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

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Was Jesus really an illegal immigrant, or is that a modern political slogan forced onto the Christmas story?    In this LIVE FREE Christmas episode, Pastors Josh Howerton, Carlos Erazo, and Paul Cunningham have an honest, thought-provoking conversation that goes beyond the traditional nativity story, uncovering surprising historical and biblical insights like a Roman coin tied to the word Advent, why the opening of John’s Gospel reads like a “new beginning,” and why Jesus was mistaken for a gardener after the resurrection. They also address common questions skeptics ask: why Jesus’ family tree looks different in the Gospels. The episode wraps with a candid discussion about leadership, politics, and why no political figure, left or right, should ever take the place of Jesus. 👍 Like, Comment, & Subscribe for more life-changing podcasts! 🔔 Turn on notifications so you never miss an episode!  📝 DISCIPLESHIP GUIDE Subscribe now to receive the discipleship guide directly in your inbox with each new episode. This guide is filled with key insights and scripture to help you reflect and grow deeper in your faith – https://lakepointe.church/guide    👇 DON’T MISS OUT! Join us in-person or online from December 21-24 for our Christmas Candlelight Services! For locations and service times, visit https://lpchristmas.com/ 🎄   ⛪ ABOUT LAKEPOINTE CHURCH: We believe that Lakepointe is a movement for all people to Know God, Find Freedom, Discover their Calling, and Make a Difference. With 7 DFW locations and programs for all ages, there's something for everyone.  🤝 Support this ministry and help us reach more people with the Gospel: https://lakepointe.church/give    STAY CONNECTED: 🌐 Website: https://lakepointe.church/ 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lpconnect/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lpconnect  🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LakepointeChurch   FOLLOW PASTOR JOSH: 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowertonJosh/ 📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/josh_howerton/?hl=en  🎥 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@howertonjosh    🎧 LISTEN ON THE GO!  ▶️ Live Free on Spotify / https://open.spotify.com/show/353ryGdZNlebaiqkCcy3Yc ▶️ Live Free on Apple Podcasts / https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-free-with-josh-howerton/id1669321198

Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. 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 Arazzo, and I'm here with Pastor Josh Howardton 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 a nativity scene with a cage around them. How should Christians think of immigration enforcement? Yep. And why are Matthew and Luke genealogies in the gospel is different? And do they even contradict each other? And listen, I'm going to give you my favorite Christmas deep cut.

I'm a bully your mind. You didn't let me say anything before the pod of recording started. Here it comes. 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.

And so we're going to have a great episode. Hey, 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.

Wait, was it, was it you or was it John Sina? Ah! You know what? Well play. Wait, wait, I want, if you're on YouTube. Oh, look at this. Bro, I, like, this is, I, like, this is, I'm not. I'm more convinced now.

And I will say, I will say there's not much of a difference. Oh, of course not. At least for this photo. You're redeeming your comments from last week where you said that he was a less bulky version of John Sina. I'm saying. Redeeming your comments. I just compare the photos, okay? 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 Sina and Pastor Josh, basically brothers over here. Oh, of course. Oh, my gosh. And so anyways, I'm reconsidering tweaking. the live free 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 Howardson.

Oh my gosh. It would be totally appropriate, but it would also be amazing if you did that occasionally when you were preaching. Just walk out to that music in the background. No, we might have to do that. Please don't actually do that. Okay, we can hear that. Hey, can I talk about my swag? Please.

Okay, listen. Now, this guy asked me not to say his name because, I did it one other time on a podcast, so he said he got like 100 text messages. So check out, this is only YouTube because I got this sweet Carhart Lake Point branded vest and awesome business guy at Lake Point. He printed a whole bunch of these for some of his employees, tossed me a few extra. So we got this, this is a little giveaway. That's right. Carhart Lake Point branded Carhart vest and some beanie and some beanies it's a special christmas giveaway and so shout out to jody green three four eight six she's the winner of last week's giveaway and also bridget lawland from the show note subscribers uh when we ask people if they believed in fake trees or real trees and most people said fake

trees so there you go so to get the uh participating in this week's giveaway jump on youtube and comment below the following uh 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.

