The Christmas Paradox

Well, we come to the end of the year and it's time for Christmas and we're anticipating the magic that might happen, right? There's always the... New Year coming and also the celebration of this unique and special holiday. Nanar, there are those who are extremely excited and you've already been listening to Christmas music right after Thanksgiving. And then there are those who are dreading.

This holiday because it's a reminder once again of the pain and suffering and sorrow in your life. Well, today's episode is for you. And you're saying, well, that's two different people. I know it's for both. This episode is to remind us.

of the joy that we have in christ in the midst of these type of moments no matter what your perspective is whether it's happy and you're anticipating it or sorrowful and you can't wait to get through it This is an important episode where we talk about the first coming of Christ and what it means for us.

I hope it encourages you to stay tuned. Before we do that, let's take a moment as we do every week and look to Christ. Be reminded of who he is for us. And let's start our day and our podcast together. by encouraging one another in Christ. Let's look to Christ. The Advent season invites us to pause and remember why Christ came. He entered our world to address the deepest ache of the human heart.

the guilty conscience. We carry memories we wish we could erase. Sins we fear will define us and failures that whisper we are unworthy. Christ did not come to add weight. to the burden, he came to lift it. In his first coming, he stepped into the very place where shame hides. He took every accusation that stands against you and bore it on his own body.

Nothing you fear will rise against you. Nothing you regret is left uncovered. He carried it all. His blood speaks a better word than your guilt ever could. It declares you clean. He also wrapped you in his own righteousness. You did not come before the Father trembling, hoping you will be accepted. You come clothed in the perfect obedience of Jesus. You are not tolerated. You are welcomed. The barrier your conscience once felt, it's been removed. You stand before God.

with confidence not because your record is clean but because his record is yours this is the foundation of the advent joy before christ returns to make all things new he has already He has silenced the voice of guilt. He has washed the stains you could never remove. He has given you peace where fear. once lived so as you wait as you long for the final day when faith becomes sight remember what has first arrival accomplished you are forgiven

You are covered and you are clean. And that is our moment of looking to Christ. Let's get into the episode. welcome to theocast where we're going to be talking about all of christ for all of life and we're going to be pulling the clutter off the gospel so that we can see and savor the wonder of Jesus Christ, the power of God unto salvation, where faith comes and it comes by hearing about Jesus Christ. And that's what we want to talk about.

today. If this is your first time listening to Theocast, I'm the host. I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. If you're in the area, we'd love for you to come and visit us and see us.

And many of you do, and we're always happy to have you and get to meet you. I don't have a particular agenda for today's episode. because it's the end of the year. It's the last episode of the year. And I was thinking about something. And so I just wanted to talk to you, my friends and listeners and my church members. I've been thinking a lot about the holidays.

and been in ministry long enough, been alive long enough to be through enough holidays. And this is my conclusion. And before I jump into this and talk about this, my wife says I'm a little bit of a Grinch.

which is probably true. I'm a Grinch. I often find Christmas to be annoying. And it's the commercialization of it. I think most people... would agree with that it's just weird um a lot of the things that we do but uh i do i said this in a sermon recently and and i only i just want to mention this now because this is this this is the aspect of

of Christmas that irritates me. It's because of the things that sometimes we teach our children. Now I know St. Nicholas was a dear saint from all the stories that we hear, but it has morphed into something that's far worse than that, okay? I want you to think about this song. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good, right? Why? Because if you're good, you get...

you get a treat. And if you're not, you get a piece of coal. I mean, think about that for a moment. We're attributing godlike features to a created being. Even if they're an angel, they still don't have this capacity to see.

who's being good and who's not being good. And we're not saying it's the elves watching. It's like, he's got an army of elves and the elves are watching or the parents are working with Santa Claus and the parents are, you know, it's saying he's watching you. I mean, did you ever just stop and be like, that's. Kind of weird, right? It's weird. And then he gives you a treat if you're good and if you're bad. So we're motivating our children to do good. So this old guy.

we'll give them a treat. And if they're bad, he's going to give them a lump of coal. Like this thing that burns, you know, I guess it's got to be some kind of an image of hell. I don't know. It's just weird. It's just weird. And if your kids are listening to this episode and I just ruined Santa Claus for them and for the rest of their life, they'll survive. Because we're going to talk about the one who does see them when they're sleeping and the one who does know when they're awake.

And when they are bad and good, his blood covers them. And so trust him for goodness sake. Let's change the meaning of the song. Okay. I'm done being a Grinch.

