ an inheritance and he assured that inheritance by locking in the deal, so to speak, and was going to send his son to be crucified.

Speaker 1: 12:17

And so a lot of people say Joshua, pastor, joshua, so you're saying that God chooses, god actually chooses. Who is determined, based off his predestination, the salvation of people found within Jesus Christ, I said yes, absolutely. He does. In that sense people to a tipping point, sends them over the edge. They actually consider it heresy in a sense. But if you think about Thomas Aquinas and there's an argument about that a little bit in St Augustine, back in church history, this was the predominant view. It wasn't until the westernized culture actually adopted and really took a stance on this method of interpretation when it comes to salvation. But God does it all, ladies, and God is the creator of everything. God is the judge of all. So, if we think about it, if he's a judge and judge is a legal term and he's going to proclaim and initiate his justice on a bunch of fallen creatures that are at enmity with him, that cannot come to him unless God drags him literally near by his grace.

Speaker 1: 13:48

Not draw to where we have a decision. We're all destined to hell, ladies and gentlemen, for eternity. Well, pastor Joshua, how do I know that? How do I know that I'm a depraved sinner? Pastor Joshua, how do I know that? How do I know that I'm a depraved sinner? How do I know that there's no hope in me? How do? I know that my decisions will always fail? Why am I having these thoughts of suicide, depression, turmoil? Why do I feel lost all the time, pastor Joshua? Why do I wake up and look in the mirror and ask myself are we just puppets in a cruel, cosmopolitan evolutionary universe, in some type of play that's destined to end and I'm destined to destruction? What's the point? Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've all felt that way in life lost. What's the point? Right? But there is a point God has instilled in our hearts. Like Ecclesiastes says, information locked eternity in there.

Speaker 1: 15:01

We know, just by being human and waking up in the morning, we can never be good enough and we violated God's law. That's the point. And I always tell my fellow brothers and sisters, my Christian brothers and sisters, this beloved I go through life every day sinning. I cannot go through one day without sinning. Thought, word or deed Just can't. That's part of my fallen nature. Paul even says it the things that I want to do, I don't do. The things I do, I don't want to do Meaning I'm a sinner. The flesh is alive and it's so beautiful that God doesn't taint salvation with our decision-making, because we would never come to God, we would never come to Christ. God drags us by his irresistible grace.

Speaker 1: 16:04

Well, pastor Joshua, what's the use of preaching then? What is the point? If God chooses, predestines, the elect, calls them, sanctifies them, glorifies them, what is the point? We want control, I tell people. We want control, so bad that we want to take it away from God. Subconsciously, even if we're not consciously, thinking.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Well, pastor Joshua, what do you mean? We want control. We got remotes for everything, and what do they call them? Remote controls? Our Bluetooth on our vehicles, our remote controls for our TV. You got Roombas cruising around the house right now as you're listening to this show, and you got a remote control for that on your cell phone. We got controls for everything in life. Why? Because society tells us that the destiny of our future is in our literal hands, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1: 17:08

So God, choosing the elect before the foundations of the world, predestinating? No, I don't think so. I still have to have a decision in this, because I have to have some sort of control. And, ladies and gentlemen, that is why people cannot accept this view, because it's very difficult to relinquish some control, because they don't have any, ladies and gentlemen, and that's the whole point. That's the pains that Paul goes through to keep explaining this situation and it's just the most difficult thing for people to understand, and I used to be opposed to that view until the Bible started explaining it to me and I really started researching, like Martin Luther, that God fulfills his purposes.

Speaker 1: 18:12

If you think about Philippians 2.13, this is what it says, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. John 6.44,. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me drags him. Think about that. Hell cool. Paul keeps affirming this and even in writing to Timothy, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of truth. God has to grant them repentance.

Speaker 1: 19:03

Ladies and gentlemen, god is a loving God. God is an amazing God. It is so sweet to know that God came in, searched for me, searched for you, found. You found me where we were at. Ladies and gentlemen, I was just a washed up drug addict back in the day, gangbanger, drug addict, just a low life. I wasn't even searching for him, just a low life. I wasn't even searching for him. And God found me, called me where I was at, based off his irresistible grace. Why do they call it irresistible, because I cannot resist it, ladies and gentlemen, it's the effectual calling. You have a general call which everybody hears and no one has excuse not to come to God, but you have an effectual call where God rebirths the individual. That is the story of Christ's birth, that is the story of Christmas. Is God sending his Son? Because he predestined us as the elect in his Son, chose to save us, to sanctify us and to glorify us. Ladies and gentlemen, that is what God did for us.

Speaker 1: 20:37

Think about what Paul says in Romans 3, 10 and 11. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. Are you ready for this, ladies and gentlemen? Think about Helkoua understands. Are you ready for this, ladies and gentlemen? Think about Helkoulo, the Greek word drag, not draw. Think about this. Are you ready for Romans 3.11? No one understands. No one seeks for God.

Speaker 1: 21:09

I don't understand how the semi-Pelagians get around that, ladies and gentlemen, and say well, I chose. Think about this, ladies and gentlemen. Every time that I'm preaching, every time that I'm talking to somebody, this is what I tell them and answer this for yourself, and it's something that you have to meditate on, read the scriptures and understand for yourself. But I tell people do you really want to stand in front of God the last day and say I chose you? You know, paul says we shall not boast of anything unless it's in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says we shall not boast of anything unless it's in our Lord Jesus Christ, unless it's in God, and standing in front of God saying, well, yeah, I had this island of righteousness in me and I chose you. That's a pretty big I to boast about, probably the biggest I in the universe and the existence of the creation of everything by the infinite loving God. I don't know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I'm not going to stand in front of God and tell him I did the work. It's such a beautiful thing that God rescued us.

