James Merritt - Simply Divine
When you live in America, nobody has to tell you it's Christmas time. You don't have to read it in the paper, don't have to go on the internet, don't have to listen to the radio, you know it's Christmas time. And we love to celebrate holidays in America. I don't know of any country that loves to do it more than we do. And it really doesn't matter where you work, and most of us have to work most of the time. No matter where you work, you basically know you're gonna get seven days off, unless you're in a special kind of an employment situation. You're gonna get seven days off every year. It's gonna be New Year's Day, MLK Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.
Now, we know that by far and away, the most popular holiday in America is Christmas time. It's the most popular holiday around the world, Christmas Day. In 160 countries, more than 2 billion people, will basically take the entire day off and they will celebrate Christmas. That's the good news. Here's the bad news. Do most people, even here in our nation, and we, many people would consider us to be a quote unquote, Christian nation. The question is, do most people really understand why we celebrate Christmas? And I'll tell you why I ask the question. Nine out of 10 people in our nation will celebrate Christmas, but only one third say they celebrate it as a spiritual holy day. Two out of every three Americans say, we don't celebrate it as a holy day, it's just a cultural holiday. Now, everybody can tell you why we celebrate every other holiday.
For example, why do we celebrate New Year's Day? Because it's the beginning of a new year. Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Day? Because of what Martin Luther King did for civil rights. On Memorial Day, we celebrate soldiers who died in combat. On Independence Day, we celebrate the Declaration of Independence. On Labor Day, we celebrate the value of work and workers in America. On Thanksgiving, we stop and give thanks to our creator for all the good things He's done for us and all of the good things He's given to us. We understand why we take off those days. But, if I were to ask you this question, why do we celebrate Christmas? Your knee-jerk answer would probably be, well, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Well, that's not an answer. I know what we celebrate. We all know what we celebrate, but why do we celebrate the birth of Jesus?
I mean, there are a lot of great people who have lived. We don't celebrate their birthday. George Washington, we don't celebrate his birthday. Mohammad, we don't celebrate his birthday. Buddha, we don't celebrate his birthday. Franklin Roosevelt, we don't celebrate his birthday. And though we would like to, Donald Trump, we don't celebrate his birthday. So, the question is seriously, why do we celebrate this birthday? All these birthdays we don't celebrate, and yet, there's this one little boy that's born 2000 years ago, in a two-bit town called Bethlehem. Didn't even have one stoplight, would make Mayberry look like New York City, and yet, we celebrate His birthday.
As a matter of fact, His is the most celebrated birthday in the world. So it begs the question, why do we celebrate His birthday? Well, that's why we are in the middle of a series that we're calling, "Holy Christmas," because unlike all the other holidays that we celebrate, we who are Christians believe, that Christmas is the one holiday, that's not just a holiday. We believe it is a holy day. So, here's the surprise. The real reason why we celebrate the birth of this baby. If you're not a believer, if you don't even know the Christmas story, let me just clue you in. The reason why we celebrate the birth of this baby, is one simple reason. Because of who we believe this baby was, when this baby was born.
One of the all time favorite Christmas carols, that's always ranked in the top 10 of all the Christmas songs, is one we just sung, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". It was written by Charles Wesley. And there's, you know, a lot of times we sing songs, we don't even think about what we're singing. We've sung them so many times, we just kind of sing them and just kinda, you know, bypass what we're really saying when we sing it. And yet, there's a line in that text that, you know, it's not the way we would talk, but there's one line in that carol that shows the essence, not just of Christmas, but of Christianity. I'm not just a pastor, I am a believer. I'm a follower of Jesus. And if you said to me, "Well, why are you a follower of Jesus"? There is one line in that song that I absolutely believe with all of my heart, and it made all the difference in my life. You remember this little stanza? Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see! Hail the incarnate deity!
Now, boys and girls in our service today, I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but let me just tell you why Charles Wesley put that line in that text. See, every other baby born in history was a human being with a human nature. I was born a human being, I have a human nature. You were born a human being, you were born with a human nature. You weren't born a dog. You weren't born a cat. You weren't more than an elephant. You weren't born a hippopotamus. You were born a human being and you have a human nature. Christianity says, however, that baby boy, when He was born, when He was laid in a manger, He didn't have one nature, He had two natures. He had a human nature. He had a divine nature. Oh, he was a human baby. Yep, He had to have His diapers changed too. He cried. He had to nurse at His mother's breast, just like babies do today. He was a human baby, but He was also heaven's baby. He was the Son of Mary, but He was also the Son of God.
