Was Jesus an “Illegal Immigrant”…!? (What the Bible ACTUALLY Says) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the word of God tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ. Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now let's dive into today's episode. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. My name is Carlos Arraso, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Paul Cunningham. And today on this episode, we're going to be talking was Jesus an illegal immigrant. We're going to be reacting to a church in Dallas with a rainbow colored steps at the entrance and an activity scene with a cage around them. How should Christians think of immigration enforcement? Yeah. And why are Matthew and Luke genealogies in the Gospels different than do they even contradict each other? And listen, I'm going to give you my favorite Christmas deep cut. I'm a bullet in your mind. You didn't let me say anything before the pod recording started. Here it comes. You're not people are not ready for this. They're not ready for this. You're not ready for this. I also want to ask you later in the episode, Pastor Josh, about your thoughts on President Trump's comments about Rob Rayner's murder. Yeah, that's right. So we're going to have a great episode. But before we start, I have a question for you. Are you going to allow it? I will allow it. I heard you retired. What are you talking about? You retired. I heard that this last week. What are you? Was it was it you or was it John Cena? You know what? Well played. Wait, I want if you're if you're on YouTube. Bro, I like this is I'm more convinced now. And I will say I will say there's not much of a difference in the course. Not look at you for this photo. You were deeming your comments from last week when you said that he was a less bulky version of John Cena. I said redeeming your comments. I just compare the photos. OK. Uh huh. And so if you're listening on audio only, by the way, you need to come to YouTube and we're showing a photo side to side of John Cena and Pastor Josh, basically brothers over here. Oh, of course. Oh, my gosh. And so anyways, I'm reconsidering tweaking the livery intro so that whenever I introduce you, it goes something like Trini, help me out here. It goes something like this. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton. Oh, my gosh. They would be totally appropriate, but it would also be amazing if you did that occasionally when you're preaching. Just walk out. Just walk out of that. No, we might have copyright issues. Please don't actually do that. OK, we can. Yeah. Anyway, can I talk about my swag? Please. OK, listen. Now, this guy asked me not to say his name because I did it one other time on a podcast and he said he got like 100 text messages. So check out this is only YouTube because I got this sweet car heart, Lake Point branded vest and awesome business guy at Lake Point. He printed a whole bunch of these for some of his employees. Toss me a few extra. So we got this. This is a little giveaway. That's right. Carhartt Lake Point branded car, our vest and some beanies and some beanies. This is special Christmas giveaway. And so shout out to Jody Green three for eight six. She's the winner of last week's giveaway and also Bridget Lawland from the show. Not subscribers when we ask people if they believe then fake trees or real trees and most people said fake trees. So there you go. So to get the participating in this week's giveaway, jump on YouTube and comment below the following the answer to the following question. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie or is it not? Team Die Hard comment. Yes or no. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie or is it not? It's not Christmas until Bruce Willis throws Hans Gruber off the top of the Nakatomi Plaza. Exactly. He plunges into the depths of hell where he belongs. And he says what? He's an official character. I can say that. Never mind. It's a fictional character. You can legislate this right now. I'll have to say on this first song in Die Hard is a Christmas song. Last song in Die Hard is a Christmas song. Party takes place on Christmas Eve, which is kind of weird that it's like a Christmas party on Christmas Eve with for business, but still. I'm just I'm just waiting for Pastor Josh to explain to me why Die Hard is a Christian movie. That's why I want to know. Christmas movie. OK, Christmas movie, not Christian movie. So to participate in the conversation. I'm just saying, I mean, at the very end, Bruce Willis, he's bloody from head to toe. He's got bloody feet. His feet were pierced. His feet were pierced. As they were. I need to stop chewing on ice. Common yes or no. His feet were pierced to defeat the enemy that came to steal, kill and destroy. And at the very end, you know who he saves? His bride. His bride. Just like Jesus Carlos came to save his bride. With pierced hands and feet. Yes, man. I'm not sure I'm convinced about this one yet. We'll find a script of Die Hard and prove it. Can I for real blow your mind, please? But before we do, because we're in the middle of all of these Christmas. There's something really important happening this week. Pastor Josh, 52 Christmas services happening at Lake Point. That's right. But when this pod releases, we will have you're still going to have Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night. 52 services. If you are a live free listener and you've never had a chance to come hang, I'm just going to say this is your best shot, man. Like to come hang for a Lake Point Christmas service. You can find it at Lake Point.church slash Christmas for all the time's locations. And I'm just telling you, man, that moment at the end of the night, everybody's holding their candle and we sing the doxology acapella in the room. That is a moment. Let's go, man. We have almost 10,000 people already downloaded the discipleship guide. This is the artist formerly known as the show notes. So to do that, this is all the additional content, discussion, questions, etc. Text the word guide to 20411 or go to Lake Point.church slash guide. And by the way, if somebody's like, oh, how do I get merch online? I live somewhere far away. You can also do that as well. You can text the word hat to 20411 or go to livefree.shop to access our online store for basically all things are live free hat right now. And then more merch coming soon. I'm all mad. I am curious. Now that you have this episode, now that I know that Die Hard might be a Christian movie, now I want to know more about Christmas. All right. So Carlos, wait, you got to ask me what did make it into the store. Oh, that's right. Pastor Josh, as we have these services this week because we still have some more, what did not make it into the store? Carlos, I'd love to tell you. All right. Listen, I'm gonna blow your mind. I almost crafted the entire Christmas sermon around this right here. So, and Chad G. Paul T, if I understand you are not aware of this. I am not. I've been looking forward to this all day since you said this. How is that possible? Listen, I'm about to Chad G. Paul T chat. My goodness. Okay. So this right here is the best Christmas deep, deep cut in the entire Bible. So check this out. This is gonna take me a second. It's gonna be worth it. All right. So what do we call Jesus? Let me set the stage. What do we call Jesus? We know that Jesus was the son of God He was fully human and fully divine. We know that Jesus was not just the son of God. He is called the Prince of Peace. All right. Now, I have now set the table. All right. So check this out. In Luke two, when Jesus' birth is announced, we are specifically told that it is while Caesar Augustus is emperor in Rome. All right. We're told that. All right. Now, here's what a lot of people don't know. Okay. Caesar Augustus was the first Roman emperor to ever be called a God. Okay. Now, here's the backstory on how that happens. 40 years before Caesar Augustus ascends to power. Julius Caesar, his adoptive father is assassinated. Now, bro, this is true story. Historians confirm this, all the things. When Julius Caesar is assassinated, there's a comet that comes in the sky is during these little Roman games. And what we are told, historians tell us is this comet's in the sky for seven days. Okay. Now, Julius Caesar does actually, Caesar Augustus does what a lot of governing officials do. It's called shock doctrine. What a lot of governing officials do throughout human history is they wait for this moment of like radical uncertainty. People are scared. And then they're like, oh, let me show you how the elevation of my position and my authority will solve all of your problems. They capitalize on the fear. Okay. So this happens. All right, Julius Caesar is assassinated, comets in the sky, bookmark all this, all this in your head. What Caesar Augustus does is he points up at this comet in the sky. Historians tell us and he goes, little did y'all know that is my dad. And my dad, Julius Caesar, is, that's him ascending to heaven. And here's why he's doing that because you guys didn't know this, but my dad was a God. This is a thing. Okay. So all of a sudden what he does is he sets himself up. Think about this. He sets himself up and he goes, my mom was human, but my dad was divine. My dad was a God. Okay. That makes me a son of God. I'm both human and divine. Now let's go a layer deeper. He eventually ends up minting a coin to begin sort of promulgating his status as both human and divine. It's this coin right here. Go ahead and toss this up. You can like, they're super expensive. I wanted one. I wanted to get one. This right here, so here's what this is. That is a picture that he minted, that Caesar Augustus minted of this comet in the sky. That's what that is. And then what the inscription says is it says divine Julius. So this is him cementing for the Roman Empire. My dad was God or a God, which makes me both human and divine. I'm a son of God. Okay. Now let's guess what they call that coin. You know what they call that coin? The advent coin. That's legit what they call that coin, the advent coin. Okay. So now think about this, bro. You've got, you've got Caesar Augustus. He's going, guess what I am? I'm both human and divine. I'm a son of God. I am, and think about this. He set up his kingdoms to where there'd be like a king of the Jews and the king of this region, king of this region. So he sets himself up and he's going to guess what I am. I'm a king of kings. That's what Caesar Augustus says about himself. Okay. He rules the entire known world. From your high school books, you know this. Is he established what is known as Pax Romana, the Roman era of peace. And what he was saying is he was going, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna usher in a kingdom that will never end. And I'm the one that's going to bring peace on earth. Okay. Now, if you've ever opened your Bible before in your entire life, every little light should be going off in your head. Like, ah, no, no, no. So bro, think about what happens. When Jesus is born, a star appears in the sky. It's a sign that the son of God is coming. What we are told in the scriptures is that a virgin gives birth. Jesus' mom is human. His father is God. Guess what that makes Jesus? Fully human and fully divine. We celebrate his coming. What do we call this season? Advent. Advent. We call him, celebrates