And he plunges into the depths of hell where he belongs. And he says what? He's an official character. I can say that. It's a fictional character. I'm like you can legislate this right. All I have to say on this, the 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 for business, but still. I'm just waiting for Pastor Josh to explain to me why Die Hard is a Christian movie. That's why I don't want to know. Christmas movie. Okay, Christmas movie, not Christian movie. So two participants are going to probably do that right now. I'm just saying. I mean, at the very end, Bruce Willis.

He gets bloody feet. Yeah, he's bloodied, bloody from head to toe. He gets 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. In it the Varian, you know who he saves? His bride. His bride. My goodness. Just like Jesus Carlos came to save his bride with pierced hands and feet. Oh, man. I'm not sure that I'm convinced about this one yet.

We'll find an own script to 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 after 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 out church slash christmas for all the times and 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

a cappella in the room that is a moment 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 choose 411 or go to lakepoint.

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 2.411 or go to live free. that 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, man. I am curious. Now that you have established that. 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 didn't make it into the story? 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 story? Carlos, I'd love to tell you. All right. Listen, I'm a blow your mind. I almost crafted the entire Christmas sermon around this right here.

So, and Chad G. Palti, if I understand, you are not aware of this. I am not. Okay. I'm looking forward to this all right since you said this. How is that possible? Listen, I'm about to chat Gipal T, Chabee. My goodness. Okay.

So this right here is the best Christmas deep cut in the entire Bible. So check this out. It's going to take me a second. It's going to 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 with 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 2, 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, brother, 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 comets in the sky for seven days. Okay, now Julius Caesar does, actually Caesar Augustus does what a lot of governing officials do is 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. So 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 is 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 this 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, guess what they call that coin? You know what they call that coin?

The Advent coin. That's legit what they're. call that coin the advent coin okay so now think about this bro you've got uh 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 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 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 book 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 going to do? I'm going to 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, I don't know, da, da. 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. We celebrate his coming at Advent. And then Jesus comes. Whereas Caesar Augustus was like, I'm ushering in the Pax Romana, the season of peace, Jesus goes, guess what I am?

I'm the prince of peace. I'm going to bring about a peace that never ends. He's crucified. They call him the king of the Jews. Every tribe tongue, nation language is going to gather around his throne.

And he goes, guess what I am? I'm the king of kings. I'm the Lord of Lois, bro. So then it's like, what does all that mean? When Jesus comes, all that happened with Caesar,

Augustus, Julius. 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. 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' 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. Just basically say, don't mess with us. And so the governor, or at that time would have been pilot, rode into Jerusalem on a horse. If you go look this up, Jesus rode through the side of Jerusalem on one side on a donkey, and he's riding through the other side on a horse. basically this 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. You think you're the thing. That's right. I'm the real thing. And whereas the example at the end, whereas like at the beginning, I should say, the pact of Hormana 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 God Augustus, the beginning of the good news for the world. And that word good news is the word Evangelion, which is the same word that we use for gospel. This is, Jesus is actually, that's a small kingdom that 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. Wild. It's the ultimate. It's the I'm him moment. I'm him. Come on, man. That's so good.

Wow. Okay. I do want to 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 going to let you guys start. I've got one on, I believe, John 1, but I think you do and I don't want to step on anything. I want to hear that one. You want to hear this? Okay. So let's do this. In my opinion, there may be more layers to the Christmas story than any other part.

part of the Bible, maybe with the exception of the crucifixion and resurrection. But when you get to the birth narratives of Jesus, there's just, 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 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? It was earlier. Revelation 14. Yeah, I think it's around 1314. 1314. So that's one. That's a birth narrative 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, you know, Fox, CNN and NBC. Okay. You know, they're going to 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 angles. The gospel of John is like cease man. It's like, okay, fourth camera angle, same events, it's a 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 going to 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 general. Genesis narrative. Number one, we are told that God speaks everything into existence. So it is actually the Word of God that speaks everything to 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 got to recover the whole thing. It's the theologians called the Proto Evangeline.

