Know Your Culture, Connect to Your Culture: Lecrae Raps the Gospel in One Minute

by: Jonathan Parnell

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The missional visionary is also a cultural architect. One of Auxano’s primary assertions is that each church has a unique culture. You’ve got to know your community to reach your community.

Nowhere is that more evident that when dealing with the current young generations. Jonathan Parnell of Desiring God Ministries recently sat down with Lecrae to talk about his latest album, Gravity, which just won Best Gospel Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. Here Lacrae raps the gospel in one minute:

Lecrae gets it – and connects to a young generation.

What about your church? How are you listening in order to understand the surrounding culture?

Read more from Jonathan here.

Tags: Gospel, Jonathan Parnell, Lecrae, Scripture, rap

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Beware: The Bible is About to Threaten Your Smartphone Focus

by: John Piper

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Are apps a threat to God-focus? Yes. But it works both ways. Fight fire with fire.

If you are reading your Bible on your computer or your smartphone or your iPad, the presence of the email app and the news apps and the Facebook app threaten every moment to drag your attention away from the word of God.

True. Fight that. If your finger offends you, cut it off. Or use any other virtuous violence (Matthew 11:12) that sets you free to rivet your soul on God.

But don’t take mainly a defensive posture. Fight fire with fire.

Why should we think of the Facebook app threatening the Bible app? Why not the Bible app threatening the Facebook app, and the email app, and the RSS feeder, and the news?

Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone.

I’m serious. Never has God’s voice been so easily accessible. The ESV app is free. The OliveTree BibleReader app is free. And so are lots of others. Let the Bible threaten your focus. Or better:

Let the Bible bring you back to reality over and over during the day.

Tags: John Piper, Scripture, Social Media

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When the Light Comes On: Creatively Using the Power of Story for Your Church’s Worship

by: Jonathan Parnell

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Stories move us. They engage us. They inspire us. Stories give us examples of how to act – and how not to act. The best ones stay with us forever.

How can you use the power of story for your church’s worship? Here are two powerful examples: the simplicity of a verbal  story and the imagery of a visual story. Enjoy – and learn.         – Vision Room Curator

When the Light Comes On

My oldest daughter isn’t sleeping well. It’s the dark. From fear of what might be under her bed, to who might be looking through her window, she has her reasons for preferring the lights on.

In fact, she has started a new nightly routine. After the house is settled and her parents are quiet, presumably asleep, she secretly slips out of her room to flip on the nearby hallway light and then returns to bed. Somehow she finds a measure of comfort from the crease of light between the floor and the bottom of her door.

But she shouldn’t be doing this. The rule is to stay in bed. And a few nights ago I caught her red-handed.

I was standing quietly in the dark hall and heard her scurrying around behind her door. She didn’t know I was there, and I suspected she was going to pull the hall light stunt. Sure enough, the door slowly cracked open. I have her, I thought. But she didn’t move. She didn’t come turn on the light. She was frozen. There, inside the frame of her door, she peered in silence at me, a black silhouette of a stranger for all she knew. Then she started to cry. I quickly flipped the light switch. “Sweetie, it’s me,” I said, picking her up in my arms. And just like that, she was fine. The light was on. She saw who I was. I hugged her with love.

The whole scene transformed when the light came on. That light uncovered my identity. Once blinded by darkness, she soon discovered that the figure in the hallway, appearing bigger and stronger than her, was actually her dad who loves her and would spend his every conceivable resource to protect her.

Revelation was the key. She had to see who I was.

God in the Dark

Do you remember what it is like to be in the dark with God?

So much of our lives — and the entire lives of some — are spent hauntingly aware of some strange presence down a pitch-black hallway. We know he is there. We recognize some silhouette of deity. We see some figure of a being our conscience says is bigger and stronger. But we don’t truly know him. And we won’t truly know him unless he turns on the light. Unless he reveals himself.

The prophets of Baal know what it’s like to be in the dark. In one of the saddest scenes in all of Scripture, 1 Kings 18:28–29, hundreds of these prophets gathered to see their god. It was a historic showdown between Elijah, the Lord’s prophet, and 450 “spokesmen” for the false god Baal. The petition was simple: send fire from heaven. Whoever answers is the true God (1 Kings 18:24). And so the prophets of Baal stepped up to the plate.

