Repentance. What does it mean? In a word, it means to return. The Hebrew word for repentance, teshuva, means to turn. It can mean to turn your face, turn your back on, or simply to return to an old way. It was used a lot in the prophetic writings to describe how the nation of Israel returned from the exile.

In the New Testament, written in Greek, the word is metanoeo, which literally means to change one’s mind. A change. A turn. That’s what repentance is all about.

The biblical writers loved language and grammar and words. But more than that, they loved stories. Jesus loved stories. One story, in particular, describes repentance without ever explaining its doctrine.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells three stories, actually. The first is about a lost sheep and the second is about a lost coin. Both are found by their owners who then celebrate their return. The last of the three stories is the most detailed but has the same theme. A return of what was lost.

There was a young man who desired to be free from his father’s grasp. So, he requested to be given an advance of his share of the inheritance, one-third of all his father owned. Then the young son ran off to the city, where he spent all he had. One day he awoke to find himself wallowing among the pigs, his stomach empty and his heart broken. He turned his face back to his father’s home and headed off.

When his father saw him from afar, he didn’t wait with arms folded or put a stern look on his face. Instead, he ran to his son and embraced him. The celebration was on. What was lost is now found!

The son’s actions here underscore the two processes of repentance we talked about this week. First, he changed his mind. Luke writes that he “came to his senses.” The first step in repentance is to make up our minds that we no longer want what we have. We thought we did, but now we find those cravings and desires empty. We make up our mind that we want to go back.

Repentance involves changing our minds about God. We shift from transactional to relational. It’s not about how we can sway him or turn him. It’s that we simply turn back to him. It’s the true longing of our hearts, to be with him. Sin clouds that longing. But when we fully understand our God, we see that he has a longing too, to be with us. And his longing is never clouded because he is sinless.

We also have to change our minds about ourselves, from accident to intention. When we find ourselves in a mess we are tempted to think we are messed up. When we make a mistake, we think that we are the mistake. When we fail, we think we are a failure. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The next step, he changed his direction. It took action on his part, a turning to the path that led back home. That part of repentance is the hardest. We can all decide we want to change our lives, but putting that into action takes guts, it takes determination, it takes perseverance. It’s tough.

But the truth is, it’s not up to us. Repentance is a grace, a gift from the father. The father didn’t stand waiting for the son to complete the act of repentance. He ran to him, embracing him and helping him through those final steps of repentance. That’s the picture of God, our father. We may have turned from him, but he never turned away from us.

Seeing God clearly means that we see ourselves through unclouded eyes. We know who we are in Christ – a child of God. And then we live that out, through love. We love God. We love ourselves. And we love others.

That love of others may be the most important part of repentance. The older son refused to love. When the party was on, he turned away. He wanted his young, irresponsible brother punished not praised. In the end, it’s his lack of love that is front and center.

True repentance is not fully accomplished until we come to a place of radical love. Love for our God. Love for ourselves. But also, love of others. Including our enemies, as Jesus put it. When we return to God and find his grace, it should spur us to show even more grace. If we don’t, then we need to turn again to a God with open arms, running after those who have run from him.

The Christian calendar, if you weren’t aware, has a 40-day period leading up to Easter. Lent is from the Latin for “spring.” But most of us think of Lent as a time of restraint, of giving up something. Maybe you give up chocolate for Lent, or social media. Maybe it’s meat and fish. Lent is really about self-control. “Self-control is making a decision against yourself,” Mark Batterson once wrote. And I think that hits the nail right on the head.

When I think of Lent, I think of fasting. And when I think of fasting, I think of the story in the first half of Matthew 4. We find Jesus, right after his baptism. Right after the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. Right after the heavens parted and God called out, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased!”

Right after that momentous occasion, he is sent out into the wilderness, the desert, for 40 days. No food. A month and a half-long fast.

I have to confess, fasting is tough for me. I read that story and I automatically get hungry. It can be right after lunch, I read Matthew 4 and I think, “Man, I could go for a taco right about now. And you know what, I better add some nachos just to be safe.”

Why is saying no to ourselves so hard? Why is it so tough to make a decision against ourselves that we know will help us? Here’s one idea. Whenever we fast, we feel vulnerable. We are vulnerable to hunger, to anger, to being tired. And when we are vulnerable, we are also vulnerable to making mistakes, missing the mark. We are vulnerable to sin.

