We Are The Testimony Of Christ

Speaker: Archbishop Loren Thomas Hines

December 31, 2024

in Spritual Growth

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December 29, 2024

Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7
John 1:1-18

1st Sunday of Christmas 2024 – Abp. Hines

Being the 1st Sunday after Christmas, this should be so significant of our new life. It should challenge us that what was in the past is gone, because all things are new. Psalm 147 says “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit. The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.”
The Law was a tutor for us. It served as our guide. But now Christmas should be all about new life, and we need to come back to this reality.

John the Apostle was very close to Christ. He had special insight to who Christ is. He starts the gospel by saying “In the Beginning,” mirroring Genesis. Before everything began, God was there. Then he mentions the Word. Nothing existed and came into being except through Christ. This gives us an assurance and a hope. In Him was life, and the life was the light of all mankind. Christmas reminds us not to look at the failure of Adam and Eve, but rather focus on new beginnings. On the cross, He gave us righteousness. Christ is the Source of Christmas. Isaiah tells us, “For Zion’s sake, we will not keep silent.” In the Old Testament, it was prophesied that there would be one that would prepare the way of Christ. He was a man sent by God as a witness. In the Old Testament, it also stated that the witness was in the Testimony of the Tabernacle which contained the Ark of Testimony. But now God was going to send a human being. The testimony was no longer in a cold stone. The fact that man being given new life was now going to be the testimony. God goes wherever we go because He is in us.

God gave John the Baptist his credentials, his identity. He was going to be a witness not inside the temple or synagogue but in the wilderness, which represents humanity. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We have somehow lost sight of this truth. We are the temple. The ark of testimony is in us.

1 Corinthians 1:6-9 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1:10 On the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

2 Timothy 1:8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God.
Malachi 3:1 I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.

1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

Hebrews 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Christmas is telling us, now we can conquer. Now we can overcome. Our task is to prepare for the Lord’s coming. We are blessed to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. We are to rule and have dominion over every living thing on the earth.