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Thanks for joining us. Circumstances.
And you're going to find that to be true in your life as well, if
you live long enough. It's not the easy seasons of
your life that you come out with the most experience and the most
knowledge. It's the difficult seasons of
your life. And in one particular difficult
season of my life, when I was very young, about 23 years old,
I had a dear friend of mine, actually the guy who preached
here last Sunday. And I think about this all the
time because he's 10 years old. John is 10 years older than me.
John Crosby preached for me last week.
He and I were, I was walking through a very difficult season
at 23. He was 33.
And I look back on that and think, I thought he was so old
and wise and he was a stupid kid.
All right. And this is what's so
interesting about that is he said something to me when I was
walking through that difficult season that has stuck on me the
rest of my life. I'm going to share this with
you, he said, Stephen, it's not your circumstances that
determine who you become. It's how you respond to those
circumstances that will determine who you've become.
So that and that truth has been something I've used over and
over and over again in my life when I've come up against
difficult circumstances and you will come up against difficult
circumstances, difficult seasons of life where you will have to
pause and say, what are these circumstances going to do to me
right now? Are they going to make me
better? Are they going to make me angry?
Are they going to make me run away or are they going to make
me better? Are they going to make me a
different type of person? A person who trusts God, a
person who leans in, a person who relies on God to help him or
her. So it's not your circumstances
that determine who you become. It's how you respond to those
circumstances that determine who you become.
Now, Christmas, the season of Christmas, which it's great and
we love it, but here's something about Christmas that we all need
to be honest about. Christmas has a way of
intensifying circumstances that you are living in.
Christmas has a way of intensifying circumstances that
you are living in. So let me explain what I mean.
If life is going well for you right now, Christmas amplifies
that joy, right? If things are going well for
you, then Christmas kind of goes, man.
Look, it's been going great for a few months and look at
Christmas now. It makes it even better because
like, you have Christmas to amplify how good life's been
going. But if life is hard for you
right now, if things are not going good for you, Christmas
has a way of amplifying that pain for you as well.
Christmas has a way of saying you see how terrible your life
is. Everyone around you is so happy
and you are so miserable. At Christmas time.
Our unfavorable circumstances seem to be highlighted or
presented to us in high definition.
They seem to be they seem to be enunciated.
I remember around 5 after five years of marriage, Mary and I
Mary and I've been married about five years.
And we decided, hey, let's, let's have kids.
And you know, golly, this seems like a whole lifetime ago.
But she wasn't even sure she wanted children.
Sorry, guys, I know that's hard news to hear.
I always, always wanted children.
She wasn't so sure. We're still debating on who was
right on this, but anyway, but we just say, hey, let's have
kids. We're at Year 5.
We've been married, we're 26. And so we start, you know, we're
going to have kids. And then it doesn't come easy
for us. We have multiple miscarriages.
We walk through some really dark pain of not being able to
conceive and then conceiving and having miscarriage.
And it's just, it was really tough, man.
It was really, I don't want to turn the whole sermon into that
testimony, but it was a really tough season for our lives and
God use them for good. And she'll be the first to tell
you that honestly, that's what made us the marriage we are
today was walking through those years of infertility was we
learned how to trust each other and rely on each other and
really believe that we had each other's back.
And I remember at Christmas time, during those years of
infertility, Christmas time would accentuate that pain so
much more because I have, I have four siblings.
I'm one of five and my oldest sister, she's 10 years.
One of my older sisters had a child when she was in her early
20s and and then another child, she's 10 years older than me.
And so then those grandbabies are there at these Christmas
parties. And my brother had a couple kids
and those grandbabies are there. And so we'd go to these family
Christmas parties and all these little children be running
around. And I should have children by
now, but I didn't. And so I would bring gifts for
the nephews and nieces and it would be so exciting.
And I would always wonder in my head are will my brothers and
sisters ever have nephews and nieces that are my children to
bring gifts to at Christmas time?
And Christmas would have a way of accentuating the pain of our
infertility year after year after year.
But here's the thing about Christmas.
If life will, if life will not change, if your circumstances
are determined to not change, then your faith has to grow.
