Why We Don't Celebrate Christmas

Well, happy Sabbath again, brethren! Great to see all of you with us. So far, we've had a mild winter here in Cleveland. We've been very blessed without a lot of snow, without a lot of the typical winter activities. But one activity that we cannot escape from is what will occur about a week from now.

About a week from now, a year-end celebration of our culture that's known as Christmas is all around us, and it's deeply embedded in our social fabric. All you have to do is walk in a store. All you have to do is turn on the TV, turn on the radio, and you can see how embedded the concept and idea of Christmas is in our Western world. It virtually is everywhere. And I'd like to talk about Christmas today and why we don't observe Christmas. Many people who are not particularly religious keep Christmas as a secular holiday, and oftentimes they will point out that, well, it's all about family. I'm not in the trees and trappings and all that kind of stuff, but it's all about family. And that's fine. I'm all about family, too. But people who say that are implying that you don't have to do anything. The other is 364 days a year. Some people say, well, yeah, I don't get involved in all the traps, but it's all about generosity of giving, and I'm all about giving, and I'm all about generosity, but people make that statement as if they can't give something the other 364 days a year. So what is it about this particular holiday of our Western culture that brings people to life? I grew up in a family that really wasn't that religious. We went to church twice a year. And one of those two times a year was on Christmas. As a matter of fact, you have it easy. I don't know if you realize that. In the little Methodist church that I grew in, the final hymn, Pastor Griffith, would run to the door and stand at the door. So there were only two ways to escape that church. It was easy to walk by Pastor Griffith. And by the way, there were steep stairs beyond where he would stand with his hand out. So unless you wanted to fall and tumble down the stairs, you had to slow down and acknowledge him. The only other way was to climb out a window. So those were your two options to get out of that little Methodist church.

And he was on to my family because on Christmas Eve, he would say, as we'd walk out the door, he'd say, well, thank you for coming so much. He says, thank you very much. See you next Easter? So he was kind of on to us. He kind of figured out what my family was all about. But one of those very special days in my family heritage years ago was Christmas. So what is it about this day that we object to? What is it about this celebration, this cultural phenomenon? And when I say phenomenon, it's amazing because people in Japan celebrate Christmas. They're not Christians. They do it kind of like the American materialistic way. They're all in the trees and Santa and giving gifts. They have no religious overtones at all. People in China, Singapore, people all over the world, you'd be amazed how many cultures that are not Western now observe Christmas without any religious trappings at all. It has become purely an opportunity to sell and buy and give stuff to other people. So what is it about it that we do not find acceptable? Well, I thought I would do something interesting yesterday. I figured I'll go to Google. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the very first article, organic search. What most people on Earth have told Google is the place to learn about Christmas. Number one, I'm going to type in history of Christmas and see what comes up. So I typed in history of Christmas. Number one in the world, organic search. There was one thing above it, but it was an advertisement, so that doesn't count. I discarded that. If you pay for it, I'm not going to follow your baloney one way or another.

Number one was an article by History.com, the History Channel. And here's what the article said. This was Google number one in the world. I had to do that. By the way, someone sent me a picture yesterday of a gentleman with a t-shirt on. And it's got the Google logo. And his t-shirt says, I don't need Google. My wife knows everything. That's what his t-shirt did. But I need Google. So here's what number one Google search said. Here's the article. I'm going to read it to you. Quote, In Rome where winters were not as harsh as those in the far north, Saturnalia, a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture, was celebrated. Beginning the week leading to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time when food and drink were plentiful. And the normal Roman social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Businesses and schools were closed so that everyone could join in on the fun. Also around the time of the winter solstice, Romans observed juvenileia, a feast of honoring the children of Rome. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, the god of the unconquerable son on December 25. It was believed that Mithra, an infant god, was born of a rock. For some Romans, Mithra's birthday was the most sacred day of the year. Okay? Next paragraph. In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday. The birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. And I'm just going to stop right there. I want you to think about the fact that these are not Sabbatarians who are writing this article. These are people, most of whom probably observed Christmas themselves either in a secular or religious way. So they have no bones to pick. They're not trying to put Christmas down. They're just telling it like it is. But I just want you to think about that. Christmas, they just said Christmas was not observed until the fourth century. That means longer than the United States had been a nation. Christmas was not observed in the ancient world after the death of Christ. I want you to think of how profound that is. I'm going to read that again. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention the date of His birth. A fact Puritans later pointed out in order to deny the legitimacy of the celebration. Although some evidence suggests that His birth may have occurred in the spring, why would shepherds be herding locks in the middle of winter? Pope Julius I chose December 25th. It is commonly believed that the church chose this date in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival.