And here’s the strange part about that. Whenever we deny ourselves in a fast, we are actually drawn closer to God. When we say no to ourselves, we are able to say yes to him. When we make those decisions against ourselves, we are making decisions in favor of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was fasting for forty days straight. And then here comes the devil. Satan sits down next to him and says, “Some bread would be nice, wouldn’t it? Go ahead and tell those stones to turn into a nice hot loaf and dig in.” Jesus was tempted by baked goods. As an Italian, I can relate. I understand that temptation of bread! But Jesus said no. Not because he was fully God and fully man. But because he allowed his fast to teach him self-control. And he used that moment as a pause. He stopped, thought about his mission, his father, his future, and said no to temptation.

That’s what self-control does. It puts God in control. It allows us to pause and think it through. “Will this please God?” “How will this affect those who are close to me?” “How will I feel when it’s all over?” Self-control means that we pause, think it through, and then act in a way that pleases God and protects ourselves.

Self-control can feel a bit stuffy. “Extra cheese!” That’s a bit more exciting, isn’t it? Or how about, “Why not?” That’s another good phrase to get us under the door of temptation. “Who will it hurt?” Another great way to deflect blame and responsibility.

But self-control, in all its stuffiness, is the one thing that can help us maintain spiritual growth in our lives. It allows us to make the right decision. It puts God in the driver’s seat and we can always trust him to take us right where we need to go. And at the end, he brings us to a place that is so much better than “extra cheese!” It’s a land of infinite promise, over and above immediate gratification.

Northbrook has always had a heart to reach out. One of the many things I love about this church is that we are not satisfied with singing a few songs, hearing a sermon and being a part of a life group. We are a church that shares our lives with the world; we partner with our brothers and sisters here in our own community and around the world.

God is in the margins. He’s working among those who need him. He is working in the places we don’t see, that we don’t even think about. And he’s inviting us to join him.

John 4:35

“I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”

The first thing we need to do is open our eyes. If we would just look, I think many of us would act. I know I’m guilty of looking the other way when I encounter a homeless person, someone in real need. I know I look away many times because if I really looked I may be moved to act. And I just don’t have the time, the energy, or the desire to get involved.

But God is already involved. And he’s asking me to get involved. So I need to look.

It’s easy to see all the pain and need around us. We just have to look. There are spiritual needs right here in our church. There are emotional needs in our community. There are physical needs all over our world. It doesn’t take a pair of binoculars or a microscope to find them. It just takes opening our eyes.

There’s a story in the tenth chapter of Mark. Jesus is busy. He’s on his way to Jerusalem and he’s got a lot on his plate. He has to make plans for the Passover, which would be the last supper he eats with his disciples. He needs to get in and out of the city during the day, teaching the people and admonishing the religious. But he also has to keep a bit of a low profile. He knows there are many out to get him and it’s this week that he’ll finally give in and lay down his life.

So he’s busy with a lot on his mind. And as he gets closer to Jerusalem he has to pass through an old city, Jericho. And here’s what happens.

Mark 10:46-52

⁴⁶ Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. ⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

That scene is so easy to picture. Mark does a great job giving us the details. Long line of people following Jesus. The weight of the world on his shoulders. They go through Jericho and here’s someone wanting some of Jesus’ valuable time.

⁴⁸ Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

God, I hope I wouldn’t have been one of the many who rebuked him. But every time I turn my eyes away from the needs around me I know I am. I’m rebuking those who are in need.

They tried to shut this guy up. He was already on the side of the road, easy to ignore for most passing by. Easy to just let your eyes go right on past him. But he didn’t let up.

When we can’t see the needs around us, are we at least listening to their cries?

⁴⁹ Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” ⁵⁰ Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

⁵¹ “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

⁵² “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

I love that this story has a happy ending. But I know that’s not the case for everyone. “What do you want?” is such an easy question to ask. And if we just asked it of those in need around us, I’m sure there’s something we could do.

God loves the world. God loves our world. We, his church, are the intentional plan of a loving God for his world. We are the way he loves the world. The first step is to open our eyes to the needs around us.

Why is it so easy to make fun of people taking selfies? Why are people holding selfie-sticks, trying to get the right lighting and the perfect angle, such easy targets? I think because we all understand that selfies are – in some way – a worship of self.

Not always. You can take a selfie with your family at the holidays to let everyone know how much you love grandma’s house! You can take a selfie with your significant other to celebrate an anniversary, take a selfie at work to talk about how much you love your job, or take a selfie at church to tell the world how great your pastor is. If that’s the case, then selfies are always allowed at Northbrook.