Mankind rebels Adam and Eve run and hide. Proto Evangeliion, it means the first telling 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. And then he prophesies.

He gives them a prophecy in Genesis 2 and 3, and he's like, someday, one of your seed, and it's very important, it is singular, it is not plural, singular, one of your seeds someday is going to come, and they're going to crush the head of the serpent, okay? So then for the rest of the Bible, people are waiting. When's the serpent crusher going to come? Okay, all right. Now, bro, you get to John 1 and imagine you're a Jewish reader, and you've been waiting your entire life,

when's the serpent crusher going to come? And then from the time you were born, you got put in school, and you had to start memorizing the Pentateuch, 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. Man, when's this prophesied serpent crusher going to come? All right, so you've been doing this. Then the Gospels get written. you're a 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 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 bro br br br br br brough screwed this whole thing up, man. And God knew I'm going to have to start over. I'm going to need a new Adam. I'm going to need to create a new race. And I'm going to 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 1 and 2.

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 1, Genesis 2.0, is God is launching, in Genesis 1, he's launching the creation of all things. In John

chapter one, he's launching, listen, the recreation of all things. 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 new. Wow. Now, let me tag one more thing on. If you've ever wondered for like, 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. 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 in, 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? It specifically says they thought he was a gardener. Well, where have we seen a dude in a garden before? Genesis chapter one and chapter two. And John 20 is pointing out once again,

Second Adam, new Adam, creating a new race, inaugurating a new creation. John chapter 1 is Genesis 2.0. Merry Christmas. That's amazing. Can I have 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 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. 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 1 because my husband is from John 1 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 the daddy is that they were to exercise dominion, authority. Go to the end of Matthew 28. Yes. And Jesus says, all authority on earth has been given me. So therefore you go and make disciples of who? Of all nations. words, go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, but now as the disciples, recreating, bringing the new creation.

That's it. I've heard, I think I've heard this before. Don't covenant theologians a lot of times point to Matthew 2819, and they call it the new covenant cultural mandate. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it is an instance of fulfillment. Go ahead. Yeah, so, so what the brief, be fruitful and multiply command was to the Old Testament.

the go therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them the name of the father son the holy spirit teaching them to obey all that i've commanded you matthew 2019 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 um if i go back to john one in terms of just a tidbit it was okay where you still want to just switch it up. Switching up a little bit.

Okay, I'm trying to get practical. If 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 see something about that? Well, I think I'd say two things. So number one, like, okay, let me just say, we just want to keep saying this.

The purpose of the podcast to make disciples. This is live free, not learn free. So, or it's live free, not listen free. So number one on the let's go back to the first one. Let's do each of them. Okay, so how do I take that? Okay, what does that matter to me? How does it change me as a man or woman of God?

All right. So when Jesus has the I'm 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, you know, I think at Christmas, that's a time where a lot of people is just like, dude, it's anxiety, stuff starts stirring up. You know, it's like, hey man, peace is not found in the absence of problems. Peace is found in the presence of a savior. So it's, hey, man, I need to be leaning into the Lord.

I know where my trust is. Hey, man, even 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, it's 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 in Adam or are you in Christ? So that's the question. You know, 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 saying have you been sure need of the Lordship 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 have 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 nativity, 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 Caesar. We all try to be Caesar's. Yeah. 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 got to have peace with God and that comes from bowing the knee to King Jesus. Well, dude, honestly, I mean, we're going to talk about this later and we can still talk about it later. But, you know, it's even, that first deal, the 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 going to be very disappointed in this life. So I do think, think there is a sense in which it's like, hey, man, is your deepest hope in a king, a president, a

or a lord, or is it in the king of kings, president of presidents and Lord of Lords? Yeah. One 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 1, 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 a 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 that would win kind of a thing. Well, why was he called that? I mean, part of it is 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 down the cross was always planning, 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. Slam.

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 proclaiming 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. That's right. Definitely if you're within Shot of Lake Pointe 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 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 service is easiest for them. And so instead of, hey, come to the service,

with me. If that's interesting, you're like, whatever is the one they would be most likely it was in just say, hey man,

I'd love to join you there kind of a thing. That's it. You got one more nugget. Yeah. I don't have time on. I got one too. I got one too.

