Before we start today's Leading the Way, here's a testimony that our team recently received.
We thought that you would be encouraged to hear how God is using Dr. Yusef and leading the way. David writes to us from Kansas to say, Today, I finally felt the calling to take a leap of faith and trust in God. All the years of disobedience to the Lord have been a blessing in disguise. Now I see that I've been learning a lot from my mistakes and my sinful choices.
Today, I repented after confessing my sins, and I currently seek the way, the truth, and the life. All this thanks to our Savior through our Creator God. Much love and blessings to you all. Thank you for your sacrificial giving to Leading the Way. Lives are being impacted, changed daily through your prayers and your financial support. And now is the perfect time to stand with Dr. Yusef during this month's Giving Challenge. Visit ltw.org to learn more about what God is doing through Leading the Way.
That's ltw.org. Or call a ministry representative at 866-626-4356. The title of this episode's message is The Reason for the Season. It's not a touchy-feely, sit-by-the-fire kind of Christmas message. This is more of a reality check that the baby in the manger grew into a man whose eyes were fixed on a journey to the cross of Calvary for the sin of mankind. This is a great reminder everyone needs to hear as we're speeding toward Christmas.
Here is Dr. Michael Yusef with a reminder about the reason for the season. In the past 10 years or so, there has been a tsunami-like movement across the Christian church, particularly among the evangelical community through books and videotapes and internet, particularly among college students and younger generation in general. It is called the Emergent Church Movement. It is not a denomination. It's not an organization. It's a movement that is designed to, quote, create a new kind of Christian.
Ambitious, gold, but seem to be succeeding to a certain degree. Some of the names that are associated with that movement are people like Brian McLaren, who is their number one guru, Tony Jones from New Zealand, now based in Texas. I'm telling you this so you know when you see the books in the bookstore you understand where they're coming from. But the real danger of that movement is that it has so many things that are right with it.
I found myself in agreement with many of the things they say. For example, they attack what they perceive as hypocrisy in the traditional church. You're not going to get any argument from me on that one. They attack what they see as smugness on the part of many traditional churches. No argument there.
They attack what they see as Christians who do not live the way they say they believe. No argument there. They attack what they see as lack of care and compassion on part of some traditional churches.
No argument there. But from that point on, they get off the rails. When it comes to the very core of biblical Christianity, they completely miss the mark. In their zeal to create what McLaren calls a new type of Christian, they throw the baby with the bath water. In their desperation to be relevant to the postmodern culture, they deny the core of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation. For example, they say that in the Christian faith, anything that offends a non-believer must not be preached from.
They say that nothing is sacred. They say that to question and to challenge everything, including biblical authority. They question the Holy Spirit's inspiration of the Bible. They question the virgin birth of Christ. They question the truth being only in Jesus. They question whether homosexuality is a sin. They question that Christianity is the only true faith in the living God, the creator God. They question heaven and hell, and they question the importance of biblical doctrine.
They also question the spiritual authority and order in the church, to name just a few. In fact, McLaren said that Jesus did not come to take us to heaven and away from hell. He came to show us how to get along or how to live in our relationships. In fact, he goes on to say that we must not be concerned about conversion of souls to Christ, just have conversations with them. And the motto is conversation not conversion. Now, beloved, I want you to listen carefully to me.
I don't want you to misunderstand me. What got us in the mess we're in as humanity is when Eve began to have a conversation with the devil instead of obeying God. Conversation with that aim of reaching somebody to come to Christ is an aimless one. What is egregious to me is the teaching that Jesus did not come in order to take us to heaven and away from hell, but he came to show us how to get along, how to live. Now, this is not a new teaching, by the way, just a lot of young people think it's, oh, this is new stuff.
It's not, nothing new under the sun. And so if they are right, then Jesus must be wrong. In Luke chapter 19 verse 10, when he said, the son of man came to seek and save what was lost. I want you to imagine a cart and then there's a horse behind the cart trying to push that cart uphill with his nose. And that's exactly what they're doing.