But the other reason I'm a little grinchy during Christmas is just because I walk with so many hurting people who are disappointed during these seasons. People who are divorced, they've lost a loved one. They're going through a divorce. I mean, they're sick. They're sick again. I mean, you could, there's a number of pains and sufferings and we watch Hallmark movies or we watch these different shows and at times we want, we want a bit of magic.

It makes sense, right? We want there to be magic because our life is full of things that seem impossible to change. And so I want there to be a sense of hope. I want there to be a sense of relief. Can we just, is it so wrong to hope for a hallmark ending? Is it so wrong to hope for there to be a perfect holiday, right? Because life is so hard and that longing that you have that where you want things to be different, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Because what you're acknowledging is something's wrong. There's something is not right. And it's okay to acknowledge and say, yeah, this is wrong. This is broken. It's not correct. And I don't want it to be this way. This is why it says that we are to set our hopes on things above. Why? Because it's there that it's perfect. Where Christ is, he's preparing a home for us. We're going to have a new body. There'll be no more sin. There'll be no more struggle.

To want that is not wrong. It's normal. It's natural. It's actually encouraged. To want something better than what you have now. If it's related to who Christ is and His original design for the world, there's nothing wrong with that at all. Encourage it, right? What's interesting about the season of Advent is this...

celebration or longing or anticipating the coming of Christ. And so the first advent, that's what we celebrate this, the first coming of Christ. And man, what did he give to us? He set our conscience free. We don't have to live this world because we sin every day. We sin so many times a day against each other. It's brutal. It's so hard.

And yet the gospel says, the good news is that Jesus' blood covers our past, present, and future sins, and that when we feel the weight of our sin, when we sin again, we can confess it to the Father, and he will cleanse our conscience, that we are set free from ever— wondering, because someone asked this recently, if I were to die while sinning, am I going to go to heaven? It's like, you're going to die as a sinner.

You have never loved God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength ever in your entire life. You've never loved your neighbor as yourself. So you are going to die in your sin because God requires absolute perfection. So sure. You might be thinking, well, I guess if I was lying or cheating on my spouse or something, you think at that moment, but we're relativizing sin at this time. And sure, there are certain sins that are worse than others, but the point of it being is that...

We walk by faith being that we are covered and cleansed by the work of Christ, not by our work. So this anticipation of his first coming is powerful for us because not only is our conscience cleaned, But we have a hope that we can stand before the Father at the end of our life, and He isn't going to look at our good works. I'm so glad that I don't have to perform all of my entire life hoping I perform enough. so that he would accept me into his family. I mean, that's how most Christians live.

The first coming is wonderful to be told that, child, you are righteous in Christ. That's what it means, right? So if you are standing in the strength of the Lord, if you've put on the righteousness of Christ... Your obedience is definitely necessary, and you need to be obeying, because it's for the advancement of the kingdom, and it's for the betterment of others, and it's to help encourage them, but it's not for your standing before God. So that first advent, when he came...

He secured for us a clean conscience. He removed the guilt and shame of our sin, and then he gave us all the righteousness that we need, and then he gave us the hope.

of a new life, of glorification with the Father. But now we're waiting on the second advent. We're waiting for him to come back. That's where the new heavens and the new earth is. And there is something magical about that. There is something beyond. our world. It's otherworldly. And that's why I think it's so hard for us to think about the new heavens and the new earth, because all we can think about is right in front of us. I mean, we're such physical people.

And our entire life is driven by physical realities, right? Like we eat, we drink, we sleep, we wear clothes, we're interacting with each other. And it's hard to think past that, especially when you have a headache, you're sick, you're dealing with problems. problems. Me as a pastor, I'm preaching every single week, teaching people how to think about Jesus all the time, and I myself, I start thinking about...

Right now, my nose is kind of stuffy. It's bothering me. I'm wondering if I'm going to make it through this episode or not. By God's grace, I will. That longing we have for that moment of relief that maybe this year will be a better year. Maybe this year we'll have, and then you can fill in the blank. If you're single, you'll be married. If you're without a child, you'll be pregnant.

You're cancer, you're cancer-free. The list can go on. You don't have a job, you have a job. And what we're wanting is a break from... just the abuse of a broken, sinful world that's under the attack of the evil one. Satan desires to kill and destroy and to steal. He wants to steal our joy. He wants to kill off our faith. He wants to destroy anything about the image of God. And so I think it's interesting in that we think, oh, maybe he would do that through creating these evil...

demonic things. And I think at times all he's got to do is just create something that is a fake, like a Santa Claus, and give us false hope, having a magical experience. And it can crush you every year. Instead of coming through this season where we're remembering who Christ is for us and we have a joy that's beyond our circumstances, we have a hope.

that is beyond our pain. We come through these holidays with one more reminder of there's, you know, we don't have the life that we want. No matter what our income is and no matter what our relationship status is, it seems like there's always a moment of disappointment.

