Father, as we open your word now, would you come and be our teacher?

The Apostle Paul talks about a church being God taught, God taught, he even made up a word for it. God taught.

I pray that you would come and send the counselor to be our teacher now and that you would protect me from error and make my heart a reflection of yours and that you would open ears and

hearts to hear and to understand and to respond in ways that are fitting to the truth.

Lord, leave us not to our own devices here.

We need you very much. We are utterly dependent upon you now. Protect us from the evil

one who would intrude into this service and distract our affections and our mind.

Lord, let it be a genuine engagement with you have

with you as we go to your word. In Jesus, name, I ask it, amen.

If you have a Bible or if you want to take a Bible from the pew in front of you, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 10.

It's also printed on the second page of the worship folder there, the text that we're going

to look at. You might want to look at it in your Bible. I'll be referring to some verses that you might be able to find more easily that way.

It's Christmas time.

Two more Sundays leading up to Christmas, today and next Sunday.

And I thought, what shall I say about the meaning of Christmas?

And I believe that the Lord led me to this verse,

verse 45 of Mark 10.

The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve,

and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And what I want to happen in these next two weeks,

I'm going to preach on this verse, this one verse for two weeks,

is that you'll have a crisp, clear, brief statement about what Christmas is

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