coming at Advent. And then Jesus comes. And whereas, whereas Caesar Augustus was like, I'm ushering in the Pax Romana, the season of peace. Jesus goes, guess what I am? The prince of peace. I'm gonna bring about a peace that never ends. He's crucified. They call him the king of the Jews. Every tribe tongue, nation language is gonna gather around his throne. And he goes, guess what I am? I'm the king of kings. I'm the Lord of wolves, bro. So then it's like, what does all that mean? Okay. When Jesus comes, all that happened with Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar, before Jesus. That happens before Jesus. Jesus comes, all this happens. This is Jesus. I'm him moment. It's Jesus going, I'm him. It's like everything that guy said that he was, I am. He says, he's a king. I'm a king of kings. He says, he's a Lord of, I'm a Lord of lords. And Jesus fulfills everything that was prophesied before they comes. That's amazing. That's amazing. Wow. You've never heard that? I've never heard that. No. And it's interesting though that it mirrors, in a sense part of what happens at Jesus's death. And what I mean is, is you know, Jesus actually before is that he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Right? What we know just from history is that because whenever that was happening, you'd have massive amounts of people coming in. Rome wanted to have a show of force to basically say, don't mess with us. And so the governor, or at that time would have been a pilot, rode into Jerusalem on a horse. If you go look this up, Jesus rode through Jerusalem on one side on a donkey and he's riding through the other side on a horse. Basically this is competing things. What I'm saying is you get this idea of like, competing elements. And it's not that again, as we've said before, it's not that Christianity or Christ is copying after that. It's actually saying, no, no, no, no. You think you're the thing. That's right. I'm the real thing. And whereas example at the end, whereas like at the beginning I should say, the pact for Ramana was enforced through brutality and through conquering. Christ enforces it not through that. He actually does it by dying. That's exactly. He's a humble king. And so yeah. There's also that famous inscription of Augustus and his birth that says, the birthday of the God Augustus, the beginning of the good news for the world and that word, good news is the word of Angelion, which is the same word that we use for gospel. This is Jesus is actually, that's a small kingdom that we will definitely end, but my kingdom is the real good news, the real gospel that will never end. That's amazing. Bro, that's amazing. It's wild. So cool. It's the ultimate, it's the on him moment. On him. Come on man. That's so good. Okay. I do wanna do a couple other like, let's go deep cuts on Christmas narratives. I've got a few and then let's get underneath it and talk about being disciples. I've got a few. Carlos, Paul, you got anything here? I got a few, but I'm gonna let you guys start. I've got one on, I believe John won, but I think you do. And I don't wanna step on anything. I wanna hear that one. You wanna hear the general one? I don't wanna hear it. Okay. So let's do this. That there's more layer, in my opinion, there may be more layers to the Christmas story than any other part of the Bible, maybe with the exception of the crucifixion resurrection. Okay. But when you get to the birth narratives of Jesus, there's layers to the thing. And all the little threads that run their way through the whole Bible, they all intersect at the incarnation of Jesus in the birth. So for instance, there are four narratives that in the Bible that talk about the birth of Jesus. You've got Revelation, that's the weird one. That's the one, dragons eating babies. But that is, it's a birth narrative of Jesus. Okay, is it Revelation 20, I think? Oh, it's earlier. Revelation 14. Yeah, I think it's around 1314. 1314, I think. So that's one, that's a birth narrative of Jesus. You've also got the Matthew and Luke both record at least some form of the birth narrative of Jesus. For our listeners, Matthew, Mark and Luke are typically called the synoptic gospels, which is a big word that just means seen together because they're kind of similar narratives. So Matthew, Mark and Luke synoptic gospels, and then John is different. John is not a synoptic gospel because it's almost like the camera angle changes. It's kind of like if you turn on your TV and it's like you watch Foxy and NBC. They're gonna have different political affiliations and slants, but in general, they're kind of covering the same thing. But then if you flip the channel and you go over to C-Span, it's like actually you're seeing a complete, they're covering same events going on in the nation. Completely different camera angle. The gospel of John is like C-Span. It's like, okay, fourth camera angle, same events, totally different way. So dude, bro, here's the thing that's like, again, there's levels to this. All right, so if you go to the book of Genesis, remember how Genesis opens. And I'm just gonna remind our listeners, first sentence in the Bible starts like this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay, now, a few things to notice about the Genesis narrative. Number one, we are told that God speaks everything into existence. So it is actually the word of God that speaks everything into existence. The word is present at the beginning. Number two, the first thing God ever speaks into existence is light. Let there be light, okay, so you got that. And then God eventually speaks into existence, life. Okay, so these are the three things you got. In the beginning, God created. Number one, number two, you've got the word of God present. God speaks into existence light and he speaks into existence life, okay. Now, let's keep going. So mankind rebels and then we don't gotta recover the whole thing. It's the theologians called the proto-Evangelion. Mankind rebels, Adam and Eve run and hide. Proto-Evangelion, it means the first telling of the gospel. God immediately begins pursuing Adam and Eve out of God's love for God's creation to redeem them back to himself, okay. So then he goes and we know the story. Innocent animal dies and he covers their sinful shame with the skins of the slain animal, okay. And then he prophesies. He gives them a prophecy in Genesis two and three and he's like, someday one of your seed, and it's very important, it is singular, it is not plural. One of your seeds someday is gonna come and they're gonna crush the head of the serpent, okay. So then for the rest of the Bible, people are waiting. When's the serpent crusher gonna come? Okay, all right. Now bro, you get to John one and imagine you're a Jewish reader and you've been waiting your entire life. When's the serpent crusher gonna come? And then from the time you were born, you got put in school and you had to start memorizing the Pentateuch and the first five books of the Bible. And the first line you ever had to memorize as a kid, a little Jewish kid, was in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And you know the story. You know that immediately, Adam, who was the federal head, we talked about it last week, the representative of all mankind, you know that he failed at the tree and through the trespass of one man came death to all men. You know that. And you've been waiting for thousands of years. Now when's this prophesied serpent crusher gonna come? All right, so you've been doing this. Then the gospels get written. Your little Jewish boy, you open up John chapter one and you memorize this. And then the first sentence you read in John chapter one is in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Okay. And then you keep reading and it says, in him was life and that life was the light of men. And then it says things like, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Listen, we have seen his glory, glory as of the only immortal God. You read all this, okay. Now, bro, here's the deep dive. There's levels to this, bro. There's levels to this. So you read it. And what theologians have said is that John chapter one is Genesis 2.0. So God knew, he's like, okay bro, Adam screwed this whole thing up, man. And God knew I'm gonna have to start over. I'm gonna need a new Adam. I'm gonna need to create a new race. And I'm gonna need to remake all of creation. And so in John chapter one, it comes along and what it's saying is it's going Genesis 2.0, which you've been waiting for us here. Serpent crusher enters the scene. And God is bringing in the first Christmas. Number one, you get a new Adam. We hit this last week. Adam was the federal head of all mankind, the representative of all mankind. Adam fails at a tree, whereas Jesus succeeds at a tree. Through Adam, one man's trespass, Romans chapter four, I read it in my Bible this morning. One man's trespass brought death to all men. Through Jesus, the second Adam, one man's obedience brings life and light to all man is what it says. God is also, God creates a race of people in Genesis chapter one and two. Well, Jesus comes and guess what he's doing? He's creating a new race of people. These people were born and he's going, guess what, in me, you can be born again. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the Bible says. And then the whole purpose of John chapter one, Genesis 2.0, is God is launching, in Genesis one, he's launching the creation of all things. In John chapter one, he's launching, listen, the recreation of all things. And this was the moment that God inaugurated a rescue mission that would result in the book of Revelation. When Jesus goes, behold, I am making all things. I am making all things new. Now, let me tag one more thing on. If you've ever wondered, this is super Bible nerd stuff, if you pay super close attention, a lot of Bible readers, they get to John chapter 20 and it's right around the resurrection of Jesus. And it's this little throwaway verse and people are always, they read it and they're like, what the heck bro, why is that even there? And it says, Jesus says to a group of women and he says, whom are you seeking? Little throwaway verse, it says, thinking he was the gardener, she said, sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have put him and I will get him. And Bible scholars for centuries, a lot of people have been asking like, bro, why does John specifically record, they thought he was a gardener? Why didn't they just say, they didn't know who he was? Why didn't they just say, they thought he was a stranger? He specifically says, they thought he was a gardener. Well, where have we seen a dude in a garden before? Hmm. Genesis chapter one and chapter two. Wow. And John 20 is pointing out once again, second Adam, new Adam, creating a new race, inaugurating a new creation. John chapter one is Genesis 2.0. Merry Christmas. That's amazing. Can I add one more thing to that? Come on. So first Adam, second Adam, my wife and I were talking about this recently. And if you think about how did we, how did Eve come about? The Bible says that God put Adam to sleep. And after he put Adam to sleep, Eve came out or Eve was created. And then in the Bible, sleep is often associated with death. This is good. Jesus died and out of his death was born the church. And so in the similar way that Eve, the woman came out of Adam through his sleep, Jesus had to die for the church to be born. And here we are today. Bro, as my 13 year old would say, clock it. Clock it. Or she'd do this. There's so many. Clock it. There's so many of these. Dude. Well, can I cheat and go out of John? Oh my goodness. But then I want to come back to John because I want to be done as well. Come on, let's just keep deep cut in Christmas. You go back to Genesis. And what is the command given to Adam and Eve? Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And so that is that they were to exercise dominion authority. Go to the end of Matthew 28. And Jesus says all authority on earth has been given me. So therefore you go and make disciples of who? Of all nations. In other words, go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But now as the disciples, they're creating, bringing the new creation. That's it. I've heard is I think I've heard this before. Don't covenant theologians a lot of times point to Matthew 28 19 and they call it the new covenant cultural mandate. Yeah. Yeah. So let me go ahead. Yeah. So so so what the brief be fruitful and multiply command was to the Old Testament. The go therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit teaching in the dobe all that I've commanded you. Matthew 20 19 is to the new covenant. Yes. Exactly. Yes. And even the idea to think about it is there to wait before they do that. There is a wait for the spirit to be poured out, which in the Old Testament, when the spirit is poured out, that is a sign of the new covenant, of the new creation coming. Oh yeah. All this is interwoven intertwined together. If I go back to John one in terms of just a tidbit, it's OK. We're we just want to just wait before you switch it up. Switching up a little bit. OK. It's going to be practical. Somebody's listening man. That's really interesting. But like, you know, what does that mean for you today? You know, I think the question would be, hey, are you in Adam or are you in Christ? Yeah. So do you want to say something about that? Well, I think I'd say two things. So number one, like, OK, let me just say, we just want to keep saying this, the purpose of podcasts and make disciples. This is live free, not learn free. Or in this, live free, not listen free. So number one on the let's go back to the first one. Let's do it. Let's do each of them. OK. So how do I take that? OK. What does that matter to me? How does it change me as a man or a woman of God? All right. So when Jesus has the I am him moment and it's, hey man, everything that Caesar Augustus says he said he was, I actually am, the big point there is in the way that Caesar Augustus said that he could usher in peace into both the world and into your life, Jesus actually can. That's the big thing. So I think at Christmas, that's a time where a lot of people is just like, dude, it's anxiety. Stuff starts stirring up. It's like, hey man, peace is not found in the absence of problems. Peace is found in the presence of the Savior. So it's, hey man, I need to be leaning into the Lord. I know where my trust is. Hey man, even when stuff's, when it feels like a war outside of me, it's a worship service on the inside of me. Because, hey man, I'm in service of the King of Kings and he's in control and he's good. And so I think number one, he is leaning into that. All right. Honestly, on the Jesus as second Adam is what you said. This is a salvific to use a little theological word. This is a salvific question. At the end of the day, really there are two races in the world. Are you an Adam or are you in Christ? So that's the question. We are born descendants of Adam. We are born again descendants of the second Adam, himself Jesus Christ. So this is, this is a, who do you say that he is? Have you been, say have you been sure and needed the worship of Jesus issue? Thoughts? Well no, with that, I sometimes tell people it's like you can't have the peace of God, the idea of peace in your life. You can't have the peace of God before you have peace with God. And so it's like, man, if you're listening to this and you've not yet had a relationship with Jesus, if you want that peace in your life, the first step is to begin that relationship with Jesus. And the idea of man, even if you think about the first activity, the idea of man bowing down. Is that actually peace comes first night? Because I think the temptation in our day is we don't necessarily have a seizure, we all try to be seizures. We all try to be our own tyrant. We all try to sit on the throne of our own lives. And so it actually, if you want the peace of God in your life, you first gotta have peace with God and that comes from bowing the knee to King Jesus. Mm-hmm. Well dude, honestly, I mean, we're gonna talk about this later and we can still talk about it later. But you know, it's even, that first deal, contract, Jesus is going, hey man, everything you thought Caesar Augustus was, I am. Honestly man, this is a very stark reminder, every political leader or leader in this world will fail you. Yes. There is one king above all kings. There is one Lord above all Lords. And if you start loading your hope in human leaders, you're gonna be very disappointed in this life. So I do think there is a sense in which it's like, hey man, is your deepest hope in a king, a president or a Lord, or is it in the King of Kings, president of presidents and Lord of Lords? Yeah. The thing I'd add also is, you know, we talked about going and making disciples of all nations and that being like the new mandate. Is here in John one, you get this beautiful picture of John the Baptist and he says, behold the lamb. And in other gospels, it talks about John being the greatest human being born up to that point, which is pretty big compliment. It's like if Jesus says you're the greatest person born of a woman, it's like that's awesome that you have a bumper sticker in your car that you made the honor roll. But you know, that would win, it's kind of a thing. Well, why was he called that? I mean, part of his that he obviously got to introduce people to Jesus. But if you look at John's life, he was always pointing other people to Jesus. And John was popular in his day. He was the man, like he was the most viable preacher in his day. And yet when Jesus shows up on the scene, he says, behold the lamb. Now let's think about that, the idea of the lamb. In the book of Revelation, you see the idea that the lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. In other words, Jesus done the cross was always plenty is where it was going. But you also see is in the throne room of heaven, who are we praising? We're praising in part Jesus. Why? Because he was the lamb who was slain. Slain lamb. So I would be a person who is, I think one of the reasons that John was considered the greatest man ever up to that point was because he spent his life reclaiming what God had spent eternity past planning and will spend eternity future praising. Bro. And so if you want your life to count, use your life to point other people to Jesus. So actually I love that this is releasing on Monday before we get to Christmas Eve services. So I would say, hey, if you haven't yet, invite your one more to church with you. Definitely if you're within shot of Lake Point, it can make it here. We'd love to have you. But also maybe if you're listening from afar and can't make it and you go to another church, I'll invite someone who is close to you but far from God to church with you. And a little just practical piece of advice is when you ask me if you have multiple services like we do, go to whatever services easiest for them. And so instead of, hey, come to this service with me. If that's what you're gonna be like, whatever is the one they would most likely to send, just say, hey man, I'd love to join you there. Kind of a thing. That's it. You got one more nugget, Paul. Yeah. I don't have time. I got one too. I got one too. It's a discipline. Are you still on John one? I'm still on John one. If you want to switch it up. No, I'm still on John one too. You keep cooking and then I'll go in a different direction because I don't want to step on anything. Let me do one more. This is another one of my favorite. I love the Bible. I can't believe how it all fits together. Okay, so remember, you got John one and I'm just gonna read it. It says John 114 and the word became flesh. That's Christmas and dwelt among us. This language is really important and we have seen his glory, bookmark that. Glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. Okay, so here's a sauce on here. Okay, so you go back to the garden and what do they lose? What they lose in the garden is access to the face of the father. In the garden, they walk with him as in the cool of the day side by side as a friend. We lose the face of the father because sin separates. Okay, so then you fast forward to Moses. This is gonna be really important. It's all gonna tie together. Okay, so then you fast forward to Moses. Moses, the Bible says, is the only guy who talked face to face with God, quote, as with a friend. But we know that language is mitigated because Moses actually has this moment where he's like with God and he just like, almost just like blurts out. Like it's the cry of every Christian's heart. He just almost like blurts out, like show me your glory. Right, and you guys remember what God says to him. He's like, man, there's a lot of things I can do for you, Moe. There's one thing I can't do. I can't show you my face. And he says, because no man shall see my face and live. And it's one of my favorite passages to hold testimony. If you remember what he does, that's when God takes Moses and he sticks him literally in his hand, puts him in the cleft of a rock, covers him with his hand, and then the Bible literally says the guy, and I'm not trying to be jokey or weird or gross. It's like literally what the Bible says. The Hebrew literally says that God turns his back to Moses and causes his quote hind parts to pass in front of Moses. And then instead of showing him his face, he declares verbally his glory. And he says, it's the most quoted verse in the Bible by the Bible. He says, the Lord the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love of faithfulness, yet he does not forgive wickedness, rebellion, and sin. He punishes the children and their children if this sins the fathers, the third and fourth generation. So he declares, okay, so now bookmark that. Moses, who the Bible says it prophesies forward about Jesus. It says when Moses dies, it's prophesied someday there will come again. A prophet like me, Moses says, who speaks with God face to face as a man with a friend. But remember, Moses was not allowed two things in his life. He was not allowed to see God's face and because of Moses disobedience, he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Moses was never allowed to enter into the Promised Land. All right, now, I love this so much. So then you fast forward to John chapter one. And the Bible literally says right here, it says, man, then the word became flesh. And then it says, we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father. So Jesus is the glory of God. In fact, if you go back to the 10 commandments, okay, the second commandment is don't make any graven images. Don't make any images of me. The reason that God commanded, don't make any images of me is he was saying, don't make any images because someday I'm