Love Is Tough: The Gift That Sticks - December 21, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's

plan for your life. Amen.

Thank you for being here today. I hope you've been blessed already,

and I want you to know God's still working.

God's got a word for you today, and maybe the word is this, love is tough.

That's three words. It's not just one word.

Love is tough. Have you ever thought about that? By tough, I mean love isn't easy all the time.

Now, it might start off that way, right? It might start off all lovey-dovey

and butterflies in your stomach and a goofy grin on your face.

That's great. That's a great season of love, you know, just the springtime love.

You get shot by Cupid's arrow or, you know, you see that good-looking young

woman, good-looking young man when you were younger, and something, a spark happens.

It starts off, and whew, that's exciting.

Not too long after that, you realize that love is tough because this person doesn't think like you.

This person doesn't act like you. And exactly, they don't always do what you

want them to do or to say what you want them to say or to think like you think.

And then you begin to say, oh, this thing called love, it is tough.

It's more than just a surface level affection or an attraction. It's deeper than that.

And when we think about life, we could say life is tough. Life starts out difficult.

Human beings are born as helpless little babies that can't really do anything for themselves.

I don't know if you ever watch National Geographic. You watch some nature program.

Some animals in God's creation, they're born ready to run.

They come out of the womb and they're on all fours after maybe a brief moment.

And they're ready to follow mama around or to take off if something's trying to get them.

That's incredible. It's amazing, but not with human beings.

Human being, human babies are amazing.

But they are in need of love. Folks, we are all born in need of love.

A love from a mom caring for that baby.

A love from a dad willing to take care of mom so she could take care of baby.

We're all born in a tough life, but that is why love has to be tough.

Because love doesn't abandon when the going gets tough. It sticks in,

it digs in, and it's ready to stick there until the end.

And so when we think about this season of Christmas, we've got to understand

that God's love is tough.

It means God's love is resilient. God's love will stick in there until the very

end if you will trust that love.

And I'm talking about more than just a happy feeling, more than just butterflies

in your stomach or feeling spiritual.

I'm talking about the agape kind of love, that Greek word that describes what

God's true love is all about, that pure love.

That doesn't seek its own, that pure love that goes the distance for somebody

else, that seeks to meet someone else's need rather than just having their needs met all the time.

That's the kind of love I'm talking about. And how can we experience this love

or understand this love?

The reason why is because the Scripture says that God is love.

And because God is love, we know that He loves His people. He loves all people.

But He loves you. Those of you that have committed your heart and life to Jesus. He loves you.

Those that aren't even thinking about God today, you came for some good music

or because you were drugged here by your parents, or no matter how old your

parents are, they still kind of try to drag you to church sometimes.

That's just a fact. I know it happens in our family.

But nevertheless, God is love and He loves all people.

He loves you here today. And I want you to know, as people, God wants you to

receive and reflect that love.

He wants you to live it out in

the relationships you have and the relationships that you don't yet have.

And here's how much God loves you. And I want to read from the gospel of John

this morning, chapter one.

I'm just going to read a few verses today.

I'll start in verse one, go through verse four, and then read verse 14.

And so if you're able and willing, would you stand to honor the reading of God's word today?

The scripture says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made,

and without him nothing was made that has been made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

And verse 14 says, 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.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word.

May it impact our heart. God, may it stick in our mind. Lord,

as we go through and just live this week and celebrate Christmas and celebrate family,

God, we just pray that we'll remember the true meaning of Christmas is this

passage here, that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

God bless us today, we pray. Speak to our hearts. In Jesus' name we ask.

Amen. Thank you. You can be seated.

As you go through Scripture from the very beginning, you can see and you'll

discover that God's story reveals love.

It reveals the kind of God that is out there in the universe,

that the very nature of this God is love.

When we just consider the creation story in the Bible, the creation account in Scripture.

We can see that the design behind the whole world and everything in it was focused

on human beings, focused on man.

It was focused on making sure that we had a good place to live,

that we had a good place that we could take care of, but that would take care

of us as well in God's design.

So the creation account in Scripture in itself is a generous act of a loving God,

to create a beautiful world, a perfect world, suited specifically for the human

beings that would dwell within it.

