Adapted notes from a message by Chris Eyte with Bible readings by his wife Celine for The Hill Church in Swansea, 14th December 2025
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.
[Luke 1: 1-4]
The world muddles truth. Look at the internet. We have true news, fake news, fake true news and true fake news – pretend AI generated images, real images…. truth can be demeaned. The other day I was in a shop and saw a lottery machine with a sign over it saying, “lottery not working.” But the truth is that the lottery is never working for those seeking certainty of security. An overwhelming number of people never win it.
Exact truth mattered to the first church and apostles 2,000 years ago. That is why Luke wrote his account. That is why the apostle Peter once wrote: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty (2 Peter 1:16).”
And here we are. Another church gathering. Listening to another sermon. Why? Because the exact truth of Jesus Christ has taken hold of our hearts. We don’t want to let go of Him and He isn’t letting go of us. Christmas reminds us of this exact truth. It’s an excuse to remember it.
Today we are going to look at three components of exact truth: the exact truth of Christmas, which is the Gospel; the exact truth of our personal circumstances and the exact truth of the future.
Firstly, The Exact Truth of Christmas, which is the Gospel
‘And Jesus came up to them, and spoke to them, saying: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.”’ (Matthew 28: 18)
Consider these exact truths and remember them:-
Consider the exact truth of who Jesus Christ is. Meditate on the metaphors of exact truths the Bible records about Jesus: He is the way, the truth and the life, the gate, the door, our defence, the water of life, the bread of life, the Son of the living God. The Creator in human form.
Consider the exact truth of what happened on the cross: Complete forgiveness of our sin, an eternal rescue from evil. Jesus rescued us from the darkness of our own making and from ill health – from death itself.
We are called to keep looking at this exact truth in the same way as the ancient Israelites had to look at the bronze serpent made by Moses as an act of faith in God after snakes bit them because of their evil when they began complaining about their lives.
“Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” [Numbers 21: 8-9]
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.” (John 3:14-15)
In May, I attended the European Congress on Evangelism organised by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Berlin, Germany, with hundreds of evangelical leaders from across the continent. Charles W. Price, the pastor, evangelist and author gave an outstanding talk about the meaning of justification. His talk pinpointed that Jesus died on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God. And he used a helpful illustration for this exact truth. I am quoting from his talk here, which I recorded at the time:
“Jesus became what I am, in order that I might become what he is, in my relationship to God. He was made sin on the cross, and I was made righteous. To forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness, we appeal to his justice, which is why it is called being justified. It is a just act of God to forgive us because [apart from] Christ nobody has paid for my sin. It means justice has been completely satisfied. Let me give you one of the best illustrations I know of what it means to be justified, and it comes from the Scottish law courts.
“I heard this from a Scottish lawyer. When capital punishment existed in Scotland before it was abolished in the 1960s, when a person was hanged, usually for murder, there was legal language used in the notice about the execution. And this is what it would say, … on such and such a date, giving the date of the execution, in Glasgow, so and so – naming the criminal – was justified.’
“The judge [God the Father] has taken off his wig, and he’s gone home. The lawyers are working on other cases now. The policemen are back on the streets. It’s over. He [Jesus] was justified, that’s the legal meaning. It’s over. And, in the cross of Jesus Christ, it is over to the extent that Paul wrote, ‘I have been crucified with Christ.’”
Consider the exact truth of what happened in the resurrection: Jesus proved that death could not hold him. He’s more powerful. “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.” [Acts 2: 24] Impossible! Think about what that means. Song of Songs 8 speaks of love being more powerful than death, and God is love. I visited the graves of some loved ones recently and felt overwhelmed at seeing so many headstones in the cemetery of people of all ages around me. I wept. But then I remembered that faith is the substance of things not seen and hoped for. We trust in Jesus who conquered death.
Consider the exact truth of the Holy Spirit being sent to counsel, guide, correct and lead us in the gospel. “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away,” said Jesus, “for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” (John 16: 7)
Secondly, The Exact Truth of our personal circumstances
There are difficulties in life all the time and in different ways. Christmas can make some people feel achingly lonely. It reminds some of loved ones who have died. I have myself carried the remains of eight loved ones in coffins as a pall bearer and I miss them.
Some people, unfortunately, will suffer tragedies this Christmas. It’s a bleak fact of life. Just because it’s Christmas, doesn’t mean life stops. Hospitalisations, car crashes, turbulent politics, wars and conflicts – these things still happen.
