Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 23, 2021


Ep 542 ｜ Finding Christmas Joy Amidst the Chaos of our Age


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

176.96306

Word Count

5,538

Sentence Count

333


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Thursday. Merry almost Christmas. You are going into
00:00:15.940 the Christmas weekend and I am going to give you a Christmas themed episode. Now as I am
00:00:22.760 recording this, as I told you guys, this is the week before I am recording it a little
00:00:28.340 bit over a week before this is actually coming out, which means that there's a lot of new
00:00:35.680 stuff that I wish that I could cover, but I am dedicated to giving you a Christmas episode,
00:00:41.480 an episode that will end in an encouraging and uplifting way as we remind ourselves what
00:00:48.660 everything is about that we are celebrating this weekend. But I do want to acknowledge
00:00:54.680 that there are a lot of things that are tempting us into despair. There are a lot of things that
00:01:05.340 make us sad, that discourage us, that depress us. There are a lot of new stories that we could dive
00:01:10.160 into, that we could be angry about. And I do just want to acknowledge those up front because I know
00:01:16.580 a lot of you are wrestling with worry and anxiety when you turn on the news, when you're scrolling
00:01:20.560 through Twitter, even just in your own lives. There are a lot of personal things that are weighing
00:01:25.260 you down. There's a lot to be upset about. There's a lot to be concerned about. So I want to first list
00:01:30.920 some of those things just so I can acknowledge and kind of put some of these things out in the open
00:01:35.200 because these are things for me as I've read the news about these stories over the past few weeks
00:01:39.840 that have just made me so sad and mad. They've really just burdened me. They've occupied my mind
00:01:46.800 and have tempted me to despair. One of the things is that we are seeing a new wave of authoritarianism
00:01:54.300 as we have not seen in the West perhaps ever. Yes, we've seen it globally, but in the West over the
00:02:02.300 past few hundred years, I'm not sure that we have seen these attempts towards totalitarian rule
00:02:09.760 in Western history, all done in the name of health and safety. And as I said last week
00:02:16.660 in the conversation with Steve Dace, authoritarian measures are always done in the name of health
00:02:22.660 and safety. They are always done for your protection. It's the necessary pretense to get
00:02:31.140 fools on board with the incremental steps that lead to totalitarianism. That's just how it always works.
00:02:37.040 That's the nature of it. But it's not just tyranny that we have to fear right now. There is also
00:02:42.880 moral and cultural decay happening in the West and specifically in the United States. We're seeing
00:02:47.740 the deterioration of the family. Less than 18% of American households are married parents with
00:02:53.760 children. The nuclear natural family is the building block to any healthy society. The nuclear natural
00:03:03.020 family is the incubator of liberty, the giver of right values of protection and provision for children
00:03:10.100 who grow up into adults and end up being the citizens that vote and shape culture and society. That's a big
00:03:18.140 deal. There is a huge decrease in church attendance, 30 to 50% in the past two years alone. There is an
00:03:26.940 abandonment of rationality, the suspension of truth when it comes to science or data. Of course,
00:03:33.760 that's true of moral truth, of spiritual truth as well. There is chaos in the streets as violent crime
00:03:41.780 increases in places where progressive district attorneys refuse to prosecute and progressive
00:03:46.040 judges set absurdly low bail for violent criminals, all done in the name of social criminal justice.
