The story of Christ’s coming is the most dramatic story ever told. While it reaches a beautiful high point with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, there is much more to this story – a story with origins in eternity past and implications in eternity future, a story of epic failure and dramatic rescue, a story that reveals a God quite different from the one our fears imagine. Come and experience the rest of this story in God’s own words and in song as we share in An Evening of Lessons and Carols together at 7:00 pm on Friday, December 24.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

A long time ago, the Christian author, Gary Chapman, penned an important book, entitled “The Five Love Languages.” He noted that every person communicates and perceives love in one or more ‘languages.’ These languages include physical touch and closeness, acts of service, gift giving, encouraging words, and quality time. Think about that for a moment. How do you communicate and perceive love? What love language is your native tongue? Perhaps you are multi-lingual when it comes to these love languages. My mother-in-law was like this. She spoke every one of these languages fluently, but her lingua franca was without a doubt, gift giving.

Her love of gift giving was prodigious. It would be an understatement to say that she sometimes went over the top. Especially when grandchildren were involved. She was always thinking of just the apt gift. Throughout the year, whenever someone expressed a need or desire, she would purchase and wrap their heart’s desire and tuck it away in somewhere in her house. There are probably still hidden gifts wrapped and tucked away at MaMa’s. While Santa has to be told what children want, MaMa always knew. Her radar always detected exactly what would satisfy the longing hearts of her beloved.

But gift giving for her was not merely apt selection and presentation. She created a whole dramatic narrative surrounding the giving of gifts. Her true aim was to create joy. She delighted to delight. She needed to be present when the gifts were opened so that she might rejoice with the joy of the receiver. She needed to hear the squeals, see the surprise, and sense the gratitude. That was, for her, the gift received in the giving of gifts. Her greatest desire was to bring joy to others. Gifts graciously received were her greatest gift.

Christmas after Christmas, I saw, shining through the life of my mother-in-law, the heart of a Heavenly Father, who gives the gift of His Son that we might find true and abiding joy. Like my mother-in-law, our Heavenly Father delights to hear and see and receive our gratitude in response to His grace. In Luke 15, in the midst of three parables about being lost and found, Jesus twice notes that, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Many stories in the Bible illustrate this, but no story pictures this as powerfully as that of the announcement of Jesus’ birth to the shepherds in Luke 2:8-20. Here as the Lord of glory is born into quiet obscurity the only announcement is given to shepherds, the most despised and outcast class of society. These enigmatic shepherds were the most unlikely of converts — men who were notoriously under suspicion, who were rejected from temple worship due to their habitual and ritual uncleanness, and whose word was not acceptable in the courts. If anyone had hope to receive God’s goodwill and favor because of their works it was not these men. Yet these were the men to whom God announced, “for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Unto “you!” No one gave these men anything, but unto them God had given a savior!

Their response is a powerful testimony to the joy that comes when the hopeless find hope. They urgently flee Christ. Finding him, they tell everyone they meet then return to their sheep glorifying and praising God. These unlikely converts exhibit the joy of a changed life. Their priorities, their conversation, and their way of life are radically transformed. Their circumstances did not change, but they were changed in the middle of their circumstances. Men who were outcasts with God and man, were now Sons of the Most High and the first human evangelists. Their joy was uncontained and unrestrained.

Do you have that kind of joy? If not, perhaps it is because you have not experienced the grace of receiving. God has offered you a great gift. He delights for you to receive it and find joy. Join us this Lord’s Day, as we examine the story of the shepherds in Luke 2 and consider how finding Jesus changes our lives.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

We live in a world awash with outrageous claims and inflammatory statements.   Faced with the daunting challenge of distilling fact from fiction, we may be tempted to believe everything or nothing.   But among all the outrageous claims, what if there is life giving truth?  What if there is truth we cannot live without?

No man made more outrageous claims that Jesus Christ.   He shocked the men of his hometown, by claiming to be the Messiah.  He challenged the religious leaders to point out a single one of his sins.  He pushed the limits with his disciples, commanding them to love enemies and offer unlimited forgiveness to offensive brothers.  

Jesus’ own disciples struggled to understand who he was and what he came to do.  From time to time, glimpses shone through their own preconceived notions of Him.  In a poignant moment, as they were crossing the Sea of Galilee, a furious squall sprang up and threatened to sink their small fishing boat.  Half of Jesus’ disciples grew up on these tempestuous waters, fishing with their families from their childhood, yet even they were convinced that they would not survive the trip.  They woke Jesus, who was asleep in the back of the boat. 

They did not ask him to save them – for what miracle working teacher was a match for a force-ten gale?  They only asked, “don’t you care that we are about to die?”   Jesus stood up in the boat and with a word, brought the waters from tempest to mirror.   These seasoned seamen were almost speechless.  The only thing they could say of Jesus was, “who is this?”   They perceived that there was much more to Jesus than even their imaginations could anticipate.