But there is a feeling that when you take a selfie, you’re consumed with self. How you look, how others see you, what others think about you. And that obsession with self is really worship. We worship ourselves, whether we’re clicking the camera on our phones or not.

In Exodus 32 we find some people worshiping. First of all, Moses is worshiping. He’s been on the mountain top for 40 days. Just him and God. And his worship experience has changed him.

But when he comes down the mountain he finds some other worshipers. Instead of godly worship it’s selfish worship. In a word, it’s idolatry. They’ve taken their gold jewelry, cast it into a fire, and formed it into a calf. A cow. They worshiped a cow? Holy cow!

But what they were really worshiping was themselves. We reflect what we worship. Moses was reflecting God, but the Israelites were reflecting themselves. And it led to some very self-indulging and self-destructive behavior.

But when we worship God, we have the opportunity to reflect his glory.

2 Corinthians 3:18

¹⁸ And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

When we worship God, we are gazing into his presence and connecting with his essence, his glory. We are being transformed into his image. It’s not through careful living and following all his rules. It’s not by erasing as much of our past as we can. It’s about throwing all of ourselves into him and letting him establish and strengthen us in Christ.

I know that not every selfie is self-worship. But how often do we allow what others think of us affect how we live our lives? Instead, let’s allow what God thinks about us to change us, transform us. When God roots us in his love and faith, we don’t have to find fulfillment in how many likes our next selfie gets.

There once was a man whose son was in a very bad way. For years he tried everything he could think of. He spent nearly a fortune on physicians who offered little help and no cure. Eventually, his condition was diagnosed as a demonic disorder.

The young boy would experience violent seizures, throwing him to the ground. It was like this since he could walk. It stole his power to speak, even. When these seizures came on, he would clamp his mouth shut, his eyes rolling back in his head and his mouth frothing. He looked like a lunatic.

The worst part was how these demonic seizures would try to kill him. Get him close to a campfire, and the demon would lurch the boy towards the flame. Visit the coastline, and the evil spirit would hurl him into the waves. It sought to take his very life.

Whenever a visiting preacher would come around, the man would take every opportunity to seek spiritual help. He would prepare a large dinner for the teacher, catering to his every need. He would spend time with the preacher. He would beg for help. But none came.

His friends were convinced it was all his fault. “Have you prayed about it?” they would ask, as if this never occurred to the struggling father. “Maybe you haven’t prayed hard enough. Maybe you’re not using the right words. Maybe there’s some hidden sin in your life blocking this blessing.” All their words, completely helpless.

Then one day a preacher came to town. No ordinary preacher. Word of this man’s miracles and teaching had been spreading like wildfire lately. And he was passing near. He pushed aside the crowds and lay his trembling son at the feet of this man’s disciples. But they could do nothing either. He was at his wit’s end. Then the Master appeared. His name was Jesus.

“What is all this about?” he asked.

The father got to his knees, clasping his hands together. “I brought my son so you could heal him…if you can”

“If I can?” Jesus replied, his eyes wide.

“I do believe! Help my unbelief.”

This story is true. These words are recorded in the ninth chapter of Mark’s Gospel. And the outcome is there for you as well. But I’m not interested in the answer to prayer today. I’m more interested in the struggle this father went through. Because it’s the same struggle I’ve had, and I think maybe you have too.

When our struggle is with God it can be…complicated. Aren’t we supposed to have unwavering faith in God? Isn’t faith the antidote to any doubts? Don’t we call ourselves “believers”? How can we struggle with belief.

“I do believe! Help my unbelief.”

When we struggle with God, it usually comes out as either accusation or doubt. On the one hand, we believe God should do whatever we ask when we ask it. If he’s an omnipotent and all-loving God, he will right? If he doesn’t then maybe he’s not all-powerful or all-loving. Maybe he’s not there at all. We struggle with God and fire off a well-meaning “Why” followed by a well-placed “If.” But our struggle always end up falling flat.

Instead, what about taking on the attitude of this father. “I believe. Help my unbelief.”

First, we affirm that we believe. We affirm that our belief is not determined by our own desired outcome to any situation. Our belief is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, alive and active in our world.

Next, we affirm our unbelief. We don’t hide the fact that we’re having trouble with this thing. Besides, we can’t keep a secret from an all-knowing God. So why not let it out.

