Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon Podcast.
We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.
We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will
encourage, inspire, and instill fresh faith in you as we
complete our advent. Series we look at how.
In Jesus, grace abounds as the truth abides.
We wish you a very Merry Christmas and hope that you will
enjoy the gift of having. God with you.
In you and for you. Hi Church, a very Merry
Christmas to each one of you, your families, your loved ones.
Even as we get into God's word today, you know that we have
been looking at the book of John, the Gospel of John and it
has been mind blowing how God has been leading us through this
Advent series. It's been so organic.
We we just knew we had to look at the book of John, John
chapter 1 specifically. But the way God has LED us
through every verse and exposed to us who God is, who Jesus
really is, has been amazing. And I know Geshum and I both
have been so impacted by the sermons we have preached.
And today I've titled my message this Christmas.
Grace abounds when truth abides. That's what my title is.
And even as we get into this, this the word that we have for
today, I want to begin with this, you know, when I was
growing up, because this is my birthday month, Christmas was a
magical time. You know, the 25th was, you
know, the aim, it was the goal, it was the destination.
But as I got older, I found that this was as ordinary as the rest
of the months of the year. Yes, the house was decorated.
Yes, we were eating a lot more plum cake than we should have.
Yes, we had a lot of gifts being wrapped and given, but it's
still essentially was like the rest of the year.
We still had the same struggles of the rest of the year.
We still had those setbacks. We still had those bills to pay.
Nothing really changed, but the environment somehow had been
recreated to something festive. And I want to encourage you
today if you're stepping into this Christmas Day completely
alone, fall on just absolutely confused about what's next or
maybe you just had a huge blow struck to you.
Whatever it is, I want you to just look at how Christmas
really represents the light of the world coming into a very
dark situation and making it bright as day and that you know
day is coming. Your situation will change,
things will move. Should you give room for Jesus,
everything can change in a second, and I want to encourage
you with that. John chapter 1, verses 10 to 18
is what we're going to be looking at today.
Reading from the NIV translation, it says He was in
the world, and though the world was made through him, the world
did not recognize him. He came to that which was His
own, but His own did not receive Him.
Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His
name, He gave the right to become children of God, children
born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's
will, but of God. The Word became flesh and made
His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the
glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full
of grace and truth. John testified concerning him.
He cried out, saying, This is the one I spoke about when I
said, He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was
before me. Out of His fullness we have
received grace in place of grace already given, for the Law was
given through Moses. Grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but
the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest
relationship with the Father, has made Him known.
Whatever your situation this December has looked like,
whatever the last 11 months have looked like, what we can rejoice
in today is that in Jesus God was made known.
In looking at Him, the fullness of the Godhead, the deity, has
been revealed and we're no longer in the dark.
We're no longer distant from God, but we are.
He's close at hand. And the beautiful thing is that
grace already abounded to us even before we accepted Jesus.
What does that mean? You know, you look at humanity,
you look at the people of the world, you see war-torn areas,
you see epidemic struck lands, famine, drought struck lands.
People are still surviving. Are they thriving?
Maybe not, but they're surviving.
And there's a basic human survival instinct, and I believe
that is the grace of God in itself.
But here it says in Jesus you get grace upon grace.
You get this added grace. It's a saving grace which
changes your life completely. And then Jesus himself is
personified as grace and truth. Because up until then, up until
you know Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the people who are
waiting for this Messiah who would be born of a virgin, who
would be everlasting counsellor, mighty God, Prince of Peace,
that he would rule the government, up until then, they
were just waiting. And they didn't know when it
would all happen. They didn't know when, you know,
all of those prophecies would find their fulfillment.
And so until then, they had the Mosaic law, the Torah was what
they read, they meditated on, they had the law, they had the
prophets. And for them that was their
truth. But in Jesus coming to earth,
the truth became a person because he was the living Word
like we saw. And so it talks about how He is
grace and truth. And so today we're going to be
looking at how grace abounds when truth abides.
We're going to understand that, unpack it a bit.
But before we go through that, I want to just read a very
unlikely passage to kind of put in a nutshell what Christmas is
all about. And most unlikely because it's
written by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8.
