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  THE GIFT OF HIS SON
  by Randy Krahn
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the need for genuine love and compassion
among believers, highlighting the importance of repentance, humility,
and seeking God's transformation in our lives. It calls for a deeper
commitment to Christ, a cleansing of past sins, and a focus on exalting
Jesus above all else. The message stresses the significance of building
spiritual foundations, separating from worldly influences, and allowing
God to bring forth spiritual fruit in abundance for His glory.

Topics: "Genuine Love", "Spiritual Transformation"
Scripture References: John 3:16, James 4:8, Haggai 2:9, Psalm 103:12, Ephesians 2:14, Philippians 4:7, 1 Corinthians 3:11, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:2, 1 Peter 5:6

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the need for genuine love and compassion among
believers, highlighting the importance of repentance, humility, and
seeking God's transformation in our lives. It calls for a deeper
commitment to Christ, a cleansing of past sins, and a focus on exalting
Jesus above all else. The message stresses the significance of building
spiritual foundations, separating from worldly influences, and allowing
God to bring forth spiritual fruit in abundance for His glory.

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CONTENT
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Good morning, good to see you David. Lord Jesus, come into our midst and
minister life unto us and help us that we might not stay the same, that
we wouldn't grow stagnant like a pond overgrown with scum, but that we
might experience times of refreshing that would come from the Lord, that
you might water us and cause life to flow forth from us, that we might
be a blessing in the earth through your son Jesus, we pray. We were up
at the camp on Thursday, ran into a fellow and he just spent a couple
months at Surrey pre-trial.

He says he has a desire to serve the Lord but then something like a
switch flips and he lives like a devil and then he reaps the
consequences of it and he was just at a different treatment center at
the Teen Challenge and ended up leaving there and now he's up at the
Joshua House. And he came up to me and he said my wife has got a one-
year-old and a two-year-old and she's actually pregnant with a third one
and she has no fellowship. I'm here, I have you guys, I have the group,
but she has none.

Would you reach out to her and invite her to your church and make her
feel welcome? Well, we reached out to this lady and the first thing she
said is, oh, I was been to another church and we've tried that and I
still smoke because I have so much stress in my life and I've been
through a lot with my husband and I want to be genuine and I want to be
open and I fear I'm going to be judged and I won't be accepted. That's
what happened when I went to the last church and I thought to myself,
you know what, you better not come to our church because exact same
thing's going to happen, exact same thing. People, we got to get a
little further with Jesus than where we're at because when he came to
his own, his own didn't receive him.

I know Jesus is not one who's coming with problems and having to smoke
out on the steps, but if we're not going to make room for Jesus in our
steeple, then he never gonna, we're never going to find him. We had a
Christmas celebration with family yesterday and I don't usually like to
go, but I do go because it's so fake and it's plastic. We see each other
and I say it every year, I say to my sisters, I say, well, we'll see you
again next year.

And they all laugh, but it's true. See them once a year. Everybody has
their Jesus, but there's a very shallow, shallowness in our
relationship.

And that can't be, if we're Christians, it says you'll know that you're
a Christian because the love you have one for another. You have this
family and everybody believes in a Jesus, but there's no love one toward
another. And then when we invite somebody to come into our fellowship,
we all believe in Jesus, but none of us seem to have much love one
toward another.

Love is patient and kind. It does not envy. It does not boast.

It is not proud. It's not self-seeking. It thinks no evil.

It does not seek its own, but it delights in serving. Love keeps no
record of wrongs. It doesn't hold grudges.

It's not bitter. We don't look down upon others. Jesus said, I judge no
one, but if I judge, my judgment is just.

We have that which judges us is word. That's the plumb line. If it
wasn't but for the grace of God, we heard Brother Dan's testimony and
mine's even worse.

From where the Lord brought me from, where would we be? If the Lord
judged me before I had an opportunity to repent and return, where would
we be? We spend our time talking about reindeer and Santa Claus and
snowflakes and all this drip of the world. Where's Christ? Oh, we'll put
him in a stable because there ain't no room in our steeple for him. I
wanted to share in a passage from John in chapter 3 and verse 16.