gonna send one. So then Jesus comes in John chapter one. He himself is the quote image of the invisible God, the exact representation of his nature. When people are looking at the face of Jesus, they are looking at the face of God. Okay, bro, this is where it gets pretty amazing. So then you fast forward to the transfiguration. All right, so Jesus goes up on the mountain. He brings three dudes with him, Peter, James and John. What they record is they see Jesus face quote, transformed like lightning. And they see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And then two dudes appear on the top of the mountain. By the way, the mountain was Mount Hermon. Most people think which is inside the promised land. The two dudes who see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ are Moses and Elijah. And so thousands of years later, after Moses was denied two things, Moses, I'm real sorry, you can't see my face and you can't go into the promised land. And then in Jesus, Moses is on that mountain and he's two things. He's seeing the face of God in the glory of Jesus Christ and guess where he is? He's in the promised land. It's amazing, bro. The Bible is amazing. It's amazing. When people say, oh, the Bible never says Jesus was God. I'm like, A, false. It explicitly says it many times. It's really hard for me not to interject and be like, you're an idiot. You're an idiot. I award you no points. We're all dumber for having. I literally was actually thinking that leg went so glad. You said it because it gives me permission to say it. I thought that too. In a few minutes. But in addition to that, again, I'm gonna cheat, take us out of John. But like the book of Mark. In the book of Mark, there's this interesting story where Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him on the water and then later he's catching up with them. But then it says he meant to pass them by. And that's kind of weird if you think about it because like there's other times where this happened and Jesus is actually meeting them in the boat, calls Peter out to him on the water. But literally it says he meant to pass them by. That's kind of weird. Until you realize that the Greek word pass them by is the exact same word used at the Greek O Testament when God passed by and showed Moses his glory. What? I've never heard that before. When you see that you're like. Wait, I'm curious. And this is, we're gonna, I may lose some of our listeners. I'm nerding out here for a second. So the theology nerd thing. So in the Septuagint, they're the same words. So for our listeners, here's why I'm asking Paul that question. This is very interesting to me. The Septuagint is, how would you explain it? The Septuagint was written. The Greek translation of the O Testament. Okay, so the reason I'm asking that, so the Septuagint is the, the New Testament was written in Greek. The Old Testament was written primarily in Hebrew, some Aramaic also, but primarily in Hebrew. The reason I'm asking Paul that is it is very significant and seemingly an intentional tie between the two. If the Septuagint translates pass by in the same way as the New Testament. Yes. And it does. Exactly, exactly. Interesting. It's kind of like saying, hey, this is more than just a man we're dealing with here. Because also like he's walking on water in the O, and then he comes to the storm in other places. In the Old Testament, only Yahweh walks on the water and only he is the one who comes to the storms. And so yeah, and so again, there are places where actually it does explicitly confirm Jesus's divinity, but there's so many places like the ones we've been talking about. It's like, it is anything but just the strong like wink, wink, wink moment. Wink, wink, that's nice. It's like, even if they don't say it out right in these moments, it's like wink, wink, wink. They know what they're doing. So, we have time for John Warner to be in the move. Let me make, actually you do it, yes. And then I want to make a discipleship application. Yeah, I think just, Wait, and then when you're done, I want to, I'm going to make you answer the question that Christians get thrown at them all the time. That the two genealogies of Jesus are different. And that's an example of a Bible contradiction. The Bible does have errors in it. It does have errors. So I'm going to make you respond to that here in a second. You go ahead on John 1. Oh, I mean, I think this one, people forget. I love that you actually hit the two verses in John that I was going to get the idea of, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. But then we also see that the idea that that was the son, the only son within the father. And that word was with God and he was God. It's an early picture in John of the idea of the Trinity. But we just forget how insane the incarnation is. It is with the Trinity, the greatest mystery of our faith. And I would actually argue the greatest miracle of our faith. Yeah. CS Lewis said the incarnation is a bigger miracle than the resurrection. Yes. Interesting. Well, in part because you see people being risen from the grave of other places in scripture. And we're not downplaying the resurrection. I mean, it is a hope of faith right now without it, everything is lost. But I mean, just think about this for a second. The eternal God who had no beginning, who is uncreated. That's fundamentally what distinguishes God from everyone else. By the way, angels are insanely huge and powerful and amazing. You and I have more common with angels than angels do with God. That's right. Because we're all created beings. God is not. That's a great. So even just like to keep this in perspective. God is omnipresent. You're not. And so if you think about the actually pause for a second, it reminds me probably the angriest I've ever gotten at a meme was not one from an atheist or a non-Christian. It was actually from a Christian who said the story, the nativity is this should be how far this should be how much we should be willing to seek after God and to find God. I'll get back to the minute of why it makes me so angry. So let's think about the incarnation that the uncreated one God took on human flesh and became created. And also even sometimes we think we never think we talk about the idea of, oh, the Son of God left heaven. If by that we mean that he took on flesh and became a because and how about us if that's true. But actually, what a lot of people don't understand is that if I gave you special glasses that could enable you to see God in heaven, if you went up to heaven, when Jesus incarnated here on earth, the Son of God still would have been there. Okay, well you talk about this for a second, Paul, a lot of because that is a, that is most Christians have never heard that before. And that's a pretty significant theological point. It is. So let me set this up and I want you to answer it. I didn't know you were gonna talk about it. So yeah, so while Jesus was physically incarnate on earth, Yes. He never left heaven. That's what you're saying. And so we help us understand that Jesus was one person with two natures, fully divine. So let's just think about the divine nature for a second. And actually, this is really important to say, hey, whatever is true of the nature is true of the person. And so Jesus was fully divine. Well, let's think about it. Is God omnipresent? Yes. So therefore, Jesus and his divinity was fully omnipresent as well. And God cannot change who he is because he simply is what he is. And so when Jesus, though, when the Son became incarnate, he added to him a human nature without subtracting his divine nature. So his divine nature was in no way changed. He added to him a human nature. And so while he was fully present in Jesus, like the Son of God is fully present in the person of Jesus, he is also omnipresent in heaven. And so this is the mystery. This is something that is beyond our explanation, but it also even getting away from the idea of the omnipresence and the presence. Like think of it this way, is that in his divinity, Jesus could do all things. He could do things that no human being can do, no human can walk on water. And yet it says that Jesus grew tired, that he grew hungry. By the way, that he learned things. That he learned things. That he learned things. Exactly. And so those are things that God does not do. And wisdom and stature. And wisdom and stature, yes. Exactly. And so again, but we have to realize when we're saying all this, typically the way we've talked about it is that Jesus is fully God, fully man. Those things are distinct from each other, distinct from each other, but they're not divided against each other. It's like one against the other. And it's not two persons, it's one person. I know we're getting really heady right here, but it's just, to me, when you understand this, this actually shows the profound links that God went to to save us. And so the reason that meme kind of angered me some is yes, in a sense, the nativity is a picture of what we should be willing to do to seek after God and find him. But I would actually say that the nativity is the picture of how far God was willing to come to find us and to save us and get to us. That he was willing, while not setting aside his divinity, to add on humanity, to humble himself and become human in order to save the very ones he created. By the way, the theological term, that's hypostatic union. Hypostatic union. The idea of Jesus is one person. So you don't have like the human Jesus and the divine Jesus. He's one person with two full natures, divine and human. Another time we can maybe go into some more some ins and outs of that. Because of the heresies around that. Yeah, hypostatic union is really important. It's really important. Yeah, and what's important about that, I know we're like, this is like super nerding, but what's important about that is the understanding that his, him assuming a human nature did not diminish his divine nature. Or vice versa. And the reason I say that, and then let's move on. The reason I say that is, a lot of people think that when the incarnation happened, they think of it as Jesus subtracting something. He subtracted divinity. No, no, no, no, he did not subtract divinity. He only added something. He added humanity. Yeah, that's really important. That's for Josh, how do I apply that in my life? You said you had a discipleship application. Yeah. But he had a different one than mine. That's right, I remember why. Oh, I remember why. How about I do mine when you were trying to be his. Actually, yes, okay, I got this. I got this. Oh, go ahead. This is really, really important, man. So all of this circles around one thing. And I wanna say one more thing about the genealogies. I want you to do the thing. And then we'll talk how, you know, Mary and Joseph were immigrants. And let's talk, that's very sensitive. We'll talk about that stuff. Here's the big idea that everybody's gotta get. Is I don't care who you are, man or woman, it doesn't matter who you are. The theology behind all this is that what the book of Genesis tells us is that you were created to live in a face-to-face relationship with your maker. You were created in his image to enjoy his image and his face. And the real big deal there is that is why the temporary things in this world are never gonna satisfy you for one second. And so, man, if you get anything about it this Christmas, what you gotta