Convey the Glory of the Incarnation

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Sinclair Ferguson
And there are moments in the gospels when, when this comes out, when he says, you know, how long do I have to bear with this? You’re not speaking of condemnation of us, but of longing for the pure air of glory that He knew as one of the Christmas hymns says he came from the glory down to such a world as this.

Matt Smethurst
Welcome back, friends to the everyday pastor, a podcast on the nuts and bolts of ministry from the gospel coalition. My name is Matt smitherst. I’m a pastor in Richmond, Virginia, and I’m joined, as always, by my co host, Lake Duncan, a former pastor for almost 20 years and now the Chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary, and today in this what you could call special Christmas episode, we have the privilege of talking with Sinclair Ferguson, long time pastor, theology professor, Bible commentator, author of many wonderful books, including a few Advent devotionals. I looked up these titles, child in the manger. 2015 Love came down at Christmas. 2018 and the dawn of redeeming grace. 2021 daily reflections leading up to to Christmas Day. And Sinclair is also the possessor of a wonderful Scottish accent. Sinclair, welcome to the podcast.

Sinclair Ferguson
Thank you, Matt. Appreciate being with you both today. Our

Matt Smethurst
main agenda in this episode is simply to Marvel afresh at the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to do so in a way that helps pastors better Shepherd their flocks during this Advent season. So I want to start kind of from the mountain peak, as it were, and read a quote of yours, Sinclair, to you. And I just want you to riff on it a bit. So I’m going to remind you of something you once said, and I’d love to hear what it brings to mind as you think about the nature of what Christmas is all about. You once said, quote, If your intellect has never been staggered by the reality of the Incarnation, you don’t know what the Incarnation means. It doesn’t just mean Jesus was a little baby. It means the eternal, infinite, divine, one worshiped by cherubim and Seraphim, the Creator of all things, the sustainer of all things, infinite in His being, wisdom, power, majesty and glory, who, in a word, could dissolve the world that had sinned against him was willing to come into this world and assume our flesh in order to become our Savior. It is overwhelming. That’s the great thing about the gospel. Sinclair. Tell us a little more about what you were getting at with a quote like that, and why the incarnation is such a staggering thing to behold,

Sinclair Ferguson
I think, for us as Christians and especially as pastors, we’ve always got a tendency to want to make things clear and simple. And that’s a very laudable ambition to have, and a great thing to be able to do, actually. But I think behind that we need to understand. I often think about Herman bavinck words that the lifeblood of dogmatics is mystery, and that when we’re thinking about the Incarnation, we are, in a sense, thinking about the ultimate mystery. I think there is, in many ways, something more mysterious about the Incarnation than there is about the resurrection. I think the New Testament teaches us that there was an inevitability about the resurrection and a logical inevitability given who Christ was and given that he was perfectly sinless, but the Incarnation does not have that kind of interior cosmic logic to it. It is, in a sense, is of what ought never to have been that I think our logic would say that if we have created something that has so radically turned against us as we have turned against our Creator, the thing to do would be to destroy the first and if we wanted something to replace it, we would start again. And the wonder of the incarnation is that God has actually done both of these things together, that Christ came into the world not to condemn the world, but to save the world, and that he started a new began a new humanity, but did it from within the old. And so at that level, there are some. Thing. And I think some of the early fathers caught this. There’s something basically incredible about the Incarnation, in the sense that, though we recognize we believe it, there is really no explanation for it outside of God Himself. And I think we, by nature, we always have a tendency to this fall back, that we are looking for explanations for realities within the context of the reality itself. And the explanation for this is simply the infinite love of God. So that’s, one element. And I think the other element is, I think we also have a tendency, because of our desire to communicate the reality, to to find a kind of highest common factor between two contrasting, almost antithetical realities. That is a being who has no beginning or end, who has no shape, who has no physical substance, who is altogether other than we are, and has created all things out of nothing, and yet has loved his fallen creation in such a way that he’s been willing to become not only part of it, but to enter into it in its in its tiniest form, in its embryonic form, in the conception and then in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think it’s at that point not by trying to bring these two things together, but by realizing there is only one way they came together, and that is in the singularity of Jesus Christ. I think it’s recognizing the truth of that, and also the incomprehensibility of it that fills us with with wonder and worship. And if we, if we don’t allow these two realities to live together in the unity of Christ, we we inevitably reduce our Christology, and we also inevitably reduce the potential of the message of the incarnation of the awe and wonder it is meant to produce in the people of God. And, you know, I think, I think I would also say that that is actually what we long most of all for among our people at the end of any Christmas service, and maybe especially on Christmas Eve, that they are just lost in wonder, love and praise,