Number one in Google search. I find that interesting because when I came to understand this in the 1960s, there was no internet. You literally had to go to a public library and look up the Encyclopedia Britannica and find these kinds of things that are just so readily available in the world today. I find that very interesting.

A number of years ago, I... My local cable channel, we used to get a channel that I watched occasionally, called EWTN. It's actually the Catholic Cable Channel. And that may surprise some of you. But they had a show that I really enjoyed. At that time, it was on Saturday night. I have no idea when it's on anymore because I don't get that channel. But the name of the show was The Journey Home. And in that show, by the way, which you can find all the episodes on YouTube, were hundreds of individuals, including many, many ministers, evangelicals, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, you name it, they were there. Hundreds and hundreds of individuals, and their videos are all on the internet, who were interviewed on why they left Protestantism and converted to the Catholic Church.

And I found these as kind of brain candy, just listening to their reasoning and why they did. And, you know, there was a constant thread. And here was the constant thread that they came, most of them came to see. The constant thread was that they believed that it was by the authority of the Catholic Church alone, their major beliefs.

For example, worshiping on a Sunday, the belief that God is a Trinity, the belief that Christmas should be observed as the Mass of Christ. They came to see that the authority for these things that wasn't found here, it came from the tradition and the authority of the Catholic Church.

So their mind made a natural leap that if this organization originally introduced and endorsed these things and I observed them, that's where I ought to be. And it's just like I say, it's kind of a show of brain candy. If you like to understand people's reasoning, I don't agree with their decision, but I respect at least their intellectual honesty. Meaning they're saying, if this is the authority that instituted these things that I believe, then I should be there because they are the ones who did it. They're the ones who said they had the right to institute these things into the belief that's known as Christianity.

Let's go to Luke 11, verse 1. You can turn there with me. Luke 11, verse 1. Very important concept that's essential to the core of being a Christian. Luke 11, verse 1. This is now came to pass as he was praying in a certain place. He's referring to Jesus. He's praying in a certain place.

That when he was done praying, he ceased. That one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. So teach us how to pray. We don't know how to do it. And he said to them, when you pray, say, I'm going to give you a rough outline. Our Father in heaven, acknowledged as great God as your Father, because he wants to have an intimate, one-on-one loving relationship with you, Father and child. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will.

Be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, again, this is an essential core of Christian understanding, because what is done in the world today is not typically God's will. There's a huge gulf between what God wills and what God simply allows. I'll give you a very poor, weak analogy, but maybe you can understand it. When my children were small, as they grew up, they made mistakes that were not according to my will.

I certainly wouldn't let them do anything that was going to be life-altering or something that could physically harm them, but I allowed them to make decisions that were against my will. How else were they going to learn? How else were they going to grow up? How else were they going to mature and understand that life can be hard and that there are consequences for the decisions that we make? So they did things that were against my will, but as their father, I allowed them to make those decisions.

Well, in a similar way, that's exactly what God does. And Jesus is praying that we could learn not to do what we want to do, not to seek our own will, not to seek the will of our culture, of our traditions, of humankind, but the most important thing is to seek God's will, so that what we do on earth is what God's will is in heaven. He may choose to intervene according to his will, but much of what occurs in this world, he merely allows.

We know, of course, that the earth is controlled by the prince of the power of the air, that's Ephesians 2 and verse 2, and it refers to Satan himself. And we have a world that's filled with hunger and materialism, disease, violence, and corruption at every level, in every organization in this world. All of that is not according to God's will. You don't find those things in the third heaven where God resides.