I'm going to read 8 verses and it's from the Message version
because it's just written so beautifully, but it basically
tells us how Jesus came as the solution for a sinful fallen
world. Like I said, the law existed
before the law was the truth. The law was from God.
It was given to guide his people, to protect them.
But human as we are, keeping all of the law was difficult because
let's face it, we, we forget to look at the heart of the law.
We look at each of its, you know, statutes and precepts and
we're trying to learn that by heart.
We're trying to figure out how to do it.
But they missed the people of Israel, missed looking at the
heart of God behind those commands and in Jesus.
Jesus revealed to us the heart of God.
And so it became so much more easier to grasp these
commandments because now the Spirit of God lives in US, and
the covenant is written on hearts and minds rather than on
stone tablets. And so Paul writes so
beautifully about what God did with sending Jesus, and it's the
most beautiful explanation of the Christmas story.
So let me just read that for you.
Romans 8 verses 1 to 8 in the message version, with the
arrival of Jesus the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is
resolved, the fateful dilemma of sin.
Those who enter into Christ being here for us no longer have
to live under a continual low lying black cloud.
A new power is an operation. The spirit of life in Christ,
like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air,
free you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands
of sin and death. God went for the jugular when He
sent His own Son. He didn't deal with the problem
as something remote and unimportant in His Son Jesus.
He personally took on the human condition, entered the
disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it
right once and for all. The Law code, weakened as it
always was by fractured human nature, could never have done
that. The Law always ended up being
used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of deep healing it.
And now what the Law could asked for but couldn't, we couldn't
deliver, is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own
efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in US.
Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed
with measuring their own moral muscle, but never get around to
exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in
them find that God's Spirit is in them, living and breathing
God. Obsession with self in these
matters is a dead end. Attention to God leads us out
into the open, into a spacious, free life.
Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God.
Anyone completely absorbed in self, ignores God, ends up
thinking more about self than God.
That person ignores who God is and what he is doing, and God
isn't pleased at being ignored. When you look at the original
Christmas story of what unfolded in Bethlehem, and then two years
later what unfolded when the kings visited, none of them were
obsessed about themselves. In that story.
The shepherds heard from the angels.
They could have sat on that hillside for a day or two and
gone. Why us?
Oh my goodness, did we really, you know, see angels?
Did it really happen to us? They got up and went to see what
was told. They went and trusted God's
action in fulfilling his words. And they're so obsessed in
worshipping the newborn king. It's amazing because sometimes
we are obsessed with ourselves over being obsessed with the
things of God. Obsessing with God, he says
focusing on self is the opposite of focusing on God.
I love that. Those 3 or 4 Magi who came from
the east who didn't make the journey about their hardships or
the the the detours or the struggles of losing the star now
and then or even of Herod, but they made it all about
worshipping this king that they were coming for.
Ultimately, when you look at this whole thing, God was sent,
Jesus was sent to Tabernacle with his people.
He came to live among them and today he lives in US.
And that is the greatest gift that God could ever give.
If that is not what grace is, I don't know what is.
When we sometimes look at the word truth, Jesus himself said,
I am the way, the truth and the life.
And the word for truth has one alternate meaning apart from the
absolute truth. It also means reality.
And so often we try to haggle about the reality of God.
We begin at the Christmas story and say, you know what?
Why did he come as a baby? There's no facts to reference
this. We can't check this up, but the
truth is historians have put down the birth of this child.
We have seen history split into two based on the arrival of the
Messiah, BC and AD. No matter what people are trying
to change in terms of the compilation, the name of these,
these eras, it doesn't change the fact that this is our
reality. We live in the new covenant.
Jesus came, lived, died, rose again, lives in the heavens,
will return one day to take us all home, but he will return as
a judge. This is our reality.
This is a reality we live in. No point denying it.
My husband was recently at a shoot.
He was doing a huge media project and when they were
filming it, he, they were about to start the set design.
OK, so this is before they started filming and one of my
husband's directors was at the site and they were actually in a
shoot flow just kind of creating a set out of nothing.
And as they were erecting the walls of the set, they sent us
this video. And I want you to have a look at
this video before I explain to you what I got out of it.