Matt Smethurst
that’s wonderful. Let’s close in prayer,

Ligon Duncan
absolutely true. Just

Matt Smethurst
kidding. Alright, leg follow that. What and Sinclair, I do want to return to some of the things you said, and double click on the More about what exactly happened when the eternal second person of the Trinity assumed flesh. But LIG, what causes you? I mean, of course, there’s a long list, but, but what? What is something that causes you to marvel? What staggers your intellect when it comes to the truth of the Incarnation. A

Ligon Duncan
lot of things. Condescension is one, I mean, the the and I think Sinclair speaking to that you’re not expecting the kind of condescension that happens in the in the in the incarnation and and by the way, in the prophecies of Second Samuel seven, you have this remarkable inclusion of both God’s indication to David about the condescension that he had already undertaken for the people by dwelling in a tent while they were dwelling in tents in the wilderness, and the promise that he was going to be a father to a son who was going to build a temple. And it but it you are not prepared for John one when he tells you that the way that he’s going to condescend, the way that he’s going to tabernacle among us is in the tabernacle of human flesh. So your you know your breath is taken away about how God, the Almighty God, is willing to draw near to his people in the wilderness and in all their years of wandering up until the establishment of David in Jerusalem, but the way he’s going to condescend in the coming of the Son in the Incarnation just completely takes your breath away. So that’s Sinclair has already been pointing us to that and that I I don’t ever get tired of those themes in the Christmas songs that we sing. You know that so many of the Christmas hymns are, you know, things like thou, who was rich beyond all splendor, is a is a hymn that it focuses on that amazing kind. Ascension. And then I think also the humility of God in doing this, and the vulnerability that that the that the son was willing to take on for our sakes, all of those things just take my breath away.

Matt Smethurst
Yeah, speaking of the humility. You know, throughout history, many religions have affirmed the value of humility, but none has ever dared to speak of a humble God. I mean that, and the reason for that is simple, because the notion of humility applied to deity, has just been seen as a category mistake. And so the claim of Paul in Philippians, two and other places in the New Testament, that the biblical God not a member of a pantheon, not just one option on a menu of deities, but the one creator of all that he would stoop so low as to become, as to take on human flesh in order to redeem those made in the image of God. It’s not just startling, it’s downright scandalous. And yet, when with the eyes of faith, it’s it’s the most beautiful sight in in the history of the world. And so as we, as we think more about just what Christmas is all about, and especially if we’re going to be faithfully teaching our people and our churches about Christmas, we have to faithfully teach Christology. So what are Sinclair some misconceptions, and you can just mention one or several, but what is at least one misconception about Jesus and the incarnation that you’ve encountered in your own ministry, and why does that matter? Why is it harmful?

