Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Should Christmas celebrations include Christmas trees and Santa Claus, or focus the solely on the nativity? In this podcast, Pastor Allen Jackson talks about how and why we celebrate Christmas, and what it looks like to bring Christmas joy to the people around us. The holiday season brings a tremendous amount of effort into our daily lives, but it’s also a time of the year when people are more open to hearing about Jesus. Will you be like the wise men, who were willing to follow God in a new direction, or will you be like the unwise, who chase tradition and the ways of the world? This podcast offers a refreshing perspective on Christmas and how God can use your life in a meaningful way during this sacred season.

Welcome to Culture and Christianity. This is a highlight for me. They're going to turn me loose without a guest, so buckle up. It's always a little dangerous. I think it makes everybody nervous when they give me a microphone, an open clock, and no guest at the table. But it's Christmas time, and I want to use that as kind of the primary talking points for us today. I want to make some just, you know, I have served a local congressman. for quite a while. So I've been a part of this Christmas thing in a lot of versions.

And I'm going to give you some lessons that I've taken away from Christmas and maybe it will help you this Christmas. And I want to start with just the effort of Christmas. It's work. You know, in church world, especially it's work. By the time we get the Christmas and I'm done with Christmas Eve, I have fa la la la la all I want to. But I have come to truly, truly be grateful for the privilege of celebrating Christmas. And I want to invite you. you towards that this Christmas season, no matter what your circumstances are. My mom went to heaven a little over a year ago, so that's still a big change for my family. She and my father were married more than 65 years. And so our Christmases are different. And it's okay. They're

different and there's some good things about it and there's some things we miss about it. But the effort of Christmas, let's start there a minute. You know, back in the day when I was a younger pastor and the church was younger, there was a lot of anxiety about whether the celebration of Christmas was appropriate or not, whether Christmas trees were pagan symbols, a symbol of druidism, and they didn't have anything to do with Christianity. And December the 25th wasn't really Jesus' birthday. It's the winter solstice. And it was a pagan holiday. And we don't know when Jesus was born, and we shouldn't celebrate on December the 25th. Just a happy group of people. And I remember the Christmas where I decided that we were going to celebrate.

In fact, we decorated a Christmas tree as a part of a worship service. For a while, we didn't even decorate the sanctuary. We didn't put up, the church was very simple, not like it is today. You know, we didn't even put up Christmas decorations. I put a little bit of garland over a doorway. And I did it all. And I came to the realization that what makes Christmas secular or Jesus-centered, isn't the imagery you use.

You know, it's not the music you play, whether you're playing hymns or Rudolph. What makes Christmas secular or Christ-centered is what's in our heart. And so I decided to have fun with the whole season. You know, the fat guy in the red suit, the reindeer that fly and have a red nose. I like the Christmas movies.

I like the Christmas car. I like Charlie Brown Christmas. I like Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys. I like It's a Wonderful Life. I'm just in. You know, I think it's a wonderful season of the year to celebrate if we will put Jesus in the midst of it. And we do that in the midst of our brokenness. You know, my life hadn't always been perfect.

It hasn't always been simple. Christmas is one of the busiest seasons of the year in my professional life, more demands than ever. And in spite of that, it's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the arrival of our king. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the doors that are open. are more open to an invitation to a worship service or a Christmas event or a children's program because it's Christmas time. Or for a lot of years, I would buy boxes of chocolate. We had a wonderful, there was a local business that was a, they made chocolate. It was a God thing. I was a frequent flyer, but I would go buy at Christmas time and buy these one pound

boxes of this great chocolates that they made. I'd keep him in my car. And when the Lord put somebody on my minor, or I saw somebody or I thought about somebody that I thought needed encouragement, I'd go knock on the door and say, Merry Christmas, and give him a box of chocolates. It was so fun. You try that in July, you'll get arrested. One year, I bought Poinsettas. I don't remember how many I bought, but the same thing. If somebody came to mind or I bumped into somebody and I thought they just needed a voice of encouragement,

I'd give him a poinsette and say, Merry Christmas. It's a wonderful time of year. There's an openness in this season. So let me invite you out of the depths of despair. If it's a tough time of year for you, if it's been a year of loss, if somebody you love has died. If your family system isn't where you want it to be, this Christmas season. If your credit card's already maxed out and you can't go shopping and you're bummed out about it. Okay, I got that. And we can make some plans for better behaviors in the new year. But we're not going to

lose Christmas. Don't sit in the corner with a bag of coal and regret how secular the season is. If Christmas is secular around you, it's because we've allowed it to be. Take Jesus to work with you. Take Christmas to work with you. Wear red and green socks. If somebody asks you why, tell them Merry Christmas. Put a plate of Christmas cookies on your desk. People will ask and eat. You can find a way to take your faith into the workplace. Somebody brought me a report that one of the hospitals in Middle Tennessee, I haven't verified it yet. I haven't seen the email, but they notified all their nursing staff that they could not bring any Christmas celebration into the hospital. Again, I haven't verified it, so I'll leave them nameless.