It's a Christmas story. Seems fitting that today is the 25th of December
and as the world celebrates this pagan holiday, so we will also, through
the word of God, share about God's gift toward men. John in chapter 3
and verse 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For
God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world through him might be saved. This is a season of gifts and of
giving.

No greater gift could the father give than his son. He loved the world
in its stinky, wretched state that it found itself in after the fall of
Adam. It just regressed.

He got to the point where he said he was grieved in his heart because
the thoughts of man were completely evil continuously by the time Noah
was around on the earth and he said, you know what? Noah, you build a
boat. You build this ark for you and your family. I am done with all
these people and all their sinning.

I'm going to wipe the whole bunch out and I'm only going to preserve
you. I'm starting fresh. And it happened again.

God got frustrated with his people who cried out to him for years to
deliver them and when he brought them out of Egypt, they brought Egypt
with them. And there they were when Moses was up on the mountain
receiving the word of God, the oracles of God, the people began to eat
and drink and they rose up to play because wickedness came from Noah and
it somehow went through him and the nature went into the people of God
and here they were having sexual pleasures and worshiping a calf that
Aaron had fashioned and he said just came out of this fire and the guy
just worked on that thing for how many days and made that idol for them
and said this is Yahweh, the God who delivered you out of the land of
Egypt, the one that you can see, one that has value, made of gold. And
God said get away from this people.

I'm going to destroy this people. I'm done with them all. I'll make you
a nation, Moses.

And God was reminded by Moses, a man with a nature like ours, to
remember his covenant. Remember the rainbow. Remember your promises.

Remember your goodness. Remember mercy and wrath. Don't destroy us
completely, Lord.

And there was a judgment always with God, but there's mercy. The sorrow
is for the night, but the joy comes in the morning. There's a purging
and a cleansing that has to happen among us, brethren, if we want to see
the love of God and the glory of God.

The gifts are not about the tree. These are idols. The gifts are not
about the lights and all the glitter and all the glamour.

This is a distraction. The season is not about Santa Claus who
masquerades as an angel of light and it's really Satan if you just move
one letter to the end. And underneath that hat, which he has horns,
seeking to rob Jesus of his glory.

But God is not moved by any of these things that the world seeks after.
He says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. His name
is Jesus, my friends.

And all these things shall be added unto you. For God so loved the world
that he gave. He gave the gift of life.

It says, unto us a son is born. Unto us a child is given and his name
shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. The question is, is God with you?
Is God with you? Well, let me tell you.

If he's with you, he wants to be in you. And he's not going to come and
live in a fancy place or in some high mountain. He dwells in the high
and lofty place, but he's coming to dwell with him who is humble, who is
contrite, who knows that apart from Christ, he's no good.

And he keeps messing up. He's coming to a place, not even an inn, which
might be above the stable. He's coming to a lowly place where it's
stinky, where it's a cesspool of sin.

And there he is wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, a
feeding trough for animals. And as Brother Dan shared, the one who feeds
on me shall live. We want to have communion.

Are you prepared to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood that you
might have life in you? Are you prepared to say, Lord, make me like you,
Jesus, that I might be willing to go to the lowest places and to bring
the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and the preaching of the word
of God? Or have I attained to something? Do I put my raincoat on and my
rubber boots so I don't get any dung on me? Jesus was not like that, my
friends, and God was not like that. We talked about giving Jesus the
best gift. I'll tell you, the Father gave the best gift to us.

Could he let him go? Could he give it up for the vilest offenders, for
the uncleans? That they might be made white and clean through his shed
blood. Could he sacrifice his only begotten for a wretch like me? That's
grace. That's a gift of God.

That's eternal life through Jesus Christ. How great and how excellent
are his ways. And if we want to make an impact for God, or rather God is
going to make an impact for us, then we have to become just a little bit
lower in our own opinion this next year.