When you get into science and when you get into the position of the earth and

the universe, it's just astounding. It blows your mind.

The kind of atmosphere that we have that no other planets have,

the position of our earth with its tilts and with the seasons and all that,

how perfectly that aligns with not burning us up too close to the sun or not

freezing us out too far away from the sun.

It's a generous act of a mighty God that wants to express His love to you,

and that has expressed His love to you.

We think about as we go through the Old Testament and we see that there was

a fall right in the beginning of the book, and as a result of that fall,

the sin of human beings, Adam and Eve,

that the trickle-down effect was more disorder, more chaos, and more brokenness.

And we see that God didn't want to let that go. And that there was a man called Abraham.

And Abraham listened to the call of God to go to a country he didn't know about.

And as you go through the Old Testament, you think about how God always reached

out to those two, to overcome the brokenness.

God always reached out because he wants relationship with his creation that are human beings.

That means you and that means me too today.

And so God would make these covenants, these agreements, these deals.

And sometimes God had to hold up both ends of the deals because he knows that

human beings are fickle and they don't always hold up their end of the bargain.

And so God would do that in these covenants because he loves people.

And he has a way that he wants everybody to live that was busted after the perfect

creation when sin entered in.

And God's been trying to make that right, to restore the relationship he wants

and he has with you and can have with you.

The beauty of God is that the whole Bible is about His love for you and Him

reaching out to you to restore that brokenness, to restore that broken relationship,

because He kind of likes you.

More than that, He loves you with a love that we can't truly experience in this life.

God's done everything, gone out of His way to make sure that you know that you are loved.

Now, the world and the circumstances we live in a lot of times,

it doesn't show love to us. Man, it just shows ugliness.

Some of you have cared for people before. You've given of yourself before only

to be hurt and burned in the end. And that's not a good feeling.

And that doesn't make it so you want to reach out again and help somebody else out.

Because you feel victimized. You feel hurt. You feel abused when your intention

was pure, when your intention was holy to help somebody out.

Well, that's not God's design either.

But that's exactly a reflection of what we do a lot of times with God.

When he reaches out to us, he gives and he gives and he gives,

and yet we slap his hand away. I don't need your help.

I'll figure it out myself. I don't want no charity.

I'm going to earn everything. We don't understand that we can't earn what God wants to give us.

We can't buy what God wants to give us and what he's given us freely in his son.

So the whole story of the Bible is the advent, the giving of God's love to people.

Some people that really reached up and were trying to find out who created all this.

And others that said, I don't care. I'm just going to live life to the fullest and make myself happy.

But advent and what we've been celebrating, lighting these candles and singing

these songs and talking about these themes of hope, of peace, of joy, and of love.

It's all about what comes as a result of God reaching down to us And God reaching

out to us Even in the story of Israel As you look in the Old Testament Time and time again.

They did wrong God called them back They repented and came back to God But not

long after they decided Hey, this looks more shiny and new I'm going to go after

this Instead of sticking to what God had laid out This is the right way to live you,

We see in the scripture, God's ultimate act of love culminate in what we read today.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

In Psalm 8, there's a phrase that I'm sure that you're aware of or that you've seen before.

We sing a hymn sometimes from this, and you'll recognize it as I read Psalm 8 today.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You ever sang a song like that before?

If you're back in the 80s, early 90s, you knew a lady named Amy Grant,

and this was one of her songs, and it became popular in the churches as we sang.

But it's first from Scripture.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

It goes on to say, you have set your glory in the heavens.

Through the praise of children and infants, you have established a stronghold

against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars

which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them?

You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.

You made them rulers over the works of your hands and put everything under their

feet, all flocks and herds and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky

and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the sea.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Boy, we get a picture from the psalmist here of this great majestic God who

created all this, who created all the wonders in the heavens and everything

on earth, but yet his focus is on human beings, is on mankind.

It's on you, the God of the universe that keeps the planet spinning,

that keeps the gravity going on our own earth, that keeps everything in place as he's set it out.

He's concerned with you. Concerned.

Because he loves you, because he longs for that relationship with you.

Now, what kind of relationship is that? We'll talk about that when we think

about what happened here, that God took on flesh, that the God of the universe

gave his only son, Jesus, God himself,

to be put into a finite package of a little baby, entrusted to a young lady

who wasn't even married at the time, who had never had any kind of relations

that married couples have.