understand is, man, you can be the dude that grows up and whoever makes most money and has most, you know, it's kind of the thing of dudes do this. They get to a certain age, they get to a certain level of success. And it kind of becomes this game of whoever dies are the most toys wins. It's like, no, man, you were created to live in a face-to-face relationship with your maker and nothing else is ever gonna satisfy you. So lean in. I think with that, and this is gonna sound like I'm contradicting what you're saying, Carlos, but I'm not, is no one goes to the Grand Canyon or sees a beautiful mountain or looks at their spouse and says, or they should not say, so what practical relevance does this have to my life? There you go. I strongly advise you not to say that to your spouse. Instead, what you do is you're supposed to look at glorious things and beautiful things like your spouse and just be in awe and just take it in. Yeah, that's good. And so I would even say to that is like, man, just standing in awe of Jesus is super practical. Mainly because if that is what you're gonna be doing for eternity, why not start now? Yeah, start now. What makes heaven heaven is that. Exactly. And so I'd say like with that, like in terms of Christmas services, in addition to inviting you one more, make sure at Christmas services this year. And then obviously every day in addition to that, just standing in awe of the God who became man to seek and to save the lost, including you. Well, hey, Litfree family. Before we jump back in, I've got something you cannot miss. Christmas at Late Point is one of the most meaningful moments of the entire year and our candlelight services are happening. December 21st to 24th, if you've never experienced it, imagine this, thousands of people gathering across all of our campuses, worshiping together, singing carols, lifting candles in the dark as we celebrate the moment light stepped into the world. It is powerful, it is moving, and it is also a chance for you and the people you love to come and encounter Jesus in a fresh way this Christmas. And so here's my invitation for you. Bring your family, bring your friends, bring your one more. And by the way, if you are a Litfree listener who lives in a different city or state, we would love for you to come visit and meet you in person. For service times and locations, just go to lpchristmas.com or text the word Christmas to 20411. And we'll send you everything you need. Litfree family, let's celebrate the hope of Jesus together at our Christmas candlelight services. It's great. Let's go with the Matthew and the Luke genealogy. Yeah, Paul, let me set this up. And then, so we're gonna set this, we're gonna hit this, talk genealogies, and then let's get into some of the immigration stuff. It's really complicated, and we wanna help Christians think about that and all this stuff. All right, Paul, so here's the deal. Matthew and Luke both record genealogies of Jesus. They both tie them directly to Jesus. The genealogies are different. Yes, they are. Chaggy Palti, seems like you have a contradiction in the Bible. I guess they're heirs. I guess the Bible does err, and we can't trust it then. I'm being obviously a little bit facetious, but this is what you hear. Usually you would hear this from non-Christians who say, oh, this is a contradiction. Christians, you tell us the Bible is an errant. That means it can't err. Obviously, that's not true. So it's obvious that this is a man-made document, and we can't trust it. One thing I tell people here is that it's really important when we say the Bible is an errant or that it can't err. We have to remember that when we say that. What we mean is it cannot err in what it is intending to say. Yeah, that's important. That is an important qualification. So even getting away from the genealogies for a second, if people look at it from just a scientific view and say, oh, well, the Bible says that the sun rotates around the earth. We all know that's not true now, so therefore the Bible errs. My simple response to that is that's not what the Bible is intending to say in those verses. It is conveying simply the experience of a human being looking up and making some comments about it. So with that being mind, if genealogies were intended to function like ancestry.com and be a hyper-accurate, literal, here's this person, here's this person, then here's this person tracing all the way back, then yes, these would be contradictory, and yes, there would be errors. But we have to understand that ancient genealogies did not function that way. That's important. They did not function that way. A few very important things about genealogies is at the stage, and I actually have some graphs of these genealogies to help explain some potential explanations of some of the differences there. One we have to remember that genealogies were constructed, and when I say constructed, I don't mean they just made them up, but they arranged them in a certain order to emphasize certain points. So they're not trying to be hyper-literal at all. They're trying to emphasize certain things. So this isn't actually the main point we'll make here, but for example, Matthew traces Jesus' lineage eventually back to Abraham through David as well, because Matthew is really trying to make the point that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises to Abraham and to David. Because Matthew was written to? Jews. Jews. So that's his auto. This is really important, Matt. Really important. Luke, which was written more to Gentiles, traces his lineage all the way back to Adam. In part, I would say there are a couple of big things here that we have to say, hey, salvation is for all people, not just for Jews. And I would also say that it is, we talked about this earlier, because it's the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Adam and Eve and such like that. So that's just an example. Also, we have to realize that ancient genealogies were totally comfortable skipping generations and yet still saying this was the son of so-and-so. So when we see they were the son of so-and-so, do not automatically assume that that means that they were literally biological child. They could be their great, great, great grandfather. And this isn't just trans-e-geniologies. It's true when we see genealogies in the O-Tesmin. Another big thing, and then we'll jump into some, I will say some pretty particular issues we have to deal with in Matthew and Luke, and why it's not a contradiction. There is something called levered marriage. And the idea of this is that if a husband dies and didn't have sons that could carry on the family name, the brother then would marry that wife in order to produce it, but then would take that name. That's making sense. So sometimes we have to understand that when we read some of the names in genealogies, it doesn't always necessarily mean that that was their biological father. That actually might be an explanation for what seems like a contradiction of Joseph's grandfather's name. Make it sense so far? Yep, yep. Okay, so that being said, let's probably, I think dive into the two biggest issues in Matthew and Luke that people point out is Jesus's grandfather's name. And then also you have the idea of David's son, of how you trace the lineage. I think we have a graph of Matthew and Luke and the differences. My love language. I did this probably because we love a good graph. And I just thought I would be really mean to our listeners and viewers if I literally simply read the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. So I want us to kind of go down below. You got Jesus, Joseph's father, and then one Matthew says that Joseph's father's name, Jacob, the other name, He-Lie or He-Lee. I would just say this just upon like initial thing. Do we really actually think that Matthew, who is an immediate disciple of Jesus and Luke, who is known for just meticulously researching things, couldn't get Jesus's grandfather's name right? Yeah. Do we really actually think that? The answer is no. So then we have to ask, okay, what is going on here? A few explanations have been given. Actually, we want to be up front and say, hey, we don't necessarily know the definitive thing. It's more of saying, hey, these are good plausible arguments that I could explain, but can't be completely sure. People throughout church history have disagreed on this. One potential solution is that Jacob and He-Lie were actually brothers, that this was an example of levered marriage. I've never heard of that. Interesting. This is an example of levered marriage, where one was the town biological, like fathers through his lineage, but then died, so then He-Lie came in, it's almost like in a sense like stepfather. So that's more explanation. What's the term again? Leveret marriage, L-E-V-I-R-A-T. Speaking tribally, Vi. Yeah. That's where it's coming from. Exactly. Got it. Another explanation, sometimes people give in this, we can also come back to when we get to the other issue, is that some people would say that Matthew is tracing Joseph's genealogy. This is what I've always heard. And Luke is tracing Mary's genealogy. Some reasons we would say that is that in the book of Matthew, if you just look read through the entire first few chapters, huge emphasis on Joseph's experience of the story. And Luke, yes, who's the main emphasis in that, is Mary. And so we would say, hey, that this is actually Mary's version. And some people would actually say that potentially, Mary's, I believe the way it goes would be, Mary's father or grandfather, I'd say grandfather, again, had no sons. This was what he basically, he adopted Joseph into his family to carry on the family name. You get no way to prove that. But again, these are just some plausible explanations. So you've heard usually more of the different, hey, one is Joseph. Yeah, through Joseph tracing Mary, let me interject this, because as an adoptive dad, for listeners known as our family, all of our children are adopted. This is one thing I love. The reason I love the, most Bible scholars do that, hey, one's through Joseph, one's through Mary. Okay, the reason I love that is obviously, Jesus is not Joseph's biological son. Jesus is Joseph's adopted son. What I love about that is, if it is true that the Matthew genealogy is tracing Jesus through the line of Joseph, it is showing you, so here's the question. Well, if you have an adoptive child, are you their real dad? Is that is showing you that in the sight of God, an adoptive father is a real father? So much so, so much so, that the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament hang on the fact that that adoption created a real fatherhood and a real sonship. So I just like, I like getting that out there. And this is an important part, even we can even leave this for a second, I think if people really got this, they should fill it in their core. It is with that, it's like, when it talks about us being sons and daughters of God through adoption, don't think of that as like second rate. That's right. That like, this sounds heretical, but it's true. God loves you as much as he loves Jesus. Yeah, that's right. Because you were in Jesus. That's right, you're in Christ. And you were adopted in him. And that also means, by the way, that in order for God to stop loving you, he would have to stop loving Jesus, if you're in Christ. That's just a freebie for