We have to come just a little bit lower in our estimation of our
spirituality and ourselves and begin to realize that it never was us, it
always was Jesus. Lest we, like Nebuchadnezzar, open up our balcony and
stand out over top of our little empires and begin to say to ourselves,
look what all my hands have created. Look at all the wonderful things
I've accomplished in my life.

Brother, sister, the axe is already laid at the root of the tree. I've
seen many people who started off lowly and trusted in their own
righteousness, their own wisdom, and their own abilities. And God
allowed them to be brought low through the axe and left a stump in the
ground.

But the good news is after seven times passed like Nebuchadnezzar, he
can bring them to a place and he can bring you to a place where you once
again can look up and remember the kindness and the mercy of God. And
remember that he is almighty and I am vile, that he is holy, and I am a
man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips. When you
see the king, who is this Lord of glory? The Lord strong and mighty.

Brother, sister, lift up your heads, oh you gates. Be lifted up and let
your eyes be looking unto Jesus, ye everlasting doors, and the King of
glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? It's the Lord.

These are deliverers, strong and mighty, mighty in battle to deliver us
from the evil one, to cause us to get lower. That we might start in up
at the top in this great hierarchy of his temple and work our way down
to become a cornerstone, next to the cornerstone in the foundation of
God, bearing burdens. That wonderful brother, Leonard Ravenhill, he
mentioned in one of his sermons, babies need bottles, not burdens.

And sometimes I wonder if we're really interested in bearing burdens, to
share the burden of the Lord. Do you weep between the porch and the
altar, when you see the state of people who are crippled and broken
because of their sin, and you take five minutes to say, Lord, spare thy
people, oh God. Or do we just thank the Lord for all his wonderful
blessings? Thank you, Lord.

Oh, it's good to be thankful and everything give thanks. But do we stand
there when we pray and say, thank you, Lord, I'm not like them that are
smoking outside the church. And thank you, Lord, I'm not like them that
still have a bottle in their hand and they're walking down the street.

And thank you, Lord, for all the wonderful things that I'm able to fast
and to pray and to become such a spiritual guide to the blind. And then
you leave that prayer closet feeling unchanged. Or you're one who beats
his chest and says, Lord, have mercy on me.

I have, but still ask for more. I have some love, but I desire the love
of Christ, which surpasses knowledge. I desire to know you, the power of
your resurrection, including the fellowship of your sufferings.

I desire to go deeper with God. I want to be a man who digs wells like
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. I want to be able to bring times of
refreshing to water the people that we meet.

Do you want to water the people that you meet in this dry and thirsty
land where there is no water? Brothers and sisters, we have a famine in
the land. And it's not a famine of bread, nor a famine of water from
Amos in chapter five, but it's of hearing the word of the Lord. The
people have become deaf, their hearts have become dull and hard of
hearing.

And we have need of the Holy Ghost. We have need to see the power of God
to see his power and his glory in our lives. Do you want to change or do
you love it the way it is? Preach this Thursday about going by the field
of the lazy man, Proverbs 24.

And there we looked at his field. We have some fields around us, some
are well manicured and well tended to and others are overgrown. And the
people on either side that have this overgrown stuff, they seem to
think, oh, natural is the way to go.

All overgrown and then you look into the corners and creeping in is all
the bramble overtaking the field. Not too long ago, I was called by a
lady with my excavator to go clear a field. She had to make an
investment.

It cost her $10,000 for me to go there and to clear about 40 acres of
which about a quarter of it was covered in brambles. How did this
happen? It was once a beautiful field run by the father of the farm and
he had tended to that. But now 10 years had gone by.

You want to know how it happened? Do nothing. A little sleep. Just sleep
in in the morning, a little slumber.

I'll read my Bible later. I got to get on my phone and check out what's
new on the internet. A little folding of the hands to rest.

I don't want to put my feet up. I worked a hard day. I'm going to put my
feet up and just relax and just have some knee time.

And your spiritual poverty will come upon you like a prowler and your
need like an armed man. And all of a sudden, suddenly you'll realize the
stone hedge is broke down and the wild boar is coming in and has picked
away all the fruit. It's a season to mend fences, brothers.