You have to respond to that pain of circumstance with a growing
faith. That's really the only option,
because here's the other option. The only other option is to be
angry, to be bitter, to be sad, to look at your circumstances
that refuse to change and say I am angry because of this and I
will make everybody around me miserable because I'm angry
because of this. Have you ever been that person?
Have you ever been the victim of that person?
See, that's one option. You can look at your
circumstances that refuse to change and you can say I will be
bitter and I will be angry about this.
Or you can look at your circumstances that refuse to
change and you can say the answer to this is faith.
So I look back on my season of difficulty of Mary and I walking
through infertility and how Christmas would accentuate that
pain. And I would pray and I would
talk to God. And sometimes those prayers were
anger filled and sometimes those prayers were yelling and
sometimes those prayers were weeping, but they were always to
God. In other words, I was always
leaning into my faith through the pain of that season.
And that's really the only option you have when
circumstances refuse to change. You and I must have our faith
grow. And this truth sits at the very
heart of Christmas. Think about the message spoken
by the angels to some shepherds. Maybe you know the story.
Maybe you haven't read it in the Bible, but you saw Charlie
Brown's Christmas, right? And an Angel appeared to the
shepherds, right? And they were afraid.
And what did the Angel say to the shepherds?
The Angel said to the shepherds, do not be afraid, for behold, I
bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the
people. Those two words fear not, or do
not be afraid. And then the other word, behold.
Behold, these are the key to our faith growing, rejecting, fear
and beholding, fearing not and beholding.
These are the key to your faith growing.
This is the key to your faith growing.
You must reject fear and you must behold.
So this morning as we start this new teaching series called The
Wonder of Christmas, today we're going to talk about something
that many of us have lost or we struggle to hold on to or we
hold on to it with loose fingers.
And that is this, the wonder of faith, the wonder of faith.
And this is the type of faith that comes from beholding the
gospel freshly again. And Christmas time should force
us and push us to behold the gospel freshly again.
So to start our conversation around the wonder of faith,
let's read the passage that many of you will recognize, Luke
chapter 2, verses 8 through 11. It's famous, it's great, and we
ought to read it every Christmas.
And then Christmas morning you ought to force your kids to make
force your kids or your grandkids, you read it to them
before they get over one single gift, all right?
They will remember this passage of Scripture the rest of their
life if you do that right. Luke chapter 2, verses 8 through
11. This is what it says, it says.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,
keeping watch over their flocks at night.
An Angel of the Lord appeared to them.
Do you guys ever think, oh, it's angels, right, right.
It's like, but at first it's just an Angel of the Lord
appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them.
And they were, everybody say terrified, terrified.
But the Angel said to them, do not be afraid.
I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the
people today in the town of David.
A Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah of the Lord,
you and I, We all need our faith to grow.
And here's the big idea. So if you're a note taker, I'm
going to give you the big idea up front, the thesis of this
whole talk so you can know this up top at the top, you ready?
Faith grows when we behold the gospel more than we behold our
fear. All right, let me say that
again. Faith grows when we behold the
gospel more than we behold our fear.
All right, so you have two options.
You can behold your fear, or you can behold the gospel.
Your faith will grow the more you behold the gospel as opposed
to beholding your fear. And here's the two we're going
to, we're going to unpack 2 ideas from this text.
Ready #1 Permitting your fear to rule is the problem.
Permitting your fear to rule is the problem.
And #2 permitting the gospel, perceiving the gospel, I'm
sorry, is the solution. So #1 permitting your fear to
rule is the problem. And #2 perceiving the gospel is
the solution. So first of all, let's just jump
into this. Permitting your fear to rule is
the problem. Now I know when we read the
story of the shepherds, we see them getting terrified.
We think to ourselves, well, of course, Steven, they got
terrified. If an Angel showed up to you and
you were out in the field doing something and an Angel just kind
of like came out of nowhere and there was light all around you.
I mean, what does that even, like, look like?
Wouldn't you be terrified? That's true.
But I think when you read it that, you know, on the surface
and you think, well, of course they were terrified.
It was an Angel. I think you're missing something
more important in the text, and I think you're missing why Luke
shares with us that the shepherds were terrified.
If you think about the Bible, humans are always afraid of the
holy or the representative of the holy.