And that's why I want you to hear this next statement clearly. Christmas is not just a day that we celebrate. It is not just a date that we commemorate. Christmas is about a deity that we coronate. It's about the birth, not just of a baby, but of a king. Now, let me just stop and say this. If you're not a Christian, there are a lot of things that are hard to believe about Jesus. I grant that, I get it. For example, born of a virgin. I mean, come on, really. I mean, nobody's born of a virgin. How about this? Lived a perfect life. Wait a minute, nobody's perfect. Surely He thought something that was wrong. Surely He said one thing that was wrong. Surely He did one thing that was wrong. Lived a perfect life, nah. Or how about this one? Come back from the dead. Nobody comes back from the dead. Take Jesus out of the equation, nobody has ever come back from the dead.
And there's one thing we're all certain of, nobody will ever come back from the dead. I mean, you think, that just never happened. Well, before you draw that conclusion, let me just make one statement. You don't have to believe it, but if you believe it could be true, then it kind of puts everything in perspective. You're ready? If Jesus Christ was God, that's my assumption. If Jesus Christ was God, everything else is a piece of cake. Born of a virgin, no problem. Lived a perfect life. What else would you expect? Come back from the dead. He's the God of life and death. If Jesus Christ was God, everything else is a piece of cake, because let's be honest. This is a story even Hollywood could make up. Are you kidding me?
You're gonna write a story about a boy that didn't even have a human father. That was conceived by the Holy Spirit. That lived a perfect life. That died for everybody that's ever lived or ever will live. And oh, by the way, to top it off, came back from the grave. I mean, not even Hollywood would make something like that up. And here's what I want you to understand. The real stumbling block in Christianity is not the cradle. It's not the cross. It's not even the empty tomb. But when you say one thing, when you just say one thing, Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, Jews check out. Buddhist check out. Muslims check out. Hindus check out. Jehovah's witnesses check out. Many scientists check out. Certainly atheist and agnostic and humanist check out. Now, everybody wants to pay Jesus a compliment.
You know, people will say, well, He was different, but He wasn't divine. Or He was great, but He wasn't God. Oh, He should be welcomed, but He's not to be worshiped. And that's the way the world looks at Him, but here's the problem, unless the gospel writers were all liars. Unless the disciples who spent three years of their life with Him. Who ran away from Him before He died, but died for Him after He came back from the dead. Either, they were either all on drugs, they were hallucinating, are they were lying, because if you don't believe that's possible, which I don't. Then as someone well said, "If Jesus was not God, He certainly deserved an academy award, for He put on the best act in history".
So, you gotta make a choice. And there was one eye witness in particular, his name was John. He was one of the disciples. As a matter of fact, he was one of three intimates. Jesus didn't have favorites, He had intimates. And of all the 12 disciples, He spent most of His intimate time with three of them, Peter, James and John, all three wrote books in the Bible. And John, in John chapter one, writes in one majestic sentence, how we're to respond to this baby that was born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. So, what do we do at Christmas? And we talked about it last week, what do we do with Christmas? If John was right, in what John said about Jesus, then first of all, we worship the greatness of God. That's why we're celebrating Christmas. We worship the greatness of God. We're in John chapter one, verse 14. John begins by saying this, listen to every word.
And by the way, let me stop. This is super deep. I'm gonna try to make it as easy and as simple as I can. But this is deep. I mean, look, you have to grant this. If we're gonna tell the story of how Jesus became God, you gotta go deep, yet you can't do that on the surface. So here's what John says. He said, "The Word," remember last week, we talked about the Word, that's Jesus. "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us". Now the Word, Jesus, that John identified as God. What he's saying is, "He became a human being". We use a very churchy word, you probably have heard it, it's called the incarnation. If you want to know what we mean by the incarnation, that's what we mean. We mean the Word, that is, God became flesh and God made His dwelling among us.
That's what that word means. It literally means, the word incarnation literally means the in fleshing. Now, this is important to understand what John said, and what John did not say. John is not saying that the Word merely clothed Himself in a human costume. All right, He pretended to be a human being. When you read this in the Greek language, especially John's language is extremely precise. Here's what John is saying. God, without ceasing to be God, became human. God, without ceasing to be God, became human. He became flesh. In other words, this is the amazing thing. The God who created the world and humanity came into the world He created as a human being. That God who, back in the beginning said, "Let there be light".
