You know, if you could sum up our lives, you could sum them up in the pattern that you've

seen illustrated here.

We heard the revelation of the gospel, we believed it.

We pursued Christ and embraced Him.

And as Christians, we began to think deeply about the great truth.

We love the word.

We ponder the truth.

And our lives are marked by a desire to obey what God tells us to do.

Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today and a blessed Christmas to you and yours. As you gather with friends and family to eat and exchange gifts and whatever else you have planned for the rest of this Christmas day, I encourage you to

stick with John for a lesson that will help you stay focused on what matters most today.

John is continuing his current study called The Promise of Christmas.

Well, John, Merry Christmas to you and Patricia and your family.

And, you know, you and I are lovers of the Puritans, but there were people who didn't particularly love celebrating Christmas.

They saw it as a pagan holiday.

And today, there are people who also think that about Christmas.

And in fact, we get the question

regularly over the years, is it wrong for Christians to celebrate Christmas? But I know that

you love Christmas and you celebrate Christmas, so talk about that for a minute.

Well, look, I'm not ignorant about the fact that Christmas is confused with some pagan celebrations.

I don't need to undo all of that. I don't need to turn Christmas into a pagan holiday

because it does have connections to paganism in its history. I just look at Christmas to say, okay, is it a good thing to think about the birth of Christ?

...