And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. (1 Kings 18:26)

That’s not a good start. So they tried harder. The Bible tells us that they cried aloud and cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out (1 Kings 18:28). Until the middle of the day, they limped around bleeding and crying out for their god to hear them, to say something. Imagine that scene: 450 wounded, weeping prophets sliced up their flesh in hopes of receiving the slightest gesture from their god.

“But there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:29).

They were stuck in the dark. There was nothing to see. There is no light to reveal a no-god. The abiding darkness answers itself.

We Have a Different Story

But there’s no such darkness between the Christian and his Lord. That’s not our story. In fact, it’s the reverse. Rather than 450 prophets with wounds all over their bodies and their blood gushing out, we see our God hanging on a cross with wounds all over his body, his blood gushing out. Rather than the horrific scene of fools seeking to hear from a false god, we see the most preeminent display of love when the real God spoke to a world of fools.

We were in the dark. We deserved nothing more. And then, in unspeakable grace, the sovereign God of the universe reached up to turn on the light — “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

His voice intruded the defeated darkness. He reached down and picked us up in his arms. “It’s me,” he said. And then we learn that this God, bigger and stronger than we could ever imagine, hasn’t spared his greatest resource to not only protect us but ensure our everlasting joy (Romans 8:32).

The light is on. We see who he is. We don’t have to be afraid.

Read more from Jonathan here.

Elevation Creative: Elijah on Mount Carmel

During our series IN•FIN•8, we’re looking back at eight of the greatest stories forever told. To introduce each week’s sermon, our Creative Team retells one of these stories from a different perspective, in an attempt to recapture the power and impact of hearing for the first time. For part three, we combined spoken word with step-dancing to tell the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel in a dramatic new way.

Tags: Elevation Church, Jonathan Parnell, Scripture, Story, Storytelling

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Don’t Bury the Lead; Preach the Gospel

by: Steven Furtick

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There is an old adage in journalism that tells writers, “don’t bury the lead.” This refers to placing the most important and attention grabbing elements of a story in the body of an article instead of at the beginning where they belong. As a result, the reader loses interest because no one wants to read through secondary points of information to eventually get to the main point.

I’m learning that this principle should also hold true in our lives and in the ministry of our churches. Far too often we bury the lead in our communication and present people with things that aren’t of utmost importance to either them or us with the result that we waste their time and lose their interest.

In our daily interactions with the people around us, we often spend so much time talking about the weather, the game, or last night’s episode of (fill in the blank) that we never get to what really matters. If all that your coworkers or classmates know about you after weeks, months, or even years of being around you is your ideal outside temperature, you have buried the lead.

In the church, it feels like we often bury the lead when it comes to the most important thing we have to communicate: the gospel. We have the most compelling story available on planet earth. Yet we often hide it beneath a mound of secondary matters that don’t really matter in comparison. Pastors, God’s design for sex is not the most interesting and attention grabbing thing you have to say. God’s plan for parenting is not the most pressing issue of our day. The bold, unashamed, and fresh proclamation of the gospel is. If you are so busy preaching about what people should do that you don’t have time to preach about what Christ has done, you have buried the lead.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that small talk shouldn’t be a part of our conversations. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t give people a vision for the full life Christ has come to give us by applying biblical principles.

But I am saying that there should never be a question in people’s minds about what matters most to us-and therefore to them.

Read more from Steven here.

Tags: Gospel, Scripture, Steven Furtick

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How to Preach the Gospel from Every Part of the Bible

by: Fred Zaspel

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I love it when I hear students and pastors ask how our sermons can be more gospel-shaped in the regular course of preaching — even sermons from narrative or hortatory passages, for example. I love it because it shows their interest to do what every preacher of God’s Word ought to strive to do, and I love it because it forces me again to think through the question myself and determine how I can more faithfully minister God’s Word. Of course I have by no means finished thinking these matters through, but here are some thoughts.

Types of “Gospel Passages” in Scripture

First we need to recognize the various ways in which the gospel is addressed or reflected in various biblical passages. For example, a given passage will be more or less exhaustive. No passage will be completely exhaustive in itself. Some emphasize the person of Christ, some the work of Christ. Some emphasize substitution, some his work of triumph. And so on, as we will see below. Each passage will need to be understood in light of the whole.