Finally, we know the span between our belief and our unbelief. There is a distance we must cross. But thankfully we don’t cross it alone. That distance is spanned by who we believe in, not what. We believe in someone, not something.

When we throw all our energy of our struggle behind the person we truly believe in, then the outcome of our situation is less important than the relationship we cling to. It’s not about solving our doubts, but fueling our trust in him. I know it’s hard. Believe me, I do. But it’s all worth it in the end. It’s a struggle worth having.

No one likes pain. No one enjoys struggles. But the one weapon we all seem to familiar with in fighting it is denial. We deny we have a problem, a pain, a struggle. And that’s tearing us apart.

We live in a culture of denial. We don’t want to feel pain, so we numb ourselves to it. And that results in not being able to authentically express what is happening to us.

In the church world, it is called “Spiritual Bypass.” We use our own spiritual beliefs – faith statements, theology, biblical phrases – to avoid dealing with difficult matters in our lives. That includes the struggle with pain from unresolved wounds. We say, “Well, I experienced a major loss…but it’s okay because God is in control!” Or we blind ourselves to the reality of our hurts in order to stir up enough joy in the middle of our struggles. But we’re only bypassing the real issues and short-circuiting true growth.

God does not waste pain. He can refine it without redefining it. We can go through struggles without calling them something else. God calls pain by its name – pain! And we can too. When we embrace the reality of our wounds, we’ve made the first step towards growing through them and past them.

But that requires us walking honestly through that pain. In her book It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok, Megan Devine writes, “Grief is not a problem to be solved, it is an experience to be carried.” We don’t turn our eyes from it. We don’t push fast forward to the end. And we don’t make up a false reality where it doesn’t exist. We experience it. We sit in it. We carry it.

Take a look at these words from the Psalmist:

Psalm 31:9,10 –⁹ Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.¹⁰ My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.

That doesn’t sound like any sugar coating I’ve ever heard. That doesn’t sound like someone trying to redefine their grief. It sounds like someone expressing the deep anguish of their soul to a God who wants to refine their grief.

Grief is not bad. We need to cancel that thought. When we see other sin grief, it’s not a time to step up and rescue. It’s time to just be with them. It would be a dishonor to them and to their grief to try and fix it for them. It’s honorable to be present with them through their grief.

Grief is not bad. In fact, it’s an extension of love. When we take the time to be with someone in their grief, a bond is formed. That bond is a form of love. Refining our grief doesn’t mean we get over it or solve it. It means that our relationships are deepened in it.

Some in the medical community call grief a disorder if it lasts more than 6 months. Some in the Christian community call grief a sin if it lasts more than a week. I’ve heard people say that if you can’t move past your pain in a prescribed amount of time, then you just don’t have enough faith.

I wonder if it’s not faith we should be focusing on in our struggles, but love. If we aren’t willing to sit with others in their grief, journey with them in their pain, and bear with them in their struggles, then it’s not a lack of faith that’s the problem. It’s a lack of love.

The culture of denial is run by the narrative that “If you’re not happy, then something’s wrong.” Let’s break that narrative and rewrite a script for our grief. It’s okay if you’re not happy. It’s okay that your tears last through the night…and into the next day, week, month… It’s okay that you’re struggling. It’s normal. And God doesn’t want to fix you as much as he wants to be with you.

The holidays are over. I guess it was official on January 2. That is, if you consider New Year’s Day part of the holidays. And I don’t know anyone that thinks they keep going that long into January. Does anyone decorate for Presidents’ Day? I didn’t think so.

But with the end of the holidays comes the beginning of chores, responsibilities, a return to work and school, and those first credit card bills start to roll in. Here’s something else I think comes to mind – struggles.

The holidays, and especially Christmas, are all about joy. Life on earth will be filled with joy, but also struggles. And like Christmas time giving way to the New Year, the harsh winter, and the unrelenting calendar, so too does our joy encounter our struggles.

We all have struggles in life. You can’t avoid them. You can try to fight them. We all want to avoid struggles because of the pain involved. But I’m convinced we would be better to embrace our struggles, see if they can help shape us into something better, than to resist them.

We all have struggles, but we encounter them in different ways. Some of us just struggle waking up and getting out of bed in the morning (I’ve got my own hand raised on this one). Some of us struggle with heartburn, while others struggle with heartbreak. Some of us struggle with decisions, while others struggle with depression. Some of us struggle at work, while others struggle to find work. Some of us struggle with being a single parent or a lonely child. Some of us struggle with a diagnosis or an addiction. Some of us are struggling right now.