If I verified, I'll bring you the name. This is going to take discipline. But they said they couldn't even wear red and green together. That they could wear red or green, but they couldn't wear red and green. I mean, they were really trying to scrub Christmas out of the hospital. It's absurd. So wherever you are, in whatever way you can, whether you do it subtly and covertly or you can do it overtly, let's make Jesus a part of this Christmas season.

Even the laws of the land have changed. We can take the nativity scenes and put them back on the public square. The Ten Commandments are welcome in our schools again. We can pray in our schools. The laws have changed. We have freedom. So now it's a freedom in our hearts. It's Christmas.

We have such amazing liberty and such opportunities. Do not allow yourself to be pulled down into what is not a part of your Christmas this year. we have been called out of darkness into the kingdom of light Jesus came to this world so that you and I might be a part of his eternal kingdom I will celebrate that in all of the things that my life may not be and all the challenges that are present the effort of Christmas it's worth it it is absolutely worth it if your family doesn't want to celebrate Christmas with you

find some friends who will go to church join a celebration there Find somebody in your community. I have found that kindness and generosity is welcome most frequently. So we'll start with the effort of Christmas. The second thing I want to talk to you about just a minute is that wise men still seek him. You know the story of the wise men? It's in Matthew's Gospel. The birth story of Jesus is told in two of the four Gospels.

Matthew tells the story primarily from Joseph's Van Gogel. vantage point. The angel visits Joseph and tells him what's up with Mary. And the wise men are a part of that story. And Joseph is warned that he's going to have to take the baby and run to Egypt because Herod's coming in a murderous rage. Luke tells it from Mary's vantage point. Gabriel comes to visit Mary, says, you're highly favored among women. You're going to conceive a child. And Mary says, I'm all in. So it's in Matthew's record of this that we meet the wise men, the magi. We don't know their names. We don't really know the country of their origin. They're kind of faceless, nameless figures that step onto the stage with these fabulous gifts. I want to read just a portion. It's Matthew

2, verse 1. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem. We're not even quite sure exactly of when they arrived. You know, scholars like to bicker about it. Some people get upset. You know, they'll see a picture of the nativity scene with the wise men in it, and they'll go, the wise men were not in Bethlehem. They were not there when Jesus was in the stable. Well, forgive me. My social media accounts of Bethlehem got deleted. So I don't really have a good picture from that first century gathering.

And the way the language is presented in the scripture, it's possible to imagine them in a variety of time periods. But let's just go with the flow and imagine they made it to the stable. Since we don't know they didn't, it doesn't offend me to leave them there for the moment. If I'm offending your scholarship, be gentle. with me. I live in Tennessee and I grew up in a barn. You know, you don't have to look far to see that our economy is in real turmoil. Our nation is $37 trillion in debt. Inflation rates made it hard to buy and sell a house,

even a car. We're all feeling it. When you go to the grocery store and you spend an extra dollar or two in every item, that gets personal in a hurry. Well, the most important thing we can do during uncertain times is to invest ourselves in knowing God better, read His word, pray. That's the only place we're really going to find stability we need for the disruption that I'm pretty certain is ahead of us. Beyond that, it's just plain wise to make the best decisions possible in our daily lives with our investments. When you think of all the options out there, gold is an investment that has stood the test of time. That's why I work with preserved gold. They've treated me with honesty, integrity, kindness every step of the way.

