How are you? How was your Christmas? Were you able to celebrate the Christ of Christmas with your family and friends?
It was great to worship with some of you on Christmas morning! What a blessing it was to start the day by worshiping the Lord together! We encourage you to attend the New Year’s Eve service at 10pm on Sunday!
Anyways, this past Sunday, we took a look at the first coming of Christ. God the Son came into the world to make sons of God.
This is one of the reasons why He came. This is why He had to take on flesh. He had to live the perfectly obedient life for us. He had to become mortal, killable for us.
Redemption does not happen with just the birth of Jesus. It starts with His birth and ends with His resurrection.
The Christmas story, although it can be romantic, is not a perfect story at all. It has poverty. It has injustice. It has genocide.
But this is just the beginning of the brokenness. The complete Christmas story must have the cross in view. Without the cross, Christmas is meaningless.
But through the cross, Christmas has all the meaning in the world. It is life to the dead. It is hope to the hopeless. It is freedom for the slave. It is love for the orphan. Through the cross, we can sing “Joy to the World” even in the sorrow.
How? It’s because we become sons of God. We become sons of God because Christ became the orphan on the cross for us. He became the slave for us on the cross. The perfect relationship between God the Son and God the Father was broken on the cross so that we may have a loving relationship with the Father.
This is the joy of Christmas: our salvation and adoption.
Is this truly good news for you? Does this truth give you joy and delight? Does it give you hope and strength for today?
We may celebrate the Christmas holiday once a year. But we celebrate the Christmas story every moment of everyday. Meditate on this truth this week and for the new year!
Hope to see you for worship on the Lord’s Day. Also, hope to see you at our New Year’s Eve service at 10pm. We will be partaking of the Lord’s Supper that evening, so please do prepare your hearts.
In Christ,
Pastor Tim
Photo credit: http://markdejesus.com/tag/sonship/