One of the guiding values of this church and the way I live my life is this: “Real people, real problems, real questions.” As I wrestled through that value I considered putting “real answers.” But I never want to assume that I or anyone else here has all the answers. Some questions are more powerful than answers, honestly. Because sometimes we have the answers and sometimes we don’t. But it’s where our questions can lead us that matters.

When we face struggles, we want ready-made answers. But they rarely come. Our struggles can actually be embarrassing. We don’t want others knowing about them. What would the person sitting next to us at church think if we had these doubts, these private problems, these issues in our past.

But our struggles have the power to shape us – in positive ways just as much as in negative. We can either fight our struggles, hide from them, or let them push us towards a good life. We can either be embarrassed by them, or embrace them. What will you do?

Here’s the key. Be present with your struggle. Instead of denying those emotions, be real about how you’re feeling. Have an open heart to all your emotions in an accepting manner. And that will position you in the midst of your struggles to produce perseverance and character.

Here at Northbrook hurch over the next few weeks what I am going to attempt to do is help us live a better story because of our struggles, not in spite of them. I want us to take a deep dive into what it means to struggle, how struggles help us grow, how we can help each other in our struggles, and where our struggles can lead us. I hope you’ll come along with us.

Christmas is all about blurring the lines between the common and the holy. It was the God of the universe coming down in the form of a common baby. It was the creator of the world choosing to be born in a manger. It was the most holy God being born in the most common of ways.

Common and holy. We think they are completely incompatible.

We get uncomfortable with a holy God sometimes because we feel like we can’t be near him. We’re too common and he’s too holy and why would he ever want to get close to us?

When you think of holy, maybe you’re like me and think of the churches of my childhood. It was not a common setting. It was separated from the rest of the week. It was set apart in everyway imaginable, from the songs and the setting to even what we wore. The common would never be allowed in the holy. We might get it dirty. We need to be dressed and pressed and on our best behavior.

But also, what is holy would never show up in a common setting. You need candles and stained glass and robes and a big organ cranking out boring music that is somehow holy in order for the holy to feel at home.

But God is the most holy, and he felt right at home in a most common world.

What was different about Jesus? They had holy churches, or synagogues, in his day. They knew what holy was all about, and how it could never mix with common. But Jesus came near. He allowed the holy and common to cross paths. He touched lepers. He spoke to Samaritans. He spent time with prostitutes and tax collectors. He ate dinner with sinners. Nothing was off limits to his holiness. Nothing was too common.

And that made all the difference. When the holiness of God interacted with the commonness of the world, the world was changed forever. Peace on Earth! Goodwill to all people! Grace and mercy and light! A new way was opened up for us to approach God. Now, the presence of God was with us – really with us. He came near.

When we – common people – come near to a holy God, we are transformed. We are changed for the better. We want to live better. We want to talk about better things. We want to treat people better. We are common, and God is holy. But he comes near to us.

But when we – holy people – come near common people, they are transformed. We may be worried that the world will somehow rub off on us. It won’t. Being holy is not about being completely separated and sterilized from the world, but pushing into the brutal reality we live in. and when we do that, something changes in them. We are holy, and the world is common. But we come near to them.

The most holy of moments in my life do not happen in the sanctuary of a church but when I involve myself in the lives of people in a deep way reflecting the goodness of God. It’s not been setting a standard or scolding others into belief. It’s been about setting aside my own issues and getting into their lives. And letting them into mine. It wasn’t an easy lesson to learn, but it’s been a valuable one.

It’s a lesson that God never had to learn because it was his plan all along. A holy God visiting a hurting world in the most common way.

We get comfortable with a holy God sometimes because we like God to be separate. We don’t want him in our business. We kind of like being left alone because we don’t have to deal with it. But Jesus is God, incredibly clos

What does “grace” mean to you? And how about “truth”? John uses these two words to describe the fulness of Jesus’ ministry in the world – both when he walked the earth and even today. In fact, that grace and truth have been around since the beginning of time, if we’re to believe the first two verses of John’s Gospel.

When we think of grace and truth, we usually put them in opposition to each other. We think truth means legalism and grace means leniency. And then we have to somehow marry them, like balancing a set of scales. Give a person a little bit of grace…not too much. Here, add a bit more truth. There you go. Okay, now maybe they’ll act the way we want them to.

We have a slanted view of truth and grace, I think.