It's a season to build up the stone walls that are broke down. It's time
to gird up the loins, put a sword on your side and the word of God in
your hand and begin to build. We need to build again.

I was reading this morning at Haggai. And he said, you're all building
your cedar paneled houses and this temple lies in ruins. How is the
temple now compared to the way it used to be? Well, it's in ruins.

And he says now, he says, I want you to stir up the spirit of Zerubbabel
and Joshua, son of Jehoshadag and it's time to gather the people to
build. He said, well, it's not going to look like much. Look at
Solomon's temple and all its glory and all the sacrifices.

Yet the word of the Lord is the glory of the latter house shall be
greater than the glory of the former house, saith the Lord. He said, the
silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord. Such a humble
house.

Yes, such great glorious promise. You're God's house. You're God's
building.

Don't be spiritually lazy. If the foundations be destroyed, my brothers,
what will the righteous do? Jesus is the corner. He's the cap.

He's the Alpha. He's the Omega. He is our all in all.

May the Lord be the beginning of our mornings and may he be our all in
all, even unto the end of the day. May we wait patiently for the Lord
until our change comes. Until the day dawns, brethren, and the morning
star rises in our hearts.

For God so loved the world that he gave. He gave his son born in a
manger, born in a barn. For you and for me.

What a gift of grace. He didn't send his son in the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might be saved. But the problem
is, brethren, in verse 18, that men love darkness rather than the light
because their deeds are evil.

Will you repent and turn from darkness and come to the light? Jesus is
the light of the world. This is the condemnation. Men love darkness
rather than the light.

And we go to seminars and we go to meetings and we get all kinds of
pastors together to tell us there's no condemnation in Christ when all
the hell is on us because we will not come to the light and confess our
sin. We won't forsake our sin. The one who confesses and forsakes his
sin shall live.

We have to turn away from our sin. Turn our back on the old life. Turn
our back on the old friends.

We spoke last week about coming out from among them and being separate,
not touching what is unclean, and I'll receive you. If you look at
Haggai in chapter two, he talks about if one takes holy meat in the fold
of his garment and he goes and he touches common things, will it become
holy? If you are the precious treasure of God and you go into the world
just because of the righteousness of Christ that's in you and Christ in
you, does it mean that just if you rub shoulders with worldly people
they will become godly? No. But if you go hang out with ungodly people
and you go to the malls and the pubs and you go out into the world, into
the business places, all you talk all the drip of the world and you go
and touch someone who's unclean and a dead corpse sort of speaking,
there's no spiritual life in them, what will happen to you? And the word
of the Lord is you'll become unclean.

Brothers, come out from among the world and be separate, don't touch
what's unclean. We have no fellowship righteousness with lawlessness, no
communion light with darkness. What agreement has the temple of the Lord
with idols? Brothers, sisters, it's time for us to clear out our old
lives, to clear out our idols and to seek the Lord while he may be
found.

That our laughter should be turned to mourning, that our joy to gloom,
let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, be in Christmas
and look unto the Lord and be saved. For he is the great and high
shepherd. He came and revealed himself to the shepherds who watched
their flocks by night because he was going to be that great and awesome
shepherd of his people.

May we see the Lord high and lifted up. May you see him high and lifted
up. A revelation of the glory of God among a dry, weary, and dirty place
where he's not ashamed to come and to call us his brothers.

He dwells, brothers, sisters, in a high and lofty place, the King of
kings and Lord of lords. And he dwells his footstool with him who is
contrite, who is humble, and who trembles at the word of God. We need to
tremble again when the word of God is preached.

We need to ask the Lord to give us a shaking in our bones, the way he
said, yet once more. I'm not only going to shake the heavens, the earth,
but also the heavens. And this yet once more refers to the removal of
those things which are being shaken, brothers, so that that which is
unshakable might remain.

To cleanse ourselves, to get rid of the wood, the hay, the stubble, to
purge ourselves of all uncleanness. Make room for him in your little inn
there, that he might not be ashamed to come and have his abode with us.
After he comes, brothers, sisters, there has to be a clearing out of the
garbage.

