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Christmas: A Message of Joy and Peace

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Few times throughout the year in NYC evoke a unified theme throughout this great metropolis. Such diversity that exists throughout our city provides a constant flow of variety. But it’s as a result of this rich diversity—certainly something to be celebrated—that the city experiences few events that impact almost everyone in the city. Even when hosting the Superbowl this past January, the city practically continued on like normal. But there are a few holidays and events that supersede much of this diversity. Memorializing 9/11 is certainly a somber example. On the other end of the spectrum, Halloween is basically a city-wide extravaganza—kids to adults of all ages.

One other holiday overtakes this city: Christmas.

Decorations have filled stores since just after Halloween. Midtown is covered in lights, trees, and ornaments. You can find Christmas trees for sale on practically every street corner. Everyone is brought into the cultural fervor around Christmas: Christians and non-Christians alike (although, there are certainly many who are celebrating other holidays this time of year).

As a result, we have a huge opportunity to easily bring the message of the Gospel into everyday conversations. Why?

The message of Christmas, the reason we celebrate, is a message of Joy and Peace.

The angels in Luke 2:8-21 clearly declare this message.

The message of a baby in a manger is one of eternal joy and peace. Sounds crazy, but it’s so true. When Jesus came his mission was to make a way out of the brokenness of this world, a way to reconciliation with our God, and thus, ultimately, a way to joy and satisfaction in God and who he made us to be.

He also came as a King to bring peace. He accomplished peace by the blood of the cross (see Ephesians 2:11-22). He made a way for peace between God and man and among humanity itself. He didn’t establish a political peace, but one day he will provide eternal and complete peace when he returns and makes all things new (Revelation 21).

During Christmas, everyone is talking about the holidays. People are talking about their traditions and asking others about theirs. We have an opportunity to share this message of joy and peace by asking simple questions that can spark conversations.. We can ask why Christmas is such a big deal? We can simply talk about our traditions and how Jesus is involved in those.

Take advantage of this season when people are connected to such a Christian event, and use conversations about Christmas as bridges to the Gospel.

The Story 2015

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As we prepare for a new year, it’s a great time to refocus and develop a clear plan for reading Scripture. One of the most fruitful disciplines in my life is reading through the entirety of God’s Word. Seeing the entire story of Scripture come together as a whole can only happen as we read the Bible in its entirety.

Thus, this upcoming year at Gallery Church, we are going to read through the entire Bible together.

The Story 2015

Know the Story – 
The Bible is God’s Story and our story. It’s a story of truth, life, and hope. In order to experience it’s riches, we must know it.  So join us as we read through the whole Story in 2015.

Live the Story –
Knowing the story is not  the endgame. We need the truth, life, and hope of Scripture to shape our lives. So as we read, we seek to apply it to our story.

Share the Story –
A story of such beauty can’t be kept hidden. So as we know and live this story, we seek to share it, too.

Check out the first two months of the plan below:

Story Postcard

Celebrating Christmas Well – Part II

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Christmas is an incredible time of year. The hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping starting on Black Friday (well, maybe even earlier than that now), the vast arrays of decorations on seemingly every street, the ice skating in Central Park, the temporary Christmas markets set up at Union Square and Columbus circle, all add up to create a magical feel in NYC at this time of year. OK, maybe magical is a bit too much, but I simply LOVE Christmastime in this city. There are so many great traditions, and millions throughout the nation and the world celebrate this great holiday, each culture with their own unique twist to the celebration.

But how do we celebrate Christmas well? Without succumbing to a culture of materialism and covetousness?

The key to doing this lies in allowing this entire season to bring us to meditation upon and celebration of an absolutely crucial aspect of the Gospel: the humanity of Christ. I believe this is often a portion of the Gospel that is tragically under appreciated. And what better time than Christmas to invigorate and renew a passion for this essential truth!

The New Testament is full of references to the humanity of Christ, emphasizing the importance of this to the Gospel. 1 Timothy 3:15b-16 makes this incredibly clear:

which is the church of the living God,
a pillar and buttress of the truth.
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated in the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.

Paul sets forth a summary of God’s redemptive plan for humanity, i.e. the Gospel. This is the truth that the Church is to uphold, and very prominently at the beginning of this confession, the humanity of Christ is highlighted. But why is this truth so important to the Gospel, and why are we as the church called to protect this truth?

