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“All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”—2 Corinthians 5:18
If your family is like my family, each member has responsibilities around the Christmas season. As my wife is the raging extrovert with abundant gifts of hospitality and service, she is mainly in charge of all of our holiday get-togethers. Our schedule gets filled with fellowships and dinner parties.
The last few years, she has catered and hosted the staff and pastors’ Christmas dinners for our church. She’s also in charge of decorating, and she turns even this process into a party, inviting over a few women from the church to help her set up the tree and all the other seasonal accoutrements around the house. (Last year she added a snowy scene with penguins sledding down the staircase railing.)
We have responsibilities from Jesus too in connection with the commemoration of his birth.
My job consists largely of lifting heavy things, putting boxes away, setting up any outside décor, determining our Christmas movie-watching schedule, and contributing ideas to the menu planning. It’s a pretty cushy gig, and I don’t mind it at all.
When I was pastoring, a lot of my time in December consisted of preparing Advent sermons and planning our rather elaborate Christmas Eve service. I miss it, and yet I don’t.
In your home, maybe someone’s in charge of food, another of decorating, another of games, and so on and so forth. We all take on certain responsibilities to help make the celebration of the Christmas season complete and happy for everybody else.
Well, we have responsibilities from Jesus too in connection with the commemoration of his birth. You could say we have jobs to do, but really these directives should be seen as great privileges. It has been this way from the very beginning.
The angels gave the shepherds the privilege of seeing the Christ child and proclaiming his glory. The wise men felt directed by the star to seek out the young Messiah and worship him where they found him. And as Jesus began his ministry, he called disciples into his work and, at the end of it, commissioned them to go into all the world to tell the story of the gospel and help others live in obedience to him too (Matthew 28:19-20).
The entire church is given this glorious privilege as well. We have a job to do, and it is to persist in sharing the good news of the coming of Jesus far and wide.
Now, it’s important to remember that the jobs Jesus gives us are not a means by which we earn credit with him. He is not giving us steps to salvation. He is giving us the steps of salvation—directing us to speak and live according to the work he has already accomplished for us.
The good works we are commissioned to do are not how we earn salvation but how we demonstrate that he has earned it for us.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:18, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” In other words, Jesus has done the great work of reconciliation in uniting us to himself. We receive this reconciliation through faith, but it is a unilateral gift of God’s grace. We are not meant to hoard this grace.
The power of salvation isn’t contingent upon us, but it does work through us as we share the good news with others.
As Christ has reconciled us to himself, we are now commissioned to work in the ministry of reconciliation. This means seeking to be at peace with all people, loving others as we love ourselves, and announcing the reconciliation with God available to repentant sinners through the power of the gospel.
This is a job to do, sure. But it’s also a gift because our generous Jesus has invited us into his work in drawing all people to himself. The power of salvation isn’t contingent upon us, but it does work through us as we share the good news with others.
Maybe this Christmas you might think about taking this commissioning more seriously. Maybe we might take the sharing of the gospel of Christmas as seriously as we take our enjoyment of the gospel of Christmas for ourselves.
This article is a sample of a devotion from of Gifts of Grace, an advent devotional by Jared Wilson.
Jared C. Wilson is assistant professor of pastoral ministry at Spurgeon College, author in residence of Midwestern Seminary, general editor of For the Church, and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri. His books include Your Jesus Is Too Safe, Gospel Wakefulness, The Imperfect Disciple, and Supernatural Power for Everyday People. He lives outside Kansas City with his wife, Becky, and their two daughters.