They're putting the cart in front of the horse instead of the other way around. The Bible said in first John chapter three verse five, and I want you to turn to it that Jesus came to save us from our sins. In him, there is no sin. This is the ultimate reason for the season.
This is the ultimate reason for Christmas. This is the ultimate reason why God became a baby in a womb of a version. And that is why these modern Christian movements hate the word sin. They don't like it. If it's up to them, they will remove it from the lexicon. It is such a negative concept. It is offensive to people. It is stigmatizing to people. So we need to eliminate the word sin from our vocabulary.
Because when we eliminate the word sin, we'll become tolerant of all sorts of immoral lifestyles all around us, even in our churches. But try what you may. They cannot do away with what Jay Adams calls the biblical principle of antithesis. From the very beginning, there were two trees in the garden. One is forbidden.
One is allowed. There were two eternal destinies, heaven and hell. Jesus spoke about two roads, one that is wired with which you can go with all of your junk, with all of your baggage, but will lead to eternal destruction. Then there is another way, Jesus said, which will only lead to heaven, and you can go there with Jesus only. There are two ways, God's way and man's way. People are either saved or they're lost.
There is no halfway house. They either belong to the Lord or they belong to the world. Moses said to his people, God set before you a blessing and a curse, and you must choose between the two. There are those who are with Christ and those who are against Christ.
You cannot be neutral about him. There is a light and there is darkness. There is the kingdom of God and there is the kingdom of Satan.
To which one do you belong? There is love and there is hate. And that is why Jesus came from heaven. He came to save us from our sin, to redeem us from our sin. In him there is no sin. Did Jesus come to show us how to live? If you're a believer in him, if he has devastated sin in your life, yes.
The answer is yes. But he only shows you how to live after he has dealt with the sin in your life. After you handed him your sin and he had forgiven you. Only after he takes away your sin. He can show us how to live only after he delivers us from the power of sin.
He can show us how to live only after he has forgiven us and removed the stain of sin. I try to imagine again, a filthy person who's dressed in filthy clothes. He had not had a bath or a shower in years and never change his clothes in years and that person is taken by somebody and said, buddy I want to show you how to live.
Here are some new designer clothes, put those on and I'll show you how to live. It won't be long before he's smelling himself. He's scratching his dirt, right? He's smelling his filth. Deep down he knows what he's got inside of him. But what difference it make if you lovingly take that individual, get those clothes burnt, give him a shower and cleanse him and then put on designer clothes and tell him this is how you live the good life.
What a difference in the world. That is why Jesus came. In order to take away our sin. Jesus cannot show someone how to live who's still carrying his own sin inside of him. Jesus cannot show someone how to live who has never been delivered from the power of sin and the strength of sin. Every one of us are born with sin. Every one of us have the natural inclination that we want to do our thing, we want to live our way and we want to save ourselves.
We don't want somebody else to save us, we can save ourselves. But God said that sin has only one cure. That sin has only one treatment.
Reforming it will not work, improving it will not work, containing it will not work, denying its existence will not help you and covering it up and hiding it will only make it worse. And that is why sin has great power until you come to Jesus Christ asking for his forgiveness. At that moment he devastates sin. He breaks its power. He destroys its strength.
He devastates its effectiveness. And sin rules and ruins because sin is not a toy, it's a tyrant. Sin is the strength of death and death strength. And that is why the Apostle John who leaned on Jesus' shoulder, who lived with him, who walked with him for well over three years. He could tell us that he came to save us from sin and in him there is no sin. He came to set us free and give us victory over sin. And that is why we say Merry Christmas.
