If you don’t have a home church and are looking for a place to worship for Christmas Eve in the Orlando area, join us at 7 PM for an hour-long candlelight celebration.
The title of my message from Hebrews 5:7-10 is “How Christmas Can Soothe the Worst of Suffering.”
Hope to see you there!
Another benefit of my recent search for Advent resources came in the form of this lovely piece by the Puritan, John Newton.
Sweeter sounds than music knows
Charm me in Immanuel’s name;
All her hopes my spirit owes
To his birth, and cross, and shame.
When he came, the angels sung,
“Glory be to God on high;”
Lord, unloose my stamm’ring tongue,
Who should louder sing than I?Did the Lord a man become,
That he might the law fulfil,
Bleed and suffer in my room,
And canst thou, my tongue, be still?No, I must my praises bring,
Though they worthless are and weak;
For should I refuse to sing,
Sure the very stones would speak.O my Saviour, Shield, and Sun,
Shepherd, Brother, Husband, Friend,
Ev’ry precious name in one,
I will love thee without end.
May this be our praise and prayer this Christmas and always.
In this season of preparation for the Christmas holiday, we can so easily get overwhelmed by the demands it brings into our lives. Using each of the letters of the word ADVENT, I offer this approach to the holidays as one more likely to promote our joy in God than not.
A – Ask the Lord often to keep you mindful that Jesus is the reason for the season.
D – Deepen your insight into the wonder of the incarnation by regularly reading the gospel nativity accounts at the beginning of Matthew and Luke as well as John’s prologue in chapter 1.
V – Venture to share your faith with someone by giving your testimony, walking them through the gospel, and/or inviting them to a Christmas Eve service.
E – Encourage someone struggling at this time of year through a note of appreciation, spending some time with them, or an act of kindness they don’t expect.
N – Nurture your worship quotient by listening to some sacred music of the season like Handel’s Messiah.
T – (and most importantly) Take to heart more than ever the gospel, the good news of great joy, that though you are more sinful than you could ever imagine that still you are more loved by God in Jesus then you could ever dare dream.
While surfing the web recently in search of Advent resources to use for our church, I stumbled across a little book with a provocative title. Christmas Uncut: What Really Happened and Why it Really Matters, by Carl Laferton (The Good Book Company, 2012, 64 pages), offers an unusual take on the Christmas story that engages, informs, and convicts on several levels.
Laferton cleverly and humorously launches the book and each chapter from a playful reminiscing of church-goers’ nativity pageant experiences to take the reader into an study of the gospels and a look at the real Christmas story, uncut as it were. His aim is to rescue the heart of the season’s message from what it has become. He explains:
When children act out the nativity, it doesn’t have much in common with the historical Christmas. Over time, we’ve cut huge, crucial bits out. We’ve added nice but completely made-up details. We’ve made it into a tale for children, and forgotten the real events. (Did you know that there were no kings or donkey?!)
We’ve turned Christmas history into a nativity play.
I don’t want to be a spoilsport. Nativity plays are part of the whole Christmas experience, along with desperate last-minute shopping and sending cards to people who you didn’t make the effort to see last year, and won’t make the effort to see next year. . . . It’s just that the real Christmas is much more interesting than what we’ve turned it into. It’s worth rescuing and re-telling. . . . What there was at the first Christmas was scandal. Controversy. Massacres. Mystery (p. 6).
In the brief chapters that follow, the author seeks to accomplish three things. First, correct misconceptions. By taking the reader through the biblical texts, he tells the real uncut story and sets the record straight. Second, make application. He skillfully spans the horizons between the first century and the 21st showing how the uncut details of the Christmas story can and should make a difference in our daily lives. Third, answer objections. Realizing that his book may well fall into the hands of skeptics and hoping, I suspect, that believers will put copies there, Laferton offers some “Yes, but” chapters at the end addressing answers to questions as to the authenticity of the gospels, the identity of Jesus, and the historicity of the resurrection.
I can see this resource serving multiple purposes in the Advent season. First, if you feel the need for a fresh look at the story of Christ’s incarnation to jump start your joy in God this Advent season, I believe this will help. Camp out in these pages throughout December, maybe a chapter every couple of days, and ask the Lord to revive your enthusiasm in Him as you read its pages.
Second, if you are the head of your household and want a tool you can use for family worship for you and your children, I think you will find this just the ticket. Kids will resonate with the artwork as well as the nativity play humor. Additionally, Lafteron writes in a straight forward, easy-to-understand style, that will communicate with just about everybody.
Third, if you have been building a relationship with someone who doesn’t know Jesus, you could give them this as a Christmas gift. Ask them to read it and discuss it with you. This may be Lafteron’s biggest contribution in writing Christmas Uncut. While the apologetic details of the final chapter only provide a minimum of ammunition for answering the skeptic’s questions, it will give you a starting place.