So as we saw in this video, there's this huge wall of wood
being erected to form this house set up for the shoot.
And if you saw there were two guys who are using these huge
poles to push this wood up. But the interest and that's very
visible. It's very visible, right?
But if you looked at the back of the video, there were a couple
of guys standing with ropes, and these ropes actually were
holding the board in place. You know, they were kind of
supporting it. They were found forming the
foundation on which this was being pulled up, like a pivot,
so to speak. And these guys were it needed so
many men to push it up. And as I was watching this
video, my husband sent it to me. I wanted me to have a look at
the the magnitude of the work happening.
And as I was looking at it, I felt like it showed and
demonstrated to me what it looks like in our lives when Jesus is
grace and truth. You know, John says he was grace
and truth personified. And what does that look like
when you look at that wall going up?
Grace is what holds it up. Grace is what is obvious to
others, but truth is the scaffolding that holds it under.
It's the undergirding to our lives.
It's what keeps our life in place rather than going all over
the place. We'll get more into this, but
the truth is this our lives, if you were to liken your life to
that wall which is being rebuilt by God himself, grace is the
thing that holds it up. Grace is the thing that is
evident to the world. They'll ask you, how did you get
through that sickness? And you will say this very
simple thing, or it was only God's grace.
You will say, how did you do that exam?
And you had so much of other stuff to do.
It was God's grace. How did you look after your
family in the midst of that hardship?
It was just God's grace. You see what I'm saying?
Grace is the evidence of God at work in us, but the truth is
what holds our lives together. The truth of who Jesus is.
The truth that God is good and He does good.
The truth that His Word is life giving.
The truth that prayers work. These are the things that hold
our lives together and grace is on display.
Grace upon grace was initiated from that very first night in
Bethlehem. God chose ordinary people.
Mary Joseph, a teenage girl, a young man, no accolades, no big
degrees, no experience in parenting.
He chooses them to bring His Son into the world.
Grace was seen when men and women who ordinarily were
overlooked. Anna Simeon, the shepherds to
witness his birth, to witness his dedication.
Grace was in abundance when Jesus at age 30 selected 12
ordinary guys to journey with Him.
And grace was poured out even more when those 1111 of those 12
were entrusted with His truth to spread it around the world.
Grace upon grace, that is what it looks like every single day
that we live and breathe as children of God.
Grace is just poured into our lives.
Favor that we didn't deserve. Favor that I didn't deserve.
He keeps pouring it out. Grace abounds.
And so today, I want to leave three things with you.
Just three things and it's based out of Matthew chapter 6, verse
33. Matthew chapter 6, verse 33.
We know this Sunday school song, it says seek ye first, the
Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these
things will be added to you. It was written at the end of a
chapter where he was writing to those who are worried about what
you will eat, what you will wear, don't run after these
things. The pagans run after it, but
those of you who trust God, seek His Kingdom first.
That's what he was saying. And you might ask me, but what
does that have to do with the Christmas story?
But it has everything to do with the Christian life.
When we come to the end of a year, I love that Christmas is
just placed on this cusp of a new year.
So as we celebrate Jesus, we are bringing him into our lives and
saying, God, look at this, this is my year.
For some of you, it might have been a great year, a year of
fruitfulness, of increase, of blessing, and praise God for
that. For some of you, it may have
been nothing like that. But whatever it is, you take the
remains of your year and you're bringing it to him as an
offering and saying God, this is where I'm at the next year,
2025, I'm scared. I don't know if I have enough in
my bank account. I don't know if I can pay my
kids school fees. I don't know if I can finish
college. I don't know if you'll give me a
job. I don't know if my parents
health is going to get better. I don't know.
But yet I will choose to seek you first and your Kingdom and
your righteousness. That is the position that I want
to bring you to today because it is in this, it is in this
absolute trust that we experience His grace the most.
So what are these three things? I'm going to read Matthew
chapter 6 verse 33 from the message version for us to get
those 3 treasures out for our own lives.
Matthew chapter 6, verses 30 to 34.