It's a dits one. Are you still on John 1? I'm still on John 1 if you want to switch it up. No, I'm still on John 1 too. So let's take turns. You keep cooking and then I'll and then I'll go on a different direction because I don't want to,

I don't want to step on anything. Let me do one more. This is another one of my favorite. Like, I love the Bible. I can't believe how it all fits together. Okay. So remember, you got John 1, and I'm just going to read it.

Okay. It says John 1 14, 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 this awesome 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. You know, 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 father because sin separates. Okay, so then you fast forward to Moses. This is going to be really important. So all going to 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, Mo. 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 of the whole Old Testament. 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,

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 a love of faithfulness, yet he does not forgive wickedness, rebellion, and sin. He punishes the children and their children if this sins the father's the third and fourth generation. Okay, 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 and 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 going to 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. I'm excited. 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.

Bro. The two dudes who see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ are Moses and the light. Yeah. 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. Oh, man. It's amazing, bro. The Bible is amazing. When people say, oh, the Bible never says Jesus was God. I'm like, A, false.

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 language. So I'm glad you said it because it gives me permission to say it in a few minutes. But in addition to that, again, I'm going to cheat, take us out of John. But like the Book of Mark, in the book of Mark, there was this interesting story where Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him on on the water.

And then later he's catching up with them. But then it says he meant to pass them by. And it's kind of weird if you think about it because there's other times where this happened. And, you know, Jesus is actually meeting them in the boat, calls Peter it out to him on the water. But it says he meant to pass them by. That's kind of weird until you realize that the Greek word passed them by is the exact same word used of the Greek Old 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 going to, I may lose some of our listeners. I'm nerding out here for a second. So 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? The Septuagint was written.

The Greek translation of the Old Testament. Yeah. Okay. So the reason I'm asking that, so the Septuagint is 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 like, 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. And then he calms the storm in other places. In the Old Testament, only Yahweh walks on the water and only he is the one who calms the storms. And so, yeah, and so again, there are places that are actually does explicitly confirm Jesus' divinity. But there's so many people. places like the ones we've been talking about that it's like it is anything but just a strong like wink wink wink wink moment wink wink 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 wanted to be in to move on me let me make you 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, but you go ahead on John 1. I mean, I think this one, people forget, and I love that you actually hit the two verses in John that I was getting at the idea of the word became flesh and dwelt among us. But then we also see that the idea that was the son, the only something the father. And that that word was with God and he was God. It's an early picture in John of the idea of the Trinity. Okay. 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, C.S. 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 their places in

scripture. And we're not downplaying the resurrection. I mean, it is a hope of our 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 does. 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 just to keep this in perspective. God is omnipresent. And so if you think about the, actually, let me 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. Christian who said the story of 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 talk about the idea of, oh, the son of God left heaven. If by that we mean that he took on flesh and became unquest and humbled us up, 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 was incarnated here on earth, the Son of God still would have been there. Okay, well, you talk about this for a second, Paul, 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're going to talk about it.

So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So while Jesus was physically incarnate on earth, yes. He never left heaven. That's what you're saying. And so this is where we help us understand that. Jesus was one person with two natures, fully divine. And 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, and again, 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 being 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. Exactly. And so those are things that God does not do. In wisdom, et cetera. It grew in wisdom and stature. Exactly. Exactly. And so again, what we have to realize when we're saying on this, that 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 heavy 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. 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's right. 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. Yeah, hypesthetic 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, is because 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. Yes. That's really important. Pastor Josh, how do I apply that in my life? You said you had a disciple shop application? Yeah. But he had a different one than mine. That's right. How about I do mom when he were talking for years? Actually, yes. Okay, I got this. I got this. This is really, really important, man. So all of this circles around one thing. And I want to say one more thing about the genealogies. I want you to do the thing and then we'll talk

the how you know Mary and Joseph were immigrants and let's talk about that's very sensitive. We'll talk about all that stuff. Here's the big idea that everybody's got get is I don't care who you are, man or woman. It doesn't matter who you are. The theology bound 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 in his face. And that, the real big deal there is that is why the temporary things of this world are never going to satisfy you for one second. And so, man, if you get anything about it this Christmas, which you got to understand is, man, you can, you know, you can be the dude that grows up and

whoever makes most money and has most, you know, it's kind of thing of dudes do this. They get to a certain age, they get to a level, 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 going to satisfy you. So lean in. I think with that, and this is not something