Let there be this, let there be light. The God that created everything. This God came into the world He created as a human being. He became one of us. He became one with us. He became one to us. He became one for us. And John makes it plain. He said, "You cannot understand Christianity until you believe the Word became flesh". Let me make this as strongly as I can say it. If you don't believe that Jesus was God, you cannot be a Christian. It doesn't matter what else you believe about Jesus. It doesn't matter what else you believe about the Bible. It doesn't matter what you even believe about the church. If you do not believe that Jesus Christ became, that God became flesh, that Jesus became God, you cannot be a Christian.
See, here's the problem. When you study most religions, almost every religion without exception, they have no problem with a God who can create a world, who could make a sun begin to shine, or a moon begin to glow or stars begin to twinkle or planets begin to turn. But what is mind boggling about Christmas, here's what just blows your mind about Christmas. It's not how high God can go, it's how low God went. He became one of us. And the truth of the matter is, becoming a human being just doesn't fit the definition of God. You think it doesn't belong, because no other religion ever has, or ever will, besides Christianity, consider becoming a human being essential to confessing the true God. But here's our problem. This is what we keep running into. You cannot explain what Jesus did, until you realize who Jesus was. If you don't understand who Jesus was, you'll never get what Jesus did. See, here's what I want you to understand. One thing we all agree on. God can never stop being God.
Now this is a poor analogy, okay. But, one of my heroes has always been Superman. Superman is my favorite super hero. Matter of fact, Theresa and I did something for my two brothers recently and our nephews. We had a bunch of super, this is so old. You remember Sue, how many of you remember Super Eight movies? Okay, just show your age. Or some of you say, "What is a Super Eight movie"? Okay. This was back in the day when you had these big, you know, cameras, you took videos. Well, we've had these Super Eight movies for years. They go back. I mean, they're like 65 years old, 60, 65 years old. I mean, seriously. We had these made into a DVD. We had them kind of re you know, reproduced, reformatted, kinda, you know, colorized and all that.
Well, we were watching about an hour of it the other day and it was so great. I'm six years old, and I had gotten a Superman outfit for Christmas. It was the coolest thing. They got me running and I'd go and I'd jump, you know, like this, like, I mean, it was awesome. It was just, and I thought about it, I mean, in my world, I was Superman. And I was watching that the other night and I thought, you know, Superman cannot stop being Superman. When you're Superman, you're not Superman half the time or most of the time, you're Superman all of the time. God can never stop being God. Jesus, the Son of God has always been God. Here's what people have a hard time understanding. There was never a time. There's never been a time, when Jesus Christ was not God, never. There was a time He was not human, but there was never a time He wasn't God.
So understand this, Jesus was not a humanized God. He was not just a deified man. He was the God, man. He wasn't half God, half man. He was all God and all man. Make it real simple. You can take Jesus out of heaven, but you can't take heaven out of Jesus. He never stopped being God. And the most important, basic, distinctive teaching in Christianity, is not that Jesus was born, not that Jesus lived, not that Jesus died. It's not even that Jesus came back from the grave. The most distinctive teaching of Christianity is, He was God. No other great religious leader in history. Not Moses, not Buddha, not Abraham, not Muhammad, not Confucius, nobody ever claimed to be God, but Jesus claimed to be God. And we are the only religion in the world that says our founder was God.
Now the question is, why did God do that? Why did God the Son, choose to leave heaven and come to earth? Not just as God, but as man as well, as the God, man. There can only be one reason, because God wants us to know Him intimately and personally and completely and fully and spiritually. But that's a big, that raises another question. How can a sinful person, how can a sinful human know a perfect Spirit? God even said to Moses, who was one of His best buds. You can't even look at Me and live. If you look at Me, you'll be dead. But he said, "I want to know you and I want you to know me". Well, how can that happen? Matter of fact, he said, it's even worse than that, forget that. How can a perfect God take a sinful person to heaven?
So, here's what God did. You know what He did? He brought heaven to us. He said, "Know what? You can't get to heaven on your own, so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna bring heaven to you". So, Jesus comes, listen, every other prophet in the world will tell you, this is what God is like. Jesus came and said, "I'm not gonna tell you what God is like, I'm gonna show you what God is like". So, do you know what God would teach if He were a human being? Do you know what He would teach? Listen to Jesus. Do you want to know how God would act if He were a human being? Look at Jesus. God walked out of the door of heaven, through the door of Bethlehem in the form of an infant, and the world has never been the same.
