I hope you had a very merry Christmas, and may the Lord bless you for this new year!
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions? I have a couple, and I’m sure you do, too. We just finished with Christmas, and that’s all about gifts and grace. Now, we’re moving onto the new year, and it feels like it’s all about resolutions and work.
Sometimes, we feel as if this describes our life of faith. When we first received Christ, it was all about gifts and grace… the gift of salvation given out of His grace.
But, now, to grow in Christ, we feel like we need to have resolutions and work. We feel the need to work on our faith. We “need” to pray more, serve more, worship more, love more, give more, work more, etc.
We see in Scripture that this is not the case at all. We have been justified by grace, and we are being sanctified by grace. Our growth in the gospel happens in grace. The gospel is not the doorway of our faith, but it is the pathway for our faith. Christmas does not stop on December 26. The grace of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter is for every moment of everyday.
We saw that truth this past Sunday. Jesus entered a broken world through a broken family into a broken life. He identified with a broken people. And now, He enters into the brokenness of our lives, our families, and our relationships. He identifies with us, and we can be sure that He walks with us today.
No other religion has their god enter into the brokenness of this world by becoming a man. But we see that our God has become flesh through Jesus Christ. The infinite became finite. The invulnerable became vulnerable. The immortal became mortal.
Why? It’s because He had to live the life that we failed to live, and He had to die the death that we were supposed to die. He took our place both in His life and in His death. He took on the brokenness of our sin and shame on the cross so that we may be healed and righteous. He took on the brokenness of our lives so that we may be restored.
Every aspect of our worship and surrender is rooted in this gospel of grace. This is the foundation of our growth in Him. This is the only way we have the power to die to our sin and the motivation to live unto Christ. This is the only way that Christmas is our daily reality.
As we approach this new year, may we not forget about the grace of Christmas. May we clothe our new year with prayer that God may grow us in our humility and our dependence upon Him. May we grow in the richness of the gospel.
JUST A REMINDER… We have New Year’s Eve service, starting at 8:00pm. Please prepare your hearts for the Lord’s Table that will be served then. If you have some time before, come out for dinner from 6:30-7:30pm.
If you cannot make it, have a blessed New Year’s, and we will see you on New Year’s Day for our Lord’s Day worship. Pray for one another.
In Christ,
Pastor Tim
Image source: http://theyarbroughhouse.blogspot.com/