They're offering a free wealth protection kit, and all you need to do is text Alan, that's A-L-L-E-N, to 50-505. As a bonus, you'll get up to $15,000 in free gold and silver with a qualified purchase. Go ahead and text them today. But during the time of King Herod, the Magi, from the East, came to Jerusalem. They asked, where's the one who's been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the East, and we've come to worship him. When King Herod heard he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him, when he'd called together all the people's chief priest and the teachers of the law, he asked them where the

Christ was to be born, and they said in Bethlehem in Judea. I lived in Jerusalem. I was there studying at Hebrew University. My brother and I, and Christmas Eve, they had class at the university on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve. Can you believe that? I cut class. We walked to Bethlehem. It's only, I lived on the far side of Jerusalem over on Mount Scopus by the Mount of Olives. So for us, it was about a five-mile walk to Bethlehem. amazing place. You know, Manger Square, just outside the Church of the Dativity, one of the oldest churches in Israel, Constantine, I'm going to wander for a minute. Roman Emperor Constantine, his mother came to the Middle East and identified the locations of three places affiliated with

Jesus' life. One of them was the Church in the Dativity, so it's one of the oldest churches in Israel. And just outside the entrance to the church in the Dutivity is Manger Square. Bethlehem for centuries and centuries was primarily a Christian Arab town. Some of the best educated people in the land of Israel, certainly some that had been there for the longest period of time. And you could go to those little shops around Manger Square and have Turkish coffee with the shopkeepers and sit and they'd tell you where their families were and what was happening. Turkish coffee, it's a little bit of like a shot glass filled with coffee. It will grow hair on concrete. You have a couple of those.

you're up for Christmas. No chance. But that changed when the Israelis gave Bethlehem and Nazareth over to Palestinian authority. The Christian Arabs were driven out. They really had no advocates in the Middle East. The Arab community was not going to stand up for the Christians. The Jews were not going to primarily to defend the Christian Arabs. And so the majority of those populations from Bethlehem and Nazareth have been driven out. They've left the country. Many of them suffered a great deal. I digress a bit. Herod asked the question about where the Messiah was to be born,

and the biblical scholars, the teachers of the law, told him it was Bethlehem. And so he sends the wise men on their way and says, when you find the child, come back to me, I want to go worship him as well. He's lying. He didn't want to worship Jesus. But the wise men go on their way.

They followed a star. You know that drill. You've heard the song. and the little drummer boy, and you've seen the wise men in more bathrobe pageants, and you can remember, I'm sure, and they make their way to Bethlehem, following a star, and it says when they found the star and where it had stopped, I read the NIV, and it says they were overjoyed, but the language in the Greek is much more dramatic than that.

It's repetitive, that they were exceedingly joyful. They were overwhelmed with enthusiasm. I mean, it says it twice. They were beside themselves. I mean, they lost their minds in the best possible. way of that phrase. They couldn't believe that this journey they've been on for a couple of years in the pursuit of the newly arrived king of the Jews ends at a stable. They followed a star and they found a stable. Now, I have a question for you. They didn't get an engraved invitation.

Herod did not send them an invitation. They went to the palace because they thought if there was a new king of the Jews, that was the most logical place to start. They followed. at a star and they found themselves at a stable and they were excited about it. Here's my question to you, what are you following? Maybe who do you follow in social media? You know, what's the tone of their life? What's the tone of their heart? What are the ambitions of your life? What are you anchoring your future to? If what you were following were delayed, if it feels like it wasn't going to be realized or available to you, you'd be upset. If we're not following the purposes of God. First and foremost, we're not following the right thing. You know, we can follow God

and sometimes find ourselves in a stable. I've followed the Lord and found myself in some barns full of stuff. But I have to say that God has led me through those places in some wonderful ways, not always easy ways. And the wise men, they follow this and they find the Christ child. You know, we typically, my habit is to ask Jesus to follow me. This is what I want to do. This is my ambition. This is my ambition. This is where I want to live. This is what I want to drive. This is how much I want to earn. Now come follow me and help me get what I want. Increasingly, I'm doing my very best to flip the script on that and say to the Lord, I don't want to bring my agenda to you and ask you to bless it. I want you to help me see your agenda so that I could help with that. In fact, to the best

of my knowledge, I'm committed to seeing the agendas of God come forward in the earth, no matter what that looks like. I've done it in my life. I mentioned studying at Hebrew University. My brother, we emptied our savings account, and we went to Israel and studied at Hebrew University. I'd already had a graduate degree from Vanderbilt. I wasn't really going to get the degree. I wanted to spend some time in Israel, and to do that and make the visas work, the student program helped me. So there's a sacrifice for me. It sounds fun and romantic. Not so much. We lived in a pretty, a very modest place at a flat we shared with a group of international people that the only language we spoke in common was Hebrew, and I didn't speak Hebrew. So it was an adventure.

At that time, when I was there, the grocery stores, everything was labeled in Hebrew. They didn't have American food at the time. I bought dog food. I was frying it in the frying pan. I thought it was hamburger. And an Israeli friend came in before I got it on my plate and started laughing at me because he knew I was about to eat hamburger. You know, following God's not always simple or easy. There can even be a sacrifice in it, but follow him.