However, the Bible shows intriguingly that God allows the impossible to become more impossible before He changes the situation. Note that He DOES change the situation. But it gets more impossible first. Let’s look at some people from the Bible and you judge it for yourself with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Abraham and his wife Sarah are very old. Too old for children. It becomes more than impossible. Then God tells Sarah she will become pregnant and she does.
Moses was rescued from infanticide by a royal princess. He grows up but then one day kills a man hurting a fellow Israelite. Then Moses flees into the wilderness for 40 years and becomes a shepherd. He must have felt forgotten, lonely, and strange living a very different life. But then God calls him at the age of 80 (!) to lead Israel out of Egypt.
Joseph has a dream of being given responsibility by God but it seems to go wrong. His brothers betray him, and he’s made a slave. It becomes more impossible – he’s then jailed and in danger of execution. God then makes him prime minister of Egypt and he’s restored to his family, just as he dreamt.
Gideon has to keep cutting his army down to size until there is a trickle of men, from about 32,000 to 300 fighters! They are already outnumbered. God makes it seem ridiculous. But Giden trusts God in the more impossible and his small army wins.
Samson is heartbroken, betrayed by the woman he loved. His eyes are gouged out. He is enslaved. It goes from impossible to totally impossible. Then he prays and God restores his power and honour. His last act of pushing the heathen temple down is a powerful illustration of God moving into impossible situations.
Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal in proclaiming truth as to who God is. They build a sacrifice with wood and the prophets call upon their god but he fails to appear. Then it’s Elijah’s turn. However, he makes it even more impossible to show who the real God is. He drenches the sacrifice to be burnt again and again with water. He literally pours impossibility onto it! Then he steps forward, prays, and the fire of God consumes the sacrifice. That is God acting in the more impossible.
Surely Jesus himself is the greatest exemplar of impossibility. Adam brought sin into the world. Jesus, the last Adam, deals with it. God as a man? It seems impossible. But it happened.
So, in our impossible personal circumstances this Christmas or any other time. Let’s call out to God and trust God.
The law or principle of faith, the ‘Nomo Pisteos’ of Romans 3:27, requires us to trust him. In fact, we are under orders like soldiers obeying their army commander, to trust in His will for goodness as the ultimate outcome.
“And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: ‘Great and marvellous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy; For all the nations will come and worship among you, For your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15: 3-4)
Why does God allow impossible things to become more impossible? So that we can understand the Exact Truth of who He is. Nothing is impossible with Him. He changes situations and holds us in His arms.
Again remember – “And Jesus came up to them, and spoke to them, saying: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28: 18)
God inverts things to astonish us, and it naturally leads us to proclaim Him. Romans 8: 31-29 powerfully illustrates the Exact Truth that God does act in the lives of his children.
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Thirdly, the Exact Truth of the future/New Year
Christmas is soon over but the celebration of the gospel frames our lives all the time. As we look ahead, let’s consecrate ourselves and completely dedicate ourselves to following Jesus. Let’s carve out time for quiet times and read the Bible with him! If you find reading hard, get onto YouTube and listen to actor David Suchet reading the Bible. Or meet up with someone from church and ask them to read the Bible to you. Let’s fill the atmosphere of our houses with God’s word proclaiming truth.
Live each day fully in the Exact Truth of who Jesus is, that the Holy Spirit is with us. The same Holy Spirit who brought Jesus into the world and later raised Him from the dead! Think about that. Take time to consider what that means for you.
The Psalms are full of verses saying “shout with joy.” Let’s repurpose the moments of our everyday lives to shout with joy at God’s love.
“Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart!” (Psalm 32:11)
In his powerful Christmas song, Thorns in the Straw, worship leader Graham Kendrick imagines what Mary the mother of Jesus saw in him as she tended to his needs as a baby. That this innocent child was destined to wear a Crown of Thorns. “And did she see there in the straw by his head a thorn? And did she smell myrrh in the air of that starry night?”
Consider the Exact Truth of how the Child described in Luke 2:12 as a “baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger,” and celebrated at Christmas, will one day return and present himself differently, as John saw in his prophetic vision in Revelation 19: 11-16:
“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.“
We celebrate Jesus on a special day at Christmas. But as we look to the future, all our days are special because of Him.
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