What about you?  When someone mentions Jesus, what comes to mind?  Religious revolutionary? Social justice warrior?  Ethical teacher?  Failed Zionist leader?  Founder of a yet another world religion? Who is this Jesus?  For many it is a caricature, influenced by pictures you have seen or by clichés which permeate our cultural ideas of “the historical Jesus.”  Or perhaps you remember him from a collection of anecdotes or parables you heard as a child in some Sunday School.   Just who is Jesus?

No claim of Jesus was more outrageous than his claim that “I and the Father are one.  He who has seen me has seen the Father.”   Jesus did not claim merely to be God’s servant, or God’s prophet.  He did not claim to be “a son of God,” but “The Son of God.”  Despite the best efforts of Arian heretics to erase Jesus’ claims to divinity, the Scriptures claim pervasively and decisively that Jesus is fully God and fully man.   Men who seek some value in Jesus as a mere man and moral example, but disbelieve his outrageous claim to deity, must face C. S. Lewis’ scathing critique.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. 

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.

Jesus did not come to point out the way, the truth, or the life, but to be the way, the truth and the life.  This demands that he be fully human and fully divine. 

Who is Jesus?  Our seasonal displays of a baby Jesus in a lowly cattle stall have led us astray, thinking only of his humanity.   But in one of the great Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s coming, he is called ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”  You think you know who Jesus is?  Come and find out as we examine Isaiah 9:1-7 and grapple with what our forefathers expressed in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

Q21: Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect? 
A21: The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever. 

Westminster Shorter Catechism

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube. 

Light displays and Christmas trees in Hobby Lobby no longer indicate Christmas is at hand.  The only reliable sign that Christmas is near is a spike in the catalog-to-bill ratio of my mail.   By mid-November catalogs from knife-makers, clothiers, garden suppliers, toy companies, charities providing livestock in the third world, leather-crafters, Amish tradesmen, and purveyors of fine novelties are all vying for a place on my wish list.

As a boy, only one catalog ever came in the mail. And it was the only one that mattered. Larger than a phone book, the Sears and Roebuck Catalog opened up whole new worlds of Christmas possibility and gave substance to my letters to Santa. My parents were well aware of the power of the Sears and Roebuck Catalog and were careful to restrict our access to it.

While aware of its dangers, my parents also understood the catalog’s power to guide expectations.   They recognized that, as children, our joy came more from exceeded expectations than receiving a useful gift.  Before the catalog arrived, they would talk up the ideas of what they planned to give.   Then when it arrived, they used the catalog to reinforce their ideas either by confirmation or contrast.  

To our delight, Christmas always brought exactly what we hoped for.  No matter what was in our stocking or under the tree it was exactly what we wanted.   Our parents knew what was best for us, but wanted us to rejoice in receiving it.   Our heavenly Father is like this.   He wants us to rejoice in receiving His gifts.  The history of redemption is the epic story of God giving His greatest gift to beloved children, but not before teaching us to expect and long for what He desires to give.   From Genesis to Revelation, He trains our expectations and creates desire for the Savior He offers.

In the Old Testament, God does this through various covenants.   His covenants with Adam, Noah, Moses, and David, differ in emphasis and immediate application, but all point to the same thing – salvation and eternal life through the person and work of Jesus Christ.   Each of these Old Testament covenants is simply a renewal and expression of the one Covenant of Grace.  In each of these covenants, God meets some pressing need and blesses his people.  But more importantly He offers a reminder not to hope in Adam, or Noah, or Moses or David, but in the Coming One, the Messiah.

In the same way, the New Testament examines the person and work of Christ by looking back at how he fulfilled the Old Testament covenants.   We see that Jesus is exactly the Savior God promised.  And in understanding that ‘the Coming One’ is the One who came, we learn to desire his coming again.  Men are always tempted to look for a savior who conforms to their own desires and expectations.   And so, through Old Testament covenants and New Testament fulfillments, God teaches us who to expect and what to desire so we will rejoice in receiving Him.

What type of Savior are you looking for?   Someone to save you from your circumstances?  Or your feelings?  Or you past?  Or you fear of the future?   Or one who is much more – an everlasting and eternal Prophet, Priest, and King.   The author of Hebrews makes a remarkable statement in Hebrews 7:24-25.

[H]e holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Hebrews 7:24-25

Jesus lives forever.  Only he is able to save us ‘to the uttermost.’   Beyond what you imagine you want or know that you need.   God reveals the Savior He freely offers us through Old Testament promises and New Testament fulfillments.   Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine 2 Samuel 7:1-14 and consider Jesus as our Everlasting King.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.