You might've noticed this coming Sunday is the first time we'll gather as a church for worship in December. Which you hopefully know means Christmas worship. The Christmas, or Advent, season is one of the richest of the year for the church, and we want to make sure we don't take it for granted or miss out on the opportunity to make the most of this season of celebration. So here are a few things to think through, and that we'll talk through on Sunday mornings in the coming weeks, to help us all enjoy God and the Gospel more deeply during Christmastime.
1. Read the Gospels
God has given us his Word, and when we read it we hear him speaking to us. The Word of God is living and active (Heb. 4:12), and is always sufficient to encourage, train and teach, and correct us (2 Tim. 3:16). And the crazy thing we often miss is this - God is a storyteller, and he's told us the story of his Son coming into the world to save his people. God has given us 4 accounts of Christ's coming as a means of grace for us to know our Savior, and know God's saving plan that was revealed in Christ. So if we don't take the opportunity in the Christmas season to read and re-fresh our experience of Jesus in the Gospels, we're missing out. Let's know the story, and know our Savior.
2. Long for Christ's Return
One of the great things about the historic church's celebration of Advent, was a cultivation of longing for the Lord's return. Extending the Christmas celebration to the 4 Sunday's leading up to Christmas, with the lighting of candles, etc., helped form a deeper sense of our pilgrim status as God's people, in this world the way it is now. The church would recognize that we live now between 2 advents, or comings, of the Lord. He has come to pay for sin, and has promised to come back for his people; and we wait now in a broken world, for our King to come back a 2nd time to put the world right.
Now I'm not advocating that we start up a high church liturgy for Advent that spans those 4 weeks, but I do really believe the more we can get into the Christmas story in the Gospels, and grapple with the great, glorious meaning of Christ's incarnation, and extend that out beyond just a Christmas Eve service with our churches, the Christmas season will be very rich for us.
Let's really feel the longing we should have for Christ's return, and for the goodness of his kingdom that he'll bring.
So there's just a couple thoughts as we head into December. Hope you have a chance to start reading Scripture purposefully, to make the most of the Christmas season.
Tomorrow, Jordan will be continuing our Biblical Manhood & Womanhood series, with Proverbs 31. Try to read the chapter ahead of time - we'll read it aloud in the service too.
Our singing tomorrow morning will include the following. Hope to see you then!
1. Angels We Have Heard On High
3. Hallelujah, What A Savior (Christmas verses by Aaron Ivey)