Again, some passages are explicitly gospel shaped. Isaiah 53, John 3, Romans 3:21ff, Hebrews 9-10 come to mind here. And others are more subtly but just as certainly gospel shaped, such as Genesis 15, Leviticus 16, the book of Ruth, John 2, and so on. And still others are only implicitly gospel shaped. Examples here would include 1 Samuel 17 (David and Goliath), Joshua 6 (Rahab), the Gospel miracle accounts, and even wisdom and hortatory passages, as we will see.

Some passages (and contexts) are preparatory to the gospel and merely anticipate it in some way, while others show its accomplishment and realization. Here the distinction between Old and New Testament passages is prominent. The Old Testament preparation for the gospel takes many forms — type, prophecy, good and bad examples, rebellious Israel, failing kings and judges, and so on. The Old Testament is often helpfully viewed as a “historical drama” which, understood in its redemptive-historical flow, is seen to point us in a variety of ways to gospel truth later revealed in Christ.

Once again, some passages focus more on the need of the gospel, while others focus more on the solution. The need for the gospel may be seen in rebellious Israel or in individual sinners, and it may be seen in the general fallenness of humanity that is evidenced in the sufferings and weaknesses, even illness and death, that are common to us all. And the solution may be seen in God’s faithfulness, his patience, his unfailing purpose, his promise, dramatic rescues, the many presentations of Christ and his work, and so on.

Finally, some passages emphasize the means of redemption, while others its effects or consequences and entailments. Christ may be displayed (BC or AD) as priest, sacrifice, redeemer, substitution, champion, etc.. Or the passage may emphasize rescue, safety, conversion/transformation, exhortation to obedience-faithfulness.

All this is to say that not all gospel-shaped sermons sound the same. Not ever passage approaches or reflects the gospel in the same way. Our job as preachers is simply, as Bryan Chapell says so crisply, “not … to discover where Christ is mentioned in every text but to disclose where every text stands in relation to Christ” (Christ Centered Preaching, p.279).

That is to say, it is not the preacher’s job to find creative and inventive ways of running from the text to the gospel. The gospel is reflected in Joshua 6 not because Rahab’s cord was red but because it speaks of God’s deliverance for the helpless and for sinners. We needn’t imagine that the center board on the back wall of the tabernacle represents eternal security. We have all heard these fanciful approaches, the underlying hermeneutic of which seems to be found only in the preacher’s fertile imagination. A more responsible approach simply seeks to understand the passage in its canonical flow and to treat it accordingly.

But still we are not done. What follows are some considerations, first general and then more specific, that can help us toward gospel-shaped sermons.

General Considerations & Suggestions

• Keep what I call “the big picture” — the Bible story line — in mind always. Where does this given passage fit in relation to the whole?
• Bear in mind the twin gospel promises of justification and transformation. The gospel promises not only rescue from sin’s punishment but also from its rule and dominion, and a given passage may stress one or the other.
• Bear in mind always the redemptive purpose and power of the preached Word. It is the means by which God works both to claim and to transform his people.
• Understand the difference between teaching and preaching. Teaching merely explains a given passage of Scripture. Preaching is designed (as Tim Keller says it) to make it live.

All this is preliminary. Now to some specific and more practical “hands on” guidelines to help us preach the gospel from every passage of Scripture.

Specific Suggestions when Approaching a Preaching Passage

• Locate the passage canonically. How does the book and larger context serve to anticipate or display or otherwise reflect gospel truth?
• Locate the theme and application theologically. We should ask how this passage addresses or reflects God’s redemptive purpose and/or its need.
• Select your preaching passage carefully. We should serve the cake whole, in its completed form, not each of the separate ingredients that went into its baking.
• Keep the gospel prominent and explicit. To preach the Scriptures rightly we must be careful to maintain its own redemptive focus, a focus that rivets our attention, from first to last, on our glorious Redeemer.

He is, after all, the one about whom the book was written.

Read the full story here.

Read more from Fred here.

Tags: Fred Zaspel, Gospel, Scripture

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A Brief Review of Les Miserables

by: Trevin Wax

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Ever since the trailer for the new Les Misérables movie made the rounds online, I’ve been highly anticipating this film. Last weekend, Corina and I went to see it. We were not disappointed, but we were surprised in ways different than expected.