And yet here is Mary carrying the Savior of the universe, carrying Jesus, carrying God himself.

To be born vulnerable, just like we are born.

To be born needy in a sense, in need of love.

Jesus was born in this way. Started out and he shared our life.

Jesus, have you ever considered Jesus how to be potty trained?

Hey, Philippians 2 said he gave up everything in heaven to be born as a baby.

Baby's got to be potty trained at some point.

That Jesus had to walk, learn how to walk.

That Jesus had to obey his mom and dad. Yeah. I mean, you've heard the old joke, right?

Mary yelling at Jesus one day. Jesus, why don't you leave the door open every

time you come in? We shut the door. Were you born in a barn?

You've heard that one before, I'm sure. well he was born in a manger and yeah,

We think about all that Jesus did, giving up all that to be born vulnerable. Why would God do that?

Why would God entrust his plan to a young maiden and a little older guy named Joseph?

Why would God entrust this great plan of salvation for all human beings everywhere,

his plan of a restored relationship between people and God, and entrust it to this kind of plan?

I don't know, except for the word love. You see, one of the things that love does, love takes risks.

Love will take a risk in order to help somebody else out. That's what God did

for us. God took this risk.

Says the word, the word that created everything became flesh and dwelt among us.

God wanted to experience what it was like to be a human being like you,

to go through everything that you go through.

I mean, Jesus experienced loss.

We're not told later on in his life where his earthly father Joseph was.

It's assumed that he was older than Mary when they were betrothed,

when they were married. And so that somewhere along the way, Joseph passed away.

So at some point, Jesus had to grieve.

Jesus felt that. He had to go through that process of grieving. Jesus felt lost.

I know at Christmas time, a lot of us feel lost. Things aren't the same anymore.

Maybe someone we love is not present with us anymore. They've passed on.

Maybe family has changed. It's just not like it used to be.

Traditions have changed. And so you deal with that grief as well.

Jesus knows what that grief's all about. He experienced it.

We even see a glimpse of it when one of his best friends named Lazarus dies,

and Jesus isn't there at the moment when he dies.

The scripture records the shortest verse in the English language at that point. It says, Jesus wept.

It wasn't a show. It was a deep down feeling of grief, I believe, that Jesus had.

Now, we know how that story plays out. There's a resurrection that takes place with Lazarus.

Of course, he died again later on as was the course.

But Jesus was born as a human being to experience all that you experience,

to go through all that you experience because he loves you and he wanted to

know what's this like, this human experience.

But not just that, because God shares through Jesus in our deepest pain.

And it was that deepest pain that he could understand what human beings go through

you and me that would keep him on the cross because he knew he was the only

way that human beings could be rescued from this grief, rescued from this pain,

rescued from the sin that indwelled everybody.

So what does it mean that God is love when we think about this?

Just three really quick things.

First of all, it means God's love is relational, and I've tried to establish

that already, that God wants to be in relationship with you.

If you want a different word because relationship's kind of weird,

God wants to be in friendship with you.

Matter of fact, God wants it to be more than just a friendship.

He wants you to be part of his family.

He wants you to become one of his sons, one of his daughters,

adopted, co-heirs with Christ, the scripture says. You know what that means?

That means whatever Jesus inherits, you get to inherit too.

Now, not the kingship. There's only one king, but you're considered royalty

with Jesus as he wants you to be part of his family.

Now, okay, I won't harp on this too much because I don't have enough time,

but has anyone already started, been watching Hallmark movies?

Okay, don't raise your hand, guys. Come on. Don't want to take your man card away today.

No, you should watch them with your wife, but not alone by yourself. Okay.

We'll have to have a talk if that's the case.

A second question I would have is how many of you started watching these movies before Thanksgiving?

Okay. Thank you for being honest. We have a few honest folks in here.

No, we have a lot of honest folks in here.

In those movies, you know, there's always some kind of plot that goes along.

And a few years back, I said something about the plot being the same in every

movie, and I've been corrected.

It might be the same in every movie, but the characters are different.

And I kind of think when I was growing

up, there was these things called telenovelas on the Spanish channel.