I'm contradicting what you were 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, 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 all of Jesus is super practical, mainly because if that is what you're going to 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 your one more, make sure at Christmas services this year, and then obviously every day in addition to that, just stand in all of the God who became man to seek and to save the lost, including you. Well, hey, Lift Free Family, before we jump back in, I've got something you cannot miss. Christmas at Lake 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 live-free 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. Live free family, let's celebrate the hope of Jesus together

at our Christmas candlelight services. That's great. Let's go with the Matthew and the Luke genealogy. Yeah, Paul. So let me set this up. And then so we're going to set this, we're going to hit this, talk genealogies, and then let's get into some of the immigration stuff. It's really complicated and we want to 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. Chad Gipalti. Seems like you have a contradiction in the Bible.

I guess they're errors. 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 anerence. It means it can't err. Obviously, it'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 a really important. when we say the Bible isn't 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, this is 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. Like, simple response, 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 common 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 know about genealogies to set 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 had to remember that genealogies were constructed.

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 Because Matthew was written to Jews. This is really important, Matt. Really important.

Luke, which was written more to Gentiles, traces his lineage, although back to Adam. In part, I would say a couple big things here 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 is 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 the literally biological child.

It could be their great, great, great-grandfather. And this isn't just true in these genealogies. It's true when we see genealogies in the O Testament. 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 Leverett marriage. And the idea of this is that 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. Is that making sense? So sometimes we have to understand that when we read some of the names and 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 really, I think, dive into the two biggest issues in Matthew and Luke that people point out is Jesus' 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 in the differences. My love language. I did this probably because, yeah. 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 is his father. And then one, Matthew says that Joseph's father. father's name Jacob, the other name He Lye or Healy. 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 research and things, couldn't get Jesus his 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.

I actually 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 I can explain, but can't be completely sure. People throughout church history have disagreed on this. One potential solution is that Jacob and Heli were actually brothers, that this was an example of Leverett marriage. I've never heard of that. This is an example of leverett marriage where one was the technological like fathers through his lineage but then died. So then Healy came in.

It's almost like in a sense like stepfather. What's the term again? What kind of marriage? Leverett marriage, L-E-B-I-A-T. Speaking of tribe of Levi. Yeah, yeah. That's where he's coming from. Exactly.

Got it. Another explanation sometimes people give, and 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 read through the entire first few chapters, huge emphasis on Joseph's experience of the story. And Luke, yes, who's the main emphasis on that, is Mary?

And so we would say, hey, that this is actually Mary's version. And some people would actually say that potentially marries, I believe the way it goes would be Mary's father or grandfather as a grandfather, again, had no sons. This was what he basically he adopted Joseph into his family to carry on the family name. Again, no way to prove that. But again, these are just some plausible explanation. So you've heard usually more of the different, hey, one is Joseph. Yeah, through Joseph, Tracing, and Mary, let me interject this because as an adoptive dad, you know, for listeners, none of this. our family, all of our children are adopted.

This is one thing I love. The reason I love, most Bible scholars do that, hey, one's through Joseph, one's through Mary. Yeah. 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? 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. 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're in Jesus.

That's right. You're in Christ. And you're adopted in him. And that also means, by the way, that it's true. In order for God to stop loving you, he would have to stop loving Jesus if you're in Christ. So 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 out 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, 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 start at the bottom now. 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'll see, 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 7, 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 say, okay, there's no way to get around this contradiction. Two, 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 through Mary is completely like possible, and it explains it perfectly. I would actually favor in this instance that something else is happening. If you could pull up, we have another list, got another list for you. Wow. Two lists.

