In the last chapter of Matthew, Jesus calls us to make disciples in two ways: by teaching His Word and by baptizing in His name (Matthew 28:19-20). The Ethiopian eunuch became a disciple by being baptized. Jesus still makes disciples in baptism today!  What a gracious and wonderful gift our Lord gives us in Baptism.

Jesus give us words in His teaching and He is the Word made flesh. Thus, it's vital that we hear and practice His words. In today’s message we talk about the nature and character of Jesus’ words - how they are perfect - and how they call us both to faith and to action.

 

Jesus is God, Creator, Lord of the universe, and yet also man. What a mystery, and what a testimony! Imagine being there in Bethlehem, and seeing the infant Jesus with your own eyes. What would you have seen? And how would you testify to others about what you had seen? The Apostle Luke says that the angels testified that the Savior had been born (Luke 2:11). The Apostle John testifies that the Christ was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). We receive the testimony, and by the Holy Spirit we are able to believe it. May our lives be transformed by this Truth – the Son of God has come to us!

The Ghost of Christmas Future was sent to terrify Ebenezer Scrooge (from Charles Dicken’s 

A Christmas Carol) with a vision of his future - one of loneliness, gloom, and death - if he did not change his ways.  During our worship today, may we experience a renewed wonder that our God was incarnate and sent to this world at Christmas to give us a vision of our future: one of joy, peace, and glory!

The weeks of Advent which lead up to the celebration of Christmas can be times of sorrow for many people, for many reasons.  It may feel that we bear spiritual chains, just as the ghost of Marley did at the beginning of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  May it be that we are freed from any and all sorrow by the visitation of the Holy Spirit, during worship today.

Many people wrongly believe that the Bible teaches that it's wrong to be wealthy. They think that the Bible says that "Money is the root of all evil" It actually says "The love of money is the root of all evil."  (emphasis added.) God is not opposed to wealth, in fact, many good people in the Bible were extremely wealthy including Abraham, Job, David and Solomon in the Old Testament and Barnabas and Joseph of Arimathea in the New Testament.  So God is not opposed to wealth, simply for wealth's sake. But God is very much opposed to the misuse and abuse of wealth. He wants us to use our wealth wisely, no matter how much or how little we have.  Today we are going to look at both wrong and right uses of wealth - so that no matter how much money we have, we use it wisely.

We tend to judge others.  We don't like to admit it, but we make judgments about other people.  We don't always speak those judgments out-loud, but we make them in our heart.  We do this with people we are close to, as well as people we've only observed briefly.  The truth is that what we judge in others is in fact often the very thing we dislike in ourselves.  Psychologists have known this for a long time - we tend to react to what we perceive as our own weaknesses.  This makes sense, because we are all guilty of breaking the same Law - God's Law.  The challenge for us, James points out, is that there is only one Lawgiver - and therefore only one Judge.  God.