If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers,
most of which are never even seen, don't you think He'll
attend to you? Take pride in you, do His best
for you. What I'm trying to do here is to
get you to relax. Do not be so preoccupied with
getting so you can respond to God's giving.
People who don't know God and the way He works fuss over these
things, but you both know both God and how He works.
Steep your life in God. Reality, God initiative, God
provisions. Don't worry about missing out,
you'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now and
don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.
God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up
when the time comes. I love that he talks.
He says this beautiful thing of saying don't be so preoccupied
with getting so you can respond to God's giving.
Most of us the minute we come into our faith with Jesus, we
realize that in Jesus are all the blessings.
Every spiritual blessing is in Jesus.
And so our prayers are so tailor made to say, God, you said I can
ask for anything. So here I here I go.
I'm asking you for this, asking him for that, which is great.
Please ask God for things. Ask Him for all that is on your
heart. But there's a point which comes
at least in the season of the year when we need to bring come
to God and say, God, you know already all that I need, but I
want to rest and just receive what you give, what you choose
to give me. You know, we have kids.
Then for each birthday, each of them give us a list of the
things they like. And I'm yet to find one of them.
Tell me you get me anything you want, I'll be happy with it.
Never. And none of us are like that
because I feel I need to tell God what I need and I miss out
on receiving what He knows I surely need.
And so I want us to come to this place of resting before we go
any further. If you could take a deep breath
in and a deep breath out and say, Lord, I'm ready to receive
what you're giving. You already know what I need.
So let's leave that on the side. I just want to receive what
you're giving. Grace is one such gift that is
just given you and I didn't deserve salvation.
It was a free gift. All it required was me to say,
Lord, forgive me, I'm a Sinner, come into my life and the rest
is history. Everything was given to me on
this beautiful platter. And that is the picture of
grace. Favour I didn't deserve.
And so with that in mind, when you're just in this attitude of
receiving whatever it is God wants to give you, there are
three things that you need to soak yourself in, immerse
yourself in. The first thing is God reality.
Second thing is God initiative. Third thing is God provision,
God reality. I want to ask you, what is your
reality? We live in a time of virtual
reality, augmented reality, where everything can be shaped
and changed. Made it look so artificial, but
it look real. It'll feel real sometimes.
But here's the thing, our reality only we know.
Have you had a hard year health wise?
That's your reality. Have you been lonely because
your spouse walked out? That's your reality.
Did you go through a job loss or did you have a hard time with
your boss this year? That's your reality.
Jesus is not calling you to deny your reality.
Instead, He's asking you to see it through the lens of heaven.
He's asking you to see through the lens of eternity.
So what does that look like? How do I change my reality to a
God reality? This is how.
It's seeing yourself as somebody who needs to cast their burdens
on someone else. Feeling heavy, you need to cast
your burdens, for he cares for you.
Feeling sorrowful, He's saying He will give you beauty for
ashes. He will give you oil of joy
instead of mourning. Maybe you've been so
disappointed because the things you asked for didn't came,
didn't come, but it's laying your disappointments down and
choosing to hope again. Maybe it's the anger that has
been beneath the surface bubbling up, but it's probably
saying, you know what, God, I'm choosing forgiveness.
I'm choosing to bless my enemies.
Maybe it's the loneliness that was debilitating this year, but
it's saying, you know what? I was lonely.
But God, I thank you that you're Emmanuel.
You are God with me and God in me.
Maybe it's walked. You've walked through sickness.
You're so tired of the medicines, you're so tired of
the hospital visits. You're tired of the different
reports. But it's knowing that by his
wounds you are healed. Maybe not today, maybe not
tomorrow, but soon. God, reality is not denying
where you're at. It's not denying what you're
going through this December 25th.
You are not denying what you are walking through, but instead
you're looking at it to the lens of God Himself and you're
seeing, you know what? In the midst of this, God's
grace was so evident. I can stand testimony to that.
2024 was one of the hardest years yet, but when I look back
I think, Oh my goodness, I wouldn't have made it through if
not for the grace of God which got me up every morning, which
trained me in his word, which trained me to pray, which
trained me to forgive, trained me to release, trained me to
speak up when I needed to. The reality is that his grace is
sufficient. That is a God reality.