Sinclair Ferguson
I think, I think if I can, if I can respond at the technical level, Matt, it is that we haven’t paid sufficient attention to the hard work that the Fathers of the Church did in Christology. And I think I’ve become more and more persuaded that we have, we have played fast and loose with the Chalcedonian Definition and and especially the notion that in the one person of the Son of God, the two natures are. They’re not divided from one another, but they’re never confused or mixed. And I think that has seeped into evangelical Christianity, a kind of form of early deviations that have mixed together deity and humanity. And I think the I think the Christmas season is a great opportunity to help people understand our Lord Jesus better, without ever needing to refer to the Chalcedonian Definition. Because those things I think should be, those should be like the frameworks of reference that help us. And what I mean by that is that when people, when we think about the Lord Jesus, I think we do have a native tendency, as I said earlier on, to reduce these two his one person and two natures to the highest common factor between those two natures. And often that means, I think, we begin to think about what he does in his humanity as though a little element of the divine nature had seeped into that humanity to enable that humanity to accomplish what it did. And as I mean, I think especially Calvin was very helpful in in underlining this that once we begin to do that, we’ve disqualified the Lord from being our Redeemer on two counts. One is that we have, we have transformed, transformed his deity, and that means he is not actually the true and living God who redeems us. And perhaps most obviously, we have transformed his humanity so that he no longer, he no longer is the person who is qualified to redeem us, because he’s no longer actually one of us. He’s become, however softly we see, a kind of Superman. And so, as Ligon was saying, the humility of the incarnation, the fact that he took our flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Think it’s a tremendous help to us again, as I say, without banging people’s heads with telling them they need to know about the year 451 to understand just how near God came to us in Christ, that He really did become one of us. But all. Also because he became one of us as the Son of God, and because what was conceived in Mary was holy, I think it also gives us an opportunity to help people to understand how, I’m not sure how I have words to put this into logical expression. But what a distasteful world This must have been for the Lord Jesus. To myself, I use this illustration so when, when I first started crossing the Atlantic last century, many decades ago, smoking was allowed in airplanes, and if you were in the no smoking section, it was only, there was only a those, there was only a curtain kept you away. And I’m quite allergic to cigarette smoke, so eight or 10 hours on an international flight was just awful to me, because I wanted to breathe clean air. I know airplanes aren’t the cleanest air in the world to begin with, but it was. It kind of gave me a way of thinking about the Lord Jesus that that for him, this was a smoke filled environment, and he was allergic to smoke. And there are moments in the gospels when when this comes out, when he says, you know, how long do I have to bear with this? And I think he’s really not speaking of condemnation of us, but of longing for the pure air of glory that he knew, and to think that he that our our Orthodox Christology helps us to appreciate, as one of the Christmas hymns says, He came from the glory down to such a world as this. And so I think, I think one of the ways that we can really help people at Christmas time is by helping them to understand what what this world is actually like, not from our point of view, but from the Lord Jesus point of view. And I think one of the things that does, and I suppose I’m kind of big into this, is it helps us sense the atmosphere of the gospel. The gospel is not just words. It creates. It’s its own atmosphere. And in our ministry, it seems to be really important that our ministries express the atmosphere that’s actually embedded in the Gospel, because I think that’s what draws out people’s affections. Logan,

Matt Smethurst
what? What would you add about misconceptions you encountered in in your ministry

Ligon Duncan
at a very, very superficial level in comparison to what Sinclair has just said, I think that sentimentalized views and even memories of Christmas, it can actually help us be desensitized to the reality that he was just talking about. Jesus came into a world filled with massive despair, and, you know, enormous rebellion and profound sinfulness and and he was willing to live in that kind of world without ever having contributed to that sinfulness and and and wickedness and despair. He came to dispel it, but he had to breathe that in. And I think that a sentimentalized view of Christmas can can desensitize our congregation members to that, even the desires to have, you know, sort of the perfect Christmas, where the family all gets along. There’s no conflict between, you know, the the siblings, when they get together, friends are all happy. There aren’t dark, hard things to work through. Every year, a pastor has people in their congregations who have lost very close loved ones, and they’re going through the holidays for the first time without them, and there can be a yawning loneliness and aching to that and thinking that Christmas is just going to bring with it, this sentimentalized saccharin sweet experience, can disconnect you to the reality that Sinclair was just talking about. And so I think it’s good for us to remind us of the raw realities of of Christmas for for Jesus. It was it was hard, it was dangerous, as we said earlier, there was vulnerability and and in those ways too, he can relate to us.

Matt Smethurst
Yeah, sing. Player mentioned earlier that Jesus was not just some kind of superhuman, nor was he just a mere kind of super baby, which well meaning lyrics like you know, the cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying, he makes it can just lend to this idea that this is actually a very different human experience than anything we would ever face. And I think it can add to that kind of sweet sentimentality that can gut the the scandal and the glory of the Incarnation. The only other thing I’ll add Brothers is is, I think that a lot of evangelicals in our churches just have this, this idea that Jesus is God and man and so it’s probably some combination of the two, as if it’s 50% and 50% or some other proportion. But one of the things we get to, I think, clarify, is that we don’t just have a half and half Savior when, when Philippians two talks about the Son of God emptying himself, the Son of God incarnate, emptying himself, that that’s not a subtraction. That’s actually an addition. And Sinclair mentioned the church fathers. They were, they were very clear on this, without ceasing to be what he was, he became what he was not. Without ceasing to be God, he took on human flesh. And so, as I’ve tried to explain it to my kids, we have a 200% Savior, and he didn’t, he didn’t give up his deity. What one verse, I think, is often not thought about in relation to Christmas. But if you think about what Jesus prays in John 17, in the high priestly prayer, he says, he says to his father, you know, I I have accomplished what you’ve sent me to do, and now, Father, glorify Me in your own presence with the blank I had with you before the world existed. So whatever is in that blank is the thing he gave up. In the word in the blank is not deity, for example, it’s it’s not like he gave up his deity. No, it’s the word glory. He laid aside the privileges and prerogatives and the glory of His deity, not the deity itself. And so as we, as we continue to think about the nature of the Incarnation Sinclair, let’s talk about the virgin birth, or think more accurately, the virgin conception, besides fulfilling prophecy, which is important, why is the Virgin conception so necessary? Why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin, conceived of a virgin, in order to save us from our sins?