You don't find hunger. You don't find violence. You don't find greed. You don't find those things there. And Jesus said, we need to pray, of course, that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus taught his disciples to pray for a change, and of course, that change first has to begin within us. Pray for a change, the kingdom, and pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the central core of what Christian belief is about. It's not about me. It's not about what I want. It should be about what God wants. Well, let's go to Matthew 7 and verse 21. If you will turn there with me, Matthew 7 and verse 21.

Jesus, again, teaching a very powerful principle to his disciples, and that is being outwardly religious doesn't mean you have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Even performing miracles in the name of Jesus, we're going to see, doesn't mean that Christ even knows you exist. And I don't mean that in a literal sense. I mean that Christ says, I don't know who you are. I don't recognize you. What's your name again? He says, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, he's talking about resurrection, a resurrection, a judgment. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Look what we did, God. We said things that were going to come to pass in your name, and they came to pass. People were impressed. We cast out demons in your name. In the name of your name, we cast out demons, and they left people. And we've done many miracles and wonders in your name. Why statues, cried blood, and all kinds of miraculous things happened. Look what we did for you. And when we died, there were great funerals, and ten thousand people walked by my coffin and said, What a great man of God! What a religious, pious man of God! And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. I don't know who you are. I don't recognize you as one of my own, as one of my flock. I never knew you'd depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Lawlessness is from the Greek word anomia, which means to do something illegal. It means a violation of a law, of a principle. Obviously, if God's law, of God's principles, of God's values, it can also mean wickedness. So what Jesus Christ is saying here is that it is very possible to be religious. It's very possible to accept Jesus as the Christ. It's very possible to do religious things, even miracles, even cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, and do very profound things, and yet not please Him. Not please Him to the point that in the judgment He says, I'm sorry, what's your name again? I don't have a relationship with you. I don't know you. You're not one of my flock. So who are you? Very profound thought that Jesus says here. It's possible for people to acknowledge Christ and say they are devout Christians, but Jesus Christ doesn't acknowledge them. Why? Because Jesus is contrasting two very different things. One thing is what God's will is, the will of the Father, which is something we should all strive for. That's one thing. The second thing He's contrasting is the opposite of God's will, which is Paulistness. It's doing something that's illegal, something that God doesn't think is right, something God doesn't think is honoring Him. So there are two choices again. Seeking God's will or doing something that's against God's will. I'll give you a classic example. Let's take, for example, God's will is peace. Peace is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. That's what God's will is. The opposite of that is violence. What do we see in our world today? I'll just open up the front page of the plane dealer. Violence. Violence everywhere.

So there's God's will, and then there's what God allows. And this is the principle that Jesus is teaching His people. Continue here in verse 24.

And by the way, our foundation of our faith has to be built on the rock. That is Jesus Christ. It can't be built on saving ourselves in some place of safety somewhere, because the time will pass and you're still here, and your faith will collapse, like a house on sand because your foundation wasn't Jesus Christ. Your foundation can't be built on a personality, on admiring someone, because that someone eventually will die, and your faith will be broken. And you will collapse, like a house that is built upon sand. He says, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. And when the rain descended, the floods came and the winds blew, and it beat on that house, and it did not fall because it was built on a rock. The rock of Jesus Christ, the foundation of who and what Jesus Christ is and His will for us.

For it was founded on the rock, but everyone who hears these things of mine and does not do them, doesn't follow through, doesn't obey, doesn't listen to what Jesus Christ is teaching, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain descended, the floods came and the winds blew, and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.

So what Jesus Christ is trying to tell us here is to listen to His sayings. Follow through with them. Do them. Incorporate them in our lives. Don't just hear about them. So, yeah, that's really nice. That's a principle I can agree with. Let it be a principle that we do. Let it be a principle we live with. Not just something we believe in or think is good. What He is saying is that our religion and our worship and our conduct must be according to what God's will is. It can't be according to what others do. It can't be according to what someone else's expectations are that we do. It cannot be according to what our culture says that we should be doing. We are not lemmings. We are free moral agents who have to make up our own decisions and our own minds to seek God's will. Let's go to John 4, verse 6. If you'll turn there with me. John 4, verse 6. So, if Christ, speaking with a woman of Samaria, says in Jacob's well, this was a well that many, many, many, many, many millennia-plus earlier, Jacob had dug and actually drank from that very well.