• Truth is the teacher who gives you an F for too many typos. Grace the teacher who lets their students run wild in the classroom with scissors.
• Truth is the parent who grounds their kids for missing curfew by two minutes. Grace are those who say, “Boys will be boys.”
• Truth is the bad cop, grace is the good cop.
• Truth is the Punisher, grace is the pushover.

But I don’t think any of those are accurate. And really, it all comes into clear focus on Christmas. When we sing about, read about and commemorate the birth of Jesus, what does that really represent? It’s the incarnation.

Jesus Christ is the incarnation. He is the Word made flesh. He is the culmination of everything humanity had been waiting for. He is the fulfillment of the Law.

That last part is the important part. Under the Law, we were judged according to our ability to perform. You may think of grace as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. But it’s not. Grace is that expression of God’s love for us that understands our inability to live up to that standard, to perform to that level. So Jesus came in the fulness of grace, but also the fullness of truth. And both – hand in hand – is the true expression of love.

Because God loves us, he shows us grace because we can’t do it on our own. But because God loves us, he gives us righteous standards of truth that lead to order instead of chaos. You need grace because you can’t do it on your own. You need love because you can’t do it on your own. You need both. And that’s what Jesus is.

At Christmas time, if you’re a parent, it’s easy to see grace and truth as two ends of a sliding scale. Okay, the kids can stay up a little later to finish Polar Express – slide it to grace. But they better behave or they’re not opening presents yet! – slide it over to truth. But we use this sliding scale for ourselves, too. Go ahead and sneak a couple extra cookies, it’s the holidays – slide it to grace. But make sure you don’t max out the credit cards – slide it over to truth.

Grace and truth are not sliding scales. They’re how Jesus meets us right where we are. He offers grace – “I forgive you.” And he offers truth – “Now, go and sin no more.” When we see truth in its fullness, we run to grace. But when we experience grace at its most costly, we should cling to truth.

Grace and truth. Not perfectly balanced, but perfectly received in Jesus Christ.

We’ve been talking lately about the incarnation. That’s just a theological term that explains the poetic way John tells us the Christmas story. “The Word became flesh.” God is incarnate. He came to live with us. The eternal God set foot on mortal soil and took on temporal flesh.

In short, God became one of us.

And he lived like us, loved like us, felt like us, breathed like us. He knew what it meant to lose someone close and have his heart torn open. He found out what it meant to suffer.

That incarnate life that Jesus lived was powerful, because it presented not only a picture of who God is to us, but what he means to us.

Jesus entered human history and came with a message: “This is what God is like.” John said when you see Jesus, you see God. And the picture we sometimes have in our minds of the Old Testament God, the Father God, the creator God, is a judgmental God. A God who hurls thunderbolts at us from 2,000 miles away. But Jesus came near. And when he did, he came in love. And he came fully revealing who that Old Testament God really was.

Maybe we’ve got our stories mixed up. Maybe our theology is off by a few degrees. But Jesus is the true representation of God no matter what. What we see in Jesus, that’s the reality of God. Jesus loves you. God loves you. Period.

The message you hear from Jesus, that message that explained God, was often in the form of “You have heard it said…but I say.” Whatever you heard about God from religion, Jesus has another thing to say. Whatever you heard about God being angry, he’s not. Whatever you heard about gloom and doom and you better get nervous! Don’t. Because Jesus had something else to say about it. And that thing was overwhelmingly love.

In the Old Testament, our relationship with God was broken. In the Christmas story, it’s restored. The incarnation is all about getting together. It’s about relationship.

Why is that so important? Because the incarnation is not just a word we use to explain how Jesus portrays God. It’s also a word we use to explain how we portray Jesus. Incarnational ministry. Another theological term. Want a simple definition? We show up. That’s it. We become present in the world the same way Jesus did. We build relationships.

Culture’s view of Christianity is changing. Less people today claim to be believers than five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. It may be because of the poor presentation some of us have made over those years. It may be that we created a battlefield out of culture, rather than a neighborhood. Instead of building bridges, we circled the wagons.

The Christian life is an invitation, not a threat. Does my incarnation in the world make people want to know more about Jesus? Does it draw them closer to a loving God? Does it make them feel loved and respected and belong? If not, then I’m not doing it right.

And Christmas time is the best time to get this thing right.

How are you portraying Jesus to your little circle of the world? Do you fear the culture around you, or do you see it as an opportunity to make a positive impact?