Sinclair Ferguson
I would say the importance of it is that it seems to me, not only because it’s stated in prophecy, but the inner logic of things required it. It’s not only that there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin, but actually this was the necessary way. And although I don’t know that the scripture unfolds this what one might say textually, I think it does logically, that because of what the sun was coming into the world, to do, which was namely, to redeem the world, in a very full sense, to redeem The world, it was necessary for him to become part of that world in order to redeem it because of the way God had constituted the world. And this, I think, brings us to passages like Romans, 512, to 21 first, Corinthians, 1542, following. And therefore the only way it could be restored from within, was by an entry into the world that would involve a beginning again to create a new humanity in the very ruins of the old humanity. And it’s for this reason that the humanity that Christ assumes in the womb of the Virgin Mary is actually real humanity. It’s our humanity. And because it’s our humanity, this means that Christ is, from his conception, qualified to reverse what Adam did to pay the penalty for what Adam did and to accomplish what Adam failed to do, which I think is what Paul is speaking about in First Corinthians 15, and why he ends it by pointing forwards to the time when the son will be subject to the Father, not into. Terms of his eternal Deity, but in the terms that Paul has been speaking about in First Corinthians 15, namely, as the second man and last Adam, who has accomplished that redemption. And so that, I think, involves the necessity of him entering into our world. So everything I think that moves around the Christmas message, both in terms of the original promise of the gospel in Genesis, 315, right through to some things that are embedded in the narrative of the Incarnation. Just underline that he has come not to destroy, but to save. And because he has come to do that, he is really, he really comes right into the very beginning of things. You know, it’s, it’s, if one can riff on Irenaeus, he, you know, he becomes an embryo to save embryos. How else? I mean, I say this with feeling, how else can an immortal embryo be saved unless Christ became an embryo for their salvation, and all the way through to what Irenaeus seemed to regard as old age, when our Lord was in his 30s. And it’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean, I find it interesting that the more you, the more you think about these theological questions, the more you realize how, how very useful that theology is going to be for your pastoral exposition and application of the Christmas message to to your people and

Matt Smethurst
Sinclair, you just, you mentioned Genesis 315 which I think is a is a hint. We don’t build our entire doctrine of the Virgin conception on it, but it’s a hint right there in that first gospel promise, because it’s, it’s odd we would expect God to speak to the serpent about a future descendant of the man of Adam. That’s how ancient genealogies worked. A family’s name and inheritance and legacy were perpetuated through the fathers, not the mothers. And so there is it. There is this, this unusual mention that it’s actually going to be the seed of the woman who crushes the serpent’s head, which I think is hinting and as we come to see as the revelation of Scripture unfolds, the reason is that in order to be human, Jesus had to be born of a human mother, but in order to be God, he had to be conceived not by a human father, but by the Holy Spirit. And then I think that’s probably what Paul is, is is picking up on in Galatians 44 God sent His Son born of a woman. And one more thing to note about the Old Testament, of course, there’s no virgin conception, but there is a pattern in the Old Testament of God granting life to barren wombs. And in other words, there are unusual birth circumstances, from Sarah to Rebecca to Rachel, to think of Samuel’s mother and Samson’s mothers. But there’s always another male involved. So there’s this pattern, but it’s like Jesus. There’s we see in the New Testament, in Matthew one and Luke two, the escalation of that pattern in the unique birth part excellence of something that is in no category that anything in the Old Testament could have prepared us for. And yet, with the eyes of faith, as we look back, it’s not entirely out of the blue that God would be working in ways that defy our comprehension and that even defy human convention. It

Sinclair Ferguson
is so full of God fulfilling what I often think of as his longest standing and ultimately most opposed and most difficult to keep, promise embedded in Genesis, 315, and you know, from that point of view, the Bible is like reading a, you know, a detective novel, where, when you find out who the criminal was, you remember that there were these clues, you know, all the way through the book that you didn’t notice. Or at least, I tend not to notice, because all I want to know is who done it. But it’s a bad way to read the Bible just to want to know who done it without realizing who he really was, who done it. And I think, I think that you’re absolutely right to emphasize that, Matt. And

Matt Smethurst
of course, as we go back and read the Old Testament in the light of Christ, we can’t not see the way some of these patterns anticipate. Tim Keller likened reading the Old Testament with a view to Christ as being like watching the movie The Sixth Sense for the second time. Once you realize Bruce. Willis has been dead the whole time. Sorry. Listeners, spoiler alert, but I think it’s been like 25 years, 20 years, then you can’t watch the movie the same way again.