Jesus, therefore, being weary from his journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour, and a woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said there was something that shocked her. He said, Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

Remember, the Samaritans were, please excuse my language, Samaritans were considered by Jews to be kind of like half-breeds. They were part Israelite and part pagans that had been brought in by powers that had conquered northern Israel and transplanted people to live there. So, they were not pure Israelites. They also had borrowed aspects from the Jewish religion, blended it with pagan religions, and they even worshipped God from their own location. So, because of that, Jews despised them. The typical Jew would go around Samaria rather than go through it. That's how much they despised the people. And on top of that, Jesus is doing something here that no self-respecting Jewish male would do. He was speaking to a woman alone. But he does. Jesus is about breaking barriers.

Jesus is talking about, but unfortunately, she cannot transcend thinking about physical water and drinking physical water. The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock? And he answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. He's talking about the physical water that comes out of that well. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life. So again, Jesus is on one level, and unfortunately, this woman can't seem to get beyond thinking of physical water in that well.

You've had five husbands, and the guy that you're shacking up with now, you're not even married to him. Do you think that maybe set her back a little bit? Do you think maybe she's perceived that I'm talking to someone who can look right through me, who can look into my eyes and see my entire life, who can see my mind and my values and my whole lifestyle and everything that I'm about? And a woman said to him, sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Oh, she knew not anyone can do that. Our father, she said, worshipped on this mountain, talking about Mount Gerizim in Samaria, on this mountain. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. And Jesus said in her woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. He said, the time is coming when this Mount here will mean nothing. No one will worship him. And you know what? Jesus was exactly right. No one worships there to this day. He's saying, you know what? The temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. And sure enough, in 70 AD, the temple was dismantled by the Romans, and nobody was worshiping in that temple anymore, were they? This was a prophecy. Jesus said to her, believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. Verse 22, you worship what you do not know.

Arcing back to Matthew 7, verse 23, when Jesus said, I never knew you. You do all these religious practices, and you shake it to the left, and you shake it to the right, and you light candles, and you look through stained glass, and you smell incense, and you all these things. He said, I have no idea who you are. That's what he's telling this woman. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

Jesus is saying, if you want to know the right way to worship, all you have to do is open up the Scriptures. There it's revealed, because God gave that information to the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And a woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He.

So the point that Jesus is making here is that the Father is the true God. We don't get to choose how to worship God.

He decides how He desires to be honored. I don't get that decision. You don't get that decision. Church officials don't get that decision. Pope Julius I doesn't get that decision. God decides what honors Him.

And if you think that's not important to God, then get your wife a gift and have engraved on it the name of your former girlfriend when you give it to her.

And see if she feels honored.

So why would we think that some re-labeled paganism with a fancy Christian name presented to God, saying, oh, I'm doing this in honor to you? Why would we think that that would even honor God? Jesus doesn't care what church officials, or Pope Julius I, decided to do to absorb the tradition of the pagan Saturnalia festival. The true God must be worshipped, He said, in spirit and in truth. What does it mean in spirit? Well, it means in spirit that God is worshipped in simplicity. We don't worship God through physical symbols. Look around this building, the outside of this building, and you don't see symbols. You don't see crosses. And I have to be very blunt here. I certainly know of a lot of Protestant religions, forms of Protestantism, and Orthodox churches that do nothing less than worship the cross. And if that offends some people, it's too bad.

I've been in situations where funerals say, okay, everybody, come on up and kiss the cross. Will you tell me what that means?

I would rather adore Jesus Christ, thank you very much. But when He says you worship in spirit, it's not about statues, it's not about sweet-smelling incense, it's not about candles, stained glass one, it's not about all the physical things that people like to do to titillate their senses.