Here are some initial thoughts.

(Caution: Spoilers ahead!)

From Book to Broadway to the Box Office

How does one judge the faithfulness of a screen adaptation of Les Misérables?

Do we judge it based on its fidelity to the book? To the musical? To the spirit of both?

If you’ve read the book, you can imagine the difficulty of translating such a sprawling piece of literature to the big screen. Directors and screenwriters have tried and, in my estimation, failed. (Even Liam Neeson.) It’s simply too hard to pack the emotional punch of Hugo’s masterpiece into a two-hour film.

Unless… you’ve got music on your side. This is where the musical excels. By telling the story musically, the composers capture the spirit of Hugo’s novel without slavishly following every detail.

I am a fan of the book. I am a fan of the musical. Now, finally, I am a fan of the movie. Hooper deserves accolades for pulling it off.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine

Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine has gotten a lot of buzz, deservedly so. Her gut-wrenching version of “I Dreamed a Dream” rescues the song from the sentimentality of Susan Boyle and reminds viewers of the despairing lyrics that work against the soaring melody. Also powerful is the deathbed scene where Fantine longs for her daughter.

Because Hathaway has received so much buzz, I can’t say I was surprised by the emotional depth of her performance. She lived up to the hype, but didn’t exceed expectations (perhaps because expectations were so high). Likewise, Hugh Jackman did a fantastic job capturing the progression of Valjean from sinner to saint.

Marius’ Empty Chairs

What surprised me most was Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Marius. His rendition of “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” was so authentic that, for a moment, I felt as if I were in the room with him, feeling the same wave of anger and grief he was experiencing. It was a stunning performance. Corina and I looked at each other after it was over and said, “Unbelievable.”

The Killing of Gavroche

After the tragedy in Connecticut, it was especially difficult to watch the little boy Gavroche get killed at the barricade. The film didn’t belabor the tragedy by showing blood; even so, the sight of a young child being shot and killed was disturbing. (There were audible gasps in the audience when this took place on screen.)

Christian Imagery

I was also surprised by the pervasiveness of Christian imagery in the film. The clearest use of the cross was saved for Valjean’s moment of truth, as he faces the inner conflict of choosing to reveal himself in order to save the life of another man. While Valjean sings these words, he is looking at a crucifix:

Can I condemn this man to slavery
Pretend I do not feel his agony
This innocent who bears my face
Who goes to judgment in my place

Christian Resonance

While Les Misérables was playing, we could hear people weeping. When it was finished, the movie-goers burst into applause.

The “experience” of this movie got me thinking. How many people are moved by Les Misérables without really knowing why?

Is it the portrait of law and grace? Valjean – a man who offers grace without conditions, set against the backdrop of Javert, who in his pride would rather die than be humbled before a thief.

Is it the light of grace shining in darkness? We see the ugliness of sin: theft, hypocrisy, and immorality. The darkness of evil makes the light of love shine all the brighter.

Is it the hope of heaven? As Valjean dies, Fantine sings about how he will soon enter his reward – seeing God. The end of the movie is shot through with eschatology:

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
They will live again in the freedom in the garden of the Lord…
Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

I wonder how many people long for the better world behind the barricade, but don’t know how to get there. Moved to tears by grace-on-display in the character of a man who lays down his life for others,  they miss the connections between this literary classic and the greatest Story ever told.

The music written for the grand narrative of Scripture can’t be contained in a 2 1/2 hour film. It’s sung day after day, week after week, year after year, by millions who walk the fallen soil of this planet, but who have tasted the forgiveness and grace from the One who made Himself nothing that we may be free.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Scripture, Trevin Wax

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Don’t Put Jesus First This Year

by: Steven Furtick

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I have one piece of advice for you as we start out this New Year:
Don’t put Jesus first this year.

Yes, you read that correctly. Before you label me a heretic, let me explain.

I imagine that many of you are going through a similar process as me right now of setting and resetting your priorities. Personally, I love this time of year. I’m a very goal-oriented individual and I’ve found that reprioritizing and recalibrating your life is an indispensable activity if you really want to actualize your potential.