I read this little book in one sitting and found my heart all the more grateful for the tidings of great joy that lie at the heart of the Christmas story uncut. I trust you will too.
I received this from our friends at Desiring God today:
Dear Friends,
I’m excited to tell you about a new free eBook for Advent from Desiring God. It’s called Good News of Great Joy, organized specifically for this Advent, 2012.
The team here at Desiring God did a deep dive into our thirty-plus-year reservoir of sermons and articles, and selected brief devotional readings for each day of Advent. Our hope is that God would use these readings to deepen and sweeten your adoration of Jesus this Advent… (Continue reading and download the eBook)
John Piper
and David Mathis, Executive Editor
If you are looking for a devotional guide for personal and/or family use during this Advent season, this just may be your ticket.
I find myself often praying portions of Philippians 2:5-11 with folks during this Christmas season.
Where would we be if the Son of God had not counted equality with God a thing to be grasped and had abhorred the virgin’s womb? Lost – eternally, horribly, hellishly lost.
But the news is good! He humbled himself, took on the form of a bondservant, became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. None of which He could have accomplished if He hadn’t come. None of which He could have accomplished if the Father hadn’t sent Him.
No gospel-motivated missionary on the planet fails to get the significance of this. They have gone to the ends of the earth because the Father sent the Son to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). That means, for me and for my house, among other things, that we must remember missions and missionaries during the Advent season.
One way we have sought to do that practically, along with the partnership of our OGC growth group, is to collaborate together to send a Christmas care package to the Valiquette family serving in Salerno, Italy with the Acts 29 Network in church planting.
Last Tuesday evening our group gathered around a bunch of gifts we had purchased and wrote Christmas cards to Jutty, Abbey, and the children in an effort to remind them they have a sending church at home that loves them and supports them in their gospel endeavors.
Whether you do something on your own or in cooperation with a group, before the season completely escapes you, might you also take some initiative as a sender to bless a goer on some field, whether an OGC missionary or not?
If you choose to go the care package route, here is some helpful counsel I found online for your consideration:
Ask the missionary before sending your care package. This is important for a few different reasons. First, there are some things for which the missionary may end up having to pay a duty or other tax. Second, if the missionary is in a sensitive location, they may prefer certain things to be delivered to a different address (to be hand-carried in). And finally, you may be sending the missionary something which they can already get in country. We were once sent toothpaste and a large box of tissues – both of which are in abundance where we were. Try to find out from the missionary what items they really can’t get where they are. Trust me, most will not be shy about telling someone what they really want if they are asked!
One other thought. These days finances seem to constrain a great deal. You may not find yourself in a position to do anything that costs you money. But don’t let that rule you out in terms of making some gesture to encourage someone on the mission field. Send a note, write an email, but connect in some way.
Let them know you care about their/your cause and that this Christmas you praise God they have gone to where they have gone in the name of the Sent One who came for the lost.
I only learned of this grassroots movement with more than 1,000 churches in 17 countries participating just last week in an article in the current issue of Randy Alcorn’s Eternal Perspectives magazine.
Check out this brief video for something worth grappling with this and every Advent season.
Today’s message from John 13:21-30 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.
Here’s how I summarized the flow of the message:
As we come to the Table of the Lord this morning, feast your eyes on and give your tastes to the beautiful Savior. Having heard the preached Gospel, we now have it made visible in the elements of the bread and the cup. What amazing, devoted love would for the joy set before Him, despise the shame, endure the cross, and lay down a life so sweet, so pure, so divine? The love of Jesus. Do you see this beauty in all its distress, in all its devotion, in all its determination? Will you not go the way of Peter and John and move toward Jesus to rest your all on Him or will you go the other direction into the night, not just the dark night over the Mt. of Olives that fateful evening in John 13, but the pitch black night of sin’s evil that refuses His friendship and loves something, someone more than Him.
Last Sunday, November 27, marked the beginning of Advent, traditionally the beginning of the church calendar year. The word advent comes from the Latin adventus meaning coming. Advent focuses our worship for the four weeks which precede Christmas on the significance of Christ’s incarnation. Christians began to organize worship around various seasons of the year as early as the second century. In more liturgical churches the entire calendar often revolves around these seasons of the year.
At OGC we celebrate a tradition in Advent worship involving the lighting of an Advent wreath. Each Sunday before Advent, as well as on Christmas Eve, different individuals/families lead us in the lighting ceremony with appropriate readings from Scripture. An Advent wreath communicates many powerful things. Its circular form stands for the eternity of God. The burning candles represent Christ, the light of the world, (John 8:12). The evergreens in the wreath speak to eternal life. The use of colored candles originated in Eastern Germany prior to the Reformation. Traditionally, the three purple candles symbolize the penitence due from sinners at the prospect of Christ’s coming. The single pink or rose candle calls for joy at the idea of the Son of God incarnate. And the white candle in the center, of course, points to Jesus Christ in all His purity and power.