Sinclair Ferguson
As we turn the corner, there goes another movie I don’t need to watch. There

Matt Smethurst
it is just saving you time, although it’s a good film. As we turn the corner to helping pastors, think about, uh, shepherding their people during the Advent season, and I’m so grateful you already acknowledge the fact that that Christmas can be a really sad time for many of our members, not just who have lost loved ones within the last year, but really, any loss becomes more pronounced around the holidays. So as you reflect on your own ministry, LIG at first, Pres Jackson, were there any particularly helpful things that you did or learned to do during the Christmas season to steward and maximize that time of year.

Ligon Duncan
Well, well one, as a pastoral staff, we tried to remind ourselves of people in the congregation that we just wanted to check on. It’s a busy season for families and for individuals, and in the crush of the season and all the activities, oftentimes there’s special music, oftentimes there are special services and family activities, people can fall between the cracks in that time. So as a pastoral staff, we just tried to remind ourselves, Hey, who do we need to check on? And just just make sure that they know that we’re thinking of them, we’re praying for them, we love them, and then just want to make sure that there are folks around them that are including them in the life of the family and of the congregation during particularly difficult seasons. And then I let me tip of the hat to my to the man who is my successor, David strain. David’s started a service at the end of the month where where they are able to give testimonies to the Lord’s preservation of them through really hard things during during the year. So after Christmas, before New Year’s, they will often gather and and talk about the Lord’s preservation of them in hard things during the year. And that’s a, that’s a that’s a good thing to look forward to as well.

Matt Smethurst
Sinclair, anything you would add just by way of advice for pastors during December?

Sinclair Ferguson
Yeah. I mean, I don’t really have anything to add to what Lincoln has said. I think it’s just a matter of of authentic ministry to watch people and loving them and caring for them. And

Matt Smethurst
this is where I think some of our Christmas hymns can serve us, because songs like, Oh come, Oh Come Emmanuel, they’re, they’re in a minor key, and they, you know, even, even the lyric from a little town of Bethlehem, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight that that gives voice, I think, to how many people are feeling around that around this time of year. And speaking of songs, are there any Christmas lyrics or songs that have meant a lot to you personally over the years? How much time do you have besides Jingle Bells. Sinclair,

Sinclair Ferguson
yeah, I mean, I’m really a minor key individual, you know, I think I would have a minor key somewhere in every service, because I think there’s such a range of emotional affection in in any service, but I think especially at Christmas time. And the Christmas hymns really touch that range, as you’ve said, Matt, and they touch them wonderfully. But I think of all the of all the sections of hymns, perhaps the Christmas sections are among the richest. A and I, I love the I love the really old ones. I think because of the, I think because of the grandeur of what they’re trying to say to us, and, and, and because they do strike this note of of awe at the same time. You know, I mean, this is, this is Celtic prejudice, probably. But there’s only, there’s only one Gaelic hymn that I think anybody ever sings nowadays in the English Translation of of a child in the manger, infant of Mary. And I kind of like the fact that that, in very simple terms, catches the paradox of Christmas. You know, that He is the Creator, and yet he’s, he’s in the manger, child who inherits all our transgressions, all our demerits, on. And fauna. Leg. What about you?

Ligon Duncan
Yeah, so many you’ve you’ve already mentioned O Come O Come Emmanuel, which is just fantastic in terms of the biblical theology that it does, and the way that it relates the Davidic promises to the incarnation of Christ, but then speaking sinkers, talking about very old hymns of the Father’s love begotten air the world began that that’s a very old Christian song, and beautifully expresses what we’ve been talking about with the Incarnation i There’s so many Wesley lines, veiled in flesh the God hit sea, hail, the incarnate deity, or from come thou long expected Jesus born to set thy people free, and then again, along the lines of what you were just saying, Matt, From our fears and sins, release us, let us find our rest in the there’s a lot of good material for helping us entering into the yearning and longing of the people of God in the time of Christ, when He was born into this world, and then helping us understand his deliverance of us in all our cares and all our fears, they’re just there those minor key hymns and and and Christmas carols are waiting for you to help you in precisely those areas.