We will. That's who we are. The wise men followed him for two years. That's disruptive. They disrupted their calendars. their friends thought they'd lost their minds. Then they found Jesus. In Jerusalem, where there were some people with better pedigrees.

They were Jewish. They were biblical scholars. They were experts in the law. They had access to the palace. Even Herod, the king, had an invitation to go to Bethlehem and see Jesus. If wise men followed the star and got to Bethlehem, can we say the not-so-wise men didn't? They stayed in place. They maintained their position.

They protected their power. They did all of the things that you and I tend to do because we're afraid God's going to ask us for something, that he wants our calendar, our money, or he wants us to do something we don't want to do, or he's going to ask us to be more moral than we want to be. Well, following Jesus is not intrusive or burdensome. It's the greatest invitation to freedom that will ever come to our lives. We have told this story wrong. Being ungodly is not more fulfilling than being godly.

The best possible way to make your journey under the sun is to follow the Lord. The not so wise men, they said no to that. In fact, they took the opposite attack. They wanted to eliminate Jesus. Here it gives the order that all the babies, boys that were two years old or younger, would be murdered because he knew the wise men had been following for two years, and that was the most specific information he had. If you're not tracking or you want a fuller New Testament reference, that is the spirit of Antichrist on display. Murderous rage at the thought of the arrival of Jesus. We find the martyrs in the book of Revelation, that same murderous rage against the spirit of Christ and the earth. We see that same spirit of Antichrist in the book of Acts when Philip is beheaded, when Stephen is martyred in the streets of Jerusalem or outside the city of Jerusalem. We see that same spirit of Antichrist in the cities around the Roman, the Mediterranean while Paul's traveling and preaching the gospel. We see that spirit of Antichrist in our world, the systematic genocide of Christians in night. Nigeria, the oppression of Christianity in China, in our own nation, the intolerance of a biblical worldview or a biblical definition of marriage, all of that is fueled by the spirit of Antichrist.

Right now, it's fashionable. There's a whole new segment of American culture who hates the Jewish people. We shouldn't support the Jewish people. We shouldn't support the nation of Israel. The modern nation of Israel isn't the biblical nation of Israel. There's a Greek word that describes my feelings about all that. baloney. It's bad theology. It's bad history. It's a perversion of the scripture. And if you're trying to win friends and influence people by joining secular culture and denying the plain teaching

of scripture, that's not a good path to stay on. If you're not sure, you can be silent, but do the work to figure it out. But don't take a position that puts you in opposition to what God is doing in the earth. You're not going to flourish in that. that place. Herod didn't. The chief priest didn't. The not so wise people. They didn't. It's really important. We've got to decide which group we're going to be identified with and where we're going to stand. I think there's some lessons from the journeys of the wise men that are worth tagging real quickly. They had a long journey two years in search of a king. That's disruptive. They had to clear their calendar. They missed spring break and fall break. They missed the holidays with

their families and friends. They're on a journey that has no guaranteed outcome. You know, they're following a star. They're not getting daily text updates. They can't put Bethlehem in their GPS. It's a lot less secure than all of that. They're not exactly sure what they're looking for. Is it young? Is it old? They're just on a journey. They have this inclination. We don't have the information. And at the end of the journey, the destination is a stable, not a palace. Imagine you and two friends make a two-year journey in search of a king and you end up in a barn. I think there could be some, what shall we say, frustrating words between one another? That's a long way to end up in a stable.

There's no royal celebration. There's no coronation that they're allowed to be a part of. If you want to imagine they were there at the time of the birth or soon thereafter, maybe they got to hear about the shepherds and their enthusiasm and the heavenly host that lit up the sky. But Mary and Joseph in their circumstances were underwhelming. They made a great effort at a significant expense. They forfeited other opportunities. It could have been very disappointing.

God didn't meet their expectations. I think that's a fair statement. And yet they met God. Do you and I have the courage to serve the Lord when he doesn't meet our expectations? I can tell you there have been times in my life when I have threatened to quit God because he wasn't meeting my expectations. I know that sounds very childish, and it was childish of me. It was certainly immature of me.

I have two brothers. I remember when we were younger. One of my brothers got mad at my mom. I don't remember what for, but he said he wanted a new mom. That's kind of like me telling God. I don't like the way you're treating me, so I'm going to bail on you. That has to ignore the nature of this relationship. He's the creator.

