Theme of the Week: Light Broke Down
Bible Verse: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” 1 Corinthians 15:57, CSB
Scripture Reading: John 16:25-33
When you look into that manger in Bethlehem, you need to see a warrior. Jesus came to do battle with the Enemy and to defeat him for our sake. He would defeat the Devil in his life, he would defeat him on the cross, and he would defeat him by the empty tomb. Each victory was for us so that we would be able to resist the Devil’s deceptions and temptations in our lives. Because Jesus came to defeat the Devil, a face-to-face battle with the Devil was inevitable. The life of the baby in the manger would march toward a moment when the Devil would throw everything in his arsenal toward Jesus. All of history hinged on that battle.
Soon that baby would grow into a man, and he would face what Adam faced: the seductive temptations of a deceptive enemy. He would stand toe-to-toe with Satan as the second Adam. The defeat of Jesus would spell our doom, but the victory of Jesus would guarantee our hope of countless moral victories as we too would face the seductive voice of the Tempter, whispering lies into our ears. You see, Jesus is the Chief Warrior, the Adam the world longed for, but the final battle is not over.
We still live in a broken world that doesn’t function as God intended. We still battle with temptation outside us and sin inside us. Seductive voices greet us every day, working to get us to step over God’s moral boundaries. You could argue that life on this side of eternity is war. So it is a huge comfort that at Christmas we celebrate the birth of the second Adam, the Chief Warrior, who came to do battle on our behalf, to win victory for us, so that by his power we could resist, stand fast, and conquer.
By grace, Jesus was willing to come to earth and to stand in Adam’s place, so that we would be graced with daily victory over temptation and sin. The Christmas story is the first chapter in a war story; this war was fought on our turf and for our sake by the hero of the story, the God-man, Jesus.
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