00:03:51.900 The border remains largely open. We haven't talked about that in a while because so many other things have
00:03:56.360 been going on. But that's still a crisis. A mother and her young daughter were recently killed by a human
00:04:01.500 smuggler smuggling illegal immigrants in a car crash. He hit them with his car as they were driving. A police
00:04:09.120 officer in Dallas a couple weeks ago responded to a disturbance between a man and a woman in a grocery
00:04:14.180 store parking lot in Mesquite. The woman was an illegal immigrant. The man that was disputing with her in some
00:04:20.480 way shot and killed the police officer who tried to intervene. Would that have happened if we had
00:04:25.780 serious enforcement of our immigration law? I don't know. You might have seen his wonderful seeming
00:04:31.620 daughter who delivered a speech at a church service. It might have been at his memorial in the
00:04:40.640 Dallas area where she said that she wants to extend forgiveness to the man who murdered her father,
00:04:46.880 that she wants this man to know Christ. And I am so thankful for the grace of God in her life and
00:04:52.100 the testimony that she gave through the power of the Holy Spirit that hopefully is going to reach
00:04:57.040 fertile soil in people's hearts and plant a seed that God will then give growth to and people will
00:05:01.020 become Christians through her testimony and through her hope and through her faith after her dad was
00:05:06.400 murdered. But I still have to wonder about the policies that led to the murder that has now
00:05:13.140 left her fatherless. Social justice policies kill. As I say often on social media, social justice
00:05:21.120 kills. It always leads to destruction, never compassion. It gives a pretense of compassion.
00:05:27.240 It sounds good. It never looks the other side of the calculation. The other side of the equation
00:05:32.600 is always death and destruction. And we're going to continue to see the damage wrought by that reality
00:05:38.580 at the cost of human life. Inflation is at the highest point it's been in 40 years. So your
00:05:44.280 everyday life is more expensive. Christmas is more expensive. That's a big deal for a lot of families.
00:05:49.340 Maybe it's not a big deal for you. It's certainly not a big deal for a lot of the people in charge.
00:05:54.400 They're insulated by the money and the power that they have. So they don't feel the effects of
00:05:58.380 inflation. But this matters for the working class. This matters for the people who are struggling
00:06:02.600 financially, especially those who were hurt by the illogical, inhumane COVID policies that shut
00:06:08.980 down businesses over the past two years, especially for the people who have lost their jobs, military
00:06:14.280 families in particular, because they refused a medical procedure that is not turning out to be
00:06:18.620 the cure-all we promised. All of this stuff is a big deal. It impacts people. What do we say?
00:06:23.940 Politics matter because policy matters because people matter. Because politics affects policy,
00:06:28.460 policy affects people. All of this stuff is impacting people. People are struggling in a
00:06:33.340 collective way, in an individual way right now. There's pain people are feeling that the media don't
00:06:39.160 care about. People who lost their homes and family members in the tornadoes a couple weeks ago,
00:06:44.520 that one, I'm not saying that the media don't care about that at all. But there are some members
00:06:49.200 of the media who tried to immediately say that this has to do with climate change. There's no evidence of
00:06:55.600 that, first of all. But there are people who lost family members. There were parents who lost their
00:07:01.800 eight-month-old baby because of injuries, because of the destruction wrought by those tornadoes in
00:07:07.420 Kentucky and in the Mid-South. So people are struggling and suffering with that right now. Unimaginable
00:07:12.780 pain for most of us. There are people who lost their families to COVID, some because of poor hospital
00:07:20.300 treatment, many despite good treatment, people who have lost children from suicide because of the
00:07:25.540 forced isolation and the lack of normalcy and steadiness that they have needlessly endured over
00:07:31.080 the past couple years since the beginning of 2020. I think of the people that apparently the media
00:07:37.480 definitely don't want to talk about. And I think about how the media's silence about the pain that
00:07:46.380 some of these people are enduring makes us worse as a nation. It adds to the burdens we carry as a
00:07:51.860 nation. I think of the families who lost loved ones in the Waukesha terrorist attack at the end of
00:07:57.120 November that no one wants to talk about anymore because the races don't fit the narrative.
00:08:03.080 We're talking about a person that, according to his social media, hated white people. We're not
00:08:09.460 allowed to talk about that or about the man in Florida who stabbed a white 14-year-old boy riding his
00:08:15.120 bike recently. And the man, the suspect, was yelling expletives about white people when he was
00:08:20.520 arrested. Can't talk about that. Or the dozens of people murdered by the riots that were fanned into
00:08:25.520 flame in 2020 by media lies. We can't talk about these things. These don't fit the mainstream
00:08:30.280 narrative. Most people are too scared to buck that narrative because they're afraid of seeming like
00:08:35.340 they lack empathy, as if that's a fruit of the spirit. The lack of honest conversation and
00:08:40.600 honest reporting about these things and an overemphasis on race when the races or politics
00:08:48.440 are reversed drives us apart. It divides us. It causes racial animus, perpetuates false narratives.