If you're new to Theocast, you may not have heard of this word. It's called pietism. Have you ever felt like the Christian life is a heavy burden versus rest and joy? That you wake up worrying about how well you're going to perform? instead of thinking about what Christ has done for you. It's dread versus joy, really. That's Pietism. Pietism causes Christians to look in on themselves and find their hope, not in what Christ has done, but what they're doing.

And we have a little book for you. It's free. We want you to download it. And we're going to explain the difference between pietism and what we call confessionalism. Reformed theology, really, how it is that we walk by faith, seeing the joy of Christ, and when Jesus says, come to me and I will give you rest, what does that look like? You can download it at our website. Just go to theocost.org. Well, I want to...

take the rest of our time. I know this has been long. It's kind of a drag out so far, but I want to, I kind of want you to be okay with. and almost embrace the disappointment of life. Like, it's okay. It's okay to look at your life and say, Man, I don't like this at all. This is not what I want. It's not what I anticipated. I think sometimes we, in Christianity, we have a...

Yeah, we just kind of pretend like everything is, like we want everybody to think that we're really a real strong Christian. And so we just, you know, we put on our face. We put on our Sunday best. You've ever been around somebody and you've never heard them make a negative comment ever. Like they're, they just, they're all, they're always happy all the time, you know?

I don't mind being around those people because it's better than being around the guy who's always angry or sad, the Eeyore. But then there are times you just want them to be like, hey, get mad. Like, this is bad. I want you to get angry about this. This is a horrible thing. You know, when you stub your toe, I want you to be angry about it. Because at times I could feel fake, you know. And I've been around fake Christianity.

I don't enjoy it either. There is something about acknowledging when I've got another person who can see the world the way I do and like, man, this is just wrong. that helps me to know that i'm just not crazy because at times you feel like you're crazy like wait a minute everybody else has this perspective on life like it should be a certain way like life needs to look like this We talked about this a couple weeks ago, the prosperity gospel test. This is really the effects of this as well.

I just want to give Christians the freedom to say, no, this world is absolutely garbage. It's okay. It's completely okay with the psalmist to throw your hands up in the air and weep and cry out and say, Lord, I need you. In my darkest hours, in my moment of despair, I need you. The apostle Paul talked about this, where he often asked for mercy. He said, Lord, deliver me from this pain. And God responded with, my grace is sufficient for when you are weak.

that's when you're going to understand the power of my grace, right? So the deliverance of our soul and our conscience we have now. The clothing of Christ's righteousness we have now. That's what gives us hope. That's what allows us to not bite and devour each other. It's what allows us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. At least seek to.

When it comes down, though, to our experience as far as our health and the world around us, yeah, that part's going to be rough. And that's why the New Testament... says we have to keep our eyes focused on things above, like set your mind on things where Christ is. Well, what he means by this is we're going to get into this more in 2026, but in our upcoming episodes. We're talking about what Christ is doing now, what he will be doing in the future. The original creation wasn't a mistake.

and that we're going to experience that creation with our God, which means a lot of what we're experiencing now without sin, without death, without fear, without anxiety. It's going to be wonderful, right? But until that comes... It is okay to lament and to be sorrowful and to gather together and encourage each other in Christ, because at the end of the day, I don't care how much money you have.

you're going to die. I don't care how much fame you have, you're going to die. You're going to suffer. That part of it, it just can't go away. We're trying every which way to remove pain and suffering through all kinds of different... aspects. And when the Bible talks about joy, it says that joy is found in the Lord, not in our health, not in our beauty, not in our finances, not in other people's compliments of us.

It's found who we are in Christ. And man, it takes a supernatural power to believe that, right?

It really does. And this is why at times I think we look at the scenarios, we look at the circumstances, and we say to ourselves, yeah, man, I kind of wish magic was real. And then you open up the scriptures and the most amazing supernatural stories that involve your life. This is your story. I mean... If you're a Christian, right now you believe the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. At least you should. That's what the Bible tells you. Here's something I preached about on Sunday.

about the first coming of Christ, one of the benefits of it is that he fulfilled and is the perfect great high priest for you, which means that according to Hebrews, Not only is he interceding on your behalf, so taking your requests and bring them to the Father perfectly, but he's praying for you even when you fail to pray. So the Spirit lives inside you and is groaning on your behalf. Jesus is praying for you so that...

