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This will be my 31st Christmas at Calvary. 31 years of reading and preaching from the same old stories of Christmas, but to be honest, they never get old. What we celebrate at Christmas is so wondrously holy. The heaven’s opened up and poured the uncontainable blessings and unmistakable presence of Immanuel God with us. Every year that I think I know it all, I’m reintroduced to the wonder and awe of that truth. And if you think about it, there are some pretty amazing Christmas stories filled with heaven on earth moments.

So in this episode, as we take a break from Revelation, we're going to look at an ordinary Joe, that probably doesn't have main character energy. But this ordinary Joe can teach us more than a little bit about faith!

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The Christmas stories from the Bible are central to celebrating Christmas, not just because we need to know the story, we do. But even more so because John says in his Christmas story, that Jesus is the Word of God. In other words, it's not just about a book. It's about a person. It's not just about knowing the truth it's about loving the one who is true.

So there are two equally valid and important statements that we need to understand. First we don't value Christ if we don't value the Word. The Word shows us Christ. It's filled with Christ. It leads us to Christ. I've seen time and time again, when people who love Jesus fall out of love with His Word, over time they fall out of love with Jesus. But it's also true, secondly, that we've missed the Word, if we aren't drawn to Christ. If we learn the Bible without coming to love Christ we've missed it all. Jesus is the Christmas Word!

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The cosmic Christmas was a military strike to the forces of evil. But those forces still operate, which is why, when it comes to the hard stuff that the church of Smyrna was going through Jesus peels back the curtain, in essence to tell them that as bad as things are, they are worse than you think. But he goes on to say, that they are also better than you can imagine! Suffering is coming, but the best is yet to come. So don't be fearful, be faithful!

And how can we be faithful in fearful times? By realizing that Jesus knows, Jesus wins, and Jesus gives. I'll unpack that a bit more in this episode!