Some of them begin to reflect those telenovelas. I don't understand what was

on the TV, but there was a lot of drama going on.

But in some of those Hallmark Christmas movies, some of them are rags to riches

stories where someone down and out and poor and destitute I don't know.

Finds a glimpse of an eye of a prince or a beautiful princess.

And before you know it, they're part of the royal family.

And that echoes from a story that's deep within humanity is that God saw us in our brokenness.

God saw us as some pitiful street urchin.

And he wanted relationship, friendship. He wanted us to be part of his family.

So he moved heaven and earth so that he could have that opportunity.

God loves you. God's love is relational. He wants some kind of relationship with you.

He wants that friendship with you. He wants you to be part of his family.

I don't care if you're the black sheep of the family or not.

Jesus wants you as part of his family.

Jesus wants you to be in that relationship with him.

Secondly, what does it mean that God is love is that God does not abandon us.

God doesn't leave us when the going gets tough. and a lot of relationships.

And I can attest to this and some of my extended family, especially growing

up, when there was hard times, sometimes there was some of my family that,

especially my extended family, not around here.

When I grew up here, they didn't care.

You're in the hospital or you're sick. They didn't call you or send a card.

If you were going through hard times or just, well, you didn't get the call

at Christmas. They might not have answered your call when you called.

God's not like that. God doesn't abandon us.

You know, the reality is we might not hear from him. We might think we're alone

in a circumstance or a situation, but God's still there with us.

And I got to believe sometimes, and I've said this before, that maybe we're

not hearing from God because he's working behind the scenes really hard to make

things better or to really get through to us because sometimes we put stuff

in our ears and we don't want to hear what God says because we know what the answer is going to be.

We know there's going to be a cost to us taking a step of faith.

And so we don't want to hear from him.

But God doesn't abandon us. In the book of Hebrews and other places in scripture,

it says, God will never leave us nor forsake us.

God will never leave you or forsake you. It means he's never going to abandon you.

He's never going to take you for granted.

He loves you. He loves you.

I know sometimes we have a skewed view of love because of the way we grew up

or because of a bad relationship here or there, but I'm talking about the pure

kind of love, the kind of love where it goes the distance.

That's what agape is all about. It's that commitment kind of love that will not leave you behind.

So because God's love is relational, God won't abandon us.

But third, God's love moves toward us, which means God moves toward us.

And that's the whole point of the scripture passage today.

Scripture says that we human beings are dead in our trespasses and sins.

It means we can't do anything to save ourself. We don't have the energy.

We're not alive to do that. And so what did God do? God came near.

God came near to us. So much so that Jesus was born, as I said, as a human baby.

100% God, 100% human. Here he was born. He came near to us so much to experience

what we experience in life.

The ups and downs, the joys and the sorrows.

Jesus experienced that. God doesn't abandon us. His love is relational.

And you got to remember, his love moves toward us. What do we do though?

When God moves toward us, a lot of times we run away. Like, no, God, no, I'm not worthy.

No, God, don't come near me. I'm a sinner.

Kind of like the stories in the New Testament you read when Jesus would come

by and he was going through town and he'd come to a leper colony.

Not leopard, but leper. You know, they had the skin condition.

Deeper than that, it was a disease. And you couldn't get close to those people. It was forbidden.

And so they would cry out afar, hey, Jesus, stay back. We're lepers. Don't come near us.

Stay away. hey, it's ceremonially, according to the Jewish law.

It'll make you unclean. You got to go do a whole bunch of stuff to get clean

again and then be able to worship God.

They would call out, but Jesus didn't care. He would cut through the social

barriers, the religious requirements, and he would go to the people that were

hurting, the people that were in need. God moves toward us.

I can guarantee you, if you look back in your life, when you were dead in your

trespasses and sins, when you didn't care about God, there's probably times

you can look back and see where God came near to you.

Maybe it was that person that God sent to you to share with you how much he loves you.

Maybe it was that time where you just ran into a random stranger and they just

said, hey, can I pray for you?

And what do you say? You say no to that?

Some people do, but God kept reaching out and reaching into your life,

trying to get your attention.

And some of you, it took you getting to the very bottom of your circumstances

before you turned around and you saw that God was there pursuing you.

And it changed your life, transformed your life.