I'm the creation. If he's willing to allow me into a conversation, I'm just grateful to be included. Hard to stop. so a couple questions what are you following and how have you been disappointed because i'm sure you have life is filled with disappointments and do you connect the disappointment to god and some failure on his part if so this christmas season maybe the gift you could give is forgiveness maybe you could say to the lord i'd rather make peace with you than be angry with you i don't understand my circumstances i don't understand why you didn't bail me out of that i understand

why I didn't get healing without going to the doctor or I don't understand why you couldn't have fixed that relationship that I wanted to stay solid or whatever it may be. But I wonder if we could make peace with God. Maybe there's a course correction needed. Maybe we've been the ungodly one.

Maybe we've been walking in the wrong direction and we've been trying to bluff our way through it or live through sin. You can't live through sin. You have to repent of sin. Ignoring sin like it didn't happen, like you didn't do it, like you weren't involved.

And just moving on is not the resolution. We've got to stop and say to the Lord, I thought wrong and I behaved wrong, but I want to think in a new way and behave in a new way. I'm sorry, forgive me. If we do that, we get a clean beginning. We get a fresh start. We get the power of God to help us. If we just live through it and act like it didn't happen, the noise of the consequences coming

up behind us grows more deafening with every day. So let's practice that course correction when it's needed. Maybe there's some disappointments you need to overcome this year. You know what a disappointment is? It's an appointment that you didn't have on your schedule. That little prefix, dis, it means without. So a disappointment is something that shows up in my calendar that I didn't put there. Life is filled with those.

And we've got to overcome them. You can be mad at them initially or frustrated by them or agitated or whatever your word. You know, we have church language for words that we kind of baptize things with. We don't worry. We have a burden. You know, Jesus said, don't worry. So Christians don't often say, I'm worried. worried about things, but they say, you know, God just put it on my heart.

You know, that's kind of a fancy way saying, I'm worried about it. Well, if there are disappointments in your life, don't give them another name, acknowledge them to the Lord and then ask him to help you overcome. You know, navigating life for all of us is about continual course adjustments. It's just not a linear exponential curve that climbs straight up to heaven. It's a far more inconsistent journey in all of our lives. Kind of like our health. This time of year, I hate to talk about healthy this time of year. Because most of the things on my plate aren't healthy. We talk about that in January.

But, I mean, most of us manage our health. I know some of you are different. God bless you. You eat sprouts all the time. But this time of year, I need a little gravy and a little chocolate. You can probably tell on camera, don't say it. But navigating life is about those constant course adjustments. And if there's some that you need to make this Christmas, season. Let's do that together. Let's join the group of the wise people following the star. Let's not fight against the emerging purposes of God. Even if you're in a palace, even if you have a position of a great power, even if you imagine yourself to be a scholar, and there's

much achievement in your life, if you take a position in opposition to the purposes of God, like Herod and the teachers of the law and the chief priest did, it's not going to work out well. You know, almost everybody I know wants to feel better, have more energy. I mean, myself included, I went to a concert a few months ago. It's been almost a year ago now, and I sat down next to a friend Jordan Rubin was there. I made an offhand comment. I need to feel better, get a little healthier. He showed up in my office a couple days later with a plan for me.

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You can put in code Allen 30. That's A-L-L-E-N-30. You'll get a 30% discount, and it'll also bless our ministry. Again, that's ancientnutrition.com, Alan, A-L-L-E-N-30. You get a 30% discount on multi-college and protein, you'll feel better, and you'll bless our ministry. Thanks. You know, we don't know much about the wise men, and we've all seen the familiar scenes. They're kings from the east. Magi is not a real clear word. I have at least a thought, and I'm not even going to ground this in scholarship, but I've been playing with this idea. What if they weren't kings? What if these wise men from the east were simply people that God had touched. Let's say they were normal citizens. And the only way they could make the journey

to go find the king of the Jews was to liquidate. So let's imagine they mortgaged their homes and they sold their cars and they took the resources they got from that and they bought the most lavish gift that the available resources would allow them to buy. Gold and frankincense and mur. And they kept just enough money that they thought they would enable them to make the journey they needed. So by the time they arrived in the palace in Jerusalem following this star, they'd spent their money. And they're not fabulously wealthy. They're kind of scruffy. I mean, Herod didn't welcome them with much enthusiasm. And Herod turns them away, and they follow the star to Bethlehem, and they found Jesus. They found Mary and Joseph.