And listen, because that baby that was born was not just God and man, He wasn't just God in man, He was the one, the only God, man. That's why we don't celebrate Christmas as another holiday. We celebrate it as a holy day, because in that baby, what do you do? In that baby you worship the greatness of God. But in that baby, second thing, we witness the glory of God. If you had been living 2000 years ago and you were one of those disciples and you spent three years with Jesus, you would not just a worship the greatness of God, every day, you would have witnessed the glory of God. Listen to what John says. John said, "We've seen His glory". He meant that physically. "We saw the glory of God, the glory of the one and only Son".
And by the way, that word seen, is a very unique word in the Greek language. It doesn't just mean to look at. Here's what that word means. It means to stare in amazement. To stare in amazement. I'm watching this football game last night, Florida and LSU, and I see this guy throw the shoe and cost Florida the game. I was staring in amazement. It was unbelievable. What happened? Staring in amazement. That's the word that John uses. John was a disciple. He spent three years with Jesus. He was an eye witness. John said, "Listen, I saw the glory of God in what He did. I heard the glory of God in what He said, I saw the glory of God in His works. I saw the glory of God in His words".
Now listen, this is so important. If you don't see the wonder of Christmas, that Jesus was God, you won't see any need for worship at Christmas, if Jesus is not God. Listen, if you lose the wonder, you lose the worship. You say, "Pastor, let me ask you a question. Why does it everybody worship Jesus"? Because they don't recognize Jesus. If He was just another dude, I've said it many times, just another guy. There's not even much to wonder at, much less to worship. But let me tell you what those disciples saw. Let me tell you what John saw for three years, he saw a man that could get thirsty, and then he watched that same man walk on water. He saw a man who got hungry and needed to eat bread, and then he saw God feed 5,000 men with a few loaves and a few fish. He saw a man who died on the cross, but he also saw God who could raise the dead and come back from the grave.
The queen of England, if you know this or not, the queen of England has a number of homes, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham, Balmoral Castle. She has different homes, but here's the cool thing, if you are a British citizen, if you live in Great Britain, you always know where the queen is. You always know where the queen is. You know why? Because the Royal flag always flies on the property wherever the queen is. So if you go to Buckingham Palace, and the Royal flag's not flying, she's not there. If you go to Balmoral Palace and the flag's not flying, she's not there. When you finally find the place where she is, the flag, the Royal flag of Great Britain is flying there.
And I thought about that, and I thought to myself, you know, wherever Jesus went, God was going. Wherever Jesus went, God went, because the glory of God was flying on the pole of all that He did and all that He said. Now, and I'm gonna get very honest with those of us, those of you watching today, you just can't buy this. Just can't get your hand around it. You just, you know, you're not, I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm trying to give it away and you're not having it. So, let me just be real honest. This doesn't seem logical. I'm a very logical, rational, analytically, linear thinking guy, that's why I wanted to go to law school. That's just the way I think, and I get it. Logic alone says, wait a minute, if Jesus was God, He was God. If Jesus was a man, He was man. If He's God, He can't be man. If He's man, He can't be God. Because to say otherwise seems like he's just an incomprehensible statement.
So, people will say, "Look, you can say dogmatically that Jesus either was God or He was man, but you cannot say He was both". All right, if that's where you are, let me just tell you one problem with why you're thinking and what you're thinking. Let me tell you the problem that you're facing. The only way you can say, there's no way that Jesus could be both God and man, there's only one way you could say that and know you're that right. You would have to know all there is to know about God, and you'd have to know all there is to know about humans, to say what God either can or cannot do. The problem is, nobody knows everything about either one of them. We certainly don't know everything there is to know about God. And I say this with all the love and respect in my heart. I've been married to the same woman for almost 43 years, almost 44 years. I still don't understand women.
If I don't understand women, how am I gonna understand God. Let me take you back to a time in my life. Greatest crisis of my life. I don't know if you've ever had this or not. I believe it's good for everybody to go through it. If you haven't, you know, I'm not wishing it on you, but I think it's a good thing. I got saved when I was nine years old, loved the Lord, I go to college and to what was supposed to be a Christian college. And I went through the greatest crisis of my Christian faith I've ever gone through in my life. I took a course in philosophy. It was my freshman year, and the professor was an atheist.