Every time an Angel shows up in the world, what happens?
The Angel shows up in front of a person.
What does the text say? The Angel says what do not what?
Be afraid. Why does the Angel say do not be
afraid? Because the human that the Angel
has appeared to is what afraid. The natural response of humans
to anything to holy, to the holy or to the representative of the
holy is fear. Think about Isaiah in chapter 6.
I know if you're not a Bible person, you're like, I don't
know what that is. That's OK.
You should go read it sometime In Isaiah chapter 6, what does
Isaiah, he finds himself where? In the throne room of God.
And what does he say? He says, woe is me for I'm a man
of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.
And what what what's what's happening to him in that moment?
He's fearful. He's fearful.
When we find ourselves confronted with the holy or the
representative of the holy, human beings are fearful.
We're afraid. Now, here's the thing.
No Fear is a real deal. Follow me.
We're talking about fear right now, OK, and how we give into
fear. And some of you live in a
constant state of fear. You live in this perpetual state
of fear. We actually choose fear.
We choose it. Fear is bad for us, but it's
natural to us. It's natural to us, it comes
natural to us. We choose fear.
And This is why. Because you and I have thrown
off God's rule in our lives and in this world, we've thrown it
off. We've said, hey, I don't need
God's rule. I don't want God telling me how
to live. I don't want a matter of fact, I
don't want anybody telling me how to live.
I'm my own man, I'm my own woman.
I'm in charge, I'm sovereign over me.
And we throw off a God's rule. And when you and I choose to
throw off God's rule, the only other option is to choose fear
that will now dominate your life.
We choose fear. OK, Stephen, what do you mean?
Think back to Genesis chapter 3. Thinking back to Genesis chapter
3, if you, I know some of you have read Genesis, you know the
story. The first humans are in the
garden. Satan comes along in the in the
form of a serpent and he lies to the first humans.
He lies to Eve. And what is the essence of the
lie that he tells? He the essence of the law that
he tells to the first humans is based in fear.
What is the fear? The fear is this.
You have a God doesn't have your best interests at heart.
He's holding out on you. He's not telling you the whole
truth. You're being, it's being you're
being withheld from. You're not getting the whole
story. You're not getting the whole
truth. In other words, the law that was
told by the serpent to the first humans was based in fear.
You do not have a God you can trust.
You do not have a God that's looking out for you.
You have a God who's holding out on you.
When in fact, the very first humans had a God that loved
them, supplied their needs, and was in daily unfettered
relationship with them. And what did the first humans
do? They did.
They did exactly what you and I do most days.
They threw off the rule of their Heavenly Father, they threw it
off, They threw off the rule of God, and they by doing so became
a fearful race. Think about this.
After Adam and Eve eat other fruit, the Bible says that God
came into the garden and was walking in the garden and the
cooler the evening to look for them.
And what were they doing? They were hiding.
You only hide because you are
what? Afraid you are fearful.
You see, when humans throw off the rule of God, they take up
the cloak of fear. And that's a principle you can
in your everyday life. If you throw off the rule of
God, you were taking up the cloak of fear.
And you think, well Steven, is there an in between?
Can I throw off the rule of God and somehow not choose fear?
Friend, I'm sorry, but there isn't.
Either God becomes your sovereign or fear will dominate
your life. That's just the way it is.
That's what the Scriptures teach.
And at the point that Adam and Eve chose to cloak themselves
with fear and throw off the sovereign rule of God, at that
point, a, a detrimental mindset has entered into human beings,
which you and I all suffer from to this day.
And this is the detrimental mindset that you and I, you and
I all suffer from. You ready?
Here's our mindset. You and I think that it's up to
us. It's up to me and it's up to
you. If I'm going to be safe, I have
to make sure that I'm safe. If I'm going to be happy, I have
to make sure that I'm happy. Even to this point.
If I'm going to be right with God, if I'm going to be saved,
then it's up to me to be saved. Now, what is this mindset?
What am I talking about? Well, all of a sudden,
everything that that we think gives life meaning, joy,
happiness, safety, being saved or right with God, you know,
getting rid of our guilt, getting rid of our shame,
getting rid of our of our embarrassment, our sin.