00:08:54.200 It makes people resentful, angry, unable, or unwilling to have productive discussion about the things that
00:08:59.300 ail us because too many people don't want to talk about the truth. Too many people are partial to
00:09:05.040 a particular narrative. And so they won't talk about the loss of life when it doesn't fit their
00:09:11.480 preconceived notions of how they think the world works. There are a lot of political and social
00:09:17.080 problems we are facing. And I don't know if things are going to get better in this lifetime. I was just
00:09:22.780 talking to my husband last night about how so many terrible, terrible eras in history lasted for so long.
00:09:29.740 And I think we are such a microwave people in the sense that we are used to instant gratification.
00:09:34.900 We are used to very quick change, even quick political change. But the reality is things change
00:09:41.000 slowly. And when I think about things like the Holocaust, when I think about slavery, when I think
00:09:47.920 about the horrors of 20th century communism and socialism and tyranny and how long those eras lasted,
00:09:59.300 it wasn't within one generation. It was within multiple generations that, for example, slavery was
00:10:07.960 abolished. And of course, even longer after that, when Black Americans were able to vote and when they
00:10:13.880 had equal rights secured. The same is true of many other people groups, of many other times in history.
00:10:20.820 It took a very long time for things to change. And so a lot of us were talking about, okay, well,
00:10:25.840 we have more freedom when it comes to the midterms. Will people, will governments relinquish their
00:10:31.860 power that they have taken in the name of public health in the next election? Will things go back
00:10:39.420 to normal? Will the nuclear family become more intact? Will we get a more honest media? Will we
00:10:45.000 stop having false narratives that seek to drive us apart among socioeconomic classes or races or
00:10:53.840 genders? I don't know that that's going to happen in the next few years. I don't think we have a
00:10:58.660 guarantee of that. I don't know if positive change is coming for the West at all. If tyrants will ever
00:11:02.620 relinquish their power, if the birth rate will start to increase, if families will start going back to
00:11:06.980 church, if Christians will wake up and realize that there's no neutral ground and start speaking up for
00:11:11.280 what is good and right and true, if parents who don't already will start to take seriously the
00:11:16.040 protection of our children's hearts and minds as their minds turn to mush and their hearts turn to stone
00:11:21.260 by the kind of ideas and ideologies being fed to them on social media and in government schools,
00:11:26.080 I don't know. I don't know if these things are going to change. So there's a lot of reason from
00:11:31.680 our perspective to be sad and discouraged and dejected when we look at what's going on in the
00:11:36.120 world, when we look out our window, maybe even some of the things in our own homes are making us sad.