God's relational. He wants to be in relationship with you.

God does not want to leave you alone. As a matter of fact, God chases you. He pursues you.

He's not some crazed stalker now. Don't misunderstand, okay?

God loves you, and he's got a great gift that he wants to give you,

the gift that comes through Jesus, that restored relationship,

that restored love that will be transformative to your life.

That's what we're talking about here.

What does that mean for us today? Now, 1 John 4, 7 says this,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God.

And everyone that loves God, that loveth, is born of God and knows God.

It goes on in verse 8 to say, He that does not love or loveth not does not know God because God is love.

A simple fact of the matter is that God wants us to become people of love.

Once you're in relationship with God, you can't help but do that.

Hey, what I said at the beginning, love is tough.

Sometimes it's going to be tough to love other people.

Sometimes it's going to be tough to love yourself because you know yourself the best, right?

And if it's not you, ask your spouse if you're married. She could tell you how

tough love is sometimes.

Love and you're sorry, yeah.

Backside. You're not supposed to say that in church, but it's true.

Love is hard. Love is tough.

But taking the example from God, God wants us to love like him.

We're called to love just as Christ loved us. Now check this out.

As a believer in Jesus, when you place your faith in Jesus Christ, your life has changed.

You're not yours any longer. Remember what I said, what scripture says?

You were dead in your trespasses and sins.

You're a goner without a relationship with God, the God of the universe,

that God, that's the creator, the God that loves you.

You have faith and you place your faith in Christ, you believe in him,

your life's no longer yours. It belongs to God because he breathed new life in you.

It's that heavenly CPR that brought you back from the grave that quickened you

in your spirit and made you alive again with him.

And as a result of that, there's a transformation that takes place.

Your will is submitted to God's will, and God has the plan for your life,

how best he wants you to live it.

And so you buy into that and you begin to live as God wants you to.

And how you live is as a person of love, of unconditional love, of agape love.

And in doing that, you begin to develop the eyes of Christ and you begin to

see people that are broken, that are hurting, that are dead in their trespasses

and sins, that are in need of that spiritual CPR,

of that holy CPR that quickens them, the love of God that reaches out.

And if we're going to be able to share the love of God with others,

we've got to have it first ourselves, don't we? We've got to make sure that

we've experienced that.

Beloved, let us love one another. Why?

Because love is from God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God.

But if you don't love, the scripture said, you don't know God.

Aren't my words. Those are from John again. 1 John.

Hey, we want to be reflections of God's love. We want to experience God's love.

Listen to what C.S. Lewis said in one of his writings. Love is not the affectionate

feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good.

Steady. It's on and on. You want people to live better.

You want people to be better. You want people to love better. That's why we serve.

That's why I preach every Sunday that I get the opportunity.

I want people to be better. As a matter of fact, next year, we're going to do

a whole sermon series that's called Better.

That's the one word for the new year for Mountain View Church of Nazarene is better.

We're going to look through the book of Hebrews verse by verse,

and we're going to see how does God want us to be better?

How does God want us to live better. That's just a sneak peek.

I wasn't meaning to say that. That's a bonus.

So here we are at Christmas. And Christmas, more than any other time except

for maybe Easter, reminds us that God's love is more than just an example.

It's a gift to be received. Really it is.

God's gift to you in Jesus Christ is the greatest gift that you could ever receive.

And that gift entails salvation, being saved from your sin, having power over

that sin, being able to deny and not fall into temptation.

As a matter of fact, not just being saved from that, but being forgiven.

Because when you look at your record with God, when Jesus forgives you,

it's blotted out. You can't even see it there anymore. Oh, hallelujah.

The time you pilfered those cookies from the cookie jar and then told your mom

it was your brother or sister that did it.

In Christ, when you've asked him to forgive you, that's gone.

You're no longer the cookie thief. God changes you.

Of salvation because of the forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ.

Well, we're able to live as God wants us to live and really to live eternally with Him forever.

Not in the same kind of brokenness of the situation that we live in today,

but in a life that is perfect, in a life that is holy, in a life that will reflect the perfectness.

We said a few weeks ago, the shalom of God in all eternity, in a new heaven

and a new earth. Hallelujah.

So my question to you as I close today Is have you received this gift?