Now, he's at a Baptist college. How an atheist got to teach in a Baptist college, I hadn't figured that out yet, but he was an atheist, name was Dr. Lofton. And so, I tried to witness to Dr. Lofton one time. I went to his office trying to witness to him. And Dr. Lofton asked me a question I had never even thought about. It never entered into my mind. He said, "Young man, I have a question I want you to answer". I said, "Yes, sir". He said, "Where did God come from"? I had never thought about that, never entered my mind. Where did God come from? I wanna tell you, at that moment, I'm telling you the renders of my faith began to rattle like a window in a tornado, because I'd never thought about that before. Hey, where did God come from? Because everything that we know, came from something. Everybody that we know came from somewhere or somebody.
So, where did God come from? I'll tell you, I left his office. I walked back to my dorm room. It was only maybe a 10th of a mile, it felt like it was 20. I'm telling you, everything I thought I believed had crumbled like dirt on the ground. I was shaking like a leaf. I thought everything I believed about God's been just an absolute lie. That's what I really thought. Called my mom, told my mom what happened. Mom, she couldn't help, you know. She said, "I can't help". She said, "Call the pastor, call your pastor". Great, Godly, he's still living. God bless him. So I called Pastor Lavay and I said. He said, "I understand you got a question"? I said, "Yes, sir, I do". I said, "Here's my question. You answer this question and I'm good to go". He said, "Okay, what's your question". I said, "Where'd God come from"?
Boy, I thought I'm gonna stop this guy in his tracks. Where did God come from? And he gave me an answer I wasn't expecting. He said, "He didn't come from anywhere, He's always existed". I said, "What"? He said, "God didn't come from anywhere, He's always existed". I said, "Pastor, I don't understand that". You know what he said to me? This really helped. I don't either. But then he said something to me that totally changed my life. He said, "Let me ask you a question". He said, "If you can understand everything there is to know about God, He wouldn't be much of a God, would He"? And I want to tell you, that was like giving a life preserver to a drowning man. I thought, you know what? You're exactly right. I serve a God that is so great, so awesome, so magnificent.
Let me tell you something. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we still are gonna have an eternity of things we'll never know about God. That's why He's God, and we're not. There are a lot of things that are impossible to us, a lot of things, but there's nothing impossible with God. And God, without stopping to be God, became a man. The glory that God the Father had, God the Son had, that had. That's why John refers, listen. Do you remember what John said? He refers to the glory of the one and only Son. That little phrase, one and only, it's a beautiful phrase. It's one word in the Greek language. It literally means, one of a kind. One of a kind Son.
Of all the human beings, of all the multiplied human beings, roughly, they're saying about 30 billion people have lived on planet earth. Jesus was one of a kind. He wasn't one in a million. He wasn't one in a billion. He was not one in a trillion. He is the one and only. There's nobody like Jesus. There never has been, there never will be. You think about this. Socrates taught for 40 years, Plato for 50, Jesus only taught three, and yet, His three-year ministry infinitely blows away the 130 years of impact that those three men left behind. Jesus never painted a picture, never even drew one as far as we know, and yet, some of the finest paintings of Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci and Rafael were inspired by Him. Jesus wrote no poetry, but Dante and Milton who scored the world's greatest poems wrote about Him. Jesus never composed the music.
As far as I know, He never even hummed a hymn, but Handel, Beethoven and Bach, so many others have written hymns and symphonies and oratories about Him. See, in Jesus, we worship the greatness of God. In Jesus, we witness the glory of God, but there's one last thing. Because of what John says at Christmas, we welcome the grace of God. We welcome the grace of God. Listen to what John says. He finishes his grace sentence, by describing Jesus as the one, what? Who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Now here, listen up, this is so huge. There is one thing, not two, not three, not four, not five. There is one thing that every human being has to have. They need it, they've got to have it. If you're ever going to be truly forgiven of your sin. If you're ever going to have a relationship with God. If you're ever going to understand the purpose, why you are on this earth, if you're ever going to receive eternal life, there is one thing you've got to have, or you'll never get there. And it's the one thing that only God has and only God can give, and that is grace.