You do it because God is spirit, and you do it in a very simple way. Remember, when the disciples wanted to learn how to pray, they just saw Jesus, nothing fancy, probably down on His knees, a stone threw away praying, and when He ceased, they walked up to Him and said, teach us how to pray. It was very simple. That's how we worship God in spirit. It's not through physical things.

And in truth, He said that we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Truth means the way that God decides He wants to be worshipped, not with borrowed pagan worship practices, not with invented rituals, not with doctrines of men, not by putting the emphasis on the wrong kind of things, but putting the emphasis on God Himself where the emphasis belongs.

Deuteronomy 12, verse 28. If you'll turn there with me. Deuteronomy 12, verse 28.

God's instruction to ancient Israel as they were coming into the Promised Land, obviously they were surrounded by pagan peoples who worshipped their own gods in many different ways. So God had a very important message for them.

That is as applicable today as it was to ancient Israel. Deuteronomy 12, verse 28. It says, Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever. He said, Do you want to be blessed? Would you like your children to be blessed and for things to go well with them?

Would you like your grandchildren to have a good life and for things to go well with them? He says, When you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God, when the Lord your God cuts off from before you, the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and you dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and do not inquire after their God, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise. Oh, let's see. They cut a tree out in the forest and they drug it into their homes. And they put little things on it, which are fertility symbols, representative of male testicles. And they hang that off that little tree because it's the winter solstice. It's all about a new spring coming along, a change of the year. I know. I'll do that. And I'll call that God-like. I'll call it the mass of Christ. And I'll borrow all of these pagan rituals and absorb them and rename them nice-sounding names. And I'll say that's okay. But what does God say here? Let's continue. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. This is verse 31. For every abomination of the Lord which he hates have they done to their gods. And here's the ultimate extreme. For they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it and don't add to it and don't take away from it. You see, God makes plain that those who worship him must not simply borrow, relabel some worship practice. You know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. Might be a prettier pig, but it's still a pig. And God says that you cannot simply relabel pagan worship practices in an attempt to honor the true God. Now, if there is no true God, then it doesn't matter. If you come to the conclusion that it's all a myth and that the God of Israel and Jesus Christ are just some type of... another mythical version of a God that doesn't exist, then you know what? It probably doesn't matter if you keep Christmas. But if you believe that there is a God and that the true God is the Yahweh of Israel and that his son was Yeshua, was Jesus Christ who walked in his earth, then we should be very interested in what their will is. We should be concerned about worshiping them the way they want to be worshiped and honored. And not simply the way that Pope Julius I decided is the right way to do it. Or church officials, or Macy's department store, or anyone else.

I'm going to read verses 31 and 32 from the translation God's Word for today.

Never worship the Lord your God in the way they worship their gods because everything they do for their gods is disgusting to the Lord. He hates it. They even burn their sons and their daughters as sacrifices to their gods. Be sure to do everything I command you. Never add anything to it, nor take anything away from it. So let me ask you this question. If, as we read earlier, the first 300 years of the early church, they didn't keep Christmas, and Pope Julius I said, okay, we're going to do that, was that added? Is that something that was added to Christianity? Well, of course it was. It wasn't there from the beginning.

It wasn't what Jesus taught. It wasn't what the disciples taught. They all acknowledged, of course, that Jesus was born. The book of Luke, very beautifully, explains to us about the birth of Jesus Christ, but was never, by Jesus Christ himself or Paul or any of the apostles, celebrated as any type of a mass or a festival.

It just simply wasn't. Again, God warns us not to worship Him with pagan rituals or standards. It doesn't seem logical to you that God would warn Israel against adapting pagan rituals to worship Him. It doesn't seem to paradox, and then suddenly He would be honored when people do it. Is there maybe a difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament in that way?

Of course not. Let's go to 2 Corinthians 6 and see what the apostle Paul said about mixing spiritual understanding with communicating or communion with darkness. 2 Corinthians 6 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 14, Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. This is something that Paul is telling the church. Don't begin to do what they do. Don't begin to celebrate things the way that they celebrate things. The question should always be first and foremost, what is God's will? Not what will make Grandma happy. Not what has my family done for the last 500 years. Not what are everyone else's expectations of me.