now. Okay, so on that one, in terms of why that's an issue, I hope people bring it up. I hope you see like, there's some plausible explanations. We can never know for sure on this side of heaven. But think of it like I said, if we were in a courtroom and someone said, well, what about this? And I've gave these objections like, all right, at that point, probably say, there's not nearly enough evidence to convict. Like there's some plausible explanations for what's going on here. The other big issue that people point out, we started at the bottom now, if we'll go to the top and for our listeners, we've got a visual right now that you can go back and look later on YouTube. As you feel, so you've got the idea that Jesus was the son of David. Really important because the idea of Jesus was the Messiah. The idea of the future messianic king would come from the lineage of David. Second Samuel seven, Davidic covenant. Yep, yep. On the Matthew side, it then traces it through Solomon. But on the Luke side, it traces it through Nathan. At this point, it's like, okay, there's no way to get around this contradiction. Two very plausible ways though, to get around this contradiction. One is to go back to what we already said. If one genealogy is tracing it through Joseph, and the other is tracing it from Mary, it's completely like possible. And it explains it perfectly. Although I would actually favor in this instance that something else is happening. If you could pull up, we have another list. We've got another list for you. Wow. Who lists? Wow. What podcasts? What most modern conservative scholars would actually say is that one genealogy is actually more of a royal or legal genealogy. The other is a more biological genealogy. Oh, bro, I've never seen this before. Oh yes, really important thing. So think about Matthew. The way even Matthew starts his genealogy talks about how he is the son of David. And so again, he's trying to establish that Jesus is the Messianic king. That makes sense then, if you go through the way Matthew arranges it, after David, you get all of these kings of Israel, it eventually stops because you have the idea of exile. And so then if Jesus is the son of David, all of a sudden it's like he is the return of the king. Wow. The kingdom is restored. Come on, man. So this isn't trying to say that this is his biological lineage. It's basically saying, hey, he is a descendant of David, which is also what Luke says. He says he is biologically, but hey, he is in the line and he is restoring the kingdom. He is the royal lineage. Or as Luke would be more of a biological lineage. Although even here, I want to reiterate something that's up front. We have to remember that one reason that these names also could be different, that you see a lot of these names are different, is because it's often common to skip generations. So when you're seeing these sub-blessed, you can't shit and think, oh, these are one to one, the contradicts, so it can't be true. No, in fact, let me just, first of all, that's amazing. That's right. That is helpful. So in fact, on this point, you just said, here's what's amazing, if you go read the two genealogies, I'm sure you've heard this, but the first time I heard this, I was like, what? That's amazing. So obviously, Jews all about numbers. Like heavy emphasis on numbers. So if you go read the two genealogies, this is awesome. So in the book of Matthew, Matthew structures his genealogy where it's three groups of seven names, exactly seven names from Abraham to David, exactly seven names from David to the Babylonian exile, and exactly seven names from the exile to Jesus. Then, if you go read the leucan genealogy, guess how many names are in it? 77. 77. Wow. Exactly 77 names. So here's the point. Obviously, seven is the number of perfection. Both genealogies are showing this is peak perfection. Ain't nobody been more perfect than this guy. And that leads us. That's what it's showing. And this is what I'm blessing. I think the reason we go throughout is if people throw this at you to kind of even bring this all together, I just hope this gives you some good things to have good conversations. And also to know, OK, there's good possible, plausible explanations for these things. One thing I tell people is when the early church had these two, it's not like the early church were stupid. Yeah. It's not like they didn't see these things. And yet, they said, hey, we are accepting these both as a literal words from God and we're accepting them as authoritative. And so what that should also tell you is that, man, they saw these things, but yet they would say, hey, these don't contradict. And because they were closer, they probably knew better the reasons why than we do today. A lot of what we have to say is, hey, these are plausible explanations. They probably understood it. But just take faith that the people that were closest to Jesus who read these documents were willing to accept them. And by the way, who knew each other? And who knew each other? Who knew each other? Again, that's an example. Like, do we really think Luke and Matthew got the grandfather's name wrong? No. So I'll just give you some confidence and be able to accept the Bible. Bro, we could literally keep going. Yeah, you could be. I know. I know. We're just being careful. And so honestly, it's crazy how crazy rich and layered and intentional the Christmas story is in the Bible. And yet, at the same time, this same story, Pastor George, will often get pulled into modern conversations in ways that may be distort what it actually is about. And so I want to talk about that. Man, there's a photo I want to show you. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Yeah, there's a few of these floating around. So, Tranny, if you could pull up. So here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes for listeners is the story of Mary Joseph Jesus, especially right now, with everything going on, with immigration discussions in our nation, this story will get used and almost weaponized for a political agenda. And I want to show you how that is. And this is something Christian will get thrown at him, especially more conservative Christians. And I want you to kind of, I want to show you what's going on here. So let's show them what we're talking about. Got a first photo here. Yeah, so this is so, for instance, this right here, this is a church in Dallas. We lit these guys up. And by the way, we don't just light up churches. I use the word church extremely stretchy. This is a LGBT affirming church. You want to read it just so for people that are listening on audio versus. Yeah, so what you're seeing here, if your only audio is, hey, you got the pride flag painted on the front steps. That should tell you something up front. Number two, you got a big nativity scene on the front of the steps. And it says church puts Holy family in cage for Christmas. So what you got is nativity scene with a cage around it that's supposed to represent like an immigration detention center. And what they're doing is, oh, Jesus family immigrated. And so man, just like Jesus family immigrated, you guys, the government is locking up immigrants. They would have locked up Jesus family. It's kind of the vibe. There's another one. We got another one too. This is happening all over the country. So this is Chicago Tribune, nativity smash, Mary figure beaten at Evanston Church. I just want to read it down here. Vandals decapitated and smashed the statue of Mary in an Evanston Church's outdoor nativity scene. The church responded by placing it with a sign that said, Mary was beaten and dragged away in front of her son and is being held in immigration detention center. And then you saw this right here. So this is a PD guy in Chicago. It's a 50 second video. I want you to see how this Minneapolis. Oh, Minneapolis, Minneapolis. Thank you. So Minneapolis police chief on ICE raids against illegal immigrants. And this is what he says, 50 second clip. It's especially personal to me, having been raised a Catholic to be in a Christian church this morning as we are approaching Christmas. And I cannot help but think of what is happening in our city today and how that echoes with how outsiders have been treated for thousands of years. How Mary and Joseph themselves were considered outsiders and forced to stay in a barn. That's what we're getting ready to commemorate as Christians around the world while all of this fear is happening right here in our town. So obviously, man, this is sensitive, especially around the Christmas season. Let me say a few things about this, because I think a lot of Christians are like, what do I see? I'm a Jesus person. I don't want to do something to be against Jesus. So they don't know what to think about it. So let me say a few things on this. Number one, at Christmas season, let me just say this is not the argument to have with your family around your Christmas dinner. And I really want to say this, to disciple our listeners. Something that I'll say a lot is politicians have term limits. Friends and family do not. It is not worth losing a lifelong relationship over a term limited politician or political issue. So number one, this ain't your Christmas argument to have. Number two, we deeply, deeply love all people, regardless of their immigration status, all in. There is a reason. Like at Lake Point, if you come to Lake Point and ask the question, will you disciple me? Our answer is yes. And I don't care who you are, and I don't care where you come from. So that's our thing. Now, let me just say a few things about how this, like the Christmas story, will get selectively edited and almost for political purposes. So here's the logic. The logic that will get thrown at you is Jesus was an immigrant. And so if you oppose immigrants, like ISIS, enforcing our immigration laws right now, or deporting people who illegally immigrated, if you oppose immigrants, you would have opposed Jesus. And so it's wrong. Christians should be the people who are, here's the logic. Christians should be people who would never want any deportations or any enforcement of border laws. So let me just say a few things on this. And I'm just going to shoot you really straight, be in a plain spoken way, and then you all can agree, disagree, additional comments. We're big boys. Number one, we just got to point out, Jesus never broke any immigration laws. It was a census by the emperor, which means he was commanding people to leave their home. And so in other words, if they had stayed home, then they would have been breaking the law. That's important. That's important to understand. That's important to understand. They were actually obeying law. In the Christmas story, they were obeying the governing authorities by traveling to Bethlehem. So this was in obedience to governing the authorities. Number one, Jesus never broke immigration laws. And dude, this is really sensitive. So let me just say this. Ali Beth Stuckey has done a really good job. The phrase she'll use is toxic empathy. And what we're talking about is, man, Christians, we are commanded to be people who are sympathetic. We are loving. We are empathetic. We weep with those who weep, and we rejoice with those who rejoice. What we don't want to do is empathy becomes toxic empathy. When empathy gets wielded to lead Christians away from truth or justice or obedience to righteous laws. So for instance, let