This week, as we continue in our series through Romans entitled Live By Faith, we arrive at Paul's depiction about his own tug-of-war in Romans 7:13-25.  The life that Jesus died to make possible is pulling him towards holiness and goodness, while his flesh is pulling him towards sin and destruction.  Paul recognizes that he can't win this game on his own, and he cries out to the one Teammate that guarantees victory.  This famous text is both realistic and idealistic in calling out both the problem of and the solution to our sin problem.  Join us for a challenging and encouraging discussion about your own spiritual tug-of-war.   Together, we can ensure that we are on the right team so we can win the battle!

So many of us tend to live from one big event to the next big event (i.e. – holiday to holiday, vacation to vacation, family event to family event, school year to school year…) and when those events are done, we are left feeling depressed because there is a void that was formerly filled with all thoughts and expectations leading up to the event. Not knowing what to do with the emptiness, many attempt to fill the void by looking forward to the next big event.

Life is not found in what we do, but WHY we do what we do. As Christmas is over and 2018 draws to a close, may I suggest the cure for PHD is not in doing more things, but in remembering why we do what we do. Instead of trying to address emptiness with more activity, remember that whatever we do, we are to Live by Faith.

Many reasons have been suggested as to why Christmas Creep takes place.  The primary one is financial, as retailers want the profitable Christmas season to last as long as possible.  Others suggest that it's quite simple: a lot of people just like Christmas.  The lights, the trees, the decorations; it’s all good stuff, and we want it to last.  One of the unintended consequences of Christmas Creep, however, is that our senses can be dulled to the meaning of Christmas.  It’s easy to lose sight of why Christmas is significant in the midst of the continuous onslaught on advertising, music, and shopping that Christmas Creep extends.

It is my hope that our recent consideration of the Soundtrack of Advent has helped remind you of Who it is that we're really waiting for.  I hope that your attention has been drawn away from the worldly values of the season and towards the eternal value of the Savior whose birth we celebrate.  Now that Christmas is finally arriving, let me offer you two more opportunities to orient your thoughts around Jesus as we conclude our series A Theology of Carols: Examining the Songs of Christmas.

     How rested are you these days? Most of us would probably agree that rest is hard to come by.  In order to get rest, you have to stop being active.  You have to say no to the urgent.  You have to decide to prioritize the right things.  It's possible that you may not feel rested even after a good night's sleep.  We understand rest to indicate a physical reality that doesn't happen nearly enough.

     However, you may be interested to learn that the idea of "rest" wasn't always only defined this way.  The soundtrack of Advent contains a number of songs written several hundred years ago, and the meaning of words can often change dramatically during that time frame.  In order to make sense of some Christmas carols today, it is valuable to understand how language was used at the time the songs were written.  We will find a prime example of this truth this Sunday as we continue in our series A Theology of Carols.

     We will focus on the song "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."   This classic hymn dates back to 1760, and the lyrics contain a very straight-forward telling of the story of Jesus' arrival.  However, throughout each verse, there are powerful phrases that demonstrate the effect of the "rest" that the first line of the song calls for.  Our discussion will center on reconsidering the concept of rest, and we'll examine Scripture which clarifies the rest Jesus provides.  Join us for a fruitful discussion of why God's rest, which He delivered to us in Jesus Christ, brings true peace.

What are you hoping for this Christmas?

     It could be that special gift.  Maybe it's the healing of a broken relationship.  It's possible that all you want for Christmas is to survive it.  At some level, each of us are hoping for something at this time of year, and our hope usually boils down to this: we want the future to be somehow better than the past or the present. 

     As Christians, we can often feel a deep tension when the future doesn't change in the ways we hope for.   We have expectations that God doesn't always meet, and yet we still have the clear call of Scripture to choose hope.  We read how God's people faced terrible conditions that God didn't change, and yet hope endured.  We see how God develops the character of His people by not always giving them what they want, but rather what they need.  We read the cries of the prophets of the Old Testament, straining to see the world from God's perspective even while they walked through immense difficulty every day.  We read of the people of the New Testament, who were waiting for someone to come rescue them from oppression, only to find a Savior who wanted to rescue them from something much more destructive.  And all the while, we read the voice of God and the words of Jesus saying, "Have hope."

     Christians hope in two directions: the Already and the Not Yet.  We place our hope in Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, who was Already born as a baby to ransom us from the penalty of our sin.  We also choose to hope in His second coming, which has Not Yet happened, when the world will once and for all be transformed into the Kingdom that it was meant to be.   We live in this tension daily, whether we realize it or not.  Fortunately, the soundtrack of Advent can point us towards the comfort we need in the midst of the tension.