There is an expiration date on all this world’s brokenness, on all our brokenness. Christmas guarantees it. Pottersville will be no more. Bedford Falls will be restored. All your deepest, craziest hopes for love and peace and joy are yours right now in this baby boy, Jesus, Immanuel.

The gospel must be the biggest thing in the church because only the gospel is big enough for the church. It’s the only thing that will sustain us over the long haul. If we ever abandon the gospel as the centering point—no matter how good a thing we replace it with—we will have failed to remain faithful, and God must bring us to repentance or shut our doors.

I wonder, how many of us have the kind of friendships our heart longs for? At Refuge Church, we want to be gospel friends. So I want to explore that today because as we continue in this pandemic, though many signs are pointing in the right direction, we might need some help in this area after the year or so we’ve had.

Today we’re going to think about one of the most important questions in all of life: how is one saved? Thankfully, God has not left that question open. There is an answer, and it can be found throughout the Bible. We’re going to look at one place the question is answered in Ephesians 2:8-10.

If you are exhausted from working only to fail, from obeying only to sin again, from pushing the rock up the hill only to have it fall back on top of you, you are invited to Jesus. If you feel a heaviness on your heart that you want to be free of, sin or sorrow or anxiety or remorse or memories or uncertainties or whatever, you are invited to Jesus. The qualifications you need are weariness and weightiness.

What is greater than knowing Jesus is on your side? When everything else falls away and you’re left alone and exposed wondering how you’ll endure, what is greater than knowing you are accepted by the King of the universe, by God himself? You’re not accepted because of what you’ve done or because of who you have become on your own but because God has graciously set his love upon you and sent Jesus to save you.

Suffering well for Christ is courageous. Yet to many of us, it might seem impossible. When we are alone, and the questions come, and we start feeling the pressure—how do we stand for Jesus? What do we have in that moment that makes the difference?

Submission is a deeply anti-American quality. But it is a distinctly Christian one.

Yes, we live in hard days. We endure suffering. But we also rejoice in our suffering because we know that God has saved us, is saving us, and will save us on that great and final day. This isn’t a vague prediction; it’s a signed, sealed, and delivered promise guaranteed by the blood of Jesus and his resurrection.

As he begins, Peter gives insight into how God thinks about us. Peter learned these things himself, so it’s not just high-brow theology. This is in-the-pit-of-despair truth. In these two opening verses to suffering people, Peter shows at least three things we can find in God—things hard to believe in times of suffering, but vital to believe.

So, here we are in 2021. How does it feel? Maybe you have some plans for the year, some goals, some things you’d like to do. And that’s all great. After the year we’ve had, we’re all hoping for something far better, for a restoration of sorts, aren’t we?

What is God doing? He’s overturning our expectations. God has ordered the world such that weakness overcomes power, foolishness overcomes wisdom, a child defeats all evil. It’s an unlikely, improbable, incredible story. When everything else in this world fails, when all our best plans are found wanting, when we’ve reached the very end of what we can do, unto us a child is born.

Paul had to address a problem. Two women couldn’t agree on something. We don’t know what it was, but the disagreement was so big it was threatening the church’s unity at the very time when they needed it most. Instead of standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel (1:27), they were bickering and fighting. Paul urged them to stop. And without taking sides in the disagreement, he marshaled the rest of the church to help these women come together in the Lord because whatever their disagreement was, it was not bigger than the wrap-around reality of their salvation in Christ and his mission for them in this dying world.

Earlier in chapter 2, Paul presented Jesus as an example of humility and sacrifice. Verses 19-30 read like a travelogue. It feels different. But if we look deeper, we’ll see the connection: two men who exemplify the Christ-like qualities he spoke of earlier. The Lord is our model; and Timothy and Epaphroditus are model Christians.

So much demands our attention and calls us away from Jesus alone. And when opposition and persecution and suffering confront us, as it did the Philippians, it takes courage to keep the gospel central. A gospel-centered church needs gospel-centered courage.

What might God do if we learned to pray this prayer? What kind of people might he make us? What kind of church might he make us? What abounding love would we have? What radiant beauty? What purity of heart and blamelessness in Christ? What fruit of righteousness?

As commentator Phil Ryken says, “The final message of Ecclesiastes is not that nothing matters in the end but that everything matters in the end.” And the proof is here in these two verses. One day, you will stand before God and give an account. He will bring every deed into judgment. It’s only right that he will. He created you. He cares about what happens in your life, and what you do with your life, and he has the right to judge the outcome of your life. One day, very soon, you will report in to him to receive his judgment. Because that day is coming, every day matters for that day.

Here’s something non-obvious but available: the enjoyment we want in life isn’t lying out beyond our grasp, but given graciously by the hand of God if we’ll take it.

We’re living in what everyone calls “uncertain times.” But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). His salvation is certain. If he saved you then, he’ll save you today, and he’ll save you forever. You won’t fall through the cracks. You can’t. The dying love of Christ is holding you. He will in no wise cast out! How could he? He was cast out for you! There is no mess he can’t handle. He bore it all. He loves you to the end.

On the cross, Jesus absorbed all of our sins—all of Peter’s denial—as if it was his own, as if he denied God. On the cross, God accepted Jesus as our substitute. He accepted the offer of his life in place of ours. That’s why Jesus could forgive Peter. That’s why God can forgive us.