me give you a couple examples. What especially progressive people throw at you, it's toxic empathy when they'll throw a gut-wrenching story of a 19-year-old impregnated girl. And how, gosh, if she were not allowed to abort her child, imagine the horrors that will happen in her life. And they're trying to weaponize empathy to get you to abandon truth and abandon righteousness. OK, well, as awkward as it is, but man, let's be big boys, as awkward as it is, the same thing can happen when it comes to immigration discussions. So amen, just shoot you really straight. When we're talking about things like deportations and enforcement, and by the way, I'm not talking about ever, somebody will always find an outlier fringe case that's like, oh, but what about? I'm not talking about every case. I'm talking about generalities. OK, very frankly, when we're talking about enforcement of immigration laws, guys, we're not talking about loving immigrants. We're talking about punishing crime. And what will very frequently happen is category confusion. When actually, man, immigration laws, these are laws. And Christians are commanded to obey laws. And so what some people do is they'll they'll do category confusion. They'll try to make it about whether or not you love immigrants. Dude, we all love immigrants. That's not the question. The question is, is it wrong for a nation to enforce its immigration laws? Obviously not. So number one, we need to understand Jesus never broke immigration laws. Number two, let's we just got to state this plainly. And it's not saying that it's wrong to immigrate. Like all three of us, our families got here at some point in the G. And some sooner than others. Yes, but somewhere in the genealogical ladder, all three of our families came via immigration. So so we're not talking about whether or not it's right or wrong to immigrate. It's clearly not wrong to immigrate legally in obedience to laws. OK, but we just have to say like this is an example of where Jesus will get selectively edited. You're going to say something? No, I'm going to let you. Because it's an example where Jesus will get selectively edited. Jesus did not immigrate. OK, he left Nazareth that was in the Roman Empire to go to Egypt. This is whenever Herod threatens to kill all the babies and Jesus family goes to Egypt to go to Egypt. That was also in the Roman Empire. So it's actually just factually wrong when people throw at you. Hey, Jesus was an immigrant, and therefore you have to, you know, you have to be OK with totally unlimited mass immigration and no border laws. OK, number three, and we just have to point this out. When Jesus family traveled, the Bible specifically tells us this, Luke 21, five, one through five, it specifically says that they went to register their family during the census. So Jesus family was making sure they were scrupulous, morally scrupulous people. They were actually making sure that they obeyed the governing laws of the land that related to travel across some kinds of borders. So we got to point that out. Number four, we just got to point this out. Man, it's like because sometimes, again, it's our emotion will get us away. From just plain spoken, understand the truth. Jesus understanding that all the Bible are the words of God, Jesus commanded obedience to loss. Romans 13. And he and by the way, and he commands governments to enforce their laws. Now, you can get into a whole theology of civil disobedience, civil disobedience. This all we should do a whole podcast and civil disobedience some point. Civil disobedience is only Christians should not obey laws of a land. Whenever the laws of a land are commanding Christians to do something that God has forbidden or the laws of a land are forbidding Christians to do something that God has commanded. Okay. And immigration laws are neither of those. Okay. Number five. And dude, here's the big thing you're gonna get thrown at you. And then I love to hear what you're guessing. What a lot of times will happen is people and regardless of their political affiliation, what they like to do is they'll selectively edit Jesus to try to turn him into like a mascot for their cause. So I'll just point this out, like, especially progressive Christians, they really love to do this. Like Jesus was an immigrant or, you know, whatever you want to do. Well, yeah, you can also say things like Jesus was part of the majority culture in his region. Jesus came from a patriarchal traditional family. Jesus was unvaccinated. See, these things are starting to sound ridiculous. If you just start selectively editing aspects of Jesus life and actions and then you extrapolate them into therefore you try to turn them into modern American governing policy, it starts sounding weird. You can say things like Jesus fed the poor without raising taxes. You can say things like Jesus. And by the way, Jesus true, all these are true. Let me just say all these are true. By the way, Jesus did this. Jesus told people to go buy weapons. I don't remember that. Sorry. He actually said this from now on. Let the person he said, go sell your cloak and buy a sword. So here's the point. Jesus is a Lord. He's not a mascot. And when we start, when we start selectively editing Jesus to justify either the breaking of the laws of a nation or to oppose the enforcement of the laws of a nation, where actually at that point we are weaponizing Jesus in a way that contradicts the way that he has commanded us to conduct ourselves. So let me just finish with this and then any other thoughts you all have. Yes. And this needs to be emphatically stated. Yes. Individual Christians, the Bible distinguishes between the role of the individual and the role of the state. Yes. Individual Christians are, all caps are, committed to love all people, including immigrants, regardless of their legal status. You are committed to love every single person who walks in front of you. Full stop period. That cannot be disregarded. But no, the biblical command to quote, love the foreigner among you does not mean it's wrong for a nation to enforce its immigration laws. And what we can't do is we can't start selectively editing Jesus to undermine some of these things. Additional thoughts. I don't want to give you the longer final word, but I'll defer to you. Do you want to go first? I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, just to agree. I mean, everything you just said, man, I think, I would just verbal highlight a couple of things. I think, you know, how I would say it again, we need the righteous expression of law enforcement, somebody who is an immigrant. And, you know, we're talking about, you know, sooner than later, like, you know, in your case, that's all of us. All of us at some point in our genealogical ladder. Yeah. That's all of us. And that is for me, honestly, for me, that's 15 years of being here in, you know, in several more of being a US citizen. I would say I reject the caricature that if you're pro law enforcement, then you're anti the dignity of illegal immigrants. That's right. That's just the caricature. And so I think it's Christians, you know, that's what that's what you'll see on social media. Like, again, you're either this or that. And as Christians, that's not what we do. We are people of truth. And then we are people of compassion at the same time. You know, we're talking about Jesus being God and full of grace and full of truth. And then I would also say, you know, because. I have friends that are also pastoring bigger congregations of largely Hispanic communities. I think the challenge for a lot of these guys is a sign if you're a pastor in a significant group of people in your congregation is struggling with fear and they're literally like not coming to church anymore and they're like isolating themselves. And, you know, they're just dealing with the ramifications of immigration policy. The primary job of a pastor is to pastor them. And so a lot of these pastors is trying to figure out, I mean, what do, how do we do as well holding on to truth and conviction at the same time with compassion? And so, and in some cases it's interesting because the fear isn't just for the people that are here illegally. Oftentimes it's also for people that are here legally, but then they're like, you know, like, and by the way, like this does not always happen. And but sometimes when you see some of these like ice clips of like breaking down windows and like dragging somebody, you know, and then it's just like, and then it turns out blood to his they were actually legal and arrested or whatever, but they looked a little Hispanic or whatever. Like people are actually like they're afraid. And so, you know, pastors are trying to figure that out. And, you know, there's people also pushing for the legal pathways for fixing some of the issues that we have. Like there are some people that have come to this country, they have a legal status and then something changes and they don't have it. So they're very difficult situations that pastors are trying to figure out. I would say for me, again, as somebody who is a an immigrant, I've been a U.S. citizen for a little bit of time by the grace of God, I love this country. And I'm also, hey, this country loves you. Hey, man, let's go. Come on, man. That's exactly what. Let's go, man. Texas, I love Texas. And. The country within the country. That's right. The great nation of Texas. That's right. I'm also, you know, we're in Dallas, almost 50% of Dallas is Hispanic. I'm also by the grace of God, one of the pastors in a church where, where people are going through a lot of this stuff. I have the gift of being part of the teaching team for our Spanish congregation as well. I've been doing it for now four or five years. Man, I want to, I want to, by the grace of God, I want to obey Jeremiah 29. That says seek the welfare of the city for in its welfare, you will find your welfare. And so you can't have welfare without truth. You can't disregard that. And so a lot of, I think this is something that I think in the Hispanic community, for some, it can be a little confusing, but I do think it's helpful. You do not have to say, well, I have to disregard law because I care about people. That's what this church in Dallas is doing. You do not have to say, also, I shouldn't care about people because I care about law. Those two, those two are not your only options. You, it's a false economy. And so I think we're Christians before anything else. I love that you pointed out even just this reality we deal with here at Lake Point. Cause if people are listening to this or watching this and they don't know us, well, they think, oh, this is all easy for you to say. Yeah. Sorry. My, yeah, that's right. We literally like what we like to say is we are one church in two languages. Cause we have that much of a proportion of Hispanic population. The only thing I mean, if you think highly, the highlighter maybe color in a little bit. One you insinuate about, I think it just needs to be said clearly is that maybe not so much with the police officer, I'm not sure where he was saying this, but with the churches that we highlighted there, if they really played their cards and were honest, it's just not that they're opposing inhumane harsh treatment. They also would probably favor open borders. Yeah. So that's why you even started hitting both and it's like, if people really put their cards in