They found the end of the story. The description of the joy they had is overwhelming. And then these three ordinary people that have made a tremendous investment in seeking the Lord open their treasures to him, gold and frankincense and myrrh. You see, there's a very different sense in giving if you give something that reflects a sacrifice to you. To give something that you don't really need, that's not overly relevant to you, there's not great joy in that. The Bible says it this way. When David bought the land, it would become the place where the temple was built,

Solomon's temple, and then the second temple. He bought it from Aruna at a time when God was bringing judgment on David's life. And Aruna said, you can take my land. And David said, no, I won't offer to the Lord something that didn't cost me something. And those wise men, it makes more sense to me that they gave a gift that to them was a tremendous sacrifice. Now that sacrifice, Mary and Joseph have to make the trip to Egypt unexpectedly. One common interpretation is the gift of the gold and the frankincense of the moor enabled them to go to Egypt and to survive in the time they needed until Herod died.

I don't know that the Magi knew that, but I like this imagination that I have of these ordinary people that made a great sacrifice and then made a tremendous gift to Mary and Joseph that made provision for Jesus. I want to live my life in such a way that the sacrifices I make for the kingdom of God are not marginal things. They're not things that I didn't really want anyway. I don't want to give you my leftovers. I hate the idea that we give God the things we don't eat. If you get a new refrigerator, you give your old refrigerator to the church. Or if you get a new coat, you give your old coat to somebody that doesn't have one.

Well, I respect the generosity, but let's flip the script on that. Let's give our best to the Lord and then wait for his response in our lives. lives so that we get an upgrade in who we are and what we have. I love the story of the wise men and the imagination that three ordinary people made extravagant gifts that reflected a sacrifice to the Lord. Again, this Christmas season, are you with the wise men? Are you with the not so wise folks? Don't give me the church answer. You think about it. Look at your friends. Look at the things you're doing. Listen to what's happening around you. And if you need to make a course correction. Let's make it. I got one more Christmas idea. I want to tag with this because I think

this season of the year, it's important. And it's the reality. There's a lot of grief because our families aren't perfect. Maybe yours is. If yours is, God bless you. I pray you're never awakened to the reality that's less than that. But none of us have perfect families. Norman Rockwell painted fantasy. And if you look carefully at Norman Rockwell's pictures, there's somebody misbehaving in every one of them. But I would make this observation that even Jesus had a borrowed dad. Joseph presided over a blended family. And there was enormous room in that. In fact, Mary and Joseph's journey would have never begun together without supernatural intervention. God had to send an archangel Gabriel to Joseph to say, don't you break this up. You stand steady. What's happening in

Mary's life was initiated by God. It isn't about misbehavior or a breach of character. Mary is trustworthy and you should trust her. Joseph needed angelic intervention, supernatural intervention, to hold his space. To his credit, he cooperated with that messaging. And so that Joseph becomes the one shepherding a blended family. And he and Mary begin this journey together. I like that narrative.

Because our family systems, perhaps you're fortunate enough and your nuclear family is completely intact. That's wonderful. I'll celebrate that with you as an ideal. But the reality of that is around that family system, there is brokenness because there's humans around it and there is brokenness. But it doesn't mean we've been discredited or disqualified or pushed aside or the brokenness of our lives or the fact that we are in a blended family. And we're dealing with all the implications and ramifications of that means that somehow we're second class or relegated to some other place. There have been times in the church, the contemporary American church, where broken families, divorces made you. It was the unforgivable sin.

You could commit murder. And if you're pardoned by the governor, you can go on the banquet circuit and go speak at all the churches. But if you were divorced, you were just relegated to the back row and second class citizenship. Well, anyone who's been through a broken family knows the horror of that and is not an advocate for it. But I promise you that the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the redemptive work of Jesus is sufficient to help us through the brokenness of our families. If Jesus was sent to a blended family, I believe the purposes of God can come forth through the brokenness of our current 21st century edition of family. And this Christmas don't allow the devil to talk you out of them. that. You go to the people in your family. You thank God for them. You tell them. You believe

God put them in your family. That he's given them to you as a family, that you're grateful for them, that you believe the purposes of God are unfolding around you. See, the battlefield is in our heart and in our mind far more than it's in the circumstances around us. We'll never get the circumstances to be right enough to help us overcome a bad attitude or wrong thoughts. But if we will allow the Spirit of God to help us renew our mind and change how we think about our circumstances, God will bring victory to us in the midst of some of the most awful things. And I was single in ministry for quite a while. And I made peace with that.