Sinclair Ferguson
You know, I don’t know it’s the easiest Tim for congregations to sing, but let all mortal flesh keep silence, always does me in absolutely, you know, you know, I think one thing that shines in the in the Christmas hymns, is that the combination of theological acumen, on the one hand, and literary ability. I mean, a vocabulary that matches the theology is is just a price. Has been a priceless gift to the church, and is much needed. Again, the combination

Matt Smethurst
absolutely one other song that came out a few years ago that sovereign grace music put out is called, oh come all you unfaithful. It’s a really soul stirring and encouraging song. So I would encourage listeners to look that up. Look at the lyrics, listen to it. And if that doesn’t move you, then then, I don’t know what, what would as as we prepare to make our descent, and hopefully it, it’s been a flight Sinclair without too much smoke in the cabin. We are there any final thoughts you, you brothers, would want to commend to pastors listening in, whether about the the wonder of the incarnation or wisdom for shepherding a church through the Christmas season,

Sinclair Ferguson
since ligands hesitating, I can see his brain ticking over there with great thoughts. I think one thing I would say is we live in we live in a world that has abused Christmas and secularized it and misunderstood it and all the rest of it. And I think for some of us, we’re all differently wired, but for some of us, think there’s a tendency to be warning our people against a secular Christmas and telling them, you know, that they need to do things spiritually. And my observation is that actually, that never works, that law of that kind. I mean, in the general sense, it never really produces grace. What we need is Thomas Chalmers, expulsive power of a new affection. And that means, I think, that the the challenge that we have in in preparing to expound scripture, and the need we have of the Spirits help is so to expound the message of the coming of Christ that people will actually feel in their affections a love for him that will drive out the secularism that surrounds them. I think it’s a wee bit like CS Lewis says, you know, on more than one occasion, to people who want to write, he says, You should never tell people how they should feel. You should describe what it is you want them to feel about in such a way that they will feel that. And so for me, I think a great, a great lesson for me, has been that that that we need to learn to exalt the Lord Jesus in such a way that the affection for him that is. His due will arise from the way we we preach about him. And you know, I don’t know what you brothers feel, but I I’ve been quite burdened about the fact that a lot of the preaching that that younger ministers admire doesn’t do much of this. It doesn’t draw out the affection for the Lord Jesus, and I think it maybe especially at Christmas time we will, we will be deficient in helping our people if we haven’t grown ourselves in affection for him and being able to show the wonder of what he has done for us in such a way that it draws out our affections.

Ligon Duncan
Matt, I’d also just say to to pastors, this is a it’s a great time to remind yourself that you don’t have to put the whole service in the whole congregation on your shoulders, in the preaching, the readings, the Scripture readings, the carols and hymns and Psalms and the prayers during as as as we’re focusing on the Incarnation, really help carry the whole surface. And we you’ve only got about four or five weeks where you can sing certain material. And I would, I would be very deliberate as a pastor working with whoever the team is that helps lead the congregation in song that you’re covering a good range. I mean the carols of Christmas remind us that the older hymn that he still works today, young you know, young people, old people, everybody in between, remembers, knows and can sing that that range of literature, and it has a lot of theological heft, and it can help carry the service so the pastor again doesn’t have to doesn’t have to be you know your your five star sermon best that you’ve ever done. You can rejoice and rehearse the mystery and then the scripture readings, the hymns, the carols and the prayers can can carry along you and the people of God in this season. Sinclair,

Matt Smethurst
a couple of minutes ago, you mentioned secularism essentially not being the greatest threat, as it were, to Christmas. And I think that’s absolutely right. There are threats to Christmas, but the greatest threat to Christmas this year, brother pastor, in your heart and for your church, it’s not going to be Santa, it’s not going to be secularism, it’s not going to be consumerism. It’s going to be our own boredom with the most thrilling story ever told, and what an opportunity we have as pastors to help our people slow down and recapture the thrill. Sinclair, thank you for joining us for this conversation. It’s been it’s been great to just marvel with you at what Christ has done, and thanks to all you listeners for tuning in to this episode of the everyday pastor, please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you get your podcasts, and also recommend it to a friend so we can continue helping pastors find fresh joy in the work of ministry. You.