Well, once again, welcome to Grace. Thank you so much for making us a part of your Christmas plans. My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. If you are here with small children, I've got my eye on you guys already. If you are here with small children, don't worry. This is going to be very brief. It'll be like 10 minutes, tops, okay? And then we'll get back to the music to cover up all the noise they're making. So if they can just try really hard right now, they're going to make it. I promise. I knew probably in August or September what I wanted to talk about at the Christmas Eve service. There's a verse tucked into the end of the Christmas story that I've always loved. And I'd be willing to bet that the moms in the room who know their Bible, and I don't mean, if you don't know which verse I'm talking about and you're a mom and you feel like you know your Bible, I'm not impugning your Bible knowledge. I'm just saying that women tend to notice this verse, especially moms, way more than men. But it's a verse that I've always loved and it it's always fascinated me, and I've always wondered about it, and I've always wanted to preach out of it. And so I decided that I, but I haven't known what to preach, because it's a mysterious moment. But I decided I would put it on the docket for this Christmas Eve, and just hope that somewhere in the months in between, that something would dawn on me that was worth sharing with you. But before we get to that verse, I want to read you the preceding verses in the Christmas story. The famous Christmas story is found in Luke chapter 2. It's the one that we do Peanuts Christmas, your kids' Christmas pageants do this one. Luke chapter 2 is the famous Christmas story. And so I'm going to read you a good swath of that beginning in verse 11 all the way down through verse 20 so that at the very least we've told the Christmas story today. Luke chapter 2 verse 11. The angels have appeared in the sky, and we pick up the story there. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God is saying, and Joseph and the baby lying in the manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning the child and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart. Verse 20, and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told them. I've always loved verse 19. That Mary treasured up these things, pondering them in her heart. Because here's this probably teenage girl who's been told by an angel that she's going to carry and then bear the Messiah. And she's got her faithful husband, Joseph, with her, who's been told by an angel the same thing. And they've gone through this nine-month journey together, and it's just been their secret. And then she has baby Jesus. She has Jesus in that manger. And let's be very clear. In a few minutes, we're going to sing Silent Night. That night was not silent. That's a bold-faced lie. And the baby's crying. And Mary and Joseph share in this moment together. And then shortly after, angels appear in the heavens to shepherds that are keeping watch over their flock by night nearby in the hills surrounding Bethlehem. And at first it's one angel who just tells them what happened. And then once that angel tells them what happened, then all of a sudden the sky, I assume, is lit up with a multitude of angels that are praising a heavenly chorus over Jesus. And the shepherds go, let's go see this kid. This is a big deal. Let's go. So they leave their sheep. I don't know where they leave their sheep. It doesn't matter. They go to the manger. They clamber in, and they tell Mary and Joseph, you're not going to believe it. They told them all that they had heard, right? You're not going to believe it. We're in the field. Some angels appeared. They said, Jesus is here. He's the Messiah. This is amazing. And everyone's making this big fuss over Jesus. It's this big, huge deal. Except Mary doesn't join in. She doesn't say anything. It simply says she watches everyone and she listens to everyone and she treasures these things up in her heart. It's as if the moment for Mary was too rich to cheapen with words. It's too much of a moment. I don't want to weaken it with the words that I use. It's too special. I don't want to bother to try to articulate what I feel. And I've always wondered at that moment, what was it that Mary was treasuring in her heart? What was that moment between her and God? What must it have been like to be Mary then? And as I've always wondered that and put it on the schedule and was thinking about it more, I was listening to a book. Listening to a book by a, I think he's a priest named Richard Rohr. And he said in that book something that had never ever occurred to me. He said that Mary is the archetype of what it means to receive Jesus and give the gift of Jesus. What that means in our terms is that Mary is the apex example of what it means. She's the picture and the model for all time of what it means to receive Jesus and then to give him and share him with the world. She received Jesus as a gift from the Holy Spirit. It was from no other place. Mary received the gift of Jesus and then, through no small effort, shared the gift of Jesus with the world. To me, it's an amazing way to think about Mary that had never occurred to me before. And because of that, it also occurs to me that I wouldn't pretend to speak for all the joy that Mary had in that moment and everything that she was pondering up in her heart and that she was treasuring. I can't speak to all of it, but I'd be willing to bet that a portion of the joy that she was experiencing was from watching other people find joy in the gift that she offered them. This Jesus has brought me so much joy. Since having him, he's brought me so much joy. And now I get to share him with you, and I see him bringing you joy too. And I can't help but imagine that that moment that Mary found to be too rich to cheapen with words was entrenched in this sense of, I have received the Savior, and now I have shared him. And my joy is watching you find joy in him. And if that's true, and if that's what Mary was, isn't that what all Christians should be? Isn't that what Christianity is? The people who have received the gift of Christ and now spend the rest of our lives offering that gift to others, hoping that they find the same joy in him that we do? Isn't that the role of all Christians? Aren't all of us, if we are believers, to be like Mary? Now listen, I know that not everyone in this room is a believer. You came to be nice to your family and not put up a fuss and wear like the button-up shirt and all the stuff that you don't normally wear, and we're so glad that you're here. But if you're here and you're a Christian, then isn't our job to be who Mary was? To be a people who receive the gift of Jesus, offer that gift with joy, and then take great joy in what it is to see others experiencing the joy that they found in Jesus? And if that's what Christians are supposed to do, then isn't Christmas the perfect time to do that? Christmas every year when our whole culture slows down and focuses on a holy holiday, a Christian holiday, all our whole culture for what we know slows down, focuses on Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, the reason for the season every year. And every year isn't Christmas an opportunity for we Christians to share our Jesus with the needing world and watch them hopefully meet Jesus and experience the joy that we have found in him as well. I can't help but think of the band and the tech team that have worked so hard on all the songs today. The rehearsals and the time spent and the effort that they put in. What must it be like to stand up here during the energy of Drummer Boy, which was great. It was a great recommendation I made, by the way. What must it be like to be up here having put in in that work, to try to share with you their giftings that God has given to them, and then hear you sing to their God with joy. And now because of their work, now because they've done what they can to give you their Jesus, you are enjoying their Jesus and celebrating him too. What must that feel like? I'll never know, because they'll never invite me to sing up here on a Christmas Eve service. But this is what Christmas offers us the opportunity to do. So my hope and my prayer is that around your trees and around your tables and around your living rooms when you go from here and you do your things and you wake up tomorrow and you do more things. That those of you who are Christians, those of you who have received Jesus, will watch others find joy in him too. I hope that what happens around your tables and what happens around your rooms pushes people closer to Jesus and that they see him too. And if you're here this afternoon and you've not yet received Jesus, you don't know him, I've been praying for you. I've been praying that what we share in the service and that the joy that you see here would nudge you closer towards this Christ that has been offered to you too. I've been praying for you that the joy that you experience in your families around rooms and around tables would be a joy that's contagious for you and will encourage you to take one step closer to this Jesus that is offered you. So as I reflect on the Christmas story and on Mary and pondering up all these things, treasuring these things in her heart, I can't help but think that that's what we all Christians should do, is be conduits. People who, like Mary, receive the gift of Jesus and then give the gift of Jesus and then take joy in watching others find joy in our Jesus. So we hope that this service does that for you. I hope that your family celebrations do that for you. And I hope and pray because there is no greater joy than watching a child that you've raised come to know Jesus in a sincere way and they find joy in the faith that you share with them. Then praying for an adult child who may have wandered, who re-engages with Christ and accepts that gift anew and finds joy in their relationship with him. I hope that happens for you. I pray that happens for you. There's no greater joy than when you've shown your Jesus and offered your Jesus to people who don't yet know him and they make decisions to come to know him. That's the joy of Mary. That's what's being pondered up in Luke chapter 2 verse 19. And so I hope this service and your festivities encourage everyone to push, to find joy in Christ, and I hope that you get to experience some joy of people in your circles finding joy in Christ as well. I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing a couple more songs, and then we will let kids, you go probably open presents. I don't know, I don't want to speak for your parents, but hopefully you get a present. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for the gift of Jesus. We thank you for who he was and who he is. God, I pray that we could be more like your servant, Mary, who received the gift of Jesus and then offered him to those around her. God, I pray that you would show up in our family celebrations and our gatherings, that you would bring a unique joy there that's contagious to everyone around. Father, for those in the room that might not be close to you, that might even be far from you, I pray that something would happen in this Christmas season that would bring them just a step closer to the love that you offer and to the Jesus that you offer. Father, be with us as we continue to worship. Be with us as we go, as many of us go and potentially travel from here. Keep us safe. And bring us back here in January to continue to learn more about you and who you are and why you love us. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you for watching. ΒΆΒΆ Hi, I'm Leah, and I'm going to read Luke 2, 8-14. It is for Christ the Lord. Here is how you will know I am telling the truth. You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a large group of angels from heaven also appeared. They were praising God. They said, May glory be given to God the pastor here. Dalton, this is the last time we let you lead worship on Christmas Eve. You're going to leave the music stand up there like that, pal. I'll tell right back. everybody. I'm glad that you're here. Merry Christmas to you. This is really, really fun. Christmas Eve service is my favorite service of the year. Every year, I love the energy. I love the singing. If you have children in the room today, do not worry. My sermon is intentionally short and simple. I would call it a message, okay? So it's going to be quick, and that's by design, because I think Christmas Eve, the singing together and all the things that go along with it should really steal the show in the service that we have together. And I'm thrilled that we get to be in person this year. Since last year, we had to do it over video. I was in Atlanta when we had our Christmas Eve service, watching it on the computer. So this is way better, and I'm very glad that everyone is here. As we've been going through December, working towards this Christmas Eve service, we've been doing a series called Renewed Wonder. And in each of the sermons in the series, we've been looking at the Christmas story through the lens, through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. So we've looked at it through the eyes of the shepherds and through the eyes of Mary, and we've looked at it through the eyes of the angels and through Herod and through the wise men. And so today for the Christmas Eve message, I wanted us to take a minute to look week, I was reminded of a story, a poignant memory in my life. I was 21, 22 years old. This was in 2003. I think it was for my 21st birthday. My dad said, hey, for your birthday, I want to get you tickets to any sporting event you want to go to. What sporting event do you want to go to? And I'm like, this is fantastic. And at the time, my biggest interest was women's field hockey. And so we went, no, I'm just messing around. I said, I'd really love to go to a national championship football game. And he said, all right, we can make that happen. So we got tickets to go to the national championship football game. This particular year happened to be in Tempe, Arizona. It was the 2003 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. So we got to go. We took my best friend and his dad. They came along and we went to the Grand Canyon, made a whole weekend out of it. I think the Cheesecake Factory was involved, so you know it was fancy. And then we go to the game. And the game was the game between Miami and Ohio State that went into double overtime. And it's one of the best national championship games ever. And I got to be there. And there was some really, really cool moments during this game. And there was several moments, in fact, and I didn't have a dog in the fight. I don't like Miami. I don't like Ohio State. I don't care. I'm just there for fun. But there were several moments where each fan base thought their team had won the game and were national champions forever, right? And so that crowd goes nuts. And then they find out it was a pass interference, or it gets called back, or that was a fumble, or he actually landed out of bounds, or whatever it was. And then they kind of get deflated. And then a few minutes later, Ohio State thinks they win. And then they find out, no, you didn't. They broke the rules there too. And so it just kept going back and forth into double overtime. And I'm sitting there and I wish I could remember. I tried for the life of me to remember, but I can't remember the specific moment. I can't remember what happened. But something incredible happened, unbelievable. And the whole stadium's going nuts. And I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe I get to be here to see this. This is so cool. And I turn around to kind of share this moment with my dad. My dad had to sit behind us. I don't like to sit on the same row as him. So he had to sit behind us. And I turned around to kind of share this moment with my dad. And you would have thought that there was no one else in the stadium but me, because he was staring right at me, grinning from ear to ear. And it was like in that moment that there was no one else in the stadium. And it dawned on me in real time, his joy is in watching me enjoy his gift. I'm thrilled that all of this is happening and he's thrilled that he's the reason that I'm there while it's happening. And to turn around and see my dad grinning from ear to ear, finding his greatest joy in my enjoyment of his gift, to me is a good picture of how God the Father must have felt when he gave us his good and perfect gift. The book of James tells us that God the Father gives good and perfect gifts from above. And then Matthew tells us that if our earthly fathers know how to give us good gifts, how much better does our heavenly Father know how to give good gifts? And Jesus, we are told, is the good and perfect gift. We hear it over and over in this season that Jesus is the greatest gift of all. And so what must it have been like to be God the Father watching Simeon in the temple experience the joy of meeting the Messiah and seeing Mary and Joseph experience the joy of having the Messiah and bringing life to him and seeing the shepherds respond to the angels and going over to the manger and this progressive revelation of who this Jesus is and what he came to do and watching his creation, who he loves so much, enjoy the gift that he gave to them so perfectly. What must his joy have been like? Well, it had to be something like what I turned around and saw on my dad's face at that football game. And I think it's important to note at Christmas that if we want to see it through the eyes of God, that his greatest joy is in our enjoyment of his gift. God's greatest joy is at our delight in the good things that he places in our life. It's in, pointedly, it's in our delight in his son, Jesus. So as we sing, God delights in these songs. As we praise, I'm going to stop talking in a minute. We're going to do Oh Holy Night. It's my favorite song ever. I love it and I can't wait to sing it. And then we're going to do Silent Night. We're going to do the candles. And if that moves us to joy, if we feel any tinge of delight there at God the Father and his gifts in our life, then he is taking enjoyment in that as well. He is delighting in us as we delight in him. His greatest joy is to watch you enjoy the gifts that he's given you. And as I was thinking about this, I was also thinking about this idea that Jesus is the greatest gift ever. And I started wondering, well, why is that the case? If someone were to ask me, why is Jesus the greatest gift, how would I explain it? And I think that I would explain it like this, that Jesus is the greatest gift because he gives us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. He provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. 