Like everything we think that will give life flourishing and
give life hope. Everything we think that we need
in order to to be happy fulfilled people.
It's up to me to do. And when we think that way, we
have a detrimental mindset that will create fear.
And there are Christians who think this way.
Well, I better be good enough. I better be holy enough.
I better go to church enough. I better give enough money away
so that God is happy with me. Friend, that is not the gospel
of hope drawing you to the heart of God.
That is fear based and it's detrimental to us.
Let me write. Let me give you this.
If you take notes, fear festers when I assume life is up to me.
Fear festers when I assume life is up to me.
When life feels like it depends on me, I will always be afraid.
Because what I know deep down is I'm not up to the task.
And I'll never admit that. I'll tell you I can make it.
I'll pull myself up. I'll get through this, I'll be
happy one day, but that thinking.
Will lead me to. Always be afraid.
Now. The Angel in Luke 2 addresses
fear not as something to be managed.
Like hey guys, don't be afraid, it's OK, we can talk through
your fear. The Angel in Luke 2 actually
addresses fear as something to be removed.
The Angel treats fear as something more than just an
emotional problem or an emotional flaw.
For the Angel, this is important.
For the Angel, fear is not emotional.
Fear is spiritual. In other words, for the Angel,
what the Angel understands and what the Bible understands is
that fear is a tool of Satan. It's a tool of the enemy.
It's a weapon of the enemy, your fear.
And my fear is not just like an emotional flaw.
It's not just like, oh, I'm just kind of going through some tough
seasons. I got some bad mental health
issues. No, the, the mental health
problems we have are the outcomes of the spiritual issue
of fear. All right, spiritual this the
spiritual issue of fear is a weapon in the hand of Satan.
And perfect love drops out fear. The Bible says in other words,
and God is love. So God drops out fear.
So if we find ourselves fearful, it is never from God.
It can only be from the enemy who hates you.
Do you follow me? In other words, fear is not
like, oh, I'm really afraid of my life.
And and that's not just like a neutral thing, like, well, I
just, I just tend to be a fearful person.
That's not neutral. That's a.
Spiritual demonic work that's happening.
I know that's too heavy, right? That we don't want to think that
way, but fear is what fills the space in your heart where you
don't trust God. Where you.
Where your heart doesn't trust God.
Like that part? Of your heart.
And you know, there's parts of your hearts where you just don't
trust God. I got them.
We don't have a long. Enough sermon for me to walk you
through them. There are parts of your hearts
where you don't trust God. In those places where you don't
trust God, that's where fear fills up that space.
This is why fear is the enemy beneath so many of our problems.
Things like anxiety, dread, catastrophic imaginings.
Anybody have catastrophic imaginings like you just imagine
terrible stuff happening to you. Just me.
OK, You, you, there's three of us.
You want to get together, have coffee for all right.
I mean, I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm a screwed up person and
I would love to have some friends.
So. And it turns out there's not
that many of us. Kind of always thought there
were a lot of us. I don't know if I.
Should keep. I don't know if I should keep
being a preacher anyway. I'm kidding.
Of course I got to keep being a preacher.
Catastrophic imaginings. Anger.
So if you deal with anger, if you deal with resentment, if you
deal with panic. If you deal with.
Lying, deceiving, self self protection, deceiving.
You know when you tell lies to make yourself look better or to
protect yourself? Nobody does that, right?
Yeah. Self protection, addiction.
Now, these are mental health nightmares.
They are they they really are. But listen to me carefully.
Those mental health night nightmares, they grow in the
soil of the spiritual problem of fear.
That's the soil they grow in. These emotions, a fear, anxiety,
resentment, panic, lying, self protection, addiction.
These things are downstream from the waterfall of fear.
Fear is at the. Root of all of them.
Fear is the crushing belief that life is up to me and God cannot
actually be trusted. Friend, that is the first lie
that humans believe and it is the lie that you are tempted to
believe today. Life is not up to you to fear,
to that fear that you have and I have, and the shepherd's hat to
that fear. The Angel announces 2 words, or
three words depending on your translation.
Do not be afraid or fear not. Fear is not something to be
managed, it's something to be rooted out, something to be
removed. When the Angel.