Your life would be better here as you wait for the return of Christ, that you do the work of God. That sounds pretty magical. It sounds amazing, supernatural. When it says, when we gather together as a church and the book is opened and we sing and we pray and we hear the word of Christ for us, that the Spirit comes and he ministers to our soul. So we want... magical results in our preferences, like how we prefer life to be. And remember...

I think that that longing is fine because that's how God originally designed it to be, but we're not paying attention to Scripture that that's coming. That is going to come, and it is going to come in an absolute amazing way. And that is through Christ's work for us. Like when he returns, it's going to be a powerful moment where everything is restored. But until then, we actually are carried.

through by supernatural means. And this is the connection I'm trying to make, just kind of going back to the beginning of the podcast. A lot of the songs that we sing about are these, you know, Frosty the Snowman and... you know, the miracle in 31st Street, like there's this magical sensation to the holiday because we're anticipating, we're putting our hope in, you know, just thinking about like the movie Elf.

And if enough people believe, then the slave will be able to fly and not many people believe anymore. And so faith is what kind of powers Santa Claus. And why are we wanting that? Because we want something to believe in, because even in that story, there's broken homes and there's disappointment and there's things happening. And there's a longing to want something more, to believe in something bigger. And as Christians, that's why we love Advent, because...

We do have something to belong to. We have something more to believe in than our current circumstances and our situation. We really do. And for those around us, our friends and our family and our neighbors and those on social media, if we can be, if we can. remind ourselves of this, that the magic they're looking for, the hope that they're wanting to, there's something they want to believe in, is right in front of them, the man Jesus Christ.

You know, we sing all these songs about Christmastime, and I always laugh when you have pagans around the world that will sing these Christmas songs about Jesus, and they don't even understand what they're saying. And I pray that God opens their eyes, and I've seen this on TV, and it's just interesting how it's kind of a part of our culture, and our culture just kind of embraces a lot of these Christmas songs.

In many ways, I want to encourage all of us, this longing that we have to kind of want there to be something different about this Christmas. I agree. I want something different for us. I want us to have... in the midst of suffering, in the midst of heartache, where you can't reverse your past, you can't bring someone back to life, you can't get rid of whatever it is, this chronic situation you find yourself in.

that you can have a joy that goes beyond the finance, the physical, and it comes through the spiritual, that you could look to Christ in such a way. where no matter what the situation might be, you can not only enjoy the wonder of Christ's first coming, but you can give that to someone else because you know his success in coming the first time. we will have all things renewed the second time. So this longing of the heart that often comes about where we're going to use products.

We're going to use magical stories. We're going to use happy ever afters to try and medicate ourselves through this Christmas season. the gospel can come in and actually satisfy and fulfill every area of those. If you think about it, just to remind us,

I think when we connect Christmas to the new year, there's something about celebrating the end of the close of the year, the newness, anticipation of what's to come when we can kind of start over. And this is what that gospel offers to us at times where it's like my life is disastrous and Jesus is coming and offering forgiveness.

The mistake that we make is that we think that Jesus is offering a redo, like you can start over. No, it's even better. Jesus isn't offering you a redo. He's saying your entire past. is on me. And I never, ever, ever want you to think that your future is on you. And so I'm going to cover your entire life. Not just your past, but your life. If you just trust me, I am sufficient to do that. I can do that.

to prevent you from this transactional style of Christianity that the song says, you know, he's watching you. The Father is watching you. And he looks upon you, not in your performance, if you're being on the naughty list or the nice list. He's looking at you saying, you are my child forever because. all of the obedience that you should have done, Jesus did it for you. So when the books are open and your name is there, John Moffat, write...

next to that name. Perfect. Why? Because when Jesus came and obeyed the first time, the first coming, when Jesus came and obeyed, The Father says that all of that obedience was attributed to me. It was given to me. So my debt was erased. That's payment on the cross. And when he yells out as it is finished, he is saying the debt is paid.

And not only is the debt paid, but the righteousness was earned. And so my name is attributed. Righteous. That's what's given to me. And you're like, well, John, I don't feel righteous. I don't obey. It's like, yes, that's the third gift. This is what Peter says. Everything for life and godliness has already been granted to you by his divine power.