We can't continue to carry on in our old lives, in our past sins. The
Holy Spirit comes to save his people from their sins. And there is a
transformation that happens through the power of the Holy Ghost that we
become new men in Christ, so changed and transformed that we can never
be found in those old movie huts and watching the filth that we once
watched.

May the Lord help us to count all things lost for the excellence of
knowing him rather than seeking to justify things. Why don't we look to
the Lord for salvation from things? Let God be true in every man alive.
It's not him, it's us.

We're the problem. Scripture says in James, each man is drawn away by
his own desires, he's enticed. Brothers, sisters, we have unclean
desires in us to be somebody, to be respected, to make a name for
ourselves, to be successful, to have our bank accounts always going up
in one good direction, that we can boast in our children, in their
accomplishments, and in their talents, and whatever it might be.

But we want to lift up the name of Jesus. We want to lift up the one who
gave his life for us. We want to exalt the father who gave his very own
precious son, who knew no sin, brothers, to be sin for us on the cross.

When all the sin was laid upon his shoulders and the father turned his
face away, how deep the father's love for us, how vast, beyond all
measure, that he should give his only son for God so loved the world,
that he would make a righteous treasure. That's how much God values each
and every one of you, that he gave his best to sacrifice him for you.
May we get a revelation of his kindness and his compassion and may it
lead us to greater depths of his repentance.

Oh, I've repented, brother, sister. We've all repented. But you know
what? Without holiness, none of us want to see the Lord.

He's not coming for a harlot. He's coming for a bride without spot or
wrinkle. The spirit and the bride say, come, Lord Jesus.

Come visit our home this next year. Come visit our fellowship this next
year. That our doors would be open for sinners to repent and turn to the
Lord and hear the good news of the message.

That we would be willing to come alongside those who want to change, to
invest in people who have a desire to follow Christ and to be patient
with them. May the Lord give us patience. Love is patient and kind, slow
to anger, rich in love.

It says, the Lord is good to all and he has compassion in all that he
has made. And the scripture says, as far as the east is from the west,
that is how far he removes our transgressions from us. And he's able to
make us clean.

I was reading in Haggai and it says, you went out and you sowed much and
you brought in little. You know, you sowed 50 and you brought in 20. You
sowed 20, you brought in 10.

But he said, from this day forward, he says, it's not going to be that
way anymore. May the Lord bring forth from this day forward more
spiritual fruit, more seed than what we've sown. For his great name and
for his glory, not ours, that the nations would not be blaspheming
because of us, that they wouldn't say that the Lord is blaspheming
because of our nature, because of the way that we behave, because of our
lack of love, but that they would see that we're Christians, because we
have genuine fruit in our lives, genuine love that comes from God.

May the Lord help us. Yesterday, first year ever, I never opened my
gift. I was not in one least bit interested in opening the gift that was
given to me at Christmas, because I want the true gift.

I want the giver of the one who gives the gifts. I don't want to delight
in gifts. I want to delight in the one who gives the greatest gift, his
son.

May the Lord pour out his spirit upon us and fill us with his peace. He
said that in this house, the glory will be greater. It will be the
desire of all nations.

And I thought to myself before I kept reading, what is the desire of all
nations? That there would be peace on earth, goodwill toward men. He
said in this place, in this place, this latter house, this one that
seems as nothing in your eyes, there will be peace. The king of glory
shall come in.

Who is this king of glory? The prince of peace, the Lord strong and
mighty. It says he will reconcile both Jew and Gentile in one new man in
Christ, having broken down the middle wall of separation and reconciling
in himself a new man in Christ, where the prince of glory can come and
bring peace. Brother, sister, I want to leave that with you.

I want to leave Jesus with you. Let the peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, guard your minds and your hearts in Christ Jesus. Let
the king of glory come in and bring peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

In Jesus name, be blessed.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/fjcqWKcv8hA.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/randy-krahn/the-gift-of-his-son/
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