Says fear not. The Angel is not offering
emotional support. Instead the Angel is offering a
new reality, a new spiritual reality.
The holy has come near. The perfect love of God has
entered into the fearful space of man, and now this space where
you cannot control anything, a sovereign God who controls all
things has entered into it, and he has come just for you.
So fear not, do not be afraid. And that leads us to our next
idea this morning. If fear, if permitting fear to
rule is the problem #1 if permitting fear to rule is the
problem, then #2 perceiving the gospel is the solution.
Perceiving the gospel is the solution.
Now today we've read from the NIV 2011, which that was on the
screen. That's what many of you have,
and you may have noticed that when we read that on the screen,
and maybe if you have it in front of you, the word behold
isn't in your translation and it wasn't on the screen.
And the word is actually there in the original Greek, the word
behold. Fear not, do not be afraid.
Behold. I, I give you good news.
The reason that the NIV and some other translations remove the
word behold is because they think it's archaic that people
don't really use the word behold anymore.
Like we don't really walk around and go behold, grab me some
bread. You know what I mean?
Like, I mean, I do in my house. I'm like, behold make me a
sandwich, but it doesn't happen. But we don't really use the word
behold anymore. And so they make it.
The translator's made a decision because it's archaic and like,
hey, let's not use that. But then there are, there are
translations that that use that original Greek word,
translations like the ESV, the New American Standard Bible,
which happens to be a great translation.
They still include it. Now, why do I, why do I point
that out? Why?
Why did I take the time to tell you that?
Well, because the word behold is important.
The word being there matters because I think that Luke
includes it and I think that the Angel says it because the Angel
was not simply saying, hey, just don't be afraid.
Like just get over it. I think the angel's offering,
listen, I think the angel's offering an alternative to being
afraid. How helpful is it if somebody
says, hey, listen, just stop being so fearful with your life?
Is that helpful? No, if I could bro, I would, you
know what I mean like I don't need a therapist to tell me.
You guys remember that new heart episode?
Hey, nevermind, I'm showing my age I'm 50 in February, you
know, stop it 2 words stop it $5 please everyone Google that
later. If you watch it on YouTube, you
will, you will think you're like, that was the best number I
heard because I got to see that bit on YouTube.
But anyway, so if I could just stop being fearful, I would.
So the Angel is saying more than just stop being fearful.
The angels offering an alternative to being fearful,
and that alternative is the word behold.
And This is why the word behold is.
It's important. So the Angel is saying, hey,
don't be afraid. Instead behold.
And what does the word behold mean?
The word behold means instead look at this, perceive this,
take this in deeply. Behold or beholding is the
alternative to fear. It's what we do as opposed to
fear. And so the word behold means to
shift your focus, to take your eyes off of what frightens you.
And you have something to fix them on.
Because if you say, hey, take your eyes off of what frightens
you, and I look over here and there's nothing, that's what I'm
going to do. I'm going to go back to what
frightens me because I have nothing here to fix my eyes on.
And what the Angel is saying is, no, there's an alternative for
you to put your eyes on something different, on
something better. Behold, put your eyes on
something better. Turn them from the fear and put
them on something better. And behold does not mean to
glance or to just notice. Behold means to perceive, to
absorb, to internalize, to see it to the bottom.
And So what? What is the Angel telling them
to behold? Behold, I have some news, some
good news, not advice, not recommendations, but news.
I have some news that changes reality, that makes things
different. So in the midst of your fear
right now, the Angel says to the shepherds, and the word of God
says to you, in the midst of your fear right now, look into
this news, this good news, the good news that a Savior has come
to remove our sin. Good news, right?
It goes deeper than that. Good news that a Savior has come
to remove the enmity between God and me, and a Savior has come to
make me right with God. A Savior has come to remove my
shame from me, to put me back in right relationship with God, my
heavenly Father. That a Savior has done for me
what I could never do for myself.
That's good news. The gospel is good news.
And here's what the Angel is saying, and here's what I'm
trying to teach you today is that we allow, we permit fear to
rule our lives. And we wonder why we're
miserable. And what the Angel has offered
as an alternative and what the text offers as an alternative is
don't permit fear to rule your life.
