{"id":2082,"date":"2024-12-02T14:13:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-02T22:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/?p=2082"},"modified":"2024-12-02T14:13:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T22:13:14","slug":"a-real-christmas-requires-remembering-why-christ-came","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/?p=2082","title":{"rendered":"A Real Christmas Requires Remembering Why Christ Came"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(1 Thessalonians 3:9-13)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it’s unlikely that Paul had just stuffed himself full of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, too many pieces of pie, and then passed out on the couch while the football games were on the TV. Nonetheless, the sentiments of Thanksgiving certainly are in line with what he wrote in this section to the believers in Thessalonica: “How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of God because of you?” (v.9).<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul was feeling gratitude. He was grateful for what God had done and had continued doing in the lives of the believers there. He directed his gratitude, his thanks, to God. He was rightly thanking God for the joy that the Thessalonians had brought into his life. And, as is the case with genuine gratitude, Paul was interested in more than just empty words, but backing that gratitude up with action. That’s why he desired to return among the Thessalonians to continue what had been started: keep feeding their faith by supplying what was still lacking (v.10-11). What Paul wrote after that is essentially a prayer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that prayer, Paul expressed his desire that\u00a0 \u201cthe Lord make [their] love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else\u2026\u201d (v.12).<\/em><\/strong> It\u2019s as if Paul is providing a flow chart for us to see how the Christian life works. It all starts with God, who then funnels his gifts to us through faith. Then, as we grow in our faith, those gifts – like an increase in love as well as the other blessings that will follow, will all increase, too. Do you want a \u201cReal Christmas\u201d this year? Here\u2019s your recipe! Go back to the basics: God and his gift of faith and growing it, which leads to other spiritual gifts spilling over, like the ones Paul continues to pray for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul\u2019s prayer continues. \u201cMay he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones\u201d (v.13).<\/em><\/strong> We know the physical dangers of a weak heart. Not only can it cause complications, but even the slightest physical activity with a weak heart can potentially cause serious damage or even be fatal.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a weak heart spiritually is even more dangerous. A spiritually weak heart can lead one to drift from God or depend on some other source for strength and sustenance. That will certainly do damage for this life, but the greater concern of having a weak heart is how it potentially will leave us \u201cin the presence of our God and Father” (v.13).<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When will we find ourselves in that situation? Paul is looking way beyond the celebration of Christmas to the most monumental event, the Last Day, \u201cwhen our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones\u201d (v.13).<\/em><\/strong> The Gospels in the Bible record Jesus teaching and preaching about this day. Even Paul, in this same letter, speaks of what that day will be like. The Thessalonians believers were someone what confused on the details of that Last Day. It\u2019s worth noting that even that much closer to the life and ministry of Jesus, Paul was already focusing on his return and what its looks like to be ready for that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does being ready for that day look like? It means we \u201cwill be blameless and holy in the presence of our God.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The first part of that may grab your attention, as “will be” almost sounds as if that status of being \u201cblameless and holy\u201d is something still to come, something to strive for, something to be attained at some point in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That view would certainly fit the common ideas people have of good people getting into heaven. It\u2019s based on the idea that good people would do – and keep doing – good things. Then, at the end of the day when their time is up, God would sit down with them for what amounts to a sort of performance review to determine if they\u2019re in or not. So long as they have a strong enough track record, they\u2019ll be fine. It\u2019s no surprise then, that since we all imagine ourselves tending to have a pretty good track record in our own minds, replaying the \u201cbest-of\u2019s\u201d and the highlights of our lives, we\u2019re rather confident that we\u2019ve got nothing to fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of eventually arriving at being \u201cblameless and holy\u201d<\/em><\/strong> might also seem to be supported by Paul\u2019s own words, even in these very verses. After all, a faith that is \u201clacking,\u201d love that can \u201cincrease and overflow,\u201d and hearts that can be \u201cstrengthen[ed]\u201d would imply that \u201choly\u201d<\/em><\/strong> hasn\u2019t quite been achieved yet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So which is it? Are we holy right now, or is holiness a status that is arrived at by putting in the appropriate time and effort? How do we ensure that we’re blameless and holy on that final day? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both can be true. We can be holy right now, and we can also be becoming holy. Now that doesn\u2019t mean that we\u2019re following in the footsteps of the world that says truth is relative and subjective, and that we can all have our very different truths, even when those contradict each other. There\u2019s a difference between each of our individual constructs of truth as we drum it up in our own respective worlds and what we\u2019d call a paradox in Scripture. Our subjective truths have no backing or support from anything authoritative – they are based purely on our own personal thoughts or feelings. The Bible, however, as the Word of God, is authoritative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when the Bible speaks both ways, so do we. And the Bible does. It says that we can grow in our faith. Nearly half of what Paul writes in the New Testament is Paul addressing Christian living and spiritual growth. It lines up with exactly what he is writing in these verses, encouraging growth in our spiritual lives. Moreover, we personally know how necessary it is for us to grow as Christians in all areas of our lives. Yes, we are saints, but on this side of heaven we are saints who still sin and are still a work in progress. We want to grow and mature in our daily responsibilities and vocations, and rightly so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Bible also speaks about our status before God. God calls us holy, and he calls us holy right now, in the present, as we are in this very moment. \u201cBut you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a\u00a0holy\u00a0nation, God\u2019s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light\u201d (1 Peter 2:9). \u201cAnd by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all\u201d (Hebrews 10:10). <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We notice two things in just these two passages – and we could have mentioned many other passages as well. First, there are no \u201cifs\u201d in these verses. There is no carrot-on-a-stick holiness that is held out to us if <\/em>we meet certain conditions or criteria. Holiness isn\u2019t conditional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the tense of the verbs speaks volumes! We \u201care\u201d holy because we \u201chave been made\u201d holy. There is no “someday down the road if you play your cards right.” There is no \u201conce this happens, then\u2026\u201d There is only who we are because of what happened to make us that way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how does it feel? You are holy right now! And it is because God declares you to be holy right now that you also strive to live holy lives right now as you grow in holiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps one of the clearer Bible passages that ties our status as holy before God with our call to continue growing in holiness is found in Colossians 3:12. \u201cTherefore, as God\u2019s chosen people,\u00a0holy\u00a0and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience\u201d (Colossians 3:12). <\/em><\/strong>Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience aren\u2019t the prerequisites to achieving holiness; rather, they are how our holiness is expressed as we grow in them and put them on display in our Christian lives. You are holy right now. And you are growing in holiness right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if this holiness isn\u2019t something we arrive at or achieve on our own, then how does it happen? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is Christmas. Holiness left heaven and entered earth to bring holiness with him. If holiness is required to get into heaven, but holiness cannot be achieved outside of heaven, then holiness had to be brought to us. And to be brought to us, God had to come to us, which is exactly what happened at Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you assemble enough things over the years, at some point you\u2019ve experienced the frustration of arriving at a dead end. You can\u2019t move forward because something is missing. You retrace all of the previous steps in the directions to make sure you didn\u2019t use the wrong piece in the wrong place, and confirm that each step was properly followed. Just as you are getting ready either to disassemble everything and return it or contact customer service, convinced a piece was missing, in trots one of your children, caught up in some imaginary game, or possibly pretending to \u201chelp\u201d you, and you notice they have in their hand the piece you need to finish the assembly. Now that you have that piece, you finish putting everything together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus is that piece. Only he is much more than a missing piece to our holiness (as if we were somehow almost there<\/em> and he just needed to come in and supply what was missing)! He isn\u2019t just a missing piece; he is the whole thing! He IS our holiness, through and through. We cannot have holiness apart from him.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for him to be able to be our holiness, he had to provide our holiness by entering a holi-less world and bringing it with him. On Christmas, he was born to bring his holiness into a holi-less world. His perfect life in perfect obedience to God’s perfect law resulted in our holiness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, dear friends, because of what Jesus came to do in the past, we know that we already have what we need when he comes again in the future on that Last Day. By faith in Jesus, we have holiness. His holiness. Yes, we have all that we need to be \u201cblameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones\u201d (v.13).<\/em><\/strong> Christmas can’t get any more real than that!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(1 Thessalonians 3:9-13) Although it’s unlikely that Paul had just stuffed himself full of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, too many pieces of pie, and then passed out on the couch while the football games were on the TV. Nonetheless, the sentiments of Thanksgiving certainly are in line with what he wrote in this section to… Continue reading A Real Christmas Requires Remembering Why Christ Came<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[577,65],"tags":[578,4,272,271,5,109,36,108],"class_list":["post-2082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-real-christmas-series","category-sermons","tag-blameless","tag-christmas","tag-holiness","tag-holy","tag-jesus","tag-preaching","tag-sermon","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p842FN-xA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2084,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1thingmatters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}