And grace is free, but it ain't cheap. See, God is just. God has a rule and nobody breaks this rule. You do the crime, you pay the time. That's God's rule, justice. You do the crime, you pay the time. Sin has got to be paid for. A just God has to hold somebody responsible and accountable for all the sin and all the evil that we commit. So here's what God did, watch this. In order to give us what we don't deserve, which is grace, God had to take what we do deserve, that's mercy, so our sins could be punished, that's justice. You got it. God had to give it to you. In order to give us what we don't deserve, that's grace, God had to take for us what we do deserve, that's mercy, so our sin could be punished, that's justice.
Here's the deal. No angel could pull that off. No priest, no preacher could pull that off. No one mere human being could make that happen. Only the God man could pull that off. 'Cause you see, if Jesus was not God, let's just say He was just a man. A great man, a wonderful man, a sweet man, a godly man, a loving man, a Superman in a way. Let's just say that, but He wasn't God. Then in the end, even though His life was noble, it wasn't necessary. Even though His death was tragic, it was not triumphant, because if just a man died on the cross 2000 years ago, listen to this. If Jesus was just a man that died on that cross, what good did it do? If He was just a man, He didn't save us. He couldn't save anybody, because no man, as man can be perfect. And as just, a man could not be the savior that every sinner needs.
So, everywhere and for everyone, Christmas is about a God man who is not only born in a manger. He not only died on the cross. He came back from the grave. He sits on the throne of the universe and He is coming again. And Jesus came as the Son of God, and became, listen, Jesus came as the Son of God to the sons of men, so that sons of men could become sons of God. Now, if that's true, then the only way, the best way to celebrate this holy day is to surrender your life to Him. Let's make it plain. He didn't have to do it. He wasn't paid to do it. Nobody made Him do it. He did it just because of His grace. That's why I made the greatest decision of my life as a nine year old boy. I said to myself, it didn't take, even as a nine year old, I could figure this out. I said to myself, James Gregory Merritt, you're never gonna get a better deal than this. That's why as a nine-year-old boy, gladly, joyfully, humbly, lovingly, excitingly, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and my God. And I ask you to make the same decision during this holy Christmas.
So, let me wrap this up. Just two months after retiring from Southern Evangelical Seminary. One of my favorite authors, in fact, one of the great apologists of Christianity, Norman Geisler died. Some of you may know who Norman Geisler was. If you don't, that's all right. He was 86 years old. He died July the first, 2019. Great, great Christian apologist. He had taught on the college or graduate level for over 50 years. Listen to this. He either authored or coauthored over a hundred books. He made one of the greatest statements about Jesus I have ever, ever heard, and I want you to listen to it and we're done. "So I cast my lot with Him, not the one who claimed wisdom, Confucius, or the one who claimed enlightenment, Buddha, or the one who claimed to be a prophet, Mohammad, but with the One who claimed to be God in human flesh. The One who declared 'before man was I am' and proved it".
If that little baby was not God in the flesh, He deserved the greatest academy award Hollywood could ever give, because He put on the greatest act anybody has ever seen. But I agree with Dr. Geisler, and I gladly am proud to tell you, I cast my lot today with the One, the only One who was simply divine. Would you pray with me right now? With heads bowed and with eyes closed. If you're watching me on the internet right now, on a computer, or maybe you're watching by television. What are you gonna do about Jesus? Let me tell you the thing about Jesus that may make you feel uncomfortable. You cannot remain neutral with Jesus. You can't. Jesus said, "If you're not for Me, you're against Me".
If you don't accept Him, you reject Him. You gotta make up your mind. That baby was just another baby, or there's never been a baby like that baby, because the Word became flesh. God became flesh and dwelt among us. And Jesus Christ was God. He and He alone deserves our worship, our heart, our life, our soul. If you've never trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, I want to give you the chance to do that right now. You know the beautiful thing about, here's about how much Jesus loves Christmas. When you give your heart to Jesus Christ, He'll give you the two greatest Christmas gifts you'll ever receive, forgiveness of your sins and eternal life. Would you like to receive that Christmas gift from Jesus right now? Just, if you would just tell Him. Just say:
Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I need Your grace. I need Your mercy, 'cause I don't want Your justice. I believe Lord Jesus, You are God, and are God and forever will be God. I believe You were born of a virgin. I believe You lived a perfect life. I believe You died for my sins. I believe God raised You from the dead. I believe You're alive right now. So today, I repent and turn away from my sinful life. Today, I surrender all that I am, to all that You are. I trust You as my Lord. I receive You as my Savior. Thank You for hearing my prayer. Thank You for saving me today, and give me the power to live for You for the rest of my life.