2,000 years before any of us existed, he died on the cross for our sins before any of us ever knew that our sins would require a death. He does things for us without us even knowing his goodness, without us even having a full revelation of what he's actually doing in our lives. And to know Jesus and to accept the gift of Jesus is to see him get better and better and to have this kind of progressive revelation at how good Jesus actually is and how perfect of a gift he actually was. I think it kind of works like this check that I received a couple Christmases back. A few Christmases ago, it was in December and I think there was a men's Bible study or something. And then afterwards, one of the guys handed me a card, an envelope with a card inside of it, which is typical for people to do for their pastor. If you're here and you haven't done that for your pastor. But that happens from time to time, right? And so he hands me a card. I'm like, okay, great, thanks. And I go back to my office. And then at some point that morning, I open it up and there's a nice message. Merry Christmas to you and your family and blah, blah, blah. And all the stuff that you say. And then there's a check. And I'm like, this is great. They didn't have to write us a check. That's too, too kind. So I open it up. And there's a two and some zeros. And I'm like, they gave us a check for $200? That's too much. I mean, I'm going to accept it, but that's too much. And then I look and I'm like, oh, yo, there's more zeros here. Oh, oh, this is a check for $20,000 to the church. That's the part of the story I don't like. I wish it was for me. But I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a check for 20 grand. This isn't $200. The longer I looked at it, the better it got. That's how Jesus is. The longer we look at him, the longer we experience him, the more we learn about him, the more layers we peel off, the better he gets. Because he provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that's what he's doing. Here's how that works. If I could talk to you, we could just sit down and I could say, hey, what do you want out of life? We would all have different answers and say different things and have different ways of phrasing the same small group of ideas, right? If I could sit with someone who's just starting out their career and say, hey, what do you want in life? You would probably tell me there's other, you want family, you want wealth, you want whatever, but you would probably at some point or another land at success. I'd like to be successful. And if you really think about that, why do you want to be successful? Well, if you get to the heart of the matter, you probably want to be successful. I know that this is true for me because I want to prove myself. Because you want to accomplish and you want to perform and you want to be validated and you want to move up and you want to get to the end of your career and the end of your life and look back and be proud of who you are and what you did. You want your career and the people around you to say, you're enough, you're good, you did it. When we chase success, when we prioritize success, if we're being really honest with ourself, a root of that is we just, we want people to tell us we're good enough. And do you know that Jesus tells you over and over again in scripture and in worship and in circumstances that you're enough, that he loves you. And he says, hey, you don't have to perform for me. You don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to close a sale for me. You don't have to be excellent for me. You don't have to overcome for me. You don't have to do anything at all. I love you. You're enough. You can quit trying so hard. And when we learn to rest easy in that, we have what we've wanted all along, which is this validation for the creator of the universe to tell us that we're enough. Maybe we want wealth. Maybe we just want a little bit more money. I don't know what your idea of wealth is. We have different ideas of it. I'm not saying that necessarily you want a level of wealth where you have a yacht off of Fiji. I mean, maybe you do. Maybe that's your goal, and that's great. But maybe you just want enough to do whatever it is you want to do. But if one of the things we want from life is wealth, you know what's really behind that desire is a desire for a sense of security and safety, and I'm going to be okay. There's no greater security than Jesus. There's no greater security than resting easy in the sovereignty of God and knowing that Jesus has paid the price for your sins and there is nothing that can happen to you that he does not ordain. There's no greater security than Christ. Maybe we want a good marriage. We want to be loved. I just want to have a good family. Do you know that the thing that makes a marriage the healthiest is in a marriage when you are fully seen and fully known? All your nooks and crannies, all the bad parts, all the good parts, you are fully seen and exposed to your partner and yet still fully loved. That's what good marriage is. Do you know who sees you fully? Everything about you more than any human can ever see? Christ. He knows you deeply and he loves you. That validating love is found in him. You could give me anything that you wanted out of life and I promise you I could walk you through and show you that's actually found in Jesus. You may not realize that yet, but that's actually found in Jesus. So the longer we gaze at Jesus, the more zeros show up on that check and the better we realize he is. That's what we want. What about the things that we need that we may not realize just yet? I believe that we were created, that there is a longing in our souls for eternity. We're told that God wrote eternity on our hearts. We know that this life, there is something that tells us as we go through life and we see all the things we see, that this life isn't all that there is. We know that intuitively in our souls and our guts. We know it. And we yearn for eternity. And Jesus secures us that eternity. In our guts we know that we were created. And in our souls we long for harmony with this creator God. It's a thing that's designed into each one of us to long for harmony with our creator God, and Jesus provides that harmony. Our souls, and we know this now, and the stress and the strife of 2020 and 2021, our souls long for rest. They need it. We need a place to lay down. Jesus won us that rest with his death. The more we gaze at Jesus, the better he gets. The more we understand about Jesus, the more joy we can take in the gift that we received. So as we look to see Christmas through the eyes of the Father, let us acknowledge that his joy is found in our enjoyment of his good and perfect gift. And his good and perfect gift is good and perfect because it provides for us, Jesus provides for us, everything we could ever possibly want or need even before we know we want or need it. So my invitation to you at Christmas and my prayer for you is to simply accept this gift that God offers. If you've never accepted this gift, if you've never accepted Jesus, I pray that this is the season that you'll do that. If you have accepted Christ, I pray that in this season you will have a progressive revelation and just keep seeing more and more zeros and understand more and more about who Jesus is and what he does and how he provides for you all the things that you want or need, even before you know you want or need them. And in that way, let's take joy in the gift that the Father has given us this Christmas. I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing O Holy Night together. Father, thanks so much for who you are, for how you love us, for how good you are to us. Thank you for your good and perfect gift. Thank you for Jesus. God, if there are people here who don't know you, I pray that they would want to. God, if there are people here who have maybe held you at arm's length for whatever reason, I pray that you would help us see that you really are what we've been clawing for this whole time. God, let us receive you into our lives more and more. Let us gaze at your son more and more. Let us be overwhelmed by the layers of goodness that are revealed in his presence. And this Christmas, God, let us find joy in your good gifts so that you might delight in us. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Thank you for watching. ΒΆΒΆ Hi, I'm Leah, and I'm going to read Luke 2, 8-14. It is for Christ the Lord. Here is how you will know I am telling the truth. You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a large group of angels from heaven also appeared. They were praising God. They said, May glory be given to God the pastor here. Dalton, this is the last time we let you lead worship on Christmas Eve. You're going to leave the music stand up there like that, pal. I'll tell right back. everybody. I'm glad that you're here. Merry Christmas to you. This is really, really fun. Christmas Eve service is my favorite service of the year. Every year, I love the energy. I love the singing. If you have children in the room today, do not worry. My sermon is intentionally short and simple. I would call it a message, okay? So it's going to be quick, and that's by design, because I think Christmas Eve, the singing together and all the things that go along with it should really steal the show in the service that we have together. And I'm thrilled that we get to be in person this year. Since last year, we had to do it over video. I was in Atlanta when we had our Christmas Eve service, watching it on the computer. So this is way better, and I'm very glad that everyone is here. As we've been going through December, working towards this Christmas Eve service, we've been doing a series called Renewed Wonder. And in each of the sermons in the series, we've been looking at the Christmas story through the lens, through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. So we've looked at it through the eyes of the shepherds and through the eyes of Mary, and we've looked at it through the eyes of the angels and through Herod and through the wise men. And so today for the Christmas Eve message, I wanted us to take a minute to look week, I was reminded of a story, a poignant memory in my life. I was 21, 22 years old. This was in 2003. I think it was for my 21st birthday. My dad said, hey, for your birthday, I want to get you tickets to any sporting event you want to go to. What sporting event do you want to go to? And I'm like, this is fantastic. And at the time, my biggest interest was women's field hockey. And so we went, no, I'm just messing around. I said, I'd really love to go to a national championship football game. And he said, all right, we can make that happen. So we got tickets to go to the national championship football game. This particular year happened to be in Tempe, Arizona. It was the 2003 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. So we got to go. We took my best friend and his dad. They came along and we went to the Grand Canyon, made a whole weekend out of it. I think the Cheesecake Factory was involved, so you know it was fancy. And then we go to the game. And the game was the game between Miami and Ohio State that went into double overtime. And it's one of the best national championship games ever. And I got to be there. And there was some really, really cool moments during this game. And there was several moments, in fact, and I didn't have a dog in the fight. I don't like Miami. I don't like Ohio State. I don't care. I'm just there for fun. But there were several moments where each fan base thought their team had won the game and were national champions forever, right? And so that crowd goes nuts. And then they find out it was a pass interference, or it gets called back, or that was a fumble, or he actually landed out of bounds, or whatever it was. And then they kind of get deflated. And then a few minutes later, Ohio State thinks they win. And then they find out, no, you didn't. They broke the rules there too. And so it just kept going back and forth into double overtime. And I'm sitting there and I wish I could remember. I tried for the life of me to remember, but I can't remember the specific moment. I can't remember what happened. But something incredible happened, unbelievable. And the whole stadium's going nuts. And I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe I get to be here to see this. This is so cool. And I turn around to kind of share this moment with my dad. My dad had to sit behind us. I don't like to sit on the same row as him. So he had to sit behind us. And I turned around to kind of share this moment with my dad. And you would have thought that there was no one else in the stadium but me, because he was staring right at me, grinning from ear to ear. And it was like in that moment that there was no one else in the stadium. And it dawned on me in real time, his joy is in watching me enjoy his gift. I'm thrilled that all of this is happening and he's thrilled that he's the reason that I'm there while it's happening. And to turn around and see my dad grinning from ear to ear, finding his greatest joy in my enjoyment of his gift, to me is a good picture of how God the Father must have felt when he gave us his good and perfect gift. The book of James tells us that God the Father gives good and perfect gifts from above. And then Matthew tells us that if our earthly fathers know how to give us good gifts, how much better does our heavenly Father know how to give good gifts? And Jesus, we are told, is the good and perfect gift. We hear it over and over in this season that Jesus is the greatest gift of all. And so what must it have been like to be God the Father watching Simeon in the temple experience the joy of meeting the Messiah and seeing Mary and Joseph experience the joy of having the Messiah and bringing life to him and seeing the shepherds respond to the angels and going over to the manger and this progressive revelation of who this Jesus is and what he came to do and watching his creation, who he loves so much, enjoy the gift that he gave to them so perfectly. What must his joy have been like? Well, it had to be something like what I turned around and saw on my dad's face at that football game. And I think it's important to note at Christmas that if we want to see it through the eyes of God, that his greatest joy is in our enjoyment of his gift. God's greatest joy is at our delight in the good things that he places in our life. It's in, pointedly, it's in our delight in his son, Jesus. So as we sing, God delights in these songs. As we praise, I'm going to stop talking in a minute. We're going to do Oh Holy Night. It's my favorite song ever. I love it and I can't wait to sing it. And then we're going to do Silent Night. We're going to do the candles. And if that moves us to joy, if we feel any tinge of delight there at God the Father and his gifts in our life, then he is taking enjoyment in that as well. He is delighting in us as we delight in him. His greatest joy is to watch you enjoy the gifts that he's given you. And as I was thinking about this, I was also thinking about this idea that Jesus is the greatest gift ever. And I started wondering, well, why is that the case? If someone were to ask me, why is Jesus the greatest gift, how would I explain it? And I think that I would explain it like this, that Jesus is the greatest gift because he gives us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. He provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. 