Christmas Survival Guide

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year. We’ve had a lot of fun celebrating our Saviors birth so far this month. We’ve been to Jingle on Main, The Duke Homestead Festival of Lights, and several parties. We also decorated the house inside and out. For this first time we have colored lights at the front of the house.

I’m also terrible close to buying one of these things. It’s the fun of having fancy lights without any of the actual work! This is right up my alley!

However, for many people It’s also a horrible time of the year. Holiday related stress and decreased sunlight increases a wide variety of anxiety and depression related illnesses The average person will gain 1-5lbs; spend around $1000, and likely contract a food borne illness due to improperly prepared potlucks. Potential silver lining though food poisoning will help you clear out those 1-5lbs pretty quickly! Merry Christmas Indeed!

One of the main stresses of the Christmas season is family. Especially those difficult family members we all have, and sometime are if we are honest with ourselves.

Queue Robert Earl Keens’ Merry Christmas from the Family.

I heard pastor once says “God gives us family, so we can learn to love people we don’t like very much.” So I’ve tried to put together bit of a Family Christmas Survival Guide to help deal with the four kinds of people you will be interacting with this month and what the gospel response should be.  First some scripture!

1 Thess 5:12-18

 And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, ¹³ and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves.

¹⁴ Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. ¹⁵ See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Wonderful: These are the people we like. We are excited to see them! They are the reason we go to the family functions and work parties. They know us, love us, listen to us and understand us. I have no shortage of wonderful friends and family in my life and for that I am truly blessed!

One of the most exciting things to me about Christmas growing up was getting to see my cousin Jonathan. He is six months older than me, and the coolest person I have ever known.  He encouraged me to go church, would tell me things from the Bible, would call me out when I was out of line and would apologize when he was wrong. I got to see him for the first time in 8 years back in Sept and it was like no time had passed at all.

The problem is we often overlook the wonderful people in our lives or take them from granted and then one day they aren’t there anymore because life has moved you both on to the next thing.

And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, ¹³ and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves

Christmas is an excellent time to reach out and thank those wonderful people in your life and make sure that they know that they are wonderful. That you love them, you appreciate them and that they have made a difference in your life for the better. Pause the reading of this article, go do that, then come back and finish. I’ll wait.

Done? Great!

Worrisome:  This is the worry wort. They basically are afraid all the time. You hear them say “Well I’ve never done it that way before” or you tell them an idea and they launch into 10 different reasons as to why it won’t work. I was going down the road one day and a person called me upset, tore out of the frame. “Pastor, I’m really worried.” They said. They had just had their performance review at work. They got a promotion and a 20% raise. They were telling me all the reasons why this was terrible. Had they been telling me this at person I probably would have slapped them. I would have to add the % points for every raise I got from 2006-2014 in my IT career to get to 20%. Some people just can’t see the bright side no matter what.

Wearisome: A better word for this group would be frustrating, however that doesn’t start with a W. These people are inline just going at a snail’s pace. They never seem to catch up and you think well I’ll be a good person and help them along. You spend time teaching, training, encouraging and just when you think they have it they take a massive step backwards because they did something incredibly stupid.

You put in the maximum effort and the give you the bare minimum return if that. To the point where you throw your hands up in the air and go “Why do I even bother? “

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. 

After you’re done throwing your arms in the air bring them back down for a moment. What are we supposed to do with them? Be wonderful! Warn them when they are out of line. Comfort them when they are faint. Come along side them and pick them up, hold them up, when they can’t do it themselves. Above all we must show patience! Why? Because Jesus is patient with us.

Galatians 6:9-10 “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

There are no shortage of times when we are both worrisome & wearisome. We do well to remember those times as we deal with others and show them the love & encouragement that was once shown us.

Wicked: Finally, we have the wicked. The reason we don’t want to go to family or work functions. They do evil. They lie, cheat, steal, and harass. They have destroyed families, reputations and seem to thrive off of drama.  You pray that they don’t make it this year. When they do show up you hold your breath until they leave, or you rack your brain trying to figure out a reason to leave early. The longer you can go without interacting with this person the better and if you never saw or heard from them again it would be fine with you. When you do interact with them it’s to encourage them to move to other cities, states and possibly countries. I know plenty of people that did move to other cities/states/countries to avoid such people.

See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.

This is the hardest one. How do you deal with the wicked? First off if illegal, harmful or dangerous things are happening then the proper authorities need to be involved. Sometimes you have to call the law on people, even family. You do so in hopes they finally get the help they need not out of revenge. Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek. The response to bullying is not to bully back. We don’t steal from them because they stole from us. We don’t like to them because they lie to us.  As Christians we are to pursue the good not only for ourselves but for our enemies as well.

Matthew 5:44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

John 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

It is our love for others that lets the world know something is different about us and leads them to want to know more about Jesus.

Most of you that read this have attended Antioch Baptist Church at some point or another. Why did you come? Did you just wake up early one Sunday morning and thought you would go to church? Or did you/ do you come because someone showed you love in the name of Christ?

1 Peter 4:8 “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Finally, in all things we rejoice, we pray, we give thanks and we trust in the will of God. We aren’t rejoicing that there is sin, or that there are sinful people. We are rejoicing because there is hope for us sinful people! The Church is the only organization that you join by admitting you aren’t good enough that you are in fact wicked and in no way deserve to join. We rejoice in our redemption, in the birth of our savior! We pray all the time giving thanks and seeking God’s will.

When we are in the will of God we are not bothered by the temporary things because they are just that temporary. God’s Love is eternal.

Merry Christmas everyone!  

P.S. A week ago I forgot the diaper bag again. At least I left it at home and there were diapers where I was going!