But the very first and most important priority is what is God's will? He continues here, he says, For what fellowship has righteousness with unlawful lawlessness? Again, that's the Greek word anomia, meaning something that's illegal or a violation of God's law. What communion has light with darkness? And with what accord has Christ with Belial? Let me modernize this. What communion has Christ with Mithra? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

So if we start borrowing pagan religious practices and putting lipstick on the pig and calling it good and calling it righteous, calling it something that honors God, and it isn't, it's like committing idolatry. He says, For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. For come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.

What you do notice what Paul says here? He doesn't say, compromise with them. Just can't we all just get along? Just borrow what they're doing and everybody will be happy. Just be like everyone else. He doesn't say that. He says, Come out from among them and be separate. Seek first and foremost in your life what God's will is, not the will of any church officials, popes, department stores, marketing managers, or anyone else.

Seek God's will. Let's continue here. Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean, for I will receive you. I will be a father to you and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord God. Almighty. I think that's something that Paul said. It is important for us to think about during this time of the year.

I certainly understand that many people sincerely observe Christmas thinking that it honors Christ. And that's fine. You know what? And I'm not going to judge them. They are welcome to do what they believe they need to do. When God calls them, they'll learn otherwise. The blinders will be taken off their eyes. That is not a big deal to me. I'm not going to judge people for doing that. They simply don't understand that they don't.

You don't. I don't get to decide what honors God and pleases Him. God gets to decide what honors Him and what pleases Him. And the borrowed idolatry from Christmas and its trappings and its ceremonies and the literal day that it is on is nothing more than a borrowed, pagan, religious custom relabeled in an attempt to honor Jesus Christ. And we cannot do that. Our final scripture today, Matthew chapter 26, verse 36.

Matthew 26, 36. One of the final prayers of Jesus Christ, and we're going to go back to where we started about God's will. How committed was Jesus Christ to doing the Father's will, making that the priority in His life? Was it something He did only when it was convenient? Or did He live it? Was it part of His character? Was it part of His core, His core value system, like it should be ours? Matthew chapter 26. It says, Because it was a horrible way to die. It was torturous. So that's what He's telling His disciples.

Verse 40.

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And that's what He was struggling with. He knew that there was no other way for humankind to have a Savior, for all human beings to have their sins forgiven, unless He, as God in the flesh, whose one life was more valuable than every human being who was ever created, unless He, as God in the flesh, shed His blood as an atonement and a forgiveness for sin. He knew. His Spirit understood that. But He was a human being. And the thought of the torture and the suffering of having nails jammed through your hands, and having nails driven through your feet, and struggling for the next breath of air, as you were hanging there and your chest muscles were stressed, and you were forcing yourself up to try to get one more breath before your body weight would pull you down. I mean, He totally understood what crucifixion was like. And as a physical being, He was struggling with that. Verse 42 again a second time, He went away and He prayed, saying, Oh, Father, if this cup cannot pass for me unless I drink it, if there's any other way, Father, but then He understands and He catches Himself, Your will be done. And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. But we'll just stop right there in this particular Scripture. My point is that Jesus understood that what He wanted as an individual was secondary. What He wanted, of course, here was to bypass the need to be crucified if there was any other way out, if there was any other way possible, He asked twice. But Jesus also understood that what is most important is the Father's will, not ours, not our cultures, not Pope Julius I's will, not church officials' will. What's first and foremost of importance to someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ is what is God's will. Even on the eve of His death, He emphasized that one more time.

Remember that one of the most important things concerning God's will is that it means to do what He wants, not what we want. It means to do what He desires, not what we desire. Perhaps this is most evident in how people choose to worship God, and how their cultures tell them is the way, the right way, the correct way to worship God. Are we willing to worship Him, how He deserves, and how He desires to be worshipped? Or are we just going to follow the crowd? And are we going to do what's popular in what everyone else does? I think we know what we're going to do. Have a wonderful Sabbath day.