Each year the church I attend invites some of its members to write Advent Devotionals. It is a privilege to share them with the people I worship with. So, let me share them with you now. You can read them all at once or spread them out over the next three weeks of Advent.
Christmas Preaching
Romans 15:14-16
14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul wrote a mighty treatise and passionate document to a group of Roman Christians. In this letter, most likely read in public in many house churches, he addressed his passion for preaching Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected. In Romans 15:14-21 we see how he explains his understanding of God’s mission for him. In verse 16 he stated that his purpose was bound up in, “the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” The Apostle Paul was very sure of his mission.
He was also very sure that God’s grace extended far beyond the boundaries of the Jewish world. In the book of Acts and in further letters written by Paul, we see his commitment to preach the Gospel in places others had not yet gone and some that others would not dare to go. And yet go he did while preaching the Gospel.
What drove Paul was his own conversion experience—a direct encounter with the Person of Jesus Christ. (Acts 9:1-19, 22:6-21, 26:12-18, Galatians 1:11-24, 1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:8) How old Paul, formerly Saul, was when Jesus Christ was born can only be estimated. But just over thirty years after the Bethlehem shepherds bowed before the infant Christ, the voice of the resurrected Christ stopped him in his tracks, reframed his Jewish experience into the New Covenant light, and set him on the trajectory to be part of the distribution of the Gospel message until the whole world would know. Paul was planted in the estimated middle-story of the earthly kingdom of God. Whether or not his time was the actual middle we cannot know (Mark 13:32), but what we do recognize is that Paul and his companions, and the many who have come after them, are an essential part of the Gospel reaching all peoples.
You and I may not know the joys of our deeply spiritual Christmas experiences today if someone had not to preached or presented the Gospel to us. Take some time today to thank God for those who shared the Gospel with you.
Faith Demonstrated in Advent Journeys
Galatians 3:8-9
8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you. 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
All the way back to Abraham, we see evidence of the coming of Christmas blessing. Paul wrote to Galatian churches instructing them on the deep and lasting freedom for all found in the Gospel message—that faith in God through Jesus Christ was sufficient. Paul was steeped in his Jewish background, very aware of how long the promises of God had been active in the world. The Galatians had been tormented by the non-free, non-faith-filled legalists trying to convince them that adherence to the Old Testament Law alone was their means of salvation. But Paul pushed back far further than Moses receiving those laws (Exodus 20 +) that the legalists were pushing on new Gentile believers. He went back to the origin of God’s promise prior to the Law.
Abraham, who started out as Abram, was transformed when he began a trusting relationship by faith alone with the living God. Paul had to unlearn his legalistic ways after he encountered Christ on the Damascus road (Acts 9:1-19) and see the way through the Law to rest in faith through Jesus Christ. He was determined to convince the Galatians of this.
What freedom there is in a living relationship with God through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit! Abraham had discovered it, Paul knew it, and we who believe as Abraham did know it today.
How this informs our journey through Advent, to the worship of Jesus Christ our Savior in the cradle, our Redeemer on the cross, and our resurrected King coming again makes all the difference in the world, to the world and for the world.
Praise God who accepts our faith in him as the trust-work for a future filled with far more than Christmas lights!
Our Christmases are Numbered
Matthew 24:14
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
How many Christmases do you want? This really begs a further question. What does Christmas mean to you? Now I love Christmas and all of it’s trappings. Ask any of my family members and they will tell you that I start decorating the day after Thanksgiving. It’s not just all about the festivities and fun for me, though. It’s also about the “reason for the season” – Jesus Christ – our Savior, Redeemer and Friend.
As I reflected on today’s selection of scripture, Matthew 24:1-11, a passage that focuses on Jesus’ words regarding his second coming and the end of human history, I was struck by a further reason for the season. As Christians we live in the light of the Second Coming not just the light of Christmas candles or tree lights or neighborhood lights on houses. For Christmas would not be part of our story except for the prevenient grace of God that reached out long before Jesus came as a baby to live among us. But Christmas is the middle of the story of the Gospel. It’s not the end. The reason that Jesus Christ came to us was so that the Gospel story would have a final resolution. This resolution would solve all of the problems of the world—all of them!
The promise that resides in Matthew 24:14 is that the Gospel will be preached in the whole world. This means that God will continue to equip and send proclaimers (Romans 10:14-15), that his Word will not return void (Isaiah 55:11), and that the Gospel message will ring out until everyone has heard. And then the final Christmas will be replaced with all things new (Revelation 21:5).
© M.R.Hyde 2025
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