“Heaven doesn’t want me and hell is afraid I am going to take over”. Deep words for a Monday morning at McDonald’s over sweet tea, yet these are the very words one man recently told me have been a logical explanation for all the problems he’s had in life. Although most people wouldn’t articulate it in quite the same terms, I think many have a hard time understanding why life has turned out for them the way it has. “Why did that parent die unexpectedly? Why did my spouse leave me? Why was my child born with a disability? Why does everyone else seem to have it easy, except me? Why can’t I find a job after all this time?” When we allow questions like these to consume our lives, they can lead us to question whether or not God is good at all. But the Christmas season always brings a fresh reminder of God’s goodness to mankind. If God did not care about us or had no control over the circumstances of our lives, why would he send his only Son into this cruel world to be born of the virgin Mary and ultimately die on a cross, condemned as an enemy of the state? The baby in the manger is God’s megaphone to mankind saying, “You don’t deserve this, but I am here to live the life you couldn’t live and die the death you deserve for your sins and rise again so that you may have life, purpose, and hope.” As I told this gentleman at McDonald’s that day, “Heaven does want you. In fact, heaven went through hell for sinners just like you.” The problems we face in life don’t prove God is apathetic or weak. In fact, sometimes they prove just the opposite. God may allow problems and pain into our lives to bring us to our knees and turn in faith to his Son. The Bible is full of people whose problems were part of God’s perfect plan: Joseph was sold into slavery, falsely accused, and imprisoned for years. Job lost all ten of his children, all his source of income, all his savings, all his farmland and animals, was covered in painful sores, misunderstood by friends, and berated by his wife. Daniel was targeted by his enemies and thrown into a den of hungry lions. Jeremiah was left for dead at the bottom of a dry well, sinking in quicksand. The three Hebrew children were thrown into a fiery furnace. And the list goes on an on. The difference between them an us is that most of us don’t have the sort of character these godly individuals had before and during their trials. If anything, our many sins against God each day mean that we deserve bad things to happen to us. The Bible says that we deserve much worse than a few trials for perhaps eighty or so years. Because of our sin against such a good and holy God, we deserve hell forever. The good news of Christmas is that the baby in the manger came to endure that very horrible fate we deserved on himself. Jesus says that he came to die on a cross for sinners and on that cross he bore the sins of the world on his shoulders so that he could give eternal life to all who trust in him. The wonder of Christmas is not the beautiful lights on the houses or the stockings hung near the chimney or the presents under the tree. The true wonder of Christmas is the baby who came to die for a bunch of sinners on a bloody cross. The hell you may think you’re going through in life right now is nothing compared to what Jesus endured on the cross. And I don’t mean the nails piercing his hands or the bruises covering his body or the shame of being hung to die as a criminal before a watching world. The hell Jesus endured was summed up perfectly when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Since your sin and my sin had to be punished, Jesus took that punishment. [you should be picking your jaw up off the ground now]. If there was any good person who didn’t deserve something bad to happen to them, it was Jesus. Yet Jesus chose to endure the agony of the cross because it was God’s perfect plan for all eternity to save people who could never save themselves. So next time you question the circumstances of your life, just remember, heaven went through hell on a hill outside Jerusalem so that sinners like you could be forgiven and freed for all eternity. Do you personally know Jesus like this? Is he everything to you? If not, will you turn in faith to this amazing Savior who came as a baby 2,000 years ago? If you do so, then you’ll know that every trial you face in life first comes through his hands and can only be tools to make you a better fit for heaven. Then, hell will know that Jesus has taken over in your life.
Many times I’ve sat on the front pew just prior to the sermon time looking at the steps to the pulpit. In these moments each Sunday morning I’m reminded of the great task with which I have been entrusted and my own weakness to perform it. After hours of painstaking study and prayerful preparation, I still stare at those steps and feel under qualified, knowing I’ve only scratched the surface of the message. There is a certain holy trembling a preacher feels before climbing those steps to proclaim God’s eternal Word. In centuries past, preachers like Charles Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones had to climb winding staircases to reach the “sacred desk”, but many pulpits today are just a few steps above the floor. Whether you have many steps or none at all, it is an other-worldly task we have been given. The following are a few practical steps preachers can take before climbing the real ones on Sunday morning... 1. Get in the Word We must immerse ourselves in the text at the outset o
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