Speaker 1: 22:33

And some people will say well, pastor Joshua, what about those that weren't chosen? What about those that were not given the opportunity? And I always tell people first of all, you got to understand one thing salvation's a mystery. Second thing you have to understand is this God does what he wills and what he wants. Well, pastor Joshua, simple as that. Yes, god does it, because he can Remember what he told Job. Who are you? Oh, man, who are you? You weren't there when I created the universe. You weren't there when I created the universe. You weren't there with Orion's belt, the Pleiades. You weren't there when I did all of these things. He told Job that and he wanted to bring his case in front of God and he covered his mouth and he thought he was gonna die when God appeared in a whirlwind, because this is the amazing God we serve.

Speaker 1: 23:39

The only thing we deserve, ladies and gentlemen, is hell. The only thing we deserve is judgment. The only thing we deserve is condemnation. The only thing we deserve is God's justice. And what is justice? Justice is a legal term. It means you're going to be punished and the punishment will fit the actual crime. And since we're alienated from God for all eternity, the punishment for the crime is death, for the wages of sin is death.

Speaker 1: 24:16

And what is mercy? People like to use them two things as synonymous in the church and just their general life, and they don't really understand them. Two terms are not synonymous. Mercy is being exonerated. Mercy is being exonerated from the crime that we've committed, the cosmic crime called rebelling against god. And god sent his son to be crucified so we can experience his mercy, and he chooses those he is going to be merciful for. He chooses, ladies and gentlemen, and why? People ask me why, pastor Joshua? Why does God choose to be merciful of those that he wants to be merciful to? And I simply tell them this because he can and he wills. Think about that, ladies and gentlemen. He can and he wills. Can you say that? Say that with me right now. Because God can and he wills. Because he's not human, he doesn't think like us, he doesn't have to think like us.

Speaker 1: 25:45

Paul says can God make two vessels, one for glory, to exercise his power, and one for destruction? Meaning God can use two different people for his purpose, to accomplish things for his full counsel, any way he wants. We serve a loving, infinite God that we cannot possibly begin to understand. Beloved, if you're saved, think about the story of Christmas, because the story of Christmas is about the story of the elect, the story about the effectual call versus the general call. Everybody gets to experience God's grace by simply being born and experiencing the elements the rain falling over your head, the food that we eat, hearing the gospel, but that doesn't equate to salvation.

Speaker 1: 26:47

You ever have somebody in your family and never stop praying because we don't know who God is going to regenerate and spark and make alive. We just don't know. I always say that the most pagan person in my family can make me look irrelevant. If God chooses him and he can be the greatest preacher in the world. I don't know, but I'm supposed to pray and I'm supposed to be an instrument. I don't know, but I'm supposed to pray and I'm supposed to be an instrument. And to me, when I read the gospel, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing that God can do this, that God has loved us so much. He's exonerated many people from going to hell and Jesus said most people are going to go, most people are going to take the wide path and very few are going to take the narrow.

Speaker 1: 27:41

And you got to ask yourself was that a foreknowledge or was that just a platitude? Was that just speculation? Or was Christ really speaking about something he foresaw and he really knew about? Well, he really knew about it, ladies and gentlemen, and he really understood. Based off the foreknowledge, because Jesus Christ is God he revealed himself to the Jews and he says I am the tech. He just did it, ladies and gentlemen, he poured it out.

Speaker 1: 28:18

Tetragrammatron is what it's called. Yah Yahweh, god's the I am, what does? I am even mean. I am who I am. You can't understand me. God is not like any man. So when you think about Christmas, when you think about God, when you think about love, when you think about grace, when you think about truth, think about what God did for us, think about what God did for you, think about Romans 9.22. What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath prepared for destruction? God can do what he wants to do, and that's a hard thing for people to understand.

Speaker 1: 29:28

So the story of Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, isn't Santa Claus. Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, isn't Santa Claus. It isn't a baby in a manger in the sense of look at, this is such a cute story, and I've talked to a lot of preachers that say I don't want to talk about hell in the church. I don't want to talk about sin in the church, I don't want to talk about what we all deserve in the church, because a lot of people are baby Christians and it'll just drive them off. I don't want to talk about it. What's the point? It's not going to be appealing to people. They're not going to appreciate it. But you know what I say, ladies and gentlemen. Christmas is about the story of hell. Probably got some gasp. Probably got some sighs, probably got some. Oh my gosh, did Pastor Joshua really say that? I've never heard that preached in a church?

Speaker 1: 30:34

Christmas is about the most horrific event culminating into the most beautiful event our destination. Standing on a creaking wood beam over the unquenchable fire, with flames licking at our heels, waiting for it to break and descending into eternal flames and chaos, and God sending his son to redeem us from that destruction to spend eternity and love and life with him. That is the story of Christmas. That is the story of truth. And what is truth, ladies and gentlemen? People say, pastor Joshua, what is truth? Truth is God's perspective. That's what truth is. Truth is the reality that corresponds to God's perspective, or Meaning reality is God's truth. God's truth is reality. Ladies and gentlemen, god bless you. I wish you the best. I wish you a happy new year. This is, pastor Joshua signing off. I love you all. Until next time.