And here’s what it usually looks like. We start by putting Jesus at the top. Then family. Then maybe career. And so on. So our priorities look something like this:

1. Jesus/God
2. Family
3. Career

Looks good. However I’ve found that this isn’t very effective when you get down to the grind of everyday life. For example, what does it even mean to put Jesus before my family? Do I ignore my family to spend more time with Jesus? Or with your career, do you stop working to put Jesus first?

The essential problem with this approach is that it segregates the different priorities of life. You end up removing Jesus from where you spend the majority of your time and putting Him on an island by Himself. The biggest island maybe, but an island nonetheless.

I don’t think this is the way it was ever supposed to work. Colossians 1:15-20 repeatedly tells us that Jesus is first before and over everything. But it also says that all things were created through and for Him. That in Him all things hold together. That the goal of the cross was to reconcile all things to Himself.

So Jesus is first. He is first in order. He is first in importance. But He is so because He is the center of everything.

That’s what He should be in your life. And consequently, the thing that is at the center of your life is the thing that is ultimately first in your life.

This year, instead of worrying about putting Jesus first in your life, what if you concentrated on making Him the center of every area of your life? Not just the top priority in front of every other priority, but the top priority in every priority?

Not Jesus, then my family. But Jesus in my family.
Not Jesus, then my career. But Jesus in my career.

We’d probably be a lot more successful in actually keeping Jesus at the top spot on our list. And we’d be much more likely to do an exponentially greater job at accomplishing our other goals and maintaining our priorities.

Read more from Steven here.

Tags: Lordship of Christ, Scripture, Steven Furtick

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4 Stellar Declarations of a Gospel-Centered Church

by: Will Mancini

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I recently heard Tim Keller speak on his new book Center Church (more on this in the blog later). The image above is his outline on gospel theology which is about one-eighth of the book. I am halfway through the book and I believe it is the most important book on church leadership written in my lifetime.

Here are a few quotes, including four stellar declarations of a church that is true to the Gospel:

#1 We are a church not just for ourselves but for those who don’t believe

#2 We are a church not just for ourselves but for the poor

#3 We are a church not just for ourselves but for the whole body of Christ

#4 We are a church not just for ourselves but for our church community

Two other quotes:

“In some ways we need to shape the church to be more engaged with the culture and in other ways we need to shape the church to be more confrontational with the culture.” – Tim Keller

“In the church members should say,  ’I give up the right to live my life the way I want, and I submit myself to a covenant community.’” – Tim Keller

Read more from Will here.

Tags: Center Church, Scripture, Tim Keller, Will Mancini

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5 Gospel Truths from Jesus’ Geneaology

by: JD Greear

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1. The gospel is not good advice, it is good news.[1]

Fairy tales and fantasy stories start out with phrases like “once upon a time,” or “somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away.” But Matthew begins with a genealogy, which is a way of saying, “What I’m about to tell you actually happened.”

Many religions are built on teachings and principles that would be true whether their religious founder ever lived or not. The religious founder was just the mouthpiece. It wouldn’t really matter to Buddhists, for instance, if Buddha were a real person or not.

But this is not true for Christianity. Christianity depends on a set of events that actually took place in history, because the core of Christianity is not what Jesus taught us to do, but what he would do for us.

2. Jesus is the center of history.

Matthew takes what the world considered an insignificant family line and organizes all of human history around it. It certainly didn’t seem like Jesus was the focal point of history at the time. Israel was an insignificant Roman province, and nobody in Rome was paying attention to this family tree. But God had made a promise to Abraham to bring salvation to the world. And he did it in the face of the powerful nations that thought they were truly in control.

I find this so encouraging, because it often doesn’t look like Jesus is the center of history today. CNN doesn’t look to Christianity to figure out where the world is headed. They look to the markets, to the White House, to world politics. But from God’s perspective these things are an insignificant drop in the bucket compared to what he is doing through Jesus’ kingdom.

3. God is working in all things, good and bad, for his purposes.

Matthew concludes his genealogy (1:17) by commenting that the progression from Abraham to Jesus came in 3 sets of 14. This seems almost random, especially when you realize that Matthew intentionally skipped some generations to get these numbers. Now, skipping certain generations was common practice for genealogies. But why did Matthew want to have these 14s?

