A December without Christmas

It’s hard to imagine December without Christmas. For many, it truly is one of the most wonderful times of the year with all the festive sights, sounds, and scents of the season. A December with no carols playing in the background or lights decorating streets and homes, and where the 25th is just another day, is inconceivable. 

I remember my first Christmas in the Middle East. It felt so foreign and disorienting. The familiar traditions of Christmas that make this time of year so special were nowhere to be found. But that first December on the Arabian Gulf was also clarifying. The people in that cultural context don’t need a beautifully decorated tree with twinkling lights, nor neatly wrapped presents underneath. They need to hear of a Saviour wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger.

Christmas is about God’s mission to send His Son to seek and save the lost (Luke 19.10). It is about the good news of great joy that will be for all the people (Luke 2.10) and the true light that has come to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death (Luke 1.79). Christmas is ultimately all about God’s mission, which compels us to consider how we may commit our lives to that mission. The reality is that there are two billion people with no access to the gospel who have never heard of the grace of God in Christ that we celebrate this season.

Will you consider the trajectory of your life this Christmas season? Will you hold your dreams and desires for your life open-handed before the Lord? Will you pray bold, gutsy prayers about your future? Will you consider crossing a culture and learning a language to make disciples among a people group where Christmas doesn’t exist?
 

“God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation…let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.” John Piper

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Romans 10.14-15

God doesn’t need us

Let Your Kingdom Come started with a simple WhatsApp message. “For the next song, I’d love for us to write something with a missional focus”, Pete typed. “I think we’re lacking songs with that kind of theme.” More than that, we needed mission-focused songs that weren’t self-focused. Not singing about what we’re going to do for God—as if he were desperate for our help—but about what he’s already doing in the world. 

So we came upon one of the great and freeing truths of our faith: God does not need us. He’s not relying on us for his happiness or fame or mission. We are not the main characters in this drama. The plot line does not depend on us. Jesus is the one building his Church. The Father predestines, calls, and justifies. The Spirit softens stony hearts. God is writing his story with passion and power in his penstrokes. The kingdom is his.

God is ultimately devoted to building it for the sake of his glory, to see the nations come to him and exchange their angry fists for arms outstretched in adoration. As the Psalmist sings, “All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name" (Psalm 86.9). Worship is the end goal of the kingdom - of all history in fact.

All of this is good news for two reasons. Since God is the most beautiful, happy and glorious being, 1) worshipping him truly is a delight.  And 2) although humanity is tempted to worship ugly, debasing, and disatisfying things, God simply won’t let that happen in the long run. Goodness and joy will outlive idolatry and sin. God’s glory (and our happiness in beholding him) will prevail.


So, what now?

Knowing that God is in control of his kingdom might make you think that our job is simply to sit back, kick up our feet, and watch the light dawn on the new creation. But God has something better in store for us. He invites us to assist him in creating a masterpiece, a world full of his glory. 

Imagine a small child working beside a carpenter father, watching in amazement as his rough, weathered hands—sawdust under his nails—turn a block of wood into a piece of art. The father asks him to help in the work, to chisel and sand under his tender gaze. A little apprentice. So too with us and God. Or, to use another image, we’re representatives of a king, sent out to proclaim a message of hope in towns and cities everywhere. To announce good news. The message isn’t ours, yet God invites and honours us in the task of sharing it. 

This is the reality we live in. God is in control, his kingdom is on the move, and in a surprising turn of events, he invites us to be part of building it. So, why not get caught up in this mission and make the bridge of Let Your Kingdom Come your prayer? ‘Let your kingdom come in me. Let my heart burn for the lost. ’ It’s one God loves to answer.

Artwork by Emily Ikoshi