It's a reality that who he says he is, he is.
He is faithful to his word. That is God reality, God
initiative. You need to be immersed in God
initiative. The very fact that we are saved
and called children of God was the initiative of God.
I didn't do anything to initiate that.
I didn't initiate salvation at all.
Right from the book of Genesis. Grace is like that invisible
thread through the Bible, through every book.
You look at the book of Esther, there may not may not be much of
A mention of God, but there's this beautiful intertwining of
where God's grace came in to save his people through an
ordinary girl. Every book in the Bible has
grace placed, evidently. And The thing is, we're so often
so stressed from striving. We want to do things for God.
We want to serve people. We want to do good works.
Or maybe maybe you've done so much already, you're burnt out
and you can't do more. Or maybe you've been working
hard at trying to please God and and receive his blessing when in
reality anything you or I ever do, we are just following up on
what God has already done for us.
You need to remember this verse. It says while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us when we were in darkness.
Ignorance had no clue which side was up.
That was when God saved us. We came into that knowledge that
salvation at a later date. And so anything I try to do,
anything I try to give has already been done and given by
God himself. And so the very fact that you
walk in faith is a God initiative.
So, so often we are so hung up like this verse says, you're so
preoccupied with getting. So stop that.
Relax and respond to what God's give.
The very act of being a believer in Jesus, following him where he
says requires that he take the lead.
He takes the initiative you follow.
So many times our mess ups that we make in our lives as
believers is because we run ahead of God and tell Him to
follow us. Lord, let my will be done on
earth as it is in heaven, but God wants us to reframe our
lives. Anything that we do for God,
anything that we want from God will always be a follow up to
what He has already done for us. I've written this huge little,
I've done a huge painting which I leave in my room.
It's on my shelf for me to see every day.
And it says I will joyfully anticipate what God is going to
do because what God has already done for me, and I don't just
mean in my life in terms of my healing or my restoration or my
blessing. No, what He did on that cross
cover is everything I will ever go through in this life.
Nothing in my life that I will go through over the next 40
years, say if I live to about 80, nothing will match up to
what He did for me on that cross.
The initiative God took on my behalf, the source of all grace,
should cover me for the rest of my life.
It's too often we're so caught up in serving Him, doing things
for Him, that it becomes burdensome or awesome.
But it needs to move to a place where I abide and dwell in the
fact that God is with me, Emmanuel.
He is with me. He is in me, He is speaking to
me, He is cherishing me. He loves me deeply.
And out of that love, anything I do for Him becomes easier.
Anything I do for Him is so fulfilling.
It's not burdensome. I do it out of a place of joy.
The third thing that you and I need to immerse ourself in is
God provision. When you look back at this year,
what were some of the things you needed?
Was it finances? Was it love?
Was it compassion, empathy, validation, rest, success,
miracles, science wonders? What was it you needed?
I love that verse. It says God gives such attention
to the wildflowers, most of which I never even seen.
Don't you think He'll attend to you, take pride, and you do His
best for you. We're so desperate for the
validation of people. We're so desperate to be liked
by everyone. We're so desperate to have what
we need in our bank account. We're so desperate to get that
car or that house. While all of these may not be
the worst desires, what if I first look to God for my
provision, God provision? To be steeped in it is to look
to Jesus for everything. And I find that when I look at
all these things we may have needed in the last year, the
source and the answer for all of it is Jesus.
Did I need finance? He's Jehovah Jireh, He's my
provider. He will give me that which I
need according to His riches in Christ Jesus.
Did I need empathy? Did I need compassion?
As high as the heavens are above, so great is His love for
me. Did I need forgiveness?
He says as far as the east is from the West.
So far have I thrown your transgressions, I have forgotten
them. Did you need rest?
He says come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy laden, I
will give you rest. Did you need empathy?
He says he is the counselor of the Spirit of truth.
He will comfort you. Did you need miracles?
He is a miracle worker. Did you need science to be
confirmed so that you could take that step?
He's the one who says I will guide you with my eye.
I will speak in your ear. This is the way I walk in it.
God provision. If you're worried about 2025, I
want to encourage you. He's already in 2025.