It was just the place God had put me. And so I celebrated that. I remember one time I was invited to come speak at a singles conference. It's a big conference. There are hundreds of people there. and I was one of the keynote speakers, and I sat and I listened to three or four people before my turn came, and I got up and said, hey, I said, I didn't know being single was a disease until I met you people. I thought God had called me, and there was a purpose to my life, but I'm listening to these presentations, and apparently you think you're afflicted with something. They didn't applaud, and I didn't get invited back, but I think it's true.

you know, your family circumstance probably imperfect. And if you think it is, go check the mirror because you and I probably bring some imperfection to the holiday table. But the reality is in the midst of our brokenness, the purposes of God are emerging. You know, the Mary and Joseph's story is not fully clear.

By the time Jesus is on the cross, Joseph is absent. The assumption, generally, is that he had died. so that Jesus entrust the care of Mary to John. So Mary has had to overcome some things, the loss of Joseph, and now the crucifixion of her son, the stress of three years of public ministry, while her son is broadly rejected.

Not an easy journey. And yet the commentary from the halls of heaven is that Mary was highly favored. So I want to give you a Christmas gift, if you can receive it, that in the midst of brokenness, in the midst of family that is probably less than perfect, in the midst of disappointments, you could still be highly favored by God. You have to walk around with that for a while. If you will, you'll begin to thank the Lord for that.

you see when things are easy and things are going the way i want them to go i'm much less inclined to think about the lord i'm much more inclined to think about what i want to do next and the next hill i'm going to climb and the next victory i want to plan and the next whatever but in the midst of the pressure of those things my prayer life stays much richer much fuller my bible reading is is much more disciplined and a part of my every day because i'm aware that i need the sustenance of that to navigate the shadowed valley I'm in. And if you're in one of those this Christmas season, don't give in to the despair.

Begin to quietly thank God. Not because your circumstances are where you want him to be, but because God is faithful. Even Jesus had a borrowed dad. That makes me smile. The Jesus story, if I read it right, he turned out okay. I mean, my Bible says that God gave him a name that's above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee would bow in heaven and earth and under the earth.

And the family of origin, the family that he grew up in, his nuclear family, was a little fractured. His brothers and sisters were a little questioning of him. I mean, there's a lot in there. Well, I believe God's power can cause your circumstances in mind to turn out well, not because our families are perfect, but in spite of them. Now, that's good news this Christmas, all right? Wise men follow stars and end up at stables. Wise men follow him. God can take the brokenness of our families

and make great things happen. Even Jesus had a borrowed dad. And finally, the effort of Christmas, when I'm not giving it into Christmas is secular, it's not secular to me. Walmart celebrates Christmas. I know they got a profit motive, but I don't. I like to go in there and look at all the shelves

they have dedicated to celebrating the birth of my king. I know they're selling junk, but all that shelf space is dedicated to my Lord and King. That's just awesome. Awesome. Makes me smile. And if a hospital in Nashville truly did try to banish Christmas from the nursing staff, that makes me want to have a party on one level. They're so concerned about my king that they don't even want colors that represent his birth in their building. We are making progress if the devil's that concerned about Jesus. Folks, the only way Christmas is secular is if we let it be. Let's get Jesus out and take him with us wherever we go this December. God is moving in the earth and at Allen Jackson Ministries. We're doing everything we can to strengthen the church in our nation and wherever God opens the door. We don't intend to maintain the status quo or to gather in our churches for polite Bible studies.

We're going to engage our culture with biblical truth and give you the tools to do so. We want our children and grandchildren to inherit a church that's vibrant and vital. And to do that, we've got to make it. investment. Will you give generously to what we're doing at Allen Jackson Ministries? Your partnership will make 2026 the most fruitful year we've ever known. Thank you. At Allen Jackson Ministries, we're committed to strengthening the church and sharing the truth of God's word. When you support this ministry with a gift of $75 or more, we'll send you the Lead with Faith ESV journaling Bible. Your generosity will help us equip more people with the biblical truth and encouragement

they need for the year ahead. Give today at Alan Jackson.com. I got to wrap this up. I know my time's slipping away. You're about to finish your workout or your walk. But I want to give you an invitation, if you will. It's the end of the year. We're making our plans for next year.