00:11:42.420 All of the personal reasons that you might have to have sorrow, like there are a million different
00:11:47.760 trials you may be enduring. I mean, those of you who are in my DMs telling me all of the hard things
00:11:53.700 that you are going through, or people in your church, or people in your life are going through
00:11:57.320 right now, you're enduring a lot. And if that's the case, like if you or your child or your spouse has
00:12:02.020 cancer, if you can't make ends meet, if you've lost someone that you love, or if your child has
00:12:06.880 left the faith and wants nothing to do with you and the values with which you raised them, if you're going
00:12:12.540 through a difficult breakup, that might seem small to someone, but it doesn't seem small for the
00:12:16.720 person who is going through it. That's almost their whole world that might seem like it's crashing
00:12:20.900 down. So if you have these kinds of personal anxieties that are weighing you down, then it's
00:12:26.800 likely you care very little about the national problems that we face. That's understandable,
00:12:31.740 at least right now. That's normal. That's okay. The pain you're feeling is too much. You have a
00:12:35.920 capacity. The pain is too present to try to carry the weight of things outside your walls, the weight
00:12:44.200 of things in our country, or the weight of the world. There are a lot of reasons that you might
00:12:49.260 have personally or politically to not have joy right now, especially from our perspective, this
00:12:56.580 audience, which is conservative Christian. We see a lot of things that are going on that are
00:13:00.800 anti what we want them to be in big ways and small. There are a lot of reasons to be angry and
00:13:07.080 confused. And yet, in the midst of everything we suffer, we are called to have joy. Even if all good
00:13:16.360 things were taken away from us, even if evil exclusively dominated our world, Christians are
00:13:21.160 still called to be glad in the Lord. We are still called to an abiding happiness, not a superficial,
00:13:28.920 shallow happiness necessarily, but to a deep subsisting joy that is found in the security that we have in
00:13:36.000 Christ and the unwavering trust we have in his sovereignty. So Christians are called to joy in
00:13:43.940 the midst of this. James 1, 2 through 4 says,
00:13:47.220 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the
00:13:52.980 testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect,
00:13:57.720 that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Isn't that an amazing description of a
00:14:05.500 Christian? In the midst of the undulation of the chaos of this world, the trials that we are facing
00:14:11.920 both individually and collectively, that we are not only to be joyful in the midst of these trials,
00:14:17.160 but we're also to be steadfast. Gosh, that's what this world needs, is joyful, steadfast, wise,
00:14:23.040 steady people who know who they are, where they come from, and where they're going.
00:14:27.600 There are various kinds of trials Christians face today. Those of us in the West are not experiencing
00:14:33.260 the same trials or even the same severity of trials as Christians throughout the world who
00:14:38.080 suffer imprisonment and torture and martyrdom for their faith. But that doesn't mean that
00:14:42.480 suffering here doesn't matter. It's a spectrum, right? 1 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18 kind of tells
00:14:48.480 us that. It says,
00:14:49.800 So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day
00:14:55.660 by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond
00:15:02.140 all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the
00:15:08.540 things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. There are so many
00:15:14.320 different parts and clauses and pieces to that first that we could break down. The central message
00:15:20.100 is big or small, profound or shallow. All affliction we now endure as believers, all burdens we now carry
00:15:26.580 are considered light. Yes, even tragic death, even loss. Yes, even tyranny, even corruption, even terrible
00:15:33.900 diagnoses. All of this is considered light. And not just that, but it is preparing something good for
00:15:40.460 believers. It's preparing for us glory. This passage says joy, peace, eternal contentment, and freedom
00:15:47.220 from the shackles of sin and sickness and sorrow. And we remember that hope, that future reality,
00:15:55.320 by focusing on that which we cannot see, rather than only focusing on and obsessing over only that
00:16:02.080 which we can see. All of the things that we listed in the beginning, the terrible things that we see that
00:16:05.900 have a real effect on people that do matter. We can't obsess over those things because where our
00:16:11.700 hope lies, where our life is, where our citizenship is, is in a place that we can't see. We believe in
00:16:17.800 a God that we cannot see, who lives in a heaven that we cannot see, preparing for us a home that we