May I encourage you this year, as in previous years, to form an intentional strategy for making the most of this coming Advent season? Without a plan we can easily fall prey to a worldly tis-the-season-to-be-frantic kind of December that leaves us at best exhausted and at worst resentful.
Here are some suggestions to that end:
May He grant us ever-increasing amounts of grace to sing these words of the hymn writer and mean it:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.
Tomorrow, November 28, marks the beginning of Advent, traditionally the beginning of the church calendar year. The word advent comes from the Latin adventus meaning coming. Advent focuses our worship for the four weeks which precede Christmas on the significance of Christ’s incarnation. Christians began to organize worship around various seasons of the year as early as the second century. In more liturgical churches the entire calendar often revolves around these seasons of the year.
At OGC we celebrate a tradition in Advent worship involving the lighting of an Advent wreath. Each Sunday before Advent, as well as 
on Christmas Eve, different individuals/families lead us in the lighting ceremony with appropriate readings from Scripture. An Advent wreath communicates many powerful things. Its circular form stands for the eternity of God. The burning candles represent Christ, the light of the world (John 8:12). The evergreens in the wreath speak to eternal life. The use of colored candles originated in Eastern Germany prior to the Reformation. Traditionally, the three purple candles symbolize the penitence due from sinners at the prospect of Christ’s coming. The single pink or rose candle calls for joy at the idea of the Son of God incarnate. And the white candle in the center, of course, points to Jesus Christ in all His purity and power.
May I encourage you this year, as in previous years, to form an intentional strategy for making the most of this coming Advent season? Without a plan we can easily fall prey to a worldly tis-the-season-to-be-frantic kind of December that leaves us at best exhausted and at worst resentful.
Here are some suggestions to that end:
1. Refuse to abandon time for reflection, worship, and contemplative disciplines. Mary, the mother of our Lord, excelled as one who kept all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19). Determine to hold a tenacious line against the tyranny of the urgent and give yourself to the priority of seeing the unseen and eternal (2 Cor. 4:18).
2. Beware temptations to covetousness and greed which surround the cultural trappings of Christmas. Jesus warns in Luke 12:15 Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Madison Avenue bombards us daily with just the opposite message. Ask God to help you not let the world squeeze you into such a treacherous mold (Rom. 12:2).
3. Zealously call to mind the words of Jesus as quoted by Paul in Acts 20:35 – It is more blessed to give than to receive. Consider creative ways to practice giving that go beyond the material. Bless someone with the gift of words of encouragement, time spent in fellowship, ministering to a need. Alter your Christmas budget this year in terms of what you normally spend on yourself, family, and friends and give toward a worthy global missionary enterprise or some local charitable cause. Plan on participating in the free Christmas wrapping outreach at Walmart on Dec. 17 from 10 AM to 4 PM.
4. Make corporate worship a non-negotiable priority, even if you travel. David spoke of the sanctuary as the place where He saw God uniquely in His power and glory (Psalm 63:2). Ask the Lord to reveal hidden sins in you that grieve His Spirit and hinder your fellowship. Every time you see a purple Advent candle pray for a spirit of insight into the depths of your depravity and give yourself to confession and repentance. But don’t stop there! Ask God to fill you with a spirit of rejoicing and celebration. Every time you see a rose candle offer up praise and thanksgiving for some treasured aspect of Christ in His incarnation and all He has won for you in regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification, etc.
5. Determine to bring Advent worship into the fabric of your home. Heads of households – let us function as believer priests on behalf of our families and lead in Advent devotions that serve to focus our spouses and our children upon things that truly matter this Christmas. Let us watch less in the way of endless Christmas specials devoted to the inane and trivial and read more of the Word that extols the Christ of God and listen more to the music that declares His praises and fellowship more with the people that embrace His Lordship and witness more to the lost who languish without His hope.
6. Say No more and Yes less so that the obligations of the season do not run away with you. Stay in control of your calendar. Prioritize ruthlessly as best you understand given God’s priorities for you.
7. Arm yourself with Paul’s promise in Phil. 4:13 that in Christ you can do all things – including making the most of Advent. This may prove especially true for you if you have experienced some significant loss this year or if you are battling some form of depression for whatever reason. Navigating the demands of the holiday season cannot be accomplished in one’s own strength. It takes the power and all-sufficient grace of Christ (2 Cor. 12:9).
May He grant us ever-increasing amounts of grace to sing these words of the hymn writer and mean it:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth, our full homage to demand.
curtheffelfinger.com 