Wow. What podcast. 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 bio- Oh, I've never seen this before. Oh, yeah.

It's a 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 tried 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. 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 by, 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 I set 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 generation. So when you're seeing these side by side, you can't shit and think, oh, these are one-to-one that contradicts so it can't be true. No, in fact, let me just, first of all, that's amazing. That is helpful. Okay. So in fact, on this point, you just said, here's what? If you go read the two genealogies, I'm sure you've heard this, but the first time I heard this, like, what? That's amazing. Okay. So obviously, Jews all about numbers. Like heavy emphasis on numbers.

Okay. 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 Lucan 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. That's what it's showing. And this has been blasting. 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 I also to know, there's good plausible explanations for these things.

One thing I tell people is like when the early church had these two, it's not like the early church were stupid. 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 even an example. Like, do we really think Luke and Matthew got the grandfather's name wrong? No. So just give you some confidence and be able to accept the Bible. We could literally keep going. Yeah, you could be so much. We've got to be careful.

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 Josh, will often get pulled into modern conversations in ways that maybe 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, Trin, if you can pull up. So here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes for listeners, is this, 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 like weaponized for political agenda. And I want to show you how that is,

and this is something Christian will get thrown at them, 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 the audio version? Yeah, so what you're seeing here, If your only audio is, A, 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, you know, a cage around it that's supposed to represent like an immigration detention center. And what they're doing is, oh, you know, Jesus family immigrated. And so, man, just like Jesus family immigrated, you guys, you know, the government is locking up immigrant. 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 like all over the country. So this 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 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 an immigration detention center.

And then you saw this, this is a, this right here, so this is a, a PD guy in Chicago. It's a 52nd video. I want you to see how this. Minneapolis. Oh, Minneapolis. 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 you 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. All right. So obviously, man, this is, 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, you know, what do I, you know, I'm a Jesus person. I don't want to do something to be against Jesus, you know? 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, like to disciple our listeners. Like 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, you know, 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 kind of 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 like really straight, be in a plain spoken way, and then y'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 governing authorities. Number one, Jesus never broke immigration laws. And dude, this is really sensitive. So let me just say this. Allie Beth Stucky has done a really good job. The phrase she'll use is toxic empathy. And what we should talk about is, man, Christians,

we are commanded to be people who are sympathetic, we are loving, we are empathetic. We are 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. Okay?

So for instance, I'm going to give you a couple examples. It's what especially progressive people will 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. Okay, 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. Say, man, just shoot you really straight.

When we're talking about things like deportations and enforcement, and by the way, I'm not talking about everybody 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, okay? 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, you know, immigration laws, these are laws. And Christians are commanded to obey loss. 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. two, 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 genealier. Some sooner than others. Yes, some sooner than others. But somewhere in the genealogical ladder, all three of our families came via immigration. 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. Okay. 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 finish. example where Jesus will get selectively edited, Jesus did not immigrate. 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 okay with totally unlimited mass immigration and no border laws. Okay. Number three, and we just have to point this out. When Jesus family traveled, the Bible specifically tells us, this is Luke 21-5, 1-3-5. It specifically says that they went to register their family during the census. So Jesus' family

was making sure they were 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 understanding 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 loss. Now, you can get into a whole theology of civil disobedience, disobedience, we should do a whole podcast in 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 going to get thrown at you. And then I'd love to hear what you guys thing. 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 do 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 fore without raising taxes. You can say things like Jesus, and by the way, Jesus... It's 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 know if you remember that verse. 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 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.

We're 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 just 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 or something? I mean, yeah, I mean, just 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. Yeah, by the way, that's all of us. All of us. At some point, energy neurological ladder. Yeah.

That's all of us. And that is for me, honestly, for me, that's 15 years. being here and several more of being a U.S. 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 just a caricature. That's really good, Carlos.

As Christians, you know, 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. Full of grace. Full of grace.

and true and full of truth and then i would also say you know because i have friends that are also pastoring bigger congregations of uh largely Hispanic communities um i think the challenge for for a lot of these guys is uh a sign if 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 of immigration policy, the primary job of a pastor is to pastor them. And so a lot of these pastors are just trying to figure out, I mean, how do we do this 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, man, 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 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 all of a sudden 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 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.