The Gospel Coalition’s Statement of faith provides several reasons that the humanity of Christ is essential to include:
“1.Christ as our model of true humanity– We realize from this that we weren’t meant for sin. Humanity is sinful because we have fallen not simply because we are human. Humanity was meant for so much more than this fallen world, and we see the image of God in humanity untainted in the person of Jesus. Christ in his humanity is what we were meant to be like.
2.Christ’s representative obedience– In Romans 5:18-19, Paul compares Adam’s representative sin that caused all of humanity to fall with the representative of Christ which provided all of humanity with the hope of being made righteous through His obedience.
3.Christ as our substitutionary sacrifice– Jesus had to be made like us in order to take our place and bear the wrath of God toward our sins. (Hebrews 2:17)
4.Christ as our mediator– Paul emphasizes Christ’s humanity when he discusses His mediatory role in 1 Timothy 2:5. Christ can stand in the gap between humanity and the Father because he has both a human and divine nature.
5.Christ as our sympathetic high priest– Jesus has experienced the hardships of humanity. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
6.Christ as our true example of holy human conduct– In Christ’s life we see what a truly holy life looks like. (1 Peter 2:21)”

Each of these without the humanity of Christ is lost, thus we must realize not only the great responsibility we have in guarding this truth but also the beauty of this truth.

We see the splendor of this truth lead Paul to worship in the short hymn of Philippians 2:5-11:
Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus,

who existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be used for his own advantage.
Instead He emptied himself
by assuming the form of a slave,
taking on the likeness of men.
And when he had come as a man in His external form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
 to the point of death—even death on a cross.
 For this reason God also highly exalted Him
 and gave Him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow—
of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth—
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Let us turn our celebrations and affections this Christmas season to this integral and beautiful aspect of the Gospel: the humanity of Christ. And let us, as His Church, defend this doctrine, for apart from this, the Gospel crumbles. If we are to redeem Christmas, we must simply celebrate the Gospel.

This doesn’t mean that we must toss out the cultural traditions, but instead, let us celebrate in such a way that our giving and receiving, family gatherings, and other traditions are expressions of our joy in Christ and in His grace, humility, and love that he showed by becoming human for our sake.

Celebrating Christmas Well – Part I

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Outrageous amounts of family, friends, football and food is just a few days away. Certainly, Thanksgiving is a fantastic holiday all by itself. But, for me, it has always served primarily as the kickoff to the Christmas season. I mean, I think Macy’s gets it right when they send Santa down Central Park West at the end of the parade.

I’ll admit that I love the entire culture of the Christmas season, but Santa is not the reason we celebrate Christmas—Jesus is.

So as we approach the Christmas season, let’s commit to dwelling upon the real reason we celebrate: the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Desiring God has produced a great devotional that I highly recommend for each of you this Christmas. It provides a reading for each day from December 1st-25th as well as a short devotional to read with it.

Focus your celebration of Christmas this year on the person of Jesus by following The Good New of Great Joy devotional.

Challenge: Show His Love to the World

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There is no tangible resource to give this week. That’s not because there aren’t great resources available in abundance, but instead, it’s because each and every person who has faith in Jesus with the Spirit living inside them has what it takes to accomplish the theme for this week: love one another.

Instead of a resource, I’m giving a challenge to all my readers: Find one tangible way to love two people this week.

First, love another brother or sister in Christ by serving them, encouraging them, or even going old-fashioned and sending them a thank you note.

Second, love your neighbor. Find one person in your life who doesn’t know Jesus and clearly and tangibly show them the love of Jesus.

That’s your mission: Tangibly love two people this week.

Now go out and do it!

Displaying the Gospel

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Everyone reading this post is viewing it on some sort of computer screen. The millions or billions of images you can see on your computer is pretty amazing. They captivate our attention, and many of them stun us visually. These displays aren’t some magic mirror on the wall, but they are controlled by the computer code feeding into them.

Turn off the display, mask the code. It’s still present within the computer, but it’s effect on the outside world is limited.

Change the code, change the display. It’s that simple.

In a similar way, God has given us a code to be displayed. He has given us the Gospel: the good news that Jesus has lived, died, and rose again for our sake. We are to be displays for this Gospel.

If we do not display the Gospel by the way we live, then the message of the Gospel will be rendered ineffective. God has made us to be the conduits through which his message is spread throughout the world.

This week’s passage, 1 John 4:7-12, makes this perfectly clear.

God made his love known through Jesus’ love, and now we are called to be the displays of that love for the world around us.

In verse 12, John writes: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

Though, no one has ever seen God, one of the major ways we know and experience Him is through the love shown by fellow Christians. This can also be extended to the world around us. Those who don’t know the love of God can see and experience who God is when our love for one another is evident in our churches.