He knows what is going to happen.
He knows what's going to unfold and He is the God is going to
provide. You need to steep yourself in
this place of saying everything I ever need will be found in
Jesus. Everything.
Do you need a bit of rest? You've had a hectic season.
He's your shepherd. He will lead you.
Besides still waters. This is who he says he is.
You know, the problem is, you know, why some of us are so
tired at the end of a year, why we're so exhausted and weary is
because we have tried to be all of these things for ourselves.
I want to be the one who increases our finances.
I want to be the one who heals our diseases.
I want to be the one who brings empathy to myself.
And that's where I fail. Because when I'm so aware of God
provision, I'm not looking to be the saviour of the world, but
I'm content to say, Jesus, you're enough.
You will bring healing. You will do the miraculous how
you do it, when you do it where you do it.
I don't, but I will trust you. So no matter we it doesn't
matter at all if you didn't do that. 2024, we have another year
to do it in a different way. It's interesting because so many
times we have lived life on our terms rather than living it on
God's terms. When you look at a tea bag, you
know, and you have a hot glass of water, you dip the tea bag
in, right? The tea bag has to be allowed to
rest in it for maximum, you dip it a bit.
So it's just kind of, you know, in the water.
You don't keep taking it out and putting it in.
Then it's so important in order to get the most essence out of
those leaves in that little, small little bag is to let it
rest, is to let it abide. And so often we are content to
have Jesus in and out of our lives.
The fact is, He is in our lives. He's already in US.
The Spirit of God lives in us. But our awareness of Him, our
need of Him, our ability to recognize Him in a given
situation is so temporary. Because a lot of times I take
him out of the mix. And I'm trying to do all of
these things myself. But in order for us to
experience abounding grace, which is readily available in
Jesus, I need to abide. Let the truth abide, which means
I need to let the truth sit like that tea bag, which needs to sit
there for its full essence to come into the to the water.
I need Jesus to stay in me. I need to allow him to just seep
deeply in me. And that is when when I'm
immersed in Jesus that I have this understanding of God
initiative, God reality. I start to look at things
through his his vision because now he's in me.
I'm soaked in him. God, I see this happening.
You have a plan. It feels unexpected.
It feels like it came out of left feet, that conversation.
But God, I'm trusting you that you know what you're doing.
This God initiative. I feel like I need to do all
this for you, but God, you've already done so much for me.
Help me to do it out of a place of responding to your love
rather than trying to prove something.
When I'm soaking in Him, I start to trust Him for the big and the
small details of my life. Nothing is beyond His purview.
Everything in our lives, everything. 2025 will not shock
him. 2025 is not going to have surprises to him.
He knows all you can do is rest and abide in the truth so that
grace will abound as I conclude. Some of us here are so cynical.
We have to celebrate Christmas with our families because, well,
it's a family affair. You have to decorate your home
because probably you have kids like mine who enjoy decorating
their home. Or maybe you're just someone
who's gets carried away by all the thrilling and the fanciful
side of Christmas, but your heart isn't in it because you're
probably prematurely decided that you know who Jesus is.
And we want to come back to this thought of Jesus, the truth.
Here's our reality. When I look back on 2024, if I
look at 2024 outside of the reality of Jesus, it looks like
a difficult year. But when I put on my Jesus lens,
when I asked the Holy Spirit, show me what this year was
about, it was a powerful year. It was a year of growth.
It was a year of tremendous stretching, tremendous blessing,
tremendous increase in spiritual authority, tremendous changes on
a spiritual realm that I never anticipated participated would
have asked for all those setbacks.
No, I wouldn't have, but it was good.
The problem is that too many of us are deciding to live my
truth. This is the latest thing.
I'm living my truth. You do you, I'll do me.
And using that, we're using that as license and saying I'll do
me, I'll live my truth. We're choosing promiscuity.
We're choosing greed. We're choosing corruption.
We're choosing unfaithfulness, but here's the truth, your truth
and my truth is not the truth. It is fabricated.
It's an augmented reality. It's not the truth.
The truth is Jesus. It is found in the person of
Jesus. It is found in his word.