the table and that's why this is where it becomes toxic empathy, where they put their cards in the table. It's not just the things in cages. It's also like, oh, therefore, because Jesus was immigrant, we should open arms, welcome all immigrants and have open borders and all that kind of stuff. So that's, that's just one thing that really is, I think that sets up my other two points, which was all Christians to what little variation we said earlier, all Christians should want immigrants to be treated justly and humanely, comma, and that they should want immigration laws to be justly enforced. Yeah, that's right. It is not an either or. That's right. It is a both and. And by the way, if immigration laws are being unjustly enforced, well, that's a violation of the law as well. And we should want that be stopped and policed as well. But it's, this is not an either or, um, it's a both and. And the thing is, and this one wrote down is like, we don't need asinine arguments to treat people humanely. Like that's, I'll just be honest. Like, when I see these are like, this is an asinine argument and I don't need this to be able to treat people humanely. So I just say again, just like all Christians, we should want people to be treated humanely and justly, and we should want just laws and for justly as well. There you go. It's a both and. One thing that keeps coming up in these conversations is, uh, you know, whether it's immigration or borders or public safety is the distinction that you've mentioned before, Pastor Josh, on what the Bible says on the government's role and the role the state. That's right. Uh, I want to ask you. Yeah. What did you think about president, uh, president Trump's comments regarding the murder of Rob Rainer this last week, uh, for context, you want to give a context? Yeah, I do, man. So Rob, Rob Reiner, but I grew up watching all in the family, you know, uh, he's me dead. Uh, and you know, he was, I probably disagreed with that guy on literally every political issue and honestly price spiritual issue like that I'm aware of, but he was obviously tragically, it sounds like murdered by a son. And then, you know, it was like the next day, president Trump, you know, did this little, uh, it was a little true social post. And man, I don't need the, I honestly, I don't need to read the whole thing. We got it up. I don't, um, and you know, if you're on YouTube, you can see it. But you know, he kind of, he kind of went through this, uh, he, he did a Trump. You know, he did, he got to do that thing. And you know, kind of, it kind of took the moment to a little bit dunk on. You know, a guy who had just been murdered by a son. Uh, and that may be a little harsh characterization of what he said. And you know, I had a, I had a bunch of people like, Hey, what, what do you, what do you think about this? And you know, right now there is a, it seems like there's a moral asymmetry between the right and the left, but then, you know, you got the, the leader of the right doing stuff like this. And, you know, and then you would have people be like, how could any Christian support kind of this kind of, let me say a few things on this is a number one. Um, it's what we said earlier. Uh, I think Christians need to make sure that they don't save your eyes. Political leaders. This is really important, man. So in the Old Testament, you have three types of leaders. You got Josiahs, J. Hoos and Jezebel's Josiahs are righteous leaders who do righteous things. And they're the type of guys that like every mom in Israel could point to Josiah and be like, man, I hope when you grow up, son, you have the character of Josiah, you know, uh, then you had, you got J. Hoos, J. Hoos was a super flawed dude, super flawed dude. He's a fighter and, but he was used by God to defeat a greater evil. Okay. So he was a flawed leader used to do some really good things and defeat a greater evil. And then you had Jezebel leader Jezebel was the Bible says the most wicked leader in the entire Old Testament. Um, deified sexual depravity led the nation into open apostasy, closed the churches, killed the prophets, just a wicked person. Okay. Well, here's what Christians got to watch out for. Number one, we got to make sure, Hey man, don't treat J. Hoos leaders like they're Josiahs. Don't get into a spot where you start defending things that Christians very frankly shouldn't. That's number one. Um, don't, don't do that. Here's the other thing I think you need to watch out for is emotional manipulation. Don't let people gaslight you into things like, well, how could you ever vote for somebody who would say things like, well, man, actually it's pretty darn easy. Because what a vote is a vote is someone making a pragmatic choice about what is the best available path forward between the options given to me. That's what a vote is. Um, Jesus in the sermon of the mount said that what Christians are going to be is he said, you are the salt of the earth. Salt is a preservative. It preserves from decay. So when people make voting choices, they're asking the question, which of the available options given to me is best going to slow societal decay. I'm just going to shoot you really straight. I'm complete. I'm not ashamed of this at all. And I've, uh, no hesitancy in me at all. Man, if you've got to choose between somebody who does have some character flaws and does, you know, sometimes, uh, make a mistake like that. Uh, let me just say like, that's, that's not how that's, that's not how a godly Christian man should conduct himself. We are men of honor. We are men of nobility. We are called to be men of compassion and kindness. The Bible says stand firm, uh, be watchful, stand firm, act like men, let all that you do be done in love. We are supposed to be men of God who let all that we do in our actions and in our speech, be noble and done in love. So like, Hey man, I'm just going to say that's a miss. Yes. Every Christian should be gone. Hey dude, that was a miss. At the same time, it is not hard for me to look at two options that are presented and go, Hey man, if I got to choose between some mean tweets and some things that, you know, there's a type of rhetoric that I, I'm very frankly, I don't love. If I got to choose between that and overtly demonic policies, Hey man, personalities come and go, policies last generations. They last generations. So if I'm choosing between that and max boost abortion and celebrate it as a actually a moral positive good, reframe it for an entire generation as quote unquote, reproductive rights, trans the kids, open the borders, do lawlessness. If I got to choose between this, it's not hard for me. So, you know, if I'm going to look at it a few ways, that's how I'm going to look at it. Yeah. Agree, disagree, additional comments. I think just to say a few things. One, a lot of what you just said was originally you talked about that in your sermon on the election. Um, that was about 13, 14 months ago. And it was interesting as I've seen people during the time. And then after they almost thought you were turning, uh, President Trump into a fourth J into Jesus. Nope. Didn't they didn't listen to my sermon? I'm like, you obviously didn't actually listen to it. Uh, because then also even just to clarify for those of you, you never endorsed Trump in that. That's like a thing for you. You just kind of basically said, Hey, you did the taxonomy and then you kind of based that day between two choices. Here's the choice, but you never actually endorsed him. But then you also clearly said he is not Jesus. It's like a basically to kind of even summarize it's like, Hey, if you have to pick the best, let me clarify just for a quick, I would, I will say I was very clear on which set of policies a Christian should be thinking. Exactly. You made that very clear. And even like with that, and you were kind of in that, that out that time in this time too, it's like, if it's the best available option and they're not two great options, then you really have to ask who is going to do the most harm or more harm and who is going to do the more good. Doesn't mean that they're going to do all good and I can do any harm, but you just have to ask that. And it's like, Hey, if I don't like either, I have to pick at that point, the most practical option is what you're saying. And I think if anything, I was to add, and you pretty much said this, so it's like, I just want to tell some people like it is okay to hold President Trump in any elected official. It is okay to hold them to a standard and call them out when they don't live up to it. Like it's okay. Even if you voted for them, even if you think they mostly do good, it's okay. In fact, I would say we should do that. Whether it's moments like this where he manages had really to grow to say degraded speech and what I actually loved is that it was really the first time in a while that I'd seen other conservatives like, Hey, that's too far. And I was actually proud of it. I was like, I was like, not of him, of what he said, but of them calling him out for it, or like even like right now, like, man, the current presidential administration, Trump's administration is defending Biden Biden air policy on trying to make abortion drugs legal pills legal. And they're defending this. And I'm like Christians should be okay with publicly and vocally saying, Hey, that's not cool. It doesn't mean you're standing against him completely. It's just, I just want to give Christians that permission. Like it is okay to hold our elected leaders from either party, including if it's through the party you happen to affiliate with to a standard and calm out when they fall short of it. It's okay. There you go, man. I mean, this is why we have these conversations that are important. And, and this is also why we ultimately put our trust in a king. There you go, man. And this is why we rejoice when we hear the words fear not. There are good news. I'll bring great joy for all people. And we have a king. His name is Jesus. Come on, man. Pastor Josh, would you pray for us? I would love to. Father in heaven, thank you so much for the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, Lord dumb. I'm praying for all the families that are, are gathering and holding little candles at Christmas services this week. Father, I pray for everybody that doesn't know you yet that this would be the year that the light of the world comes and becomes a light inside of their souls. Father, I especially want to pray for all those kids, all the moms and dads that got little kids. And I pray that this season, I do pray to be marked by joy. I especially pray that it will be marked by a, a Jesus presence, a focus on the reason that we celebrate the one who split history into AD, BC, and under whom we worship. Father, I pray for, for peace, joy, love and blessing to rest on the households of the people that are listening. And I pray those things in the name of your incarnate and wonderful Son, Jesus Christ, amen. They're free brother. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howerton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture and faith as you live free in Christ. If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review and share the podcast. And don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church Online every weekend and find more resources at lakepoint.church slash live free. We'll see you next time.