That's the magical essence of the gospel, right? This longing you have during this season, I'm telling you, everything that you need right now, that you're hoping for a miracle, you already... Have it. The miracle was through Christ when he was born of a virgin, right? And he came and he fulfilled all the prophecies and he did these miracles proving he is God. And when he rose from the grave.

And it says, all of this is a gift to you, right? Ephesians 2, by grace you have been saved. God gives this to you. And he says, not only is your past taking care of your right now, the presence, your righteousness, but I will give you a new. life. You're going to be resurrected, and you will be without sin. And so we live in this already, not yet. We're a creature that has the Holy Spirit, and we're saved, and we are part of the family. We are adopted. We are royal priests.

and we have the guaranteed love of God, it will never go away. And on top of that, he says, I'm not done with you yet. As bad and as distant and as discouraged as you might be. Your future with me and the new body that you will get is not going to be based upon your performance. Because then Peter should have said, if that's the case, everything for life. has been given to you, but the godliness part is up to you. No, that's been granted to you.

everything by his divine power. So he doesn't need your power. If he's using divine power, he definitely doesn't need your power because it's worthless compared to divine power. The essence of God's power is how you got to be where you're at. So this is a magical season for us because what are we doing? We're stopping and celebrating and singing and reminding ourselves that Jesus came.

and took away our sins and gave us a hope of his righteousness, guaranteed, written down, it is finished. When Jesus cried, it is finished, and he rose from the grave, you have the guarantee. Romans 8 says, nothing can separate you from the love of God, no matter how well you think you will or have not performed. No one can take you out of my hand. It's important to remember these things, because our obedience, which we want to do... is not for our salvation. It's not for our adoption.

God says that he leaves us here so that we can let others be liberated by this, that we can give them the gift of hope, that whatever that they're longing for, their happy ending, it can come to them. It comes to them through Christ Jesus.

But in this life and in this world, we suffer waiting for his return. So I felt like I kind of rambled a little bit, but I just wanted to encourage you, if you're excited about the holiday season, great. Be excited for the right reasons. Continue to look to Christ, and it's good to celebrate with family and be reminded of the gift that God has given to us and to invest in our family and our friends and to care for them and to care for those who are hurting.

But if you're anticipating or longing for or you're filling your heart and minds with the holiday season and it's not Christ for you, it's not the first coming of Christ, anticipating of a second coming. then you're going to be setting yourself up for a season of disappointment once again. And you might be happy, and you actually might find a sense of joy. I have at times, but then I realize it doesn't last.

And I wake up the next day and I'm reminded that people still die and they're still hurt and there's still crime and there's still death. And there's more to life than having a nice home, buying nice gifts. I mean, there are so many gifts that I have bought my children. They don't even exist in my home anymore. And they were so excited to buy them, to receive them. And I was excited to buy it for them. But at the end of the day, they can't satisfy. Not like Christ can.

So if you're listening to this, my encouragement to you is find moments, find time, prioritize the intake of the good news of the gospel through preaching and fellowship and friends. What I love about this season is that whether you're a Christian or not, we're going to talk about Jesus. And I'm thankful for that. And my encouragement to you is talk about him in a way in which it's not just his birth, but it's what he did.

It's why he came. The birth was the beginning of leading us to the wonder of who he is in Christ. So anyways, that's the end of the year. Look, if Theocast has been encouraging to you in any way, we are working on a lot of new materials.

I'm working on a documentary right now that's going to be coming out early next year. That's all I'm going to tell you. I'm pretty excited about that. Just some theological insights for you. We have some classes, so you're going to want to go join Theocast. We have some classes coming up. I'm going to be going through a book review with my new book on how to study the Bible.

You're going to sign up for that. If this has been helpful for you, please like and subscribe, share, leave us a comment. We do go and read the comments. That helps us. It helps more people find us on YouTube and on the different podcast platforms. And if you'd like to help support us financially, that's what helps us produce all of this and get the material out. And so as you join the community, you will notice there are people there from...

all over the world. And so God is bringing a community of people together that want to focus on the sufficiency of Christ in a world full of lies and deception, and we want to trust in the sufficiency of Christ. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting Theocast. Excited for the next year and we'll see you in 2026. Hey guys, real quick. Some of you are listening to this and it's encouraging to you, but you have questions. So where do you go?

How do you interact with other people who have the same questions and share resources? We have started something called the Theocast community. And we're excited because not only is it a place for you to connect with other like-minded believers, all of our resources there. past podcast education materials articles all of it's there and you can share it and ask questions you can go check it out the link is in the description below