2,000 years before any of us existed, he died on the cross for our sins before any of us ever knew that our sins would require a death. He does things for us without us even knowing his goodness, without us even having a full revelation of what he's actually doing in our lives. And to know Jesus and to accept the gift of Jesus is to see him get better and better and to have this kind of progressive revelation at how good Jesus actually is and how perfect of a gift he actually was. I think it kind of works like this check that I received a couple Christmases back. A few Christmases ago, it was in December and I think there was a men's Bible study or something. And then afterwards, one of the guys handed me a card, an envelope with a card inside of it, which is typical for people to do for their pastor. If you're here and you haven't done that for your pastor. But that happens from time to time, right? And so he hands me a card. I'm like, okay, great, thanks. And I go back to my office. And then at some point that morning, I open it up and there's a nice message. Merry Christmas to you and your family and blah, blah, blah. And all the stuff that you say. And then there's a check. And I'm like, this is great. They didn't have to write us a check. That's too, too kind. So I open it up. And there's a two and some zeros. And I'm like, they gave us a check for $200? That's too much. I mean, I'm going to accept it, but that's too much. And then I look and I'm like, oh, yo, there's more zeros here. Oh, oh, this is a check for $20,000 to the church. That's the part of the story I don't like. I wish it was for me. But I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a check for 20 grand. This isn't $200. The longer I looked at it, the better it got. That's how Jesus is. The longer we look at him, the longer we experience him, the more we learn about him, the more layers we peel off, the better he gets. Because he provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that's what he's doing. Here's how that works. If I could talk to you, we could just sit down and I could say, hey, what do you want out of life? We would all have different answers and say different things and have different ways of phrasing the same small group of ideas, right? If I could sit with someone who's just starting out their career and say, hey, what do you want in life? You would probably tell me there's other, you want family, you want wealth, you want whatever, but you would probably at some point or another land at success. I'd like to be successful. And if you really think about that, why do you want to be successful? Well, if you get to the heart of the matter, you probably want to be successful. I know that this is true for me because I want to prove myself. Because you want to accomplish and you want to perform and you want to be validated and you want to move up and you want to get to the end of your career and the end of your life and look back and be proud of who you are and what you did. You want your career and the people around you to say, you're enough, you're good, you did it. When we chase success, when we prioritize success, if we're being really honest with ourself, a root of that is we just, we want people to tell us we're good enough. And do you know that Jesus tells you over and over again in scripture and in worship and in circumstances that you're enough, that he loves you. And he says, hey, you don't have to perform for me. You don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to close a sale for me. You don't have to be excellent for me. You don't have to overcome for me. You don't have to do anything at all. I love you. You're enough. You can quit trying so hard. And when we learn to rest easy in that, we have what we've wanted all along, which is this validation for the creator of the universe to tell us that we're enough. Maybe we want wealth. Maybe we just want a little bit more money. I don't know what your idea of wealth is. We have different ideas of it. I'm not saying that necessarily you want a level of wealth where you have a yacht off of Fiji. I mean, maybe you do. Maybe that's your goal, and that's great. But maybe you just want enough to do whatever it is you want to do. But if one of the things we want from life is wealth, you know what's really behind that desire is a desire for a sense of security and safety, and I'm going to be okay. There's no greater security than Jesus. There's no greater security than resting easy in the sovereignty of God and knowing that Jesus has paid the price for your sins and there is nothing that can happen to you that he does not ordain. There's no greater security than Christ. Maybe we want a good marriage. We want to be loved. I just want to have a good family. Do you know that the thing that makes a marriage the healthiest is in a marriage when you are fully seen and fully known? All your nooks and crannies, all the bad parts, all the good parts, you are fully seen and exposed to your partner and yet still fully loved. That's what good marriage is. Do you know who sees you fully? Everything about you more than any human can ever see? Christ. He knows you deeply and he loves you. That validating love is found in him. You could give me anything that you wanted out of life and I promise you I could walk you through and show you that's actually found in Jesus. You may not realize that yet, but that's actually found in Jesus. So the longer we gaze at Jesus, the more zeros show up on that check and the better we realize he is. That's what we want. What about the things that we need that we may not realize just yet? I believe that we were created, that there is a longing in our souls for eternity. We're told that God wrote eternity on our hearts. We know that this life, there is something that tells us as we go through life and we see all the things we see, that this life isn't all that there is. We know that intuitively in our souls and our guts. We know it. And we yearn for eternity. And Jesus secures us that eternity. In our guts we know that we were created. And in our souls we long for harmony with this creator God. It's a thing that's designed into each one of us to long for harmony with our creator God, and Jesus provides that harmony. Our souls, and we know this now, and the stress and the strife of 2020 and 2021, our souls long for rest. They need it. We need a place to lay down. Jesus won us that rest with his death. The more we gaze at Jesus, the better he gets. The more we understand about Jesus, the more joy we can take in the gift that we received. So as we look to see Christmas through the eyes of the Father, let us acknowledge that his joy is found in our enjoyment of his good and perfect gift. And his good and perfect gift is good and perfect because it provides for us, Jesus provides for us, everything we could ever possibly want or need even before we know we want or need it. So my invitation to you at Christmas and my prayer for you is to simply accept this gift that God offers. If you've never accepted this gift, if you've never accepted Jesus, I pray that this is the season that you'll do that. If you have accepted Christ, I pray that in this season you will have a progressive revelation and just keep seeing more and more zeros and understand more and more about who Jesus is and what he does and how he provides for you all the things that you want or need, even before you know you want or need them. And in that way, let's take joy in the gift that the Father has given us this Christmas. I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing O Holy Night together. Father, thanks so much for who you are, for how you love us, for how good you are to us. Thank you for your good and perfect gift. Thank you for Jesus. God, if there are people here who don't know you, I pray that they would want to. God, if there are people here who have maybe held you at arm's length for whatever reason, I pray that you would help us see that you really are what we've been clawing for this whole time. God, let us receive you into our lives more and more. Let us gaze at your son more and more. Let us be overwhelmed by the layers of goodness that are revealed in his presence. And this Christmas, God, let us find joy in your good gifts so that you might delight in us. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Thank you for watching. ΒΆΒΆ Hi, I'm Leah, and I'm going to read Luke 2, 8-14. It is for Christ the Lord. Here is how you will know I am telling the truth. You will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. Suddenly, a large group of angels from heaven also appeared. They were praising God. They said, May glory be given to God the pastor here. Dalton, this is the last time we let you lead worship on Christmas Eve. You're going to leave the music stand up there like that, pal. I'll tell right back. everybody. I'm glad that you're here. Merry Christmas to you. This is really, really fun. Christmas Eve service is my favorite service of the year. Every year, I love the energy. I love the singing. If you have children in the room today, do not worry. My sermon is intentionally short and simple. I would call it a message, okay? So it's going to be quick, and that's by design, because I think Christmas Eve, the singing together and all the things that go along with it should really steal the show in the service that we have together. And I'm thrilled that we get to be in person this year. Since last year, we had to do it over video. I was in Atlanta when we had our Christmas Eve service, watching it on the computer. So this is way better, and I'm very glad that everyone is here. As we've been going through December, working towards this Christmas Eve service, we've been doing a series called Renewed Wonder. And in each of the sermons in the series, we've been looking at the Christmas story through the lens, through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. So we've looked at it through the eyes of the shepherds and through the eyes of Mary, and we've looked at it through the eyes of the angels and through Herod and through the wise men. And so today for the Christmas Eve message, I wanted us to take a minute to look week, I was reminded of a story, a poignant memory in my life. I was 21, 22 years old. This was in 2003. I think it was for my 21st birthday. My dad said, hey, for your birthday, I want to get you tickets to any sporting event you want to go to. What sporting event do you want to go to? And I'm like, this is fantastic. And at the time, my biggest interest was women's field hockey. And so we went, no, I'm just messing around. I said, I'd really love to go to a national championship football game. And he said, all right, we can make that happen. So we got tickets to go to the national championship football game. This particular year happened to be in Tempe, Arizona. It was the 2003 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. So we got to go. We took my best friend and his dad. They came along and we went to the Grand Canyon, made a whole weekend out of it. I think the Cheesecake Factory was involved, so you know it was fancy. And then we go to the game. And the game was the game between Miami and Ohio State that went into double overtime. And it's one of the best national championship games ever. And I got to be there. And there was some really, really cool moments during this game. And there was several moments, in fact, and I didn't have a dog in the fight. I don't like Miami. I don't like Ohio State. I don't care. I'm just there for fun. But there were several moments where each fan base thought their team had won the game and were national champions forever, right? And so that crowd goes nuts. And then they find out it was a pass interference, or it gets called back, or that was a fumble, or he actually landed out of bounds, or whatever it was. And then they kind of get deflated. And then a few minutes later, Ohio State thinks they win. And then they find out, no, you didn't. They broke the rules there too. And so it just kept going back and forth into double overtime. And I'm sitting there and I wish I could remember. I tried for the life of me to remember, but I can't remember the specific moment. I can't remember what happened. But something incredible happened, unbelievable. And the whole stadium's going nuts. And I'm thinking to myself, I can't believe I get to be here to see this. This is so cool. And I turn around to kind of share this moment with my dad. My dad had to sit behind us. I don't like to sit on the same row as him. So he had to sit behind us. And I turned around to kind of share this moment with my dad. And you would have thought that there was no one else in the stadium but me, because he was staring right at me, grinning from ear to ear. And it was like in that moment that there was no one else in the stadium. And it dawned on me in real time, his joy is in watching me enjoy his gift. I'm thrilled that all of this is happening and he's thrilled that he's the reason that I'm there while it's happening. And to turn around and see my dad grinning from ear to ear, finding his greatest joy in my enjoyment of his gift, to me is a good picture of how God the Father must have felt when he gave us his good and perfect gift. The book of James tells us that God the Father gives good and perfect gifts from above. And then Matthew tells us that if our earthly fathers know how to give us good gifts, how much better does our heavenly Father know how to give good gifts? And Jesus, we are told, is the good and perfect gift. We hear it over and over in this season that Jesus is the greatest gift of all. And so what must it have been like to be God the Father watching Simeon in the temple experience the joy of meeting the Messiah and seeing Mary and Joseph experience the joy of having the Messiah and bringing life to him and seeing the shepherds respond to the angels and going over to the manger and this progressive revelation of who this Jesus is and what he came to do and watching his creation, who he loves so much, enjoy the gift that he gave to them so perfectly. What must his joy have been like? Well, it had to be something like what I turned around and saw on my dad's face at that football game. And I think it's important to note at Christmas that if we want to see it through the eyes of God, that his greatest joy is in our enjoyment of his gift. God's greatest joy is at our delight in the good things that he places in our life. It's in, pointedly, it's in our delight in his son, Jesus. So as we sing, God delights in these songs. As we praise, I'm going to stop talking in a minute. We're going to do Oh Holy Night. It's my favorite song ever. I love it and I can't wait to sing it. And then we're going to do Silent Night. We're going to do the candles. And if that moves us to joy, if we feel any tinge of delight there at God the Father and his gifts in our life, then he is taking enjoyment in that as well. He is delighting in us as we delight in him. His greatest joy is to watch you enjoy the gifts that he's given you. And as I was thinking about this, I was also thinking about this idea that Jesus is the greatest gift ever. And I started wondering, well, why is that the case? If someone were to ask me, why is Jesus the greatest gift, how would I explain it? And I think that I would explain it like this, that Jesus is the greatest gift because he gives us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. He provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that we want and need it. 2,000 years before any of us existed, he died on the cross for our sins before any of us ever knew that our sins would require a death. He does things for us without us even knowing his goodness, without us even having a full revelation of what he's actually doing in our lives. And to know Jesus and to accept the gift of Jesus is to see him get better and better and to have this kind of progressive revelation at how good Jesus actually is and how perfect of a gift he actually was. I think it kind of works like this check that I received a couple Christmases back. A few Christmases ago, it was in December and I think there was a men's Bible study or something. And then afterwards, one of the guys handed me a card, an envelope with a card inside of it, which is typical for people to do for their pastor. If you're here and you haven't done that for your pastor. But that happens from time to time, right? And so he hands me a card. I'm like, okay, great, thanks. And I go back to my office. And then at some point that morning, I open it up and there's a nice message. Merry Christmas to you and your family and blah, blah, blah. And all the stuff that you say. And then there's a check. And I'm like, this is great. They didn't have to write us a check. That's too, too kind. So I open it up. And there's a two and some zeros. And I'm like, they gave us a check for $200? That's too much. I mean, I'm going to accept it, but that's too much. And then I look and I'm like, oh, yo, there's more zeros here. Oh, oh, this is a check for $20,000 to the church. That's the part of the story I don't like. I wish it was for me. But I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a check for 20 grand. This isn't $200. The longer I looked at it, the better it got. That's how Jesus is. The longer we look at him, the longer we experience him, the more we learn about him, the more layers we peel off, the better he gets. Because he provides for us everything that we want and need before we even realize that's what he's doing. Here's how that works. If I could talk to you, we could just sit down and I could say, hey, what do you want out of life? We would all have different answers and say different things and have different ways of phrasing the same small group of ideas, right? If I could sit with someone who's just starting out their career and say, hey, what do you want in life? You would probably tell me there's other, you want family, you want wealth, you want whatever, but you would probably at some point or another land at success. I'd like to be successful. And if you really think about that, why do you want to be successful? Well, if you get to the heart of the matter, you probably want to be successful. I know that this is true for me because I want to prove myself. Because you want to