Message from Eric Soderberg on December 28, 2025

Do you ever find yourself looking for love and coming up short? We often look for love in our search for meaning and happiness, but this quest often leaves us disappointed. Christmas tells a different story—that love didn’t fail us. Rather, love came down in Jesus to save us and transform us.

Through the eyes of faith and the help of the Spirit, Zechariah rejoices in the good news that salvation has arrived in the Messiah! This salvation, better than anything we could imagine, leads to freedom, forgiveness, and a life of whole-hearted worship. Are you ready to let Jesus lead you into the freedom and worship you were made for?

In Luke 1:1–25 we meet a couple waiting in the long silence of God, learning that hope is found not in what they see but in the God who hears their prayers. Zechariah and Elizabeth remind us that even in our own seasons of delay, God is quietly preparing something far better than we imagined—both for us and for the world.

As you look out on the world, what are you seeing and hearing and feeling? Those who have given their allegiance to Christ are a new creation, which has tremendous implications for how we look out on the world.

In Galatians 5, the apostle Paul instructs us to walk by the Spirit, in relationship with God, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, thereby serving one another in the family of God. In Galatians 6:1-10, he gives us three ways to serve one another, three ways of “doing good.” Does doing good make any difference?

Paul writes, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). When we walk by the Spirit, we walk with God, in relationship with him, and the Spirit motivates, empowers, and directs us. Then what happens? If we don’t walk by the Spirit, what happens?

If we have given our allegiance to Christ, we’re free—free to love God and others, that is. However, freedom to love doesn’t necessarily mean that we will love. Thankfully, we find what we need in Galatians 5:13-18.

If Christ has set us free, it helps to know what he has set us free for. In the United States, we prize freedom. Here, more than most other places in the world, you are free to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it. Is that what Christ has set us free for?

Think about the expectations, both cultural and personal, that you have tried to meet. Think about the expectations you’re trying to meet now. What do you think it would be like to be free of such expectations?