What's merry about it? Because Jesus came to set us free. He came to devastate sin in our lives and no longer imprison to sin. That is why it's Merry Christmas. That's why we rejoice in this season. And that is why we celebrate the coming of the Messiah, the Deliverer, the Savior, the Lord. We rejoice because we no longer live as slaves to sin. We live in the power that he gives us to overcome sin. And even when we sin, and we do, intentionally or unintentionally is also a cure for that. And that is daily coming to the Lord Jesus Christ in brokenness and in seeking of his forgiveness and his grace is extended to us every time we repent. When we acknowledge that sin, when we confess that sin, he will give us the peace that passes understanding that comes from the forgiving of that sin.
Not the denying of its existence as foolishness. You will never experience joy in denying the existence of sin or modifying the definition of sin. In fact, those who are saying that Jesus came to show us how to live, they have failed to understand that it is impossible to live like Christ without Christ's power over sin. It is impossible to live like Christ without receiving his power. It's impossible to live like Christ without the power of the cross in your life and in mine. It is impossible to live like Christ without him coming into my life and coming into your life and deliver us from that power of sin. Remember, it's the same John who said in the same epistle, if we say we have no sin, because in case somebody says, well, Michael is preaching perfectionism.
No, no, no. The Bible doesn't and I don't. He said, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Ah, but if we confess, he's a cure. Here's the answer, the only answer.
Here's the only treatment. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins. John said, Jesus came to deliver us from sin. In him, there is no sin. Only a sinless Jesus can deliver us from our sin. Every one of the so-called founders of other religions, every one of them were cumbered with their own sin and only a sinless Christ can deliver us from sin. If he's a sinner like us, forget it.
He can't help us at all. Only sinless Jesus can deliver us from sin and the wages of sin and the consequences of sin. Those who are deceived into thinking that they can live without the gift of Christ's power, they're going to basically end up in one of two ways. They will either cease to call sin, sin and they can try to call it something else. They will have no peace of mind. They will never have the peace that passes understanding or they can deny its existence and they'll end up in a terrible disaster in a terrible fix. They will live a tortured and tormented life and they'll never have the peace of God. Beloved, listen to me. God created us to experience no peace of mind until we come to him in confession and in repentance and receive his forgiveness and eternal life.
That's the way he made us. Others are trying to convince themselves that they will be okay in the end if they do some good work. If they do some charitable work, they will be okay. There are a lot of people today who are doing good work and I call it good work because it is good work.
It's no use denying that. Lots of people, people who deny God, people deny Christ, they're doing good work. They're doing good things. Feeding the hungry, helping the poor, cleaning the environment or whatever is their good is but they're doing this in order to ease the burning fire of the guilty consciences. That's why they're doing it. Their lives are in shambles.
Read about them. But those who are in Christ Jesus, they do good things too. Those who love the Lord Jesus, they do it and most of them do it behind the scene, not in the open in order to get the praise of men.
Those who have been delivered from their sin, those who have been forgiven eternally, they too are doing great work. Oh, but they're doing it out of obedience for him. They're doing it out of love for him who loved us first. They are doing things as if they're doing it to the Lord himself who died on a cross for them. They are doing it with joy. They're doing it with confidence and they're doing it in peace.
You know, my beloved friends, listen to me. There are people who are looking for salvation in all the wrong places and they're hoping to find it in all the wrong places, not where they've dropped it, not where they have sin against God and meaning to repent to God. There are Christians who know the Lord, who are looking for fulfillment in the wrong places. They're looking for fulfillment in their spouses. They're looking for fulfillment in their children.
They're looking for fulfillment in their parents. They're looking for fulfillment in their jobs, but the only true fulfillment can come from Jesus and Jesus alone. Amen. Jesus came from heaven to deliver us from sin. In him, there is no sin.
Please hear me right. If you are a person who is looking for true peace of mind and a peace of heart and a joy in life in this Christmas season, please listen to me carefully. You will only find it when you give all of your sins to Jesus because that's what he wants.