I don't usually use this podcast as a place for a request, but I do want to give you this request. What we do in the media, whether it's a podcast or broadcast on radio or television or our publishing, all of those things are made possible because the generosity of those people who partner with us. And we're making our plans right now for 2026,

and those plans are directly connected to your generosity as we approach the end of 25. So if God's blessed you, help us. It will be a blessing. We will use it for the proclamation of the gospel. It's an important time, and our partnership together makes a difference. I wasn't asked to make a two-year journey to go find a king in a barn, but I've been asked in the midst of Middle Tennessee to serve the king, and it's an honor to do that with you.

A couple of just quick things. I've got a minute before my clock evaporates. I don't know if you watch current events or not, the chaos. I like to live Christmas into the chaos. The crazier the world gets, the more lights I want in the tree. The church campus, here we've got a 200-acre campus. and there are angels on top of the building. Great big, I don't know, what are they,

nine or ten feet tall, probably taller than taller than that. Sounding a trumpet. They're facing out the different directions that the church faces. I love the celebration of, I want to celebrate Christmas into the chaos. And join me with that.

There's crazy stuff happening. I mean, the leaders in our nation, our leaders in Congress are complaining because we are interdicting people that are smuggling drugs into our country, Hundreds of thousands of American citizens in recent years have dived from illegal drug overdoses. Drugs smuggled into our country across an open border with the help of gangs, often produced by nations that are our enemies. And our current administration is trying to interdict those drug smuggling operations.

And we have leaders in Congress complaining about that. That's bizarre. I saw a great meme on the internet. I don't get credit for that. but it said the same people that said our biological sex is confusing, the same people that couldn't identify, couldn't explain the difference between a man and a woman, they can tell the difference between a fishing boat and a drug smuggling boat at a thousand feet in the air. I don't think so.

I think they would oppose the good no matter what package it came in. I don't intend to give into that. The lawlessness is still growing in our nation. Are you watching Wisconsin? They've had more than a billion dollars in fraud. principally for the Somali community and the leaders of the state are defending it. It's bizarre the continued refusal to enforce our laws. The lawlessness grows.

The only resolution to this is Jesus. So Christmas time is the perfect time to lead with our faith and lead into this. Do not let your circumstances fill your heart with despair. Do not lose the joy of Christmas because the people that you want to celebrate don't want to celebrate with you. Do not lose the joy of Christmas because you feel as if the challenges of this year have simply been too much. Jesus is still the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. If you've accepted him as Lord of your life, your name is established in the halls of heaven. And if we're standing in a difficult season, whether it's physically, emotionally,

relationally, financially. Our future is secured by the king, not by my circumstances. We will not yield. We will not be overcome. We are overcomers by the spirit of God. The same spirit that brought Jesus out of the tomb lives in you and me. So you find a way to celebrate. If you do it alone, you sing Merry Christmas, jingle bells, silent night. If you sing like me, you sing anyway. we're going to celebrate. It's the time where we celebrate the birth of Jesus. And the best way we can honor the people who live in places where they can't celebrate is to use our freedoms to be advocates for Jesus.

I don't always pray my way out of a podcast, but I'd like to today. I want to pray for you. I feel like it's important. Some of you listening have been blessed in crazy ways. And I'm going to ask that the Lord will show you what it looks like for you to give the gift to the Magi this Christmas. It may be time. It may be attention. Maybe resources. I don't know what it is. Some of you are in places where you've opposed the purposes of God. You've been more like the teachers of the law or Herod. And it's time for a change of heart and a change of mind.

Some of you have been almost overwhelmed because of the brokenness of your family. And you need the promise of Jesus with a borrowed dad to imagine a new future. I don't know what your circumstances are. but I know God is well able to bring his best into our lives. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, for the truth it brings to us and the hope it brings to our lives. I thank you that you're moving in the earth. Lord, I thank you for technology. Let's me sit down and have a cup of tea with my friends and process this Christmas season

and the goodness of God and the power of God that speaks to us across the centuries. And I pray now specifically, Lord, where there is healing needed, that you'll bring life and strength to our bodies. Lord, may the mysteries of the health care system open before us, and may there be help available where it's needed and interested people available where it's needed. Lord, where there is hurt and disappointment, I pray you'll bring healing, that you'll bind up our broken hearts.

Where there have been relationships that have fractured, Lord, I pray that you will bring affirmation and encouragement to our lives. I thank you for your faithfulness, that you are sufficient. that through the cross of Jesus, you have provided everything we need for life and godliness. And we receive by faith this Christmas season your gifts into our lives. And may we be a faithful expression of the joy of the Lord with the arenas that you have given to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for spending a few minutes with me.

God bless you and a very merry Christmas. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.