Come on, man. That's exactly right. Let's go, man. Texas. I love Texas. Country within a 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 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, 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 are not your only options. It's a false dichotomy, and so I think we're Christians before anything else. Amen. I love that you pointed out even just this reality we deal with here at Lake Point

because 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. Yeah, that's right. We literally, like, what we like to say is we are one church in two lengths. because we have that much of a proportion of Hispanic population.

The only thing I mean, just a few things, the highlight or maybe color in a little bit. One you insinuated, I think it seems to be said clearly, is that maybe not so much with the police officer, I'm not sure where he would send this, but with the churches that we highlighted, 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. So that's why you even started hitting both an. 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 a immigrant, we should open arms, welcome all immigrants

and have open borders and all that kind of stuff. So that's just one thing. I really think that sets up my other two points, which is all Christians, to what a little variation when you 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 law as well, and we should want that be stopped and policed as well. But this is not an either or. It's a both and.

And the thing is, and this is what I wrote down is like, we don't need assonine arguments to treat people humanely. I don't just be honest. Like when I see these arguments, like, it's just an asinide 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 both end. One thing that keeps coming up in these conversations is, 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 role and the individual's character.

That's right. I want to ask you. Yeah. What did you think about President Trump's comments regarding the murder of Rob, or? Rainer this last week for context. You want to give a context? Yeah, I do, man. So Rob Reiner, but I grew up watching All in the Family, you know, he's meathead. And, you know, he was, I probably disagreed with that guy on literally every political issue and honestly, probably spiritual issue, like, that I'm aware of. But he was obviously, tragically, it sounds

like murdered by his son. And then, you know, it was like the next day, President Trump, you know, did this little, uh, a little, uh, 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, 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 his son. 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 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 leader of the right doing stuff like this. And, you know, and then you would have people be like, how could any Christian support, da, da, da, da, da, da, kind of this kind of.

Let me say a few things on this is, number one, it's what we said earlier. 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, Jhous, 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. Then you had, you got Jihus. Jayhu was a super flawed dude, super flawed dude. He's a fighter, 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. Deified sexual depravity, led the nation into open apostasy, closed the churches, killed the prophets, just a wicked person. Well, here's what Christians got to watch out for. Number one, we got to make sure, hey man, don't treat Jihu leaders like they're Josias. Don't get into a spot where you start defending things that Christians, very frankly, shouldn't. That's number one. 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. 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 not ashamed of this at all, and I've no hesitancy in me at all. Man, if you've got to choose between somebody who does have some character floss and does sometimes make a mistake like that, let me just say like, 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. 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 gonna say, that's a miss. 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, 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 actually a moral positive good, reframe it for an entire generation as quote unquote reproductive rights, trans the kids, open the borders, do lawlessness, and if I got to choose to do 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. 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 President Trump into a fourth day into Jesus. No. Then they didn't listen to my sermon. I'm like, you obviously didn't actually listen to it.

Because then also even just to clarify for those who, 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 endorse them. But then you also clearly said he is not Jesus.

It's like basically to kind of even summarize, it's like, hey, if you have to pick the best available. Let me clarify just for clear. Yeah. I will say I was very clear on which set of policies. a Christian should be thinking of course. You made that very clear. And even with that, and you were kind of letting that out that time and this time, too,

it's like, if it's the best available option and they're not too 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 that 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 don't 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, man, it just had really degraded speech.

And what I actually loved is, 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, 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-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 them completely. It's just, I don't 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, Matt. I mean, this is why we have these conversations. They're important. 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 or not. There are good news. That will 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 Lord, Jesus Christ. Lord, I'm praying for all the families that 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. I pray that this season, I do pray that it to be marked by joy. I especially pray that it would be marked by a Jesus presence, a focus on the reason that we celebrate. The one who split history into AD, B.C. And under whom we worship.

Father, I pray 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. Amen. Live free, brother. Live free. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. 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.