A major way the Gospel is communicated is through the love we display in our everyday lives.

In addition to this, as I said before, if you change the code in a computer, you change what is on the display. If we aren’t receiving this Gospel message on a daily basis by spending time in God’s Word, and if we aren’t communing with God regularly, then our lives will look differently. For instance, according to verses 7-8, those who know God will love others. There is a very specific characteristic that our lives will display if we are truly connected to God’s Word: Love.

But if we aren’t connected to God through the Gospel, we will not display the fruit of the Spirit, and so prove ourselves to not know God.

However, if we know God, but fail to dwell upon His great love in the Gospel, our lives will fail to display God’s good news for all of humanity.

So let us be plugged into His Word, and most importantly, let us love others that God’s Gospel might be rightly displayed through our lives.

Know & Share the Gospel

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We’ve been focusing a whole lot on sharing our faith lately. We can talk strategies and provide tools for sharing the Gospel all day long, but if we do not know the Gospel deep inside our hearts, then we will not be able to share the Gospel in a natural and contextually appropriate way.

So, this week’s resource is Tell the Truth by Will Metzger.

This is a heftier resource than normal, but it’s worth every moment of investment. Metzger not only provides a thorough explanation of the Gospel and common misconceptions, but he also provides great insights on how to share the Gospel as well. It’s a holistic resource for evangelism, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Check it out here.

Shaping & Sharing Your Story

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On Monday, we considered the power of story both in our culture today and in the story of Paul in Acts 26. I encouraged everyone to consider how you would share your own personal story in order to communicate the Gospel. But many of you may be at a loss as to how to share your story in a clear way.

So, here’s a resource from InterVarsity. This tool provides questions to spark your thinking about how to shape and share your story. It hits the same basic plot points that I discussed on Monday: life before Jesus, how you met Jesus, life with Jesus.

Check it out if you need help shaping your story, and pay close attention to their advice at the end: Keep your story short so it’s easy to tell. You can always expand on something when people ask questions.

 30 Minutes to a Shareable Testimony Worksheet

The Power of Stories

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Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime have all fed the binge-watching tv trend. Certainly, ease of access through online streaming has made binge-watching habits drastically higher, but this isn’t the only reason that so many of us devour show after show.

**I’m as guilty of this habit as anybody. My wife and I are about to finish the final season of 24 after having just started earlier this year.**

Another major reason is our culture’s obsession with stories. Postmodernity has led to a breakdown in the expectation for one overarching narrative that explains everything. In light of that, we emphasize and look for the truth we find in smaller, individualized stories. We wrestle with ideas of beauty, evil, truth, and the deepest questions of life through hearing stories from various mediums (TV, theater, music, etc.).

Stories are incredibly powerful, and our society is constantly searching for new stories to either give voice to their thoughts or bring understanding to the complexities of this world.

As Christians, we each have our own powerful story that communicates the greatest truth of all time: the Gospel—a story in itself.

Our personal story of our life before we met Jesus, our encounter with Jesus, and our transformed life after meeting him is one of the most potent tools for sharing the grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness of our God and Savior.

This week’s text—Acts 26—is just one of several examples throughout the book of Acts of Paul sharing the Gospel through his personal experience.

Like any good story, there are several clear plot points: 
     1. His life before Jesus
     2. His encounter with Jesus
     3. His life with Jesus
     4. His call to respond to the story

People are more often than not willing to hear out your personal story rather than a four point Gospel sermon. So take advantage of the power of your own personal story. Think through these points in your own life and shape how you share your story. Then share it with the same boldness and passion that Paul shared his in Acts 26.

Let the truth of the Gospel shine forth through your life to an unbelieving world.

Scripture-Focused Discipleship

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On Monday, I talked about the importance of studying Scripture as part of discipleship relationships. If you’ve ever led a Bible study, you may think that the thought of leading a study of a chapter of Scripture every week or two is a very daunting task. And if you’ve never led a Bible study, you may feel like you don’t even know where to begin.

Don’t worry. It’s not as intimidating as it may sound. Simply reading the Scripture and then asking specific questions is all you need. But what questions do you ask?
Discovery Bible Study is a simple method for leading a study of Scripture in discipleship groups by simply asking questions of the text and one another.

To get started leading a discipleship group, you can simply work through the DBS method. As you get more familiar with the gist of it, you will be more comfortable and able to lead without the guide in hand.

For now, check out these great Discovery Bible Study materials.

This is a great guide for leading a discipleship group that fits great into the model we’ve adopted at Gallery Church.