00:16:22.220 cannot see, filled with goodness that we cannot fathom. We believe in these things with the faith God
00:16:27.820 gave us through grace, as Ephesians 2, 8-10 tells us. And of course, because we can't see these
00:16:33.880 things, we can't draw them. We can't even adequately describe them. We can't prove them with the
00:16:38.740 scientific method. We're going to look crazy to a world who believes the greatest and supreme being
00:16:44.880 in the world is themselves. How can you be happy when everything is falling apart? How can you not
00:16:52.480 be torn apart with anxiety over the state of the world? How can you even consider having kids in a
00:16:57.900 time like this? These are the things that people ask Christians. How are you still eating, drinking,
00:17:02.080 and being merry when so many bad things are happening? How are you still laughing at funny
00:17:06.600 jokes? How are you still finding enjoyment in your day-to-day life? How can you still go to church when
00:17:12.860 this new variant is out there? How can you still insist upon getting together with friends and
00:17:17.440 family when the government tells us doing so is dangerous and when some of the people that you know
00:17:21.140 might not be vaccinated? How are you still thinking about the needs of other people when you have
00:17:25.740 so little, when you've lost so much? How are you so okay? How do you seem to have peace when your world
00:17:33.460 and the world at large is in chaos? How do you seem so content when everyone around you has more than
00:17:39.120 you? How do you avoid being envious and covetousness of what other people have? How have you already moved
00:17:45.280 on from that particular situation in which you were betrayed, belittled, or treated unfairly? How do you
00:17:50.200 seem to still have confidence after being dumped or dismissed or abandoned? Why does it seem, even in
00:17:56.640 the tears and sadness, you are so steady? That's what the world should be asking Christians, because
00:18:03.020 those are the characteristics that we should see. And the answer is because ultimately of Romans 8.18,
00:18:09.880 really all of chapter 8, especially verses 28 on, but also in particular because of Romans 8.18,
00:18:18.400 for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that
00:18:22.840 is to be revealed to us. They're not worth comparing. That's like that first Corinthians
00:18:27.160 passage that we read. The sufferings that we are dealing with right now can't even compare to the
00:18:33.220 glory that we will one day get to enjoy because of God's grace in heaven, not because of anything
00:18:39.180 we've done, but because of the grace that he has given us in Christ. Because glory is to come.
00:18:44.760 Because one day, Jesus Christ, who has already reigned in heaven, will one day do away with
00:18:49.480 injustice, oppression, death, evil, corruption, dishonesty, sin, sorrow, sickness, division,
00:18:54.120 anger, and hate forever and ever. Psalm 37 promises us that. There will be no political parties. There won't
00:19:00.640 be false narratives. There won't be resentment between socioeconomic classes, races, or genders. There
00:19:06.260 will only be happiness and peace in the worship of the King of Kings. That is our hope. That is our future.
00:19:13.160 That is our future and imminent reality. This life is here today, gone tomorrow. And our responsibility
00:19:21.160 as believers in Christ remains the same in this tiny blip of a moment on earth that we are all living
00:19:28.640 through. And that is to obey him. That is how we love him. Jesus tells us to keep his commandments.
00:19:35.500 And his commandments are summed up in love God and love your neighbor. So that's kind of circular.
00:19:40.400 That love is defined by keeping his commandments. And his commandments are defined by love. And his
00:19:46.960 love is defined by his commandments. So that means that love is not defined by shallow or newfangled
00:19:53.480 definitions of superficial empathy, which too often is offered as a replacement for rationality and
00:19:59.440 seeking and speaking truth or unconditional acceptance or tolerance of sin. Rather, we read that
00:20:05.160 love is agreeing with God and everything he says is good. Everything he says is right and true and
00:20:11.720 living that out for his glory and the good of those around us. That is our job as believers. That is it.
00:20:18.380 There are a lot of different manifestations of that. And we don't often know exactly what that looks like
00:20:23.460 in our moment to moment lives. I love what Elizabeth Elliott says. If you follow me on Instagram,
00:20:29.060 I say this a lot. The only thing you have to do today is the will of God. How freeing is that? How
00:20:35.020 liberating is that? And if you're wondering, well, I don't, I don't know what that is. If we don't know
00:20:41.140 what that is, we do the next right thing. We do the next right thing in faith and with excellence.