Perceive the gospel and perceiving the gospel is the
solution to our fear. Tim Keller says it best.
Listen to this quote by him. It says if you take time to
comprehend or behold what is in the gospel message, it will
remove the fear that has dominated and darkened your
life. To the degree that you truly
behold, gaze at, grasp, relish, internalize, rejoice in the
gospel, to that degree, the fears of your life will be
underminded. Isn't that beautiful?
Man? I miss Keller.
Let's think about this for a moment.
Fear goes down. The fear in your life will go
down. The fear in your heart will go
down to the, to the degree that the gospel truth becomes real to
you, to the degree not that you believe the news, but that you
internalize and know that the news is true, your fear will go
down. Not to the extent that you hear
sermons about the gospel or to the extent that you go to church
and this is what people think. I got problems in my life.
I'm going to go to church. That doesn't solve your
problems. Sitting through a sermon is not
going to fix anything. I've preached a lot of them.
I'm telling you they don't. What fixes things is what the
Angel is saying is to internalize the beautiful news,
the truth of the gospel. Jesus did not come just for
people, but to internalize it to the point that you understand
that Jesus doesn't. Jesus didn't come just for
people. Jesus doesn't just love people,
but listen to this. You internalize it to a point
that you say Jesus came for me and Jesus loves me for that.
News changes fear. It diminishes the power of fear
in your life. The gospel is news.
It's not tips for better living, and it certainly isn't moralism.
Don't let me get started on that.
The gospel isn't ethical teaching.
It's not even spiritual inspiration.
So you do good deeds for your neighbors.
I'm all for ethical living, moral living.
I'm all for doing good deeds for your neighbors.
But that is not the point. The gospel.
The gospel is news. News that something has
happened. It happened in history and it is
independent of human beings. Did not come from the philosophy
of man, but it came from the mind of God.
News that God has come into our world.
He has come to you, not in order to get you to do something for
him or to behave better for him, but He's come for you to rescue
you and put you back in a relationship with Him.
That He did this for you. The God who wrapped himself in
flesh in order to come to us is a God you can place your total
faith in, your total trust in. And when you place your total
faith in this God who came for you, friend, your fear will
dissolve. This is why perceiving the
gospel is the solution to the fear.
Your fear will dissolve as you trust fully in the God who came
for you. Another.
Keller quote, this one won't be on the screen.
But Steven, you ask? You might say, Steven, how can I
trust God? Like I want to trust God?
I want to believe this. Listen to what Keller said.
I love this, he says. The answer to why you can trust
God. The answer is that that little
baby in the Manger is the mighty Christ of the Lord.
So think, so think, perceive, ponder If the omnipotent Son of
God would radically lose control.
This is what we're all afraid of, right?
Losing control. If the omnipotent Son of God
would radically lose control, and you understand that that's
what Jesus did, the God of creation lost control.
Your biggest fear is losing control.
The guy who? Made you chose to lose control
by becoming a baby for you. When you realize that then you
can trust him. And what Keller says is that you
that truth should undermine our fear.
So this morning, the main idea that I wanted you to walk away
with was simply this. Faith.
Grows when we behold the gospel more than when we behold our
fear. That's it.
And we unpack 2 ideas. Permitting fear to rule is the
problem, and perceiving the gospel is the solution.
Quite beautiful, right? But before we go, I want to
bring your attention to something really cool about the
Shepherds, and I was tempted to not include this because I knew
it would add just a few minutes, but bear with me.
Though I did. Not read the part of the text
that shows the shepherd's response to the news.
You may know the story. Once the.
Shepherd's heard the nudes and they beheld it.
They internalized it. They knew it to be true.
Something. Changed inside of them.
Something shifted inside of them.
Luke tells us that they left their flocks.
It's a big deal. Their livelihood.
They walked away from it. They hurried.
They saw. Out the baby.
They saw the baby and they told others about the baby.
Friend, these are not the actions of fearful men.
Are they? These are the.
Actions of bold, courageous men. Men of faith.
You see, this is what happens when our faith is awakened and
our fear decreases. Think about it.
These men, their circumstances had not changed.
They did not all of a sudden get better careers.