He wants you to hand it over to him. You will not have peace of mind through a church or a denomination or a priest or a bishop or a pastor. You will not find that peace of mind through a charitable work. You will not find that peace of mind in your sincerity. You will not find that peace of mind in your doing good things. Ah, after Christ comes into your life, after sin has been delivered, you've been delivered from sin.
You will do a lot of good work, but you will do it out of delight and out of joy, not out of drudgery. I was thinking about this, and I thought of a story that I read back when I was a seminarian in church history. There was an early Christian father by the name of Jerome. In some traditions, they call him Saint Jerome. Jerome was a great man of God. He was a talented man.
He was brilliant. He translated the Greek New Testament into Latin and translated the Bible into the language of the people and done wonderful things. But one time, he deliberately and purposefully wanted to go and live for a period of time in Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
He just felt this is a compelling reason he needed to go there. So he went and moved into Bethlehem, and there he lived for a while. And so he tells the story that while he was in Bethlehem, he had a dream.
And the dream was that Jesus came to visit him. So he immediately went out and collected all of his money, and he presented it to Jesus. And Jesus said, Jerome, I don't need your money. So he immediately went out and collected all his possessions, and he put them together, and he brought them to Jesus. Again, Jesus said, Jerome, I don't need your possessions. And then Jerome recalls the moment in his dream when he turned to the Lord Jesus and he said, Lord, what can I give you?
What do you want from me? And Jesus simply replied, give me your sins. Give me your sins.
That's what I came for. I came to take away your sins. I know it is impossible for the natural mind to be able to comprehend that the sinless God, the very God in whom all of the power of the Godhead dwells bodily. It is so difficult to imagine that he who sits on the rim of the universe, who created the universe, can come as a baby in a virgin's womb, live for 33 and one third of a year, heal the sick, raise the dead, die on a cross rises again.
It's so hard to imagine. And yet he came so that you and I and everybody who would accept his invitation may come and give him all of our sins, all of our guilt, all of our addictions, all of our failure, all of our sorrow, all of our heartaches, all of our anger, all of our bitterness, all of our lust, all of our jealousy, all of our envy, all of our self-sufficiency, all of our pride, all of our grief, all of our worries, all of our fears, all of our dishonesty, all of our doubts, all of our self-will, all of instrumentalism all of our self-pity all of our depression all of our cold love all of our deceptive self appraisal all of our manipulative ways He said give them to me. I want all to take your sin. I want to take them away and set you free Thank you for joining listeners around the world for leading the way with dr. Michael you said Well today is the first part of two messages Walking you toward Christmas with pointed words about the reason for the season. I do hope you'll join dr Yusef right here again next time if you can't though do make it a point to listen online Listen through the leading the way app or subscribe to the podcast the website to learn more about all of those LT w.org now, let me quickly tell you about a unique opportunity From some friends of the ministry. We hope that you'll be a part of making this a success You see some ministry partners who are just passionate about what leading the way is accomplishing throughout the world Have given a gift and they are challenging you to join them by also giving a generous year-end gift To maintain and to expand leading the way into 2025 so whether your passion is radio right here in this area or satellite television to reach into Arabic speaking communities worldwide or maybe Gospel ministry and unreached villages join with leading the way today Call us to learn more. We're at eight six six six two six four three five six Make sure you give before December 31st get that tax deduction for 2024 You can also learn more if you go online to LT w dot org. That's LT w dot org and you know We always love to hear from you through the Postal Service as well You can write to us and tell us what the ministry is meant for your spiritual walk write to leading the way post-office box 1-0-0 Atlanta, Georgia 30325 Leading the way with dr. Michael Yusef is a listener supported gospel centered ministry if you would like to stand with dr Yusef through your generosity. There are several ways you may consider a one-time gift Many share a bonus from work tax refund or other unplanned windfall of blessing Others express their generosity through legacy giving we call them cornerstone partners setting aside financial assets and generously giving through estate giving learn more at LT w dot org This program is brought to you by leading the way with dr. Michael Yusef