Well, fourteen is (of course) two sevens, and seven is the biblical number of perfection.^[2] Matthew organizes the genealogy into 14s to show that God has superimposed his seal of perfection on history.

When you consider the messy stuff in this genealogy, that’s an astounding claim. Think of the story of Tamar (1:3), the woman who tricked her father-in-law to impregnate her by dressing like a prostitute. Or of David (1:6), who slept with his friend’s wife and had him killed to cover it up. God looks at this mess and without condoning their actions, stamps his perfect “14” on it.

Some of you have messy dysfunction in your life, and I’m not saying God is pleased with your pain. It breaks his heart. But He has an over-riding purpose in your life, to accomplish Jesus’ purposes in and through you. And he’s working in the darkest parts of your personal genealogy to bring that to pass.

4. The gospel is for the outsider.

In Jesus’ day, a genealogy was like a résumé, how a person showed the world their worth. And so back then—like today—résumés were fudged to include the best parts and to omit the nasty details. They were crafted to make everyone think, “Wow, this guy just has awesome in his blood!”

Yet look who Jesus includes in his genealogy: Tamar and David (see point 3); Ruth, a Moabite, not even Jewish; Rahab, not only a foreigner, but a prostitute; Manasseh, one of the most wicked and godless kings in Israel’s history. Jesus’ line is filled with outsiders of every kind—moral, ethnic, gender.

This all tells us that Jesus came for the outcast, and that includes us. Or, as David Platt says, these names are included in the line that leads to Christ so that we can know our names are included in the line that leads from Christ.

5. Jesus is the ultimate rest.[3]

There is another detail about the sets of 14 that Matthew mentions. Three sets of 14 makes six sets of seven. This makes Jesus the seventh seven.

Remember, seven is a really significant number in the Bible. It points to perfection, but it also point to rest. God rested on the seventh day. Israel was supposed to let their land “rest” every seven years. And every seventh seven year was the Year of Jubilee, in which all debts were forgiven and all slaves were freed.

Matthew shows us that Jesus is the seventh seven; Jesus is the Year of Jubilee. In him all debts are truly forgiven; in him all slaves are finally freed. Jesus is ultimate rest. Isn’t this what he promised? “Come unto me, Jesus says, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” You don’t have to strive to earn God’s love. You don’t have to prove yourself. In Christ you have the absolute approval of the highest being in the universe.

[1] From Tim Keller’s message on Matthew 1:1–17, “The History of Grace.”

[2] William Hendriksen, Vol. 9: Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew, Baker New Testament Commentary, 110.

[3] I am indebted to Tim Keller for pointing this out.

Read more from JD here.

Tags: Gospel, JD Greear, Scripture

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The Theology of Christmas Songs in Your Church

by: Trevin Wax

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It’s quite possible that non-Christians hear more Christian theology around Christmas-time than any other time of the year. A number of Christmas songs are filled with rich theological truths.

Take the popular “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” It’s chock-full of robust truths from God’s Word.

But I wonder how many non-Christians really understand what they’re singing. Or even how many Christians understand these lyrics!

Take, for example, the line “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.” That simply means “Look and see God, hidden in human flesh,” see God in the Person of Jesus.

Then comes “Hail the incarnate Deity.” Deity, of course, means divine One, God Himself. Incarnate means “enfleshed.”

Look at the next two lines: “Pleased as man with men in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.” There’s that word again—”Emmanuel,” God with us. Jesus is our “God with us.” We know who God is because of Jesus. We know what God is like because of Jesus.

This verse is supposed to set up the miracle of the incarnation by letting you see Christ in all His glory coming as baby Jesus in that humble stable.

Look at the pure, sinless Jesus being born to a mother under questionable circumstances.

Look at the Maker of the universe being denied space in the inn, having to occupy the space of a stable.

Look at Christ being adored by all of heaven, and then see Him in a stinky feeding trough flanked by animals.

Part of the glory of the incarnation is holding that tension in your mind. It gives you a window into how great God’s love is, that He would take on human flesh for us and our salvation.

Pause and Reflect

What do the humble circumstances of Christ’s birth tell us about the nature and character of God?

How should our exercise of power and authority change in light of the humility of Christ?

– from one of the devotionals I contributed to The Gospel Project Christmas

Tags: Christmas, Scripture, Trevin Wax

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