And when we have that as the scaffolding of our lives, like
in that that video, what undergirds our life, our life is
in a good place. I want to encourage you, if your
truth has been misplaced, today would be a good place to say
Lord Jesus. I want you to come back in as
the sole truth. You cannot decide prematurely on
who Jesus is. You cannot base it on hearsay.
What someone else said about him, you need to taste and see
who he is. Some of us have made-up our mind
about God because, well, you think you've seen it all.
You've seen everything and you know what?
This is evidence. There's no God because you know
good God won't allow this. Well, you don't know the half of
it because most of the things that happen in our lives is in
the unseen realm and faith is trusting in the unseen realm.
Some of us have made our lives about us.
We made it all about us. Every dot that's joined was
about us. The truth is, even our history
is his story. It's not about us.
I want to ask you today, what have you been abiding in?
Has the truth abided in you? Has it soaked into you?
2024 Was it a year when Jesus had soaked so thoroughly through
you that when something was happening, all that came out was
blessing, not cursing? All that came out of you was
joy, not sorrow? I can honestly say that I messed
up many times. But we're a work in progress,
and that is where grace comes in.
When the truth undergirds our life, race abounds.
My grandma. When I was growing up, one of
her favorite gifts for people was lace handkerchiefs.
And I I looked for one and I unfortunately didn't find any of
the handkerchiefs she had made for me before she passed away.
But I remember she even knitted for my daughter.
You know, dresses made of cotton and lace.
So when you say lace handkerchiefs, you assume the
entire thing is lace, but it isn't.
The centre, you know, the square or the rectangle is made of
cotton and the softest cotton, but the edges are laced with
this beautiful Italian lace that she would stitch on.
And as I was thinking about it, this was the image that I
thought of and I want to leave it with you.
Jesus, when He is the truth that holds your life together, He is
like that beautiful cotton fabric holds your life together.
Remember that the Bible says that the truth will set you
free, that the Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth,
right? The truth is what holds our
lives together. Jesus is the one who holds our
life together, not you or me. It's not our smartness, our
brilliance that is holding our lives together.
It's Jesus. But the beautiful thing is,
grace is like that lace that surrounds that beautiful,
beautiful piece of cloth. Grace holds everything in place.
Grace is what displays God's beauty to a watching world.
When people look at you at the end of this year, they're going
to go, whoa, how did you walk through that?
How did you come out of that fire without smelling burnt?
Well, that was God's grace. It's as beautiful as the lace
lining on a handkerchief because that is what grace is.
Grace is the evidence of a living God.
Grace upon grace, Grace and truth together.
That is what Jesus is to us as we pray.
As we pray, I want you to come back to this place of examining
what truth you have been living by and have you truly been
abounding in grace because grace is is very present.
It's not something you have to ask for because he already gives
it to you. But here's the thing, Do I live
with God initiative, God reality, God provision?
That is the question we need to ask ourselves.
Let's pray. Father, I just thank you for
this time. I thank you for what you are
doing. I thank you for how much you
love us. I thank you for sending your Son
Jesus and God, even today. We just come before you asking
that you will show us if there's any false truth in our lives, if
we have been founding our life on a on a fake truth that you
would reveal it to us. God, I pray that each of us Lord
will be so soaked in God provision, God reality, God
initiated that Lord, we will stop making it about ourselves.
We will stop insisting on getting but just relax and and
just receive what you want to give us.
God, I pray for those whose reality has been so harsh they
have no other view. I pray for a fresh perspective,
fresh vision. Spirit of God, open blind eyes,
open blocked tears of God, I pray that Stony hearts would
break today and that you would give us hearts of flesh that
imbibe your truth that live by your truth.
Father, I pray for anyone who has been living a life that is a
shadow of the real self. If they've been living in the
darkness, I pray that Jesus, light of the world, you would
bring them into the light and that they would receive a fresh
breath of life in them. Watch over us, bless us, give us
an amazing time. Lord of rest.
Father, I pray, no matter what our situation looks like, I pray
that we will have the experience of Emmanuel, God with us.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen, Amen.
God bless you and a very Merry Christmas to you.
Thanks for listening to this message.
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