They were still stinky shepherds, the lowest rung of
the rung in the social status of their culture.
Rome was still oppressive. They were still poor.
Their daily reality of living with stinking sheep had not
changed. And yet fear no longer had a
hold on them because faith had replaced their fear.
Faith had replaced their fear. When you behold the gospel, your
fear decreases and your confidence for action, your
confidence for action will rise. It's not a confidence rooted in
self or confidence rooted in like your own ability to control
things. No, it's a confidence rooted in
the One who came into the world as a baby to save you.
You're confident in him. You trust the news, and that
will embolden you to take action, to walk in, and to take
hold of what God has called you to see.
The more deeply you behold the gospel, the more naturally your
life begins to move in response. Not out of obligation, but out
of wonder. Faith grows not when you strain
to increase it, but when you behold the One who has already
come near. And like the shepherds, that
faith will release you to step into what God has called you to.
Action always follows faith, not because you're obligated, but
because faith will always stir confidence in the God who can't
be trusted. Does that make sense?
So let me give you an action step in response to what we've
learned today. I want you to set aside a quiet
few minutes and write something out in your own words.
You can use your Notes app on your phone.
I want you to write. Out what you believe the gospel
actually is, not a theological definition, but as if you were
explaining it to a friend in a coffee shop.
Let me give you a, a sentence here.
Maybe you can start it this way. So if you take notes, write this
down. If you want to take a picture of
this, the gospel is good news because so if you were sitting
with a friend at a coffee shop, you're a believer now, do you
don't have to raise your hand, But when I ask this question,
say yes or no in your head, do you believe the news of the
gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you believe that news?
OK, So if you were sitting with a friend at a coffee shop and
you were talking to your friend who's maybe a believer or not a
believer, doesn't matter. And you started the.
Sentence this way, if they said to you, why, why do you why do
you think the gospel is good news?
The gospel is good news because and just in an organic way.
What would you say to your friend?
Come on now, you're a. Believer you believe this stuff,
certainly you can answer. Certainly we can do.
This provides everlasting hope. The gospel is good news because
be able to write that down and don't just keep writing.
Write as much as you want. That's the first sentence, but
here's the second sentence. Directly beneath that sentence,
I want you to write this. Because.
This is true. I don't have to fear.
And then you write out the thing that is holding you down.
The fear that has been the loudest lately, the fear of
failing, the fear of being alone, the fear of finances, the
fear of future, of loss, of anything else that keeps heavy
weighing you down. The fear of grief, the fear of
facing the future. And then take these two
sentences and keep them close by during the holiday season.
And maybe your life is going good right now and the holidays
will accentuate that goodness. Go back and read these two
sentences to remember that the true goodness of the gospel, the
true goodness of the Christmas season is the gospel, not your
circumstances that happened to be good right now.
Because give it a minute. And if your circumstances are
not good right now and the holidays are accentuating the
pain and the heartache of your of your of your circumstances,
and keep these sentences close by and read them throughout the
week. Hey.
Remind yourself the gospel is good news because.
And because the. Gospel is true.
I don't have to fear. These.
Things. So how would you explain it to a
friend at a coffee shop? That's how I want you to write
it. The simple act of reflecting on
the gospel is how you behold the gospel.
And that, friend, is how faith grows.
And it's how fear begins to lose its authority in your life.
So let me say this. Over you and then I'll pray for
us. Very simple today, do not just
hear the gospel. Behold.
It and to the degree that you behold the truth and the news of
the gospel, your fears will lose the authority in their lives.
In your life, your fears will be diminished.
As you behold the. Gospel, will you stand with me
as I pray for us? Father, thank you for the truth
of the gospel, the beautiful truth of the gospel.
I love it so much it invigorates me.
It just for thousands of years, Lord, this truth has been
proclaimed and preached by men much wiser than me and women
much wiser than me. And I'm honored to join in that
song, that song that says there's nothing we can do.
We can only. Receive this gift.
And Lord you. Are the one who even awakens us
to receive it. You are so.
Good. Thank you that at.
Christmas time, regardless of our circumstances, good or bad,
we can celebrate the good news. That you can.
You came for us, You came for me.
The name of Christ we pray. Amen if you enjoyed this.
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