00:20:48.160 That might be making dinner. That might be washing dishes. That might be changing diapers. It may be a term
00:20:52.940 paper. It may be an email to a client. It may be something seemingly big, like starting that organization
00:20:58.500 or deciding to homeschool your kids. It could be major decisions. It could be minor steps that you
00:21:05.440 take in the right direction toward the glory of God. Do the next right thing in faith with excellence
00:21:11.740 and in joy. Pray for wisdom. Pray for discernment. Pray for direction. And when it seems like there is
00:21:22.000 nothing to do, you rejoice. That's one thing that we know that we should do. Philippians 4 tells us
00:21:28.340 to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be made known
00:21:35.400 to everyone. We are told to be thankful over and over again in scripture. And we are told to be
00:21:42.140 thankful. Jesus tells us not to be worried about anything. And for example, Matthew 10, knowing
00:21:48.200 everything that Christians would endure from Nero to now, all of the terrible things that Christians
00:21:53.700 would endure throughout history. Jesus still tells us, do not worry. Scripture still tells us to
00:22:00.500 be thankful, to be grateful, to rejoice in the Lord, to rejoice in trials. And if you're wondering,
00:22:07.500 well, God didn't know what we would be going through now or what I would personally be going
00:22:11.400 through now. Of course he did. Of course he did. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
00:22:17.680 As Hebrews 13, 8 tells us. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He's not
00:22:24.520 constrained by time. He knew everything that you would go through, that you will go through, that
00:22:30.700 Christians throughout history have and are and will go through. He knows all of those things. And he still
00:22:38.940 tells us, do not worry. Do not be anxious. Do not fear. Have courage. Have faith. Be steadfast. Be
00:22:48.100 joyful. Be grateful. That is how the Christian distinguishes themselves. One of the ways, including
00:22:54.920 love, how we distinguish ourselves from a frightened and paralyzed, fearful world.
00:23:03.140 People will try to say that Christmas is about a lot of things that it's not. They will try to say
00:23:12.360 that it's about teen pregnancy or refugees, immigration. They will try to say Jesus was a
00:23:20.180 Palestinian revolutionary fighting against empire and for communism and trans rights. They'll say a bunch
00:23:28.080 of ridiculous things that are simply not true. And I did a video dispelling a lot of these progressive
00:23:37.300 myths about who Jesus was and what he came to do last year. I won't get into all of it right now.
00:23:42.420 I'll link that video in the description of this episode just as a reminder. The reality is, is that
00:23:49.580 Jesus, as John 1 tells us, is God made flesh. He is fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. He is the
00:23:57.820 redemption that was chosen, planned, preordained since before time began. He is preeminent over
00:24:06.200 all creation, as Colossians 1 tells us. He is not a political revolutionary. He did not wage a cultural
00:24:15.860 revolution. He did not wage a war against the Roman Empire. He was not a political activist. He didn't come
00:24:24.880 to overturn earthly systems. That doesn't mean that Christians shouldn't care about politics,
00:24:30.800 obviously, as I say so often, or shouldn't care about culture or so-called culture wars. But the
00:24:36.320 reality is, is that Jesus was not a political activist. He wasn't some communist. Palestine
00:24:41.720 didn't even exist at that time. So he wasn't Palestinian. He was not the political mascot that people try to
00:24:52.880 turn him into. He is God. There's a big difference in that. Because when we try to turn Jesus into a
00:25:00.280 political mascot, we make ourselves God and him some kind of idol that doesn't exist. But Colossians 1
00:25:06.140 tells us who Jesus is. He is the image of the invisible God, starting in verse 15.
00:25:12.860 The firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
00:25:18.800 invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him
00:25:23.640 and for him. And he is before all things. And in him all things hold together. And he is the head of
00:25:29.240 the church, the body. He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from
00:25:34.560 the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to
00:25:40.640 dwell. And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace
00:25:46.420 by the blood of the cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
00:25:53.300 he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless
00:25:58.860 and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast.
00:26:03.520 There's those words again, stable and steadfast. Characteristics of Christians in a crazy chaotic
00:26:08.040 world. Not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all
00:26:14.140 creation under heaven and of which I, Paul, became a minister. And then he actually goes into rejoicing
00:26:20.840 in the midst of sufferings. But I wanted to read that passage to remind you that as you hear so many
00:26:27.180 myths and so much propaganda about Christianity and Christmas this holiday season, that Jesus was not,
00:26:33.600 not only was he not a political activist, he is not a political mascot for either the left and the right,
00:26:39.020 but also Jesus was not a victim. He was not a victim of the state. He was not a victim of the
00:26:44.420 Roman empire. He was not a victim. He willingly went to the cross for your sake to reconcile you
00:26:51.300 and me sinners to a holy God so that we could be reconciled with him here on earth, having joy and
00:26:58.700 freedom, even in the midst of our difficult circumstances and would have freedom and joy and
00:27:04.400 eternal life forevermore in his presence. That's the gospel. Let me read you part of John 1.