Gift is great. It looks good under the tree. I'm looking for a gift,

but there's none up here. Man, I can't snag a prop.

It looks great under the tree.

Then Christmas comes and there's just wrapping paper everywhere.

But that's the intent of Christmas gifts, not just to look pretty,

but to be open, to be taken, to be received.

Have you received the greatest gift of all in Jesus?

Have you accepted Christ as your Savior? Are you trusting Him for the forgiveness

from sin, for your salvation, for a clear conscience and a new way to live.

God will forgive you if you just come to him.

When you mean that in your heart, Christmas isn't just about giving presents,

but it's about opening your heart to the one who gave himself for you, and that's Christ.

Would you receive Christ today if you haven't? Would you embrace the hope and

the love that could transform your life?

Would you do that today if you've never done that before? What a greater time than now to do that.

Because when you do that, your life has changed. Your love is taken to the next

level that you could only dream of, and you're able to share that love then with others.

And that's what we said God calls us to.

And those of you that have faith in Christ, are you doing that?

Are you sharing that love of God with others? I know it's hard to do right now.

Maybe it's not. I won't say that.

Now's the best time. Because when you go to Walmart, You go to other stores,

they're playing Christmas carols that are proclaiming the salvation that comes

only through Jesus Christ.

I scratch what I said a minute ago. It's a great time to share God's love with

others, a great time to praise Him.

This morning, if you've never accepted Christ, I want to give you an opportunity.

It's not a big, long-drawn-out thing. It's just, hey, a commitment that you

make to follow Him in your own heart, that you confess with your mouth that

Jesus is Lord, that you ask Him to forgive you of your sin.

And in doing that, it's the first step of that repentance that takes place in your heart.

Because now the things that you used to want to do, you don't want to do anymore

because you know they led you away from God.

Because many of those were sinful and it drew you away. But now you've got the

ability to say no to that in Christ.

When you've asked him to forgive you, you know that's supposed to be gone.

That's not supposed to be there anymore.

But now I can freely follow you. There's no weight of sin holding me down anymore.

And I can follow on. And so would you do that this morning?

It's as simple as a prayer. And I'll say a prayer and I'll just have everyone just say it with me.

Okay, but here's the thing. If you say that prayer, it's your first time and

you mean it, you got to tell someone.

You don't have to tell me. I'd love for you to tell me, but if you're ready

to take that step of faith and follow Jesus to receive his forgiveness, now's the time.

And so would you pray this with me? You could bow your head and close your eyes

and we'll just pray this together. I'll just ask you to repeat after me.

Heavenly Father, thank you for Jesus.

I recognize that he is the savior of the world.

I know Jesus came and died for my sin and made a way for me to be in relationship with you.

I confess that I'm a sinner and that I need your salvation.

God, forgive me of my sin.

Help me to follow Jesus. Jesus, be my Lord and Savior.

Forgive me of those sins and help me to follow you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

See, that's the first step in a relationship. That's the first step.

Now, if you prayed that prayer, I want to welcome you to the family of God,

but you had to pray it meaning it in your heart.

Did you mean that? Did you mean that?

If you meant that prayer when you said it, I just want you to share that with

someone today. Share it with me.

If you've not shared it with anybody else, because just as a little baby is

born, if that's the first time you ever said that prayer, you're like a little baby, vulnerable.

But we want to help you take the next steps and learn how to follow Christ.

At this time, while I finish up, I just invite the choir to come up.

They have a very special song that we're going to end with today before we pray the benediction.

But I've got to tell you, as we're thinking about the Scripture from today,

the Word became flesh. Jesus became flesh.

Jesus put on flesh and made His dwelling among us.

When we think of that Scripture passage, when we think of the verse,

it says, at the very end, we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only

Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

God brings grace to your life. We might mess up now and again,

but God wants to teach us the truth through Jesus on how to live that holy life

that He wants each of us to enjoy, that life above the fray of sin,

that life that we're going to celebrate again every Sunday we meet,

but especially when we're going to meet again on Easter.

So, I invite Carrie to come and lead us in this last song here.

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast. You can find a copy

of today's sermon as well as other sermons and the sermon outline from today

on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org.

It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that recognizes the authority of the Bible.