00:27:11.840 In the beginning was the Word, capital W, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
00:27:16.900 Let me pause here. I'm kind of going on some tangents. But let me just say, I've got a lot of
00:27:23.100 friends, a lot of faithful followers, and a lot of listeners who are part of what is called the
00:27:29.100 Church of Latter-day Saints. One distinction between Christianity and what is called the
00:27:35.540 Church of Latter-day Saints is the belief that Jesus not was just a God or a son of God, but that
00:27:40.420 Jesus is God. You'll hear a lot from people who are in the Mormon church that there is no difference
00:27:45.160 between Orthodox Christianity, traditional Christianity, and Mormonism, except that Mormons
00:27:50.300 believe that Jesus was a God or a son of God and not God himself. And John 1 dispels that. That is the
00:27:57.500 gospel. If you don't believe that Jesus is God, is part of the triune God, then an equal person in the
00:28:06.120 Trinity, then that is not Christianity. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
00:28:10.960 and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him
00:28:16.080 was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines
00:28:21.660 in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it. So that's the passage that I want to end with.
00:28:30.040 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. That is Jesus. That is our hope,
00:28:37.040 that in the midst of darkness, in the midst of chaos, in the midst of confusion, in the midst of decay,
00:28:42.500 and deterioration, and destruction in so many ways that we see around us, whether it comes to morality,
00:28:50.000 whether it comes to the physical world that seems to be decaying, of course, as we've seen in the
00:28:56.040 destruction from tornadoes over the past couple of weeks, whatever it is that leads to death, and
00:29:02.040 destruction, and sin, and sadness, none of that darkness can overcome the church, because Christ
00:29:09.400 is the head of the church, and he promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
00:29:13.960 And therefore, as Romans 8 tells us, the darkness cannot overcome you, because through Christ,
00:29:18.480 you are more than a conqueror. And because Jesus came into the world, because he has word made flesh,
00:29:25.560 because he has God made flesh, and because he has become our redemption and our reconciliation,
00:29:30.360 we have hope, we have every reason to celebrate Christmas, even in the midst of very hard things
00:29:35.400 that we may be going through as a nation and personally. That's the gospel. That's the hope that
00:29:40.360 we have this holiday season. That's what we get to rejoice in. And I am so thankful that we have the
00:29:46.900 freedom still to share in that gospel. I am so thankful for the church. I would encourage you
00:29:51.580 this Christmas to go to a local church. I will put a link to a church finder in the description of
00:29:57.880 this episode. If you have not been to church in a long time, if you've never been to church in your
00:30:02.180 life, and you feel like, you know what, maybe this is the Christmas Eve to attend a Christmas Eve
00:30:06.740 service, I would really encourage you to do that. What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose?
00:30:10.680 And for my fellow Christians, I'm thankful for you. I'm thankful that we get to share in the body
00:30:16.700 of Christ. I'm thankful for this gospel that unites us, even in our political differences,
00:30:21.260 even in whatever disagreements we may have, what unites us as a body is this gospel that has been
00:30:28.520 given to us and empowers us through the Holy Spirit. And let us be bold, let us be brave,
00:30:34.380 and let us go forth in joy and in faith for the glory of God. All right, maybe not your traditional
00:30:41.940 Christmas message, but I hope it does encourage you. And I hope that you have a wonderful time
00:30:45.840 of fellowship and just joy and rest and rejuvenation with your family this weekend as
00:30:50.600 you celebrate this wonderful holiday. Eat a lot of good Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses and
00:31:00.400 listen to a ton of good music and just have a good time and thank the Lord for everything that He
00:31:06.940 has given you and done for you. That's what I'll be doing this weekend. All right, I'll see you guys
00:31:12.200 back here next Tuesday with an awesome conversation with a wonderful guest. See you guys then.