accomplish and you want to perform and you want to be validated and you want to move up and you want to get to the end of your career and the end of your life and look back and be proud of who you are and what you did. You want your career and the people around you to say, you're enough, you're good, you did it. When we chase success, when we prioritize success, if we're being really honest with ourself, a root of that is we just, we want people to tell us we're good enough. And do you know that Jesus tells you over and over again in scripture and in worship and in circumstances that you're enough, that he loves you. And he says, hey, you don't have to perform for me. You don't have to do anything for me. You don't have to close a sale for me. You don't have to be excellent for me. You don't have to overcome for me. You don't have to do anything at all. I love you. You're enough. You can quit trying so hard. And when we learn to rest easy in that, we have what we've wanted all along, which is this validation for the creator of the universe to tell us that we're enough. Maybe we want wealth. Maybe we just want a little bit more money. I don't know what your idea of wealth is. We have different ideas of it. I'm not saying that necessarily you want a level of wealth where you have a yacht off of Fiji. I mean, maybe you do. Maybe that's your goal, and that's great. But maybe you just want enough to do whatever it is you want to do. But if one of the things we want from life is wealth, you know what's really behind that desire is a desire for a sense of security and safety, and I'm going to be okay. There's no greater security than Jesus. There's no greater security than resting easy in the sovereignty of God and knowing that Jesus has paid the price for your sins and there is nothing that can happen to you that he does not ordain. There's no greater security than Christ. Maybe we want a good marriage. We want to be loved. I just want to have a good family. Do you know that the thing that makes a marriage the healthiest is in a marriage when you are fully seen and fully known? All your nooks and crannies, all the bad parts, all the good parts, you are fully seen and exposed to your partner and yet still fully loved. That's what good marriage is. Do you know who sees you fully? Everything about you more than any human can ever see? Christ. He knows you deeply and he loves you. That validating love is found in him. You could give me anything that you wanted out of life and I promise you I could walk you through and show you that's actually found in Jesus. You may not realize that yet, but that's actually found in Jesus. So the longer we gaze at Jesus, the more zeros show up on that check and the better we realize he is. That's what we want. What about the things that we need that we may not realize just yet? I believe that we were created, that there is a longing in our souls for eternity. We're told that God wrote eternity on our hearts. We know that this life, there is something that tells us as we go through life and we see all the things we see, that this life isn't all that there is. We know that intuitively in our souls and our guts. We know it. And we yearn for eternity. And Jesus secures us that eternity. In our guts we know that we were created. And in our souls we long for harmony with this creator God. It's a thing that's designed into each one of us to long for harmony with our creator God, and Jesus provides that harmony. Our souls, and we know this now, and the stress and the strife of 2020 and 2021, our souls long for rest. They need it. We need a place to lay down. Jesus won us that rest with his death. The more we gaze at Jesus, the better he gets. The more we understand about Jesus, the more joy we can take in the gift that we received. So as we look to see Christmas through the eyes of the Father, let us acknowledge that his joy is found in our enjoyment of his good and perfect gift. And his good and perfect gift is good and perfect because it provides for us, Jesus provides for us, everything we could ever possibly want or need even before we know we want or need it. So my invitation to you at Christmas and my prayer for you is to simply accept this gift that God offers. If you've never accepted this gift, if you've never accepted Jesus, I pray that this is the season that you'll do that. If you have accepted Christ, I pray that in this season you will have a progressive revelation and just keep seeing more and more zeros and understand more and more about who Jesus is and what he does and how he provides for you all the things that you want or need, even before you know you want or need them. And in that way, let's take joy in the gift that the Father has given us this Christmas. I'm going to pray, and we're going to sing O Holy Night together. Father, thanks so much for who you are, for how you love us, for how good you are to us. Thank you for your good and perfect gift. Thank you for Jesus. God, if there are people here who don't know you, I pray that they would want to. God, if there are people here who have maybe held you at arm's length for whatever reason, I pray that you would help us see that you really are what we've been clawing for this whole time. God, let us receive you into our lives more and more. Let us gaze at your son more and more. Let us be overwhelmed by the layers of goodness that are revealed in his presence. And this Christmas, God, let us find joy in your good gifts so that you might delight in us. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Thank you. Good morning, Grace. My name is Kay, and I've been a partner with Grace. Our reading today is Matthew 2, verses 1 through 6. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who was born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose. Verse 1. the chief priests and scribes of the people. He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. you're like, what in the world is going on? Why are all these people in their pajamas? Do they do this every week? Yeah, we do. We like it. We're the pajama church. And this is just how we do church every week. But for real, I had a change of clothes next door to put on so I could look like my normal classy self when I got up here to preach. But as I was thinking about it this morning, I thought, how many pastors do I know who get to claim and say that they preached a whole sermon in their pajamas and their slippies? So none that I know of. So I wanted to, when I'm 70, I want to be able to say that I did it. So off we go together as we do our Christmas series called Renewed Wonder, where in the series we are making an effort to see Christmas through the eyes of children again. That's why we're having a big fun festive Sunday today, and we've had a theme kind of every week. And then within the sermons, we have been looking at the story of Christmas through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. In the first week, we looked at Christmas through the eyes of the shepherds, and then last week, we saw Christmas through the eyes of Mary. This week, I want to look at Christmas through the eyes of Herod and the eyes of the wise men and see what we can learn from those perspectives. Now, the background that Kay just gave us with the reading, which best reading so far, Kay, very well done, thank you. The background that she gave us with that was the wise men are out east. We don't know where from. It could be, a lot of guesses are modern day, Iran, Iraq, but it could be as far over as like Kazakhstan or Mongolia or China or wherever. But they were from the east. They had been traveling for as many as two years following the star over Bethlehem, right? And it's worth pointing out, this is just an aside, but when we go through scripture and we study God's word, we see that God's focus often is on Israel. And if we're not paying attention, it can seem as if that's his only focus, that God's only speaking to Israel and he's only speaking to Hebrew people throughout the story of the Bible until Jesus comes on the scene and then they go out into all the world. But the reality is that the Magi, the wise men who were from out east, who had no association whatsoever with Israel or Jewish customs, that somehow God spoke to them. Somehow they acknowledged that voice as the voice of God. And somehow they were able to walk in obedience to God and come and adequately celebrate the Savior as an infant or perhaps as a toddler. Somehow God was able to communicate with them, which I think is missed. We're just like, oh yeah, the wise men knew. But it's important for us to understand that God's redemptive focus and God's focus on people is always bigger than just Israel, than just his church. It's always focused on the whole world. And it's worth pointing out when people ask that question, what about someone who grows up in a cultural context where they never, ever, ever hear about Jesus or have any exposure to Christian religion at all, what happens to them in eternity? Well, I know that God is a good and just and fair God, and I know that it would be wise to look at the story of the magi, of the wise men, and trust that if God can communicate then and they can respond then, then that kind of communication and that kind of response can still happen today and has happened throughout all of time. That's an aside, but I think it's an important thing to acknowledge about the wise men. We often think that there were three wise men. There were not necessarily three. That's just cultural or traditional because there was three gifts, but there could have been two, there could have been 20, and they probably had a large caravan that was with them. And they most likely, I know this is gonna crush some of your souls, were not at the nativity scene. Most of your nativity scenes are probably wrong. Now they could have been, they could have started two years in advance and gotten there right then, or it could have been two years later, but they journeyed for a long time to come see Jesus. When they get there, they're looking for Jesus. They're following the star of Bethlehem. They're following that, and they're kind of coming across Asia there, and they get into Israel, and they start looking for Jesus. And, you know, the star is just in the sky. So now there's a lot of houses here, and where exactly is he? They don't know. But as they're going, they think, we're going to go see Herod. We're going to go see Herod the king, and he's going to tell us where this Jesus person is. Surely, if anybody knows, it'll be Herod, and it'll be his court. So let's go figure this out. So they go to Herod, and they're like, hey, the Messiah was born. This is a loose translation of the Gospels. Hey, the Messiah was born. He's here. He's going to be king of kings and Lord of lords. His name is going to be Jesus. Where is he? Surely you know. And Herod is like, oh, shoot. This guy, this Jesus guy wants to be the king. So what do we do? So he talks with his advisors and he comes back out to the wise men and he's like, you know what? I feel the exact same way. I'm looking for him too. I would love to fall on my feet and worship this new baby Messiah, Jesus. That sounds great. I've actually been trying to do that for a while. So when you guys find him, if you could, if you could share your location and just tell us exactly where you are, the minute you see him, we're going to rush over there and we're going to worship him too. But he was being duplicitous. We see the angel communicate with Joseph, the father of Jesus, subsequent to this meeting. And in what the angel says, we see the true intention of Herod and his true response to Christ and the Christmas story. We find it in Luke chapter 2, verses 13 through 15. This is what the angel says to Joseph. So in this story, we see the true intention of Herod. He did not have any interest in worshiping Jesus. He had every interest in killing Jesus. And because of the news of the birth of this Messiah, Herod issued the most evil of edicts, that every two-year-old boy in the kingdom of Israel or Judea was to be put to death by the sword, and he sent his soldiers out to do that. I have a son who's seven months old, and I cannot imagine the evil involved in actually following through with Herod's orders. Now, in our case, our son is enormous. So if we told the soldiers he's three, they'd be like, yeah, that checks out. So we'd be good. But for the rest of the toddlers, it's devastating. This is his plan. This is what he wants to do. And so the angels warn Joseph and say, take Mary and take your son Jesus and get out of here. You got to get out of here, man. You got to go down to Egypt, which last week we learned, and I think it's helpful to pause on these kinds of things. Last week we saw that Jesus very likely lost his earthly father because Joseph disappears from the narrative. So it's very likely that Jesus, as an adolescent boy, knew what it was to lose a parent. And then at some point, Jesus gets a stepdad and has stepbrothers and sisters and lives in a blended home. And I think that's good for those of us who have that experience to know that Jesus had that experience too. And this week, what we see is that Jesus was also an immigrant seeking asylum for persecution from his home country. He lived as an immigrant for two years and was accepted in Egypt, and I think that that's important for us to at least acknowledge about our Savior. So they flee and they go down there because Herod is trying to kill baby Jesus. Now, why does he do this? Well, we see it in Herod's response. I would summarize Herod's response to the news of Christmas that Jesus is coming like this. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. That was his response. Oh no, Jesus is coming and he wants to take my things. It's said about this guy that he is gonna sit on the throne of David. I sit on the throne of David. It's said that he is gonna be the king of kings. I'm the king, I don't want another king. Really, what Herod is butting up against is the fact that if Jesus is going to be who he wants to be, then Herod can't be who he thinks he wants to be. You understand? If Jesus is going to do what he says he's going to do, then Herod cannot do what he thinks he wants to do. And so Herod's response to Jesus is, oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. He's going to make it so that I can't be the king. He's going to make it so I can't have those feasts with the pigs and the apples in their mouth. That's my favorite part of being the king. We all know that's part of the deal, right? Like I can't do that stuff anymore. I'm not going to be in charge anymore. I'm not going to have all the trappings of life. When Jesus shows up, I'm going to have to give up my life and give up who I want to be so that he can be who he needs to be. And I don't want to do that. So I'm going to keep Jesus from taking my stuff. And I think it's important for us during the Christmas season to acknowledge this perspective of Herod. Because I think so many of us have that perspective as well. Maybe not all the way, maybe in seasons, maybe just in categories, but I think that we've probably all responded to the news of Jesus or to the plans of Jesus, similarly to Herod. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's gonna to take my stuff. For Jesus to be in my life, who he wants to be, I can't be what I want to be. And so we respond to the news of Christ as Herod did. I've seen this firsthand, over and over again, not in my life, but in the life of others as I've ministered. I've seen this firsthand. I'm just kidding. I do it all the time too. But in teenagers, I used to be a student pastor and I would talk with kids who believed. You ask them, is Jesus the son of God? Yes. Did he die on the cross for your sins? Yes. Is he your ticket? Did he buy your ticket into heaven? Did he pay for that ticket with his life? Yes, he did. And he covers over my sin and I get it and I believe. All right, so let's, do you want to pray to receive Christ? Do you want to claim Christianity now? No, not yet. Why not, man? Well, I'm in high school. I'm still young. I've got some fun to be had. I've got some things I like to do. I'll get serious about Jesus later. Oh, okay. So like in college? That would be ridiculous. I've got to live life in college, right? I've got things that I want to do in college. I've got a person I want to be in college. So I'll take Jesus seriously when I graduate. And then you graduate. You ready to take Jesus seriously now? Is this the threshold in your life where you want to prioritize spiritual things? Well, I mean, I'm making a couple dollars. I'm in my 20s. I need to experience life a little bit. Not quite ready to settle down. Let me just kind of search these things out. And then maybe when I get married, settle down, have kids, then I'll embrace Christ. Then I'll embrace church. Then I'll embrace spiritual help. And so you do that and you put them off and you keep them at arm's reach because if I invite Jesus into my life now, I'm going to have to give up things that I don't want to give up. I'm going to have to stop doing stuff that I like to do. And I'm going to have to start doing stuff that I don't want to do. So let's just chill out. And down the road, when that looks a little easier, then I'll invite Jesus in to take my stuff and to reprioritize my life. But not yet, because I got a good thing going and I don't really want him to mess with it. So then you have kids and this is when we're going to be serious about our spiritual health. Except when you have kids, what you realize is that before that day, you thought you understood what tired was and now you understand what tired really is. So when Sunday morning rolls around, you don't really want to get everybody ready and come to church. You kind of just want to lay there. When small group comes around, do I really want to deal with childcare and all that stuff? No. And so then we don't prioritize like we said we would. And then we kick the can down the road a little bit further. And then it's like, well, when I retire, I've got a good thing going. I'm making a lot of money. I'm putting my money where I want it to be. I don't want Jesus to come into my life and rearrange my finances and annoy me with the tithing thing and say that I have to start giving money here and there. And I'm going to finish up these last five, 10 years of my career. I don't need Jesus coming into my life telling me to move to Zimbabwe and give everything away. I'm not gonna do that. So let's just retire and then, and then you retire and you wanna experience a little bit and then, and then, and then. And in big ways and in little ways, we respond to Christ like Herod. Oh no, he's coming. He wants to take my stuff. He wants to change who I am. For him to be who he needs to be, I have to let go of who I want to be, and I'm not ready to do that. Herod was not ready to do that yet, and so we keep him at arm's length. I saw someone this week write, and I don't know who, I'm very slowly going through multiple books and listening to different things, and stuff gets sent to me, so sorry to whichever smart Christian author said this that I cannot attribute it to, but I read this week that a lot of us like to invite Jesus into our life as Savior, but not as Lord. You can save me. I'm interested in heaven. That sounds great, but I've got a good thing going. So you can be my Savior, but you can't yet be my Lord, because for you to really come into my life and be who you want to be, I have to change everything about who I am or allow you to do that, and I'm not good with it. So Herod's response is to keep Jesus at arm's length because he's not yet ready to give up his stuff. And I think we can relate to this response, which makes the response of the wise men all the more poignant and all the more encouraging and maybe convicting because they're told somehow, and the Bible doesn't record it. It's lost in the fog of history. They're told somehow, hey guys, you should follow this star because when you get there, this promised Messiah is going to be there and you're going to have the chance to worship him in person. And so they do, and they pack up all their stuff. And based on the timeline, based on Herod's desire to kill all the children, all the males under the age of two, wherever they came from was as much as a two-year journey away from Israel. And again, we don't know how many there were, but we do know that those men and whatever women were with them, those people who came, they came at great cost to themselves. If it's two years to get there, maybe they figured out a better way to get back, but it's at least a year back, right? They're gone for three or four years before they can get back to their businesses, before they can get back to their communities, before they can get back to their people, their children and their grandchildren if they didn't come with them. They left at great cost when they heard about Jesus. They let go of everything and they took their stuff and they went to worship Jesus. That was their response. And at the end of this journey, they get there, they see the star and they know they're in the right spot. And this is their response when they finally see Jesus in Matthew chapter two, verses 10 and 11. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Their response when they heard that Jesus was coming was to say, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. I don't want it anymore. I don't need it. Oh, Jesus is coming. Let me radically reprioritize what I thought I was going to do for the next three years of my life. Let me take these things, this gold, this frankincense, and myrrh, the stuff that I have for special occasions, and let me take it to him. The stuff that I could likely leave to my children as an inheritance instead of that legacy, let me go lay it down at the foot of Jesus. Let me disrupt my whole life. Let me let go of who I thought I was going to be for this next period of time and let Jesus define what I'm going to be because I'm seeking him. I'm not a businessman or a magi or whatever I am. I'm a pilgrim going to see Jesus. Their response was, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. You can have it. I want you. And they fall on their feet. They fall on their knees and they worship him. And they praise him. And they give him gifts. And we don't really need to know the significance of gold, frankincense, and myrrh beyond the fact that they were very expensive. They offered their best to Christ. And to me, those two responses stand in stark opposition of one another. For Herod to hear that Jesus was there and immediately think about what he might have to give up. And for the wise men to hear that Jesus was coming and to immediately give up everything. So, I think it's important to point out that we should be like the wise men, not like Herod. That is the incredibly sophisticated point that I have been driving to in this sermon. That's why you guys pay me all the money you do, so that you can write down sentences like that on Sunday. And that really is the point. That as we consider those two responses, I think we would do well to identify and admit where we're like Herod. Maybe you're here and you're not yet a Christian. And it's because of that. It's because you're not yet sure you want Jesus to radically reorganize your priorities. You're not quite sure you want to start doing some things and stop doing other things. Or maybe you are a believer, but you've led him into your life as Savior, but in pockets as Lord. And we can all learn from the wise men that when Jesus shows up, we should just give him everything. But the more I thought about this and dug into these characters, I actually stumbled into a thought that I really liked and wanted to share with you. I'm nerdy about history. I like it. I listen to podcasts about history, like six-hour episodes about the Persian Empire. I'm all in, you know? I love this stuff. And so I was thinking about Herod from a geopolitical perspective of who he actually was on the world stage. And the answer is he wasn't a very big deal at all. Okay. And when he sat on the throne of Judea, it was a far flung province of the Roman empire. Herod wasn't really in charge there. Pilate was. Pilate was the Roman governor. He had been installed by the Roman emperor as the governor of this far-flung province, and it wasn't even a glamorous post. It would be the modern day equivalent to finding out that you got to be a diplomat for the United States of America and then learning that your assignment was Trinidad and Tobago. It's like, well, the weather's nice, but I don't think I'm a big player on the political scene. We're not making big world, we're not getting invited to the G8 summit over here. So you just take it for what it's worth. And then under Pilate sits Herod on the throne of Judea. And he has no real authority. He can't declare war. He can't do that. Pilate has to do that. He can't even kill anybody in his own territory. What a bummer as a king. You'd think the one thing you're allowed to do as a king is kill who you want. And Pilate's like, nope, you can't execute who you want. I have to approve that too. He's got a rubber stamp there. And then within his own culture, his voice isn't even the weightiest. Within his own Jewish culture, it's the Sanhedrin that carry far more weight than he do. Kind of the Jewish Senate, the Jewish ruling body compiled of religious leaders from different, what we would think of as denominations or parties. They carried far more weight in Israel than Herod did. And I'm convinced, I mean, think about it for real. Say you're in heaven, somehow or another in the pages that are lost, Herod has a change of heart and Herod accepts Christ as his savior and he's in heaven too. And you just run into this guy, you know, you're doing, you're golfing. You're doing whatever you do in heaven, which golf will be there. And you get paired up with him. You're like, okay, great. And you're like, well, what did you do in your past life? And he's like, well, I was the king. You're like, oh, that's cool. Where are you the king of? You're like, Judea. Oh, when they were independent before like the Babylonians and the Syrians and the Romans got in there. No, no, no. Rome was our daddy, essentially. You'd be like, oh, well, cool. I was an accountant, so let's just maybe focus on golf. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about Herod's little fiefdom. It doesn't matter. The reality is, Herod was a symbolic king who sat on an empty throne. Herod was a symbolic king sitting on an empty, meaningless throne. It didn't even matter. The life that he was trying to protect was dumb. Who cares? You're the king of Judea. You're not even a king. You're not even in control. Your own people don't even look to you. They look to the Sanhedrin. You are a symbolic figurehead king sitting on an empty throne, hollow of any import or authority at all. And I don't want to press this part too hard because I'm not here to denigrate anybody this morning. But is it possible that as we keep Jesus at arm's length, because I've got a good thing going here, Jesus, I don't want you to take my stuff. And for Jesus, for you to be who you want to be in my life, I can't be who I want to be. Is it possible that as we keep him at arm's length, that all we're really doing is being impotent, empty kings and queens sitting on meaningless thrones, just like Herod. What are we protecting that's so important? What plans do we have that are so good? What secret things do we enjoy that are so worth holding Jesus and all of his goodness at arm's length? If you could look at Herod through the lens of history and show him everything that Jesus actually did and what he actually came for, wouldn't you want to just hit him upside the head and go, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? I wonder if we'll get to eternity and feel that same way. If we could come to ourselves in December of 2021 and look at the ways at which we hold Jesus at arm's length and try to protect our kingdom. I wonder, and maybe we wouldn't, but I wonder, would you want to slap yourself upside the head and go, what are you doing? What are you holding on to that's so important? What are you not willing to give up that's so valuable? Like I said, I won't belabor it, but I wonder if we are kings and queens sitting on empty thrones, protecting nothing. And then I thought, well, what does Jesus want to take from Herod? What is he protecting? And the answer is nothing. He doesn't want his kingdom. Jesus didn't come to sit on the throne of Judea and that's it. Jesus came to be the king of kings and Lord of lords. He came to sit on the throne of the universe. He's not after Herod's kingdom. Small potatoes is a disservice to the term small potatoes. It doesn't matter to him at all. And so I thought, what did Jesus come for? Because he doesn't want your stuff either. That's not why he came. Jesus doesn't want your stuff. He wants you. He didn't come for your things. He didn't come for your 401k. He didn't come for your priorities. He came for you. He showed up at Christmas. He lived a perfect life. He died a perfect death. He defeated death. We get to celebrate that at Easter. And he did every bit of that for you. He came to get you. He didn't come to get your stuff. And if he wants to take your stuff, he's going to replace it with something so much better than what you lost. So as we think about Christmas, let us remember Jesus came. Yeah, he's here. And sometimes we want to hold him at arm's length like Herod did because we're afraid that he might rearrange our life in ways that make us uncomfortable. But let's be clear, he didn't come for your stuff. He came to get you. That's the whole reason that he's here is to come and get you and take you into heaven for all of eternity with his father. It's the whole reason that you were created. And the only reason that you're still here is to take as many people with you on the way as you go. And when we think about this, the reality of who Herod was and that he sat on an empty throne and the fact that Jesus really didn't come for his stuff, he came for him. He didn't come for your stuff, he came for you. And then we again compare that to the response of the wise men. To me, it becomes so much more pointed and poignant when we realize that surrendering our stuff symbolizes our submission to the Savior. Why did the wise men offer him gifts? Why is there a scriptural teaching to live our life as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, to pour ourselves out like a drink offering, to give him everything? Why did Jesus say to the rich man, you have to sell all your things and then you can follow me? Why do we have a Christian practice of tithing and giving and being generous people? Why do we do those things? Why is that kind of generosity and that kind of sacrifice laced throughout the teachings of scripture, both with Christ and with his followers. Why is that? It's not because Jesus needs all that stuff. It's because when we surrender our things, it symbolizes submission to the Savior. Yes, I accept you as Savior, but when I surrender everything in my life and say that it's yours, I now accept you as Lord. The response of the wise men wasn't to simply offer gifts. It wasn't to simply journey. It was to say, we are yours. We're here. We're surrendered and we're submitted. And as we, as a people, reflect on God's gift to us and the Jesus that shows up in our lives and often, as we talked about last week, simply happens to us, let us respond like the wise men. Let us surrender our life, who we want to be, our plans that we have, the priorities that we hold, the things that we want to do or not want to do. Let us surrender our stuff as a symbol of our submission to our Savior who has come to get us. This is my predominant thought as I go through this series. And it has been my prayer for you this week as I've prayed for the sermon and prayed for grace that we would be more like the wise men than we are here. That we would quit holding Jesus at arm's length and that we would choose instead to surrender our things as a knowing and willing symbol that we are submitted to Christ. Not just as our Savior, but as our Lord. Let's pray. Father, we love you and are grateful for you. Thank you for your son. God, I pray that we, I pray that we would trust that you've just got a better plan, God. Whatever it is that we want, whatever it is that we're holding on to, whatever it is that we're protecting, whatever it is we think we're going for, whatever it is we're reaching for that we think is going to make us happy or bring us joy or bring us fulfillment, whatever that is, if it's not you, would you simply give us the faith to trust that it's something better if we would simply reach for you instead? If we walked in this morning responding to you as Herod does and did, keeping you at arm's length because we're afraid of what you might ask of us, we're afraid of what you might change in us or about us. God, would you give us the faith of the wise men to say, here, take it all, I'm yours. And have the courage to let you reprioritize and rearrange who we are and what we're about. God, thank you for Christmas. Thank you for this place. Thank you for the chance to worship together. God, I pray that you would hear our praise as we continue to do that. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you. Good morning, Grace. My name is Kay, and I've been a partner with Grace. Our reading today is Matthew 2, verses 1 through 6. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who was born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose. Verse 1. the chief priests and scribes of the people. He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. you're like, what in the world is going on? Why are all these people in their pajamas? Do they do this every week? Yeah, we do. We like it. We're the pajama church. And this is just how we do church every week. But for real, I had a change of clothes next door to put on so I could look like my normal classy self when I got up here to preach. But as I was thinking about it this morning, I thought, how many pastors do I know who get to claim and say that they preached a whole sermon in their pajamas and their slippies? So none that I know of. So I wanted to, when I'm 70, I want to be able to say that I did it. So off we go together as we do our Christmas series called Renewed Wonder, where in the series we are making an effort to see Christmas through the eyes of children again. That's why we're having a big fun festive Sunday today, and we've had a theme kind of every week. And then within the sermons, we have been looking at the story of Christmas through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. In the first week, we looked at Christmas through the eyes of the shepherds, and then last week, we saw Christmas through the eyes of Mary. This week, I want to look at Christmas through the eyes of Herod and the eyes of the wise men and see what we can learn from those perspectives. Now, the background that Kay just gave us with the reading, which best reading so far, Kay, very well done, thank you. The background that she gave us with that was the wise men are out east. We don't know where from. It could be, a lot of guesses are modern day, Iran, Iraq, but it could be as far over as like Kazakhstan or Mongolia or China or wherever. But they were from the east. They had been traveling for as many as two years following the star over Bethlehem, right? And it's worth pointing out, this is just an aside, but when we go through scripture and we study God's word, we see that God's focus often is on Israel. And if we're not paying attention, it can seem as if that's his only focus, that God's only speaking to Israel and he's only speaking to Hebrew people throughout the story of the Bible until Jesus comes on the scene and then they go out into all the world. But the reality is that the Magi, the wise men who were from out east, who had no association whatsoever with Israel or Jewish customs, that somehow God spoke to them. Somehow they acknowledged that voice as the voice of God. And somehow they were able to walk in obedience to God and come and adequately celebrate the Savior as an infant or perhaps as a toddler. Somehow God was able to communicate with them, which I think is missed. We're just like, oh yeah, the wise men knew. But it's important for us to understand that God's redemptive focus and God's focus on people is always bigger than just Israel, than just his church. It's always focused on the whole world. And it's worth pointing out when people ask that question, what about someone who grows up in a cultural context where they never, ever, ever hear about Jesus or have any exposure to Christian religion at all, what happens to them in eternity? Well, I know that God is a good and just and fair God, and I know that it would be wise to look at the story of the magi, of the wise men, and trust that if God can communicate then and they can respond then, then that kind of communication and that kind of response can still happen today and has happened throughout all of time. That's an aside, but I think it's an important thing to acknowledge about the wise men. We often think that there were three wise men. There were not necessarily three. That's just cultural or traditional because there was three gifts, but there could have been two, there could have been 20, and they probably had a large caravan that was with them. And they most likely, I know this is gonna crush some of your souls, were not at the nativity scene. Most of your nativity scenes are probably wrong. Now they could have been, they could have started two years in advance and gotten there right then, or it could have been two years later, but they journeyed for a long time to come see Jesus. When they get there, they're looking for Jesus. They're following the star of Bethlehem. They're following that, and they're kind of coming across Asia there, and they get into Israel, and they start looking for Jesus. And, you know, the star is just in the sky. So now there's a lot of houses here, and where exactly is he? They don't know. But as they're going, they think, we're going to go see Herod. We're going to go see Herod the king, and he's going to tell us where this Jesus person is. Surely, if anybody knows, it'll be Herod, and it'll be his court. So let's go figure this out. So they go to Herod, and they're like, hey, the Messiah was born. This is a loose translation of the Gospels. Hey, the Messiah was born. He's here. He's going to be king of kings and Lord of lords. His name is going to be Jesus. Where is he? Surely you know. And Herod is like, oh, shoot. This guy, this Jesus guy wants to be the king. So what do we do? So he talks with his advisors and he comes back out to the wise men and he's like, you know what? I feel the exact same way. I'm looking for him too. I would love to fall on my feet and worship this new baby Messiah, Jesus. That sounds great. I've actually been trying to do that for a while. So when you guys find him, if you could, if you could share your location and just tell us exactly where you are, the minute you see him, we're going to rush over there and we're going to worship him too. But he was being duplicitous. We see the angel communicate with Joseph, the father of Jesus, subsequent to this meeting. And in what the angel says, we see the true intention of Herod and his true response to Christ and the Christmas story. We find it in Luke chapter 2, verses 13 through 15. This is what the angel says to Joseph. So in this story, we see the true intention of Herod. He did not have any interest in worshiping Jesus. He had every interest in killing Jesus. And because of the news of the birth of this Messiah, Herod issued the most evil of edicts, that every two-year-old boy in the kingdom of Israel or Judea was to be put to death by the sword, and he sent his soldiers out to do that. I have a son who's seven months old, and I cannot imagine the evil involved in actually following through with Herod's orders. Now, in our case, our son is enormous. So if we told the soldiers he's three, they'd be like, yeah, that checks out. So we'd be good. But for the rest of the toddlers, it's devastating. This is his plan. This is what he wants to do. And so the angels warn Joseph and say, take Mary and take your son Jesus and get out of here. You got to get out of here, man. You got to go down to Egypt, which last week we learned, and I think it's helpful to pause on these kinds of things. Last week we saw that Jesus very likely lost his earthly father because Joseph disappears from the narrative. So it's very likely that Jesus, as an adolescent boy, knew what it was to lose a parent. And then at some point, Jesus gets a stepdad and has stepbrothers and sisters and lives in a blended home. And I think that's good for those of us who have that experience to know that Jesus had that experience too. And this week, what we see is that Jesus was also an immigrant seeking asylum for persecution from his home country. He lived as an immigrant for two years and was accepted in Egypt, and I think that that's important for us to at least acknowledge about our Savior. So they flee and they go down there because Herod is trying to kill baby Jesus. Now, why does he do this? Well, we see it in Herod's response. I would summarize Herod's response to the news of Christmas that Jesus is coming like this. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. That was his response. Oh no, Jesus is coming and he wants to take my things. It's said about this guy that he is gonna sit on the throne of David. I sit on the throne of David. It's said that he is gonna be the king of kings. I'm the king, I don't want another king. Really, what Herod is butting up against is the fact that if Jesus is going to be who he wants to be, then Herod can't be who he thinks he wants to be. You understand? If Jesus is going to do what he says he's going to do, then Herod cannot do what he thinks he wants to do. And so Herod's response to Jesus is, oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. He's going to make it so that I can't be the king. He's going to make it so I can't have those feasts with the pigs and the apples in their mouth. That's my favorite part of being the king. We all know that's part of the deal, right? Like I can't do that stuff anymore. I'm not going to be in charge anymore. I'm not going to have all the trappings of life. When Jesus shows up, I'm going to have to give up my life and give up who I want to be so that he can be who he needs to be. And I don't want to do that. So I'm going to keep Jesus from taking my stuff. And I think it's important for us during the Christmas season to acknowledge this perspective of Herod. Because I think so many of us have that perspective as well. Maybe not all the way, maybe in seasons, maybe just in categories, but I think that we've probably all responded to the news of Jesus or to the plans of Jesus, similarly to Herod. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's gonna to take my stuff. For Jesus to be in my life, who he wants to be, I can't be what I want to be. And so we respond to the news of Christ as Herod did. I've seen this firsthand, over and over again, not in my life, but in the life of others as I've ministered. I've seen this firsthand. I'm just kidding. I do it all the time too. But in teenagers, I used to be a student pastor and I would talk with kids who believed. You ask them, is Jesus the son of God? Yes. Did he die on the cross for your sins? Yes. Is he your ticket? Did he buy your ticket into heaven? Did he pay for that ticket with his life? Yes, he did. And he covers over my sin and I get it and I believe. All right, so let's, do you want to pray to receive Christ? Do you want to claim Christianity now? No, not yet. Why not, man? Well, I'm in high school. I'm still young. I've got some fun to be had. I've got some things I like to do. I'll get serious about Jesus later. Oh, okay. So like in college? That would be ridiculous. I've got to live life in college, right? I've got things that I want to do in college. I've got a person I want to be in college. So I'll take Jesus seriously when I graduate. And then you graduate. You ready to take Jesus seriously now? Is this the threshold in your life where you want to prioritize spiritual things? Well, I mean, I'm making a couple dollars. I'm in my 20s. I need to experience life a little bit. Not quite ready to settle down. Let me just kind of search these things out. And then maybe when I get married, settle down, have kids, then I'll embrace Christ. Then I'll embrace church. Then I'll embrace spiritual help. And so you do that and you put them off and you keep them at arm's reach because if I invite Jesus into my life now, I'm going to have to give up things that I don't want to give up. I'm going to have to stop doing stuff that I like to do. And I'm going to have to start doing stuff that I don't want to do. So let's just chill out. And down the road, when that looks a little easier, then I'll invite Jesus in to take my stuff and to reprioritize my life. But not yet, because I got a good thing going and I don't really want him to mess with it. So then you have kids and this is when we're going to be serious about our spiritual health. Except when you have kids, what you realize is that before that day, you thought you understood what tired was and now you understand what tired really is. So when Sunday morning rolls around, you don't really want to get everybody ready and come to church. You kind of just want to lay there. When small group comes around, do I really want to deal with childcare and all that stuff? No. And so then we don't prioritize like we said we would. And then we kick the can down the road a little bit further. And then it's like, well, when I retire, I've got a good thing going. I'm making a lot of money. I'm putting my money where I want it to be. I don't want Jesus to come into my life and rearrange my finances and annoy me with the tithing thing and say that I have to start giving money here and there. And I'm going to finish up these last five, 10 years of my career. I don't need Jesus coming into my life telling me to move to Zimbabwe and give everything away. I'm not gonna do that. So let's just retire and then, and then you retire and you wanna experience a little bit and then, and then, and then. And in big ways and in little ways, we respond to Christ like Herod. Oh no, he's coming. He wants to take my stuff. He wants to change who I am. For him to be who he needs to be, I have to let go of who I want to be, and I'm not ready to do that. Herod was not ready to do that yet, and so we keep him at arm's length. I saw someone this week write, and I don't know who, I'm very slowly going through multiple books and listening to different things, and stuff gets sent to me, so sorry to whichever smart Christian author said this that I cannot attribute it to, but I read this week that a lot of us like to invite Jesus into our life as Savior, but not as Lord. You can save me. I'm interested in heaven. That sounds great, but I've got a good thing going. So you can be my Savior, but you can't yet be my Lord, because for you to really come into my life and be who you want to be, I have to change everything about who I am or allow you to do that, and I'm not good with it. So Herod's response is to keep Jesus at arm's length because he's not yet ready to give up his stuff. And I think we can relate to this response, which makes the response of the wise men all the more poignant and all the more encouraging and maybe convicting because they're told somehow, and the Bible doesn't record it. It's lost in the fog of history. They're told somehow, hey guys, you should follow this star because when you get there, this promised Messiah is going to be there and you're going to have the chance to worship him in person. And so they do, and they pack up all their stuff. And based on the timeline, based on Herod's desire to kill all the children, all the males under the age of two, wherever they came from was as much as a two-year journey away from Israel. And again, we don't know how many there were, but we do know that those men and whatever women were with them, those people who came, they came at great cost to themselves. If it's two years to get there, maybe they figured out a better way to get back, but it's at least a year back, right? They're gone for three or four years before they can get back to their businesses, before they can get back to their communities, before they can get back to their people, their children and their grandchildren if they didn't come with them. They left at great cost when they heard about Jesus. They let go of everything and they took their stuff and they went to worship Jesus. That was their response. And at the end of this journey, they get there, they see the star and they know they're in the right spot. And this is their response when they finally see Jesus in Matthew chapter two, verses 10 and 11. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Their response when they heard that Jesus was coming was to say, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. I don't want it anymore. I don't need it. Oh, Jesus is coming. Let me radically reprioritize what I thought I was going to do for the next three years of my life. Let me take these things, this gold, this frankincense, and myrrh, the stuff that I have for special occasions, and let me take it to him. The stuff that I could likely leave to my children as an inheritance instead of that legacy, let me go lay it down at the foot of Jesus. Let me disrupt my whole life. Let me let go of who I thought I was going to be for this next period of time and let Jesus define what I'm going to be because I'm seeking him. I'm not a businessman or a magi or whatever I am. I'm a pilgrim going to see Jesus. Their response was, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. You can have it. I want you. And they fall on their feet. They fall on their knees and they worship him. And they praise him. And they give him gifts. And we don't really need to know the significance of gold, frankincense, and myrrh beyond the fact that they were very expensive. They offered their best to Christ. And to me, those two responses stand in stark opposition of one another. For Herod to hear that Jesus was there and immediately think about what he might have to give up. And for the wise men to hear that Jesus was coming and to immediately give up everything. So, I think it's important to point out that we should be like the wise men, not like Herod. That is the incredibly sophisticated point that I have been driving to in this sermon. That's why you guys pay me all the money you do, so that you can write down sentences like that on Sunday. And that really is the point. That as we consider those two responses, I think we would do well to identify and admit where we're like Herod. Maybe you're here and you're not yet a Christian. And it's because of that. It's because you're not yet sure you want Jesus to radically reorganize your priorities. You're not quite sure you want to start doing some things and stop doing other things. Or maybe you are a believer, but you've led him into your life as Savior, but in pockets as Lord. And we can all learn from the wise men that when Jesus shows up, we should just give him everything. But the more I thought about this and dug into these characters, I actually stumbled into a thought that I really liked and wanted to share with you. I'm nerdy about history. I like it. I listen to podcasts about history, like six-hour episodes about the Persian Empire. I'm all in, you know? I love this stuff. And so I was thinking about Herod from a geopolitical perspective of who he actually was on the world stage. And the answer is he wasn't a very big deal at all. Okay. And when he sat on the throne of Judea, it was a far flung province of the Roman empire. Herod wasn't really in charge there. Pilate was. Pilate was the Roman governor. He had been installed by the Roman emperor as the governor of this far-flung province, and it wasn't even a glamorous post. It would be the modern day equivalent to finding out that you got to be a diplomat for the United States of America and then learning that your assignment was Trinidad and Tobago. It's like, well, the weather's nice, but I don't think I'm a big player on the political scene. We're not making big world, we're not getting invited to the G8 summit over here. So you just take it for what it's worth. And then under Pilate sits Herod on the throne of Judea. And he has no real authority. He can't declare war. He can't do that. Pilate has to do that. He can't even kill anybody in his own territory. What a bummer as a king. You'd think the one thing you're allowed to do as a king is kill who you want. And Pilate's like, nope, you can't execute who you want. I have to approve that too. He's got a rubber stamp there. And then within his own culture, his voice isn't even the weightiest. Within his own Jewish culture, it's the Sanhedrin that carry far more weight than he do. Kind of the Jewish Senate, the Jewish ruling body compiled of religious leaders from different, what we would think of as denominations or parties. They carried far more weight in Israel than Herod did. And I'm convinced, I mean, think about it for real. Say you're in heaven, somehow or another in the pages that are lost, Herod has a change of heart and Herod accepts Christ as his savior and he's in heaven too. And you just run into this guy, you know, you're doing, you're golfing. You're doing whatever you do in heaven, which golf will be there. And you get paired up with him. You're like, okay, great. And you're like, well, what did you do in your past life? And he's like, well, I was the king. You're like, oh, that's cool. Where are you the king of? You're like, Judea. Oh, when they were independent before like the Babylonians and the Syrians and the Romans got in there. No, no, no. Rome was our daddy, essentially. You'd be like, oh, well, cool. I was an accountant, so let's just maybe focus on golf. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about Herod's little fiefdom. It doesn't matter. The reality is, Herod was a symbolic king who sat on an empty throne. Herod was a symbolic king sitting on an empty, meaningless throne. It didn't even matter. The life that he was trying to protect was dumb. Who cares? You're the king of Judea. You're not even a king. You're not even in control. Your own people don't even look to you. They look to the Sanhedrin. You are a symbolic figurehead king sitting on an empty throne, hollow of any import or authority at all. And I don't want to press this part too hard because I'm not here to denigrate anybody this morning. But is it possible that as we keep Jesus at arm's length, because I've got a good thing going here, Jesus, I don't want you to take my stuff. And for Jesus, for you to be who you want to be in my life, I can't be who I want to be. Is it possible that as we keep him at arm's length, that all we're really doing is being impotent, empty kings and queens sitting on meaningless thrones, just like Herod. What are we protecting that's so important? What plans do we have that are so good? What secret things do we enjoy that are so worth holding Jesus and all of his goodness at arm's length? If you could look at Herod through the lens of history and show him everything that Jesus actually did and what he actually came for, wouldn't you want to just hit him upside the head and go, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? I wonder if we'll get to eternity and feel that same way. If we could come to ourselves in December of 2021 and look at the ways at which we hold Jesus at arm's length and try to protect our kingdom. I wonder, and maybe we wouldn't, but I wonder, would you want to slap yourself upside the head and go, what are you doing? What are you holding on to that's so important? What are you not willing to give up that's so valuable? Like I said, I won't belabor it, but I wonder if we are kings and queens sitting on empty thrones, protecting nothing. And then I thought, well, what does Jesus want to take from Herod? What is he protecting? And the answer is nothing. He doesn't want his kingdom. Jesus didn't come to sit on the throne of Judea and that's it. Jesus came to be the king of kings and Lord of lords. He came to sit on the throne of the universe. He's not after Herod's kingdom. Small potatoes is a disservice to the term small potatoes. It doesn't matter to him at all. And so I thought, what did Jesus come for? Because he doesn't want your stuff either. That's not why he came. Jesus doesn't want your stuff. He wants you. He didn't come for your things. He didn't come for your 401k. He didn't come for your priorities. He came for you. He showed up at Christmas. He lived a perfect life. He died a perfect death. He defeated death. We get to celebrate that at Easter. And he did every bit of that for you. He came to get you. He didn't come to get your stuff. And if he wants to take your stuff, he's going to replace it with something so much better than what you lost. So as we think about Christmas, let us remember Jesus came. Yeah, he's here. And sometimes we want to hold him at arm's length like Herod did because we're afraid that he might rearrange our life in ways that make us uncomfortable. But let's be clear, he didn't come for your stuff. He came to get you. That's the whole reason that he's here is to come and get you and take you into heaven for all of eternity with his father. It's the whole reason that you were created. And the only reason that you're still here is to take as many people with you on the way as you go. And when we think about this, the reality of who Herod was and that he sat on an empty throne and the fact that Jesus really didn't come for his stuff, he came for him. He didn't come for your stuff, he came for you. And then we again compare that to the response of the wise men. To me, it becomes so much more pointed and poignant when we realize that surrendering our stuff symbolizes our submission to the Savior. Why did the wise men offer him gifts? Why is there a scriptural teaching to live our life as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, to pour ourselves out like a drink offering, to give him everything? Why did Jesus say to the rich man, you have to sell all your things and then you can follow me? Why do we have a Christian practice of tithing and giving and being generous people? Why do we do those things? Why is that kind of generosity and that kind of sacrifice laced throughout the teachings of scripture, both with Christ and with his followers. Why is that? It's not because Jesus needs all that stuff. It's because when we surrender our things, it symbolizes submission to the Savior. Yes, I accept you as Savior, but when I surrender everything in my life and say that it's yours, I now accept you as Lord. The response of the wise men wasn't to simply offer gifts. It wasn't to simply journey. It was to say, we are yours. We're here. We're surrendered and we're submitted. And as we, as a people, reflect on God's gift to us and the Jesus that shows up in our lives and often, as we talked about last week, simply happens to us, let us respond like the wise men. Let us surrender our life, who we want to be, our plans that we have, the priorities that we hold, the things that we want to do or not want to do. Let us surrender our stuff as a symbol of our submission to our Savior who has come to get us. This is my predominant thought as I go through this series. And it has been my prayer for you this week as I've prayed for the sermon and prayed for grace that we would be more like the wise men than we are here. That we would quit holding Jesus at arm's length and that we would choose instead to surrender our things as a knowing and willing symbol that we are submitted to Christ. Not just as our Savior, but as our Lord. Let's pray. Father, we love you and are grateful for you. Thank you for your son. God, I pray that we, I pray that we would trust that you've just got a better plan, God. Whatever it is that we want, whatever it is that we're holding on to, whatever it is that we're protecting, whatever it is we think we're going for, whatever it is we're reaching for that we think is going to make us happy or bring us joy or bring us fulfillment, whatever that is, if it's not you, would you simply give us the faith to trust that it's something better if we would simply reach for you instead? If we walked in this morning responding to you as Herod does and did, keeping you at arm's length because we're afraid of what you might ask of us, we're afraid of what you might change in us or about us. God, would you give us the faith of the wise men to say, here, take it all, I'm yours. And have the courage to let you reprioritize and rearrange who we are and what we're about. God, thank you for Christmas. Thank you for this place. Thank you for the chance to worship together. God, I pray that you would hear our praise as we continue to do that. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you. Good morning, Grace. My name is Kay, and I've been a partner with Grace. Our reading today is Matthew 2, verses 1 through 6. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who was born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose. Verse 1. the chief priests and scribes of the people. He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. you're like, what in the world is going on? Why are all these people in their pajamas? Do they do this every week? Yeah, we do. We like it. We're the pajama church. And this is just how we do church every week. But for real, I had a change of clothes next door to put on so I could look like my normal classy self when I got up here to preach. But as I was thinking about it this morning, I thought, how many pastors do I know who get to claim and say that they preached a whole sermon in their pajamas and their slippies? So none that I know of. So I wanted to, when I'm 70, I want to be able to say that I did it. So off we go together as we do our Christmas series called Renewed Wonder, where in the series we are making an effort to see Christmas through the eyes of children again. That's why we're having a big fun festive Sunday today, and we've had a theme kind of every week. And then within the sermons, we have been looking at the story of Christmas through the eyes of different people involved in the Christmas story. In the first week, we looked at Christmas through the eyes of the shepherds, and then last week, we saw Christmas through the eyes of Mary. This week, I want to look at Christmas through the eyes of Herod and the eyes of the wise men and see what we can learn from those perspectives. Now, the background that Kay just gave us with the reading, which best reading so far, Kay, very well done, thank you. The background that she gave us with that was the wise men are out east. We don't know where from. It could be, a lot of guesses are modern day, Iran, Iraq, but it could be as far over as like Kazakhstan or Mongolia or China or wherever. But they were from the east. They had been traveling for as many as two years following the star over Bethlehem, right? And it's worth pointing out, this is just an aside, but when we go through scripture and we study God's word, we see that God's focus often is on Israel. And if we're not paying attention, it can seem as if that's his only focus, that God's only speaking to Israel and he's only speaking to Hebrew people throughout the story of the Bible until Jesus comes on the scene and then they go out into all the world. But the reality is that the Magi, the wise men who were from out east, who had no association whatsoever with Israel or Jewish customs, that somehow God spoke to them. Somehow they acknowledged that voice as the voice of God. And somehow they were able to walk in obedience to God and come and adequately celebrate the Savior as an infant or perhaps as a toddler. Somehow God was able to communicate with them, which I think is missed. We're just like, oh yeah, the wise men knew. But it's important for us to understand that God's redemptive focus and God's focus on people is always bigger than just Israel, than just his church. It's always focused on the whole world. And it's worth pointing out when people ask that question, what about someone who grows up in a cultural context where they never, ever, ever hear about Jesus or have any exposure to Christian religion at all, what happens to them in eternity? Well, I know that God is a good and just and fair God, and I know that it would be wise to look at the story of the magi, of the wise men, and trust that if God can communicate then and they can respond then, then that kind of communication and that kind of response can still happen today and has happened throughout all of time. That's an aside, but I think it's an important thing to acknowledge about the wise men. We often think that there were three wise men. There were not necessarily three. That's just cultural or traditional because there was three gifts, but there could have been two, there could have been 20, and they probably had a large caravan that was with them. And they most likely, I know this is gonna crush some of your souls, were not at the nativity scene. Most of your nativity scenes are probably wrong. Now they could have been, they could have started two years in advance and gotten there right then, or it could have been two years later, but they journeyed for a long time to come see Jesus. When they get there, they're looking for Jesus. They're following the star of Bethlehem. They're following that, and they're kind of coming across Asia there, and they get into Israel, and they start looking for Jesus. And, you know, the star is just in the sky. So now there's a lot of houses here, and where exactly is he? They don't know. But as they're going, they think, we're going to go see Herod. We're going to go see Herod the king, and he's going to tell us where this Jesus person is. Surely, if anybody knows, it'll be Herod, and it'll be his court. So let's go figure this out. So they go to Herod, and they're like, hey, the Messiah was born. This is a loose translation of the Gospels. Hey, the Messiah was born. He's here. He's going to be king of kings and Lord of lords. His name is going to be Jesus. Where is he? Surely you know. And Herod is like, oh, shoot. This guy, this Jesus guy wants to be the king. So what do we do? So he talks with his advisors and he comes back out to the wise men and he's like, you know what? I feel the exact same way. I'm looking for him too. I would love to fall on my feet and worship this new baby Messiah, Jesus. That sounds great. I've actually been trying to do that for a while. So when you guys find him, if you could, if you could share your location and just tell us exactly where you are, the minute you see him, we're going to rush over there and we're going to worship him too. But he was being duplicitous. We see the angel communicate with Joseph, the father of Jesus, subsequent to this meeting. And in what the angel says, we see the true intention of Herod and his true response to Christ and the Christmas story. We find it in Luke chapter 2, verses 13 through 15. This is what the angel says to Joseph. So in this story, we see the true intention of Herod. He did not have any interest in worshiping Jesus. He had every interest in killing Jesus. And because of the news of the birth of this Messiah, Herod issued the most evil of edicts, that every two-year-old boy in the kingdom of Israel or Judea was to be put to death by the sword, and he sent his soldiers out to do that. I have a son who's seven months old, and I cannot imagine the evil involved in actually following through with Herod's orders. Now, in our case, our son is enormous. So if we told the soldiers he's three, they'd be like, yeah, that checks out. So we'd be good. But for the rest of the toddlers, it's devastating. This is his plan. This is what he wants to do. And so the angels warn Joseph and say, take Mary and take your son Jesus and get out of here. You got to get out of here, man. You got to go down to Egypt, which last week we learned, and I think it's helpful to pause on these kinds of things. Last week we saw that Jesus very likely lost his earthly father because Joseph disappears from the narrative. So it's very likely that Jesus, as an adolescent boy, knew what it was to lose a parent. And then at some point, Jesus gets a stepdad and has stepbrothers and sisters and lives in a blended home. And I think that's good for those of us who have that experience to know that Jesus had that experience too. And this week, what we see is that Jesus was also an immigrant seeking asylum for persecution from his home country. He lived as an immigrant for two years and was accepted in Egypt, and I think that that's important for us to at least acknowledge about our Savior. So they flee and they go down there because Herod is trying to kill baby Jesus. Now, why does he do this? Well, we see it in Herod's response. I would summarize Herod's response to the news of Christmas that Jesus is coming like this. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. That was his response. Oh no, Jesus is coming and he wants to take my things. It's said about this guy that he is gonna sit on the throne of David. I sit on the throne of David. It's said that he is gonna be the king of kings. I'm the king, I don't want another king. Really, what Herod is butting up against is the fact that if Jesus is going to be who he wants to be, then Herod can't be who he thinks he wants to be. You understand? If Jesus is going to do what he says he's going to do, then Herod cannot do what he thinks he wants to do. And so Herod's response to Jesus is, oh no, Jesus is coming. He's going to take my stuff. He's going to make it so that I can't be the king. He's going to make it so I can't have those feasts with the pigs and the apples in their mouth. That's my favorite part of being the king. We all know that's part of the deal, right? Like I can't do that stuff anymore. I'm not going to be in charge anymore. I'm not going to have all the trappings of life. When Jesus shows up, I'm going to have to give up my life and give up who I want to be so that he can be who he needs to be. And I don't want to do that. So I'm going to keep Jesus from taking my stuff. And I think it's important for us during the Christmas season to acknowledge this perspective of Herod. Because I think so many of us have that perspective as well. Maybe not all the way, maybe in seasons, maybe just in categories, but I think that we've probably all responded to the news of Jesus or to the plans of Jesus, similarly to Herod. Oh no, Jesus is coming. He's gonna to take my stuff. For Jesus to be in my life, who he wants to be, I can't be what I want to be. And so we respond to the news of Christ as Herod did. I've seen this firsthand, over and over again, not in my life, but in the life of others as I've ministered. I've seen this firsthand. I'm just kidding. I do it all the time too. But in teenagers, I used to be a student pastor and I would talk with kids who believed. You ask them, is Jesus the son of God? Yes. Did he die on the cross for your sins? Yes. Is he your ticket? Did he buy your ticket into heaven? Did he pay for that ticket with his life? Yes, he did. And he covers over my sin and I get it and I believe. All right, so let's, do you want to pray to receive Christ? Do you want to claim Christianity now? No, not yet. Why not, man? Well, I'm in high school. I'm still young. I've got some fun to be had. I've got some things I like to do. I'll get serious about Jesus later. Oh, okay. So like in college? That would be ridiculous. I've got to live life in college, right? I've got things that I want to do in college. I've got a person I want to be in college. So I'll take Jesus seriously when I graduate. And then you graduate. You ready to take Jesus seriously now? Is this the threshold in your life where you want to prioritize spiritual things? Well, I mean, I'm making a couple dollars. I'm in my 20s. I need to experience life a little bit. Not quite ready to settle down. Let me just kind of search these things out. And then maybe when I get married, settle down, have kids, then I'll embrace Christ. Then I'll embrace church. Then I'll embrace spiritual help. And so you do that and you put them off and you keep them at arm's reach because if I invite Jesus into my life now, I'm going to have to give up things that I don't want to give up. I'm going to have to stop doing stuff that I like to do. And I'm going to have to start doing stuff that I don't want to do. So let's just chill out. And down the road, when that looks a little easier, then I'll invite Jesus in to take my stuff and to reprioritize my life. But not yet, because I got a good thing going and I don't really want him to mess with it. So then you have kids and this is when we're going to be serious about our spiritual health. Except when you have kids, what you realize is that before that day, you thought you understood what tired was and now you understand what tired really is. So when Sunday morning rolls around, you don't really want to get everybody ready and come to church. You kind of just want to lay there. When small group comes around, do I really want to deal with childcare and all that stuff? No. And so then we don't prioritize like we said we would. And then we kick the can down the road a little bit further. And then it's like, well, when I retire, I've got a good thing going. I'm making a lot of money. I'm putting my money where I want it to be. I don't want Jesus to come into my life and rearrange my finances and annoy me with the tithing thing and say that I have to start giving money here and there. And I'm going to finish up these last five, 10 years of my career. I don't need Jesus coming into my life telling me to move to Zimbabwe and give everything away. I'm not gonna do that. So let's just retire and then, and then you retire and you wanna experience a little bit and then, and then, and then. And in big ways and in little ways, we respond to Christ like Herod. Oh no, he's coming. He wants to take my stuff. He wants to change who I am. For him to be who he needs to be, I have to let go of who I want to be, and I'm not ready to do that. Herod was not ready to do that yet, and so we keep him at arm's length. I saw someone this week write, and I don't know who, I'm very slowly going through multiple books and listening to different things, and stuff gets sent to me, so sorry to whichever smart Christian author said this that I cannot attribute it to, but I read this week that a lot of us like to invite Jesus into our life as Savior, but not as Lord. You can save me. I'm interested in heaven. That sounds great, but I've got a good thing going. So you can be my Savior, but you can't yet be my Lord, because for you to really come into my life and be who you want to be, I have to change everything about who I am or allow you to do that, and I'm not good with it. So Herod's response is to keep Jesus at arm's length because he's not yet ready to give up his stuff. And I think we can relate to this response, which makes the response of the wise men all the more poignant and all the more encouraging and maybe convicting because they're told somehow, and the Bible doesn't record it. It's lost in the fog of history. They're told somehow, hey guys, you should follow this star because when you get there, this promised Messiah is going to be there and you're going to have the chance to worship him in person. And so they do, and they pack up all their stuff. And based on the timeline, based on Herod's desire to kill all the children, all the males under the age of two, wherever they came from was as much as a two-year journey away from Israel. And again, we don't know how many there were, but we do know that those men and whatever women were with them, those people who came, they came at great cost to themselves. If it's two years to get there, maybe they figured out a better way to get back, but it's at least a year back, right? They're gone for three or four years before they can get back to their businesses, before they can get back to their communities, before they can get back to their people, their children and their grandchildren if they didn't come with them. They left at great cost when they heard about Jesus. They let go of everything and they took their stuff and they went to worship Jesus. That was their response. And at the end of this journey, they get there, they see the star and they know they're in the right spot. And this is their response when they finally see Jesus in Matthew chapter two, verses 10 and 11. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Their response when they heard that Jesus was coming was to say, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. I don't want it anymore. I don't need it. Oh, Jesus is coming. Let me radically reprioritize what I thought I was going to do for the next three years of my life. Let me take these things, this gold, this frankincense, and myrrh, the stuff that I have for special occasions, and let me take it to him. The stuff that I could likely leave to my children as an inheritance instead of that legacy, let me go lay it down at the foot of Jesus. Let me disrupt my whole life. Let me let go of who I thought I was going to be for this next period of time and let Jesus define what I'm going to be because I'm seeking him. I'm not a businessman or a magi or whatever I am. I'm a pilgrim going to see Jesus. Their response was, oh, Jesus is coming. Here, take my stuff. You can have it. I want you. And they fall on their feet. They fall on their knees and they worship him. And they praise him. And they give him gifts. And we don't really need to know the significance of gold, frankincense, and myrrh beyond the fact that they were very expensive. They offered their best to Christ. And to me, those two responses stand in stark opposition of one another. For Herod to hear that Jesus was there and immediately think about what he might have to give up. And for the wise men to hear that Jesus was coming and to immediately give up everything. So, I think it's important to point out that we should be like the wise men, not like Herod. That is the incredibly sophisticated point that I have been driving to in this sermon. That's why you guys pay me all the money you do, so that you can write down sentences like that on Sunday. And that really is the point. That as we consider those two responses, I think we would do well to identify and admit where we're like Herod. Maybe you're here and you're not yet a Christian. And it's because of that. It's because you're not yet sure you want Jesus to radically reorganize your priorities. You're not quite sure you want to start doing some things and stop doing other things. Or maybe you are a believer, but you've led him into your life as Savior, but in pockets as Lord. And we can all learn from the wise men that when Jesus shows up, we should just give him everything. But the more I thought about this and dug into these characters, I actually stumbled into a thought that I really liked and wanted to share with you. I'm nerdy about history. I like it. I listen to podcasts about history, like six-hour episodes about the Persian Empire. I'm all in, you know? I love this stuff. And so I was thinking about Herod from a geopolitical perspective of who he actually was on the world stage. And the answer is he wasn't a very big deal at all. Okay. And when he sat on the throne of Judea, it was a far flung province of the Roman empire. Herod wasn't really in charge there. Pilate was. Pilate was the Roman governor. He had been installed by the Roman emperor as the governor of this far-flung province, and it wasn't even a glamorous post. It would be the modern day equivalent to finding out that you got to be a diplomat for the United States of America and then learning that your assignment was Trinidad and Tobago. It's like, well, the weather's nice, but I don't think I'm a big player on the political scene. We're not making big world, we're not getting invited to the G8 summit over here. So you just take it for what it's worth. And then under Pilate sits Herod on the throne of Judea. And he has no real authority. He can't declare war. He can't do that. Pilate has to do that. He can't even kill anybody in his own territory. What a bummer as a king. You'd think the one thing you're allowed to do as a king is kill who you want. And Pilate's like, nope, you can't execute who you want. I have to approve that too. He's got a rubber stamp there. And then within his own culture, his voice isn't even the weightiest. Within his own Jewish culture, it's the Sanhedrin that carry far more weight than he do. Kind of the Jewish Senate, the Jewish ruling body compiled of religious leaders from different, what we would think of as denominations or parties. They carried far more weight in Israel than Herod did. And I'm convinced, I mean, think about it for real. Say you're in heaven, somehow or another in the pages that are lost, Herod has a change of heart and Herod accepts Christ as his savior and he's in heaven too. And you just run into this guy, you know, you're doing, you're golfing. You're doing whatever you do in heaven, which golf will be there. And you get paired up with him. You're like, okay, great. And you're like, well, what did you do in your past life? And he's like, well, I was the king. You're like, oh, that's cool. Where are you the king of? You're like, Judea. Oh, when they were independent before like the Babylonians and the Syrians and the Romans got in there. No, no, no. Rome was our daddy, essentially. You'd be like, oh, well, cool. I was an accountant, so let's just maybe focus on golf. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about Herod's little fiefdom. It doesn't matter. The reality is, Herod was a symbolic king who sat on an empty throne. Herod was a symbolic king sitting on an empty, meaningless throne. It didn't even matter. The life that he was trying to protect was dumb. Who cares? You're the king of Judea. You're not even a king. You're not even in control. Your own people don't even look to you. They look to the Sanhedrin. You are a symbolic figurehead king sitting on an empty throne, hollow of any import or authority at all. And I don't want to press this part too hard because I'm not here to denigrate anybody this morning. But is it possible that as we keep Jesus at arm's length, because I've got a good thing going here, Jesus, I don't want you to take my stuff. And for Jesus, for you to be who you want to be in my life, I can't be who I want to be. Is it possible that as we keep him at arm's length, that all we're really doing is being impotent, empty kings and queens sitting on meaningless thrones, just like Herod. What are we protecting that's so important? What plans do we have that are so good? What secret things do we enjoy that are so worth holding Jesus and all of his goodness at arm's length? If you could look at Herod through the lens of history and show him everything that Jesus actually did and what he actually came for, wouldn't you want to just hit him upside the head and go, what are you doing, man? What are you doing? I wonder if we'll get to eternity and feel that same way. If we could come to ourselves in December of 2021 and look at the ways at which we hold Jesus at arm's length and try to protect our kingdom. I wonder, and maybe we wouldn't, but I wonder, would you want to slap yourself upside the head and go, what are you doing? What are you holding on to that's so important? What are you not willing to give up that's so valuable? Like I said, I won't belabor it, but I wonder if we are kings and queens sitting on empty thrones, protecting nothing. And then I thought, well, what does Jesus want to take from Herod? What is he protecting? And the answer is nothing. He doesn't want his kingdom. Jesus didn't come to sit on the throne of Judea and that's it. Jesus came to be the king of kings and Lord of lords. He came to sit on the throne of the universe. He's not after Herod's kingdom. Small potatoes is a disservice to the term small potatoes. It doesn't matter to him at all. And so I thought, what did Jesus come for? Because he doesn't want your stuff either. That's not why he came. Jesus doesn't want your stuff. He wants you. He didn't come for your things. He didn't come for your 401k. He didn't come for your priorities. He came for you. He showed up at Christmas. He lived a perfect life. He died a perfect death. He defeated death. We get to celebrate that at Easter. And he did every bit of that for you. He came to get you. He didn't come to get your stuff. And if he wants to take your stuff, he's going to replace it with something so much better than what you lost. So as we think about Christmas, let us remember Jesus came. Yeah, he's here. And sometimes we want to hold him at arm's length like Herod did because we're afraid that he might rearrange our life in ways that make us uncomfortable. But let's be clear, he didn't come for your stuff. He came to get you. That's the whole reason that he's here is to come and get you and take you into heaven for all of eternity with his father. It's the whole reason that you were created. And the only reason that you're still here is to take as many people with you on the way as you go. And when we think about this, the reality of who Herod was and that he sat on an empty throne and the fact that Jesus really didn't come for his stuff, he came for him. He didn't come for your stuff, he came for you. And then we again compare that to the response of the wise men. To me, it becomes so much more pointed and poignant when we realize that surrendering our stuff symbolizes our submission to the Savior. Why did the wise men offer him gifts? Why is there a scriptural teaching to live our life as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, to pour ourselves out like a drink offering, to give him everything? Why did Jesus say to the rich man, you have to sell all your things and then you can follow me? Why do we have a Christian practice of tithing and giving and being generous people? Why do we do those things? Why is that kind of generosity and that kind of sacrifice laced throughout the teachings of scripture, both with Christ and with his followers. Why is that? It's not because Jesus needs all that stuff. It's because when we surrender our things, it symbolizes submission to the Savior. Yes, I accept you as Savior, but when I surrender everything in my life and say that it's yours, I now accept you as Lord. The response of the wise men wasn't to simply offer gifts. It wasn't to simply journey. It was to say, we are yours. We're here. We're surrendered and we're submitted. And as we, as a people, reflect on God's gift to us and the Jesus that shows up in our lives and often, as we talked about last week, simply happens to us, let us respond like the wise men. Let us surrender our life, who we want to be, our plans that we have, the priorities that we hold, the things that we want to do or not want to do. Let us surrender our stuff as a symbol of our submission to our Savior who has come to get us. This is my predominant thought as I go through this series. And it has been my prayer for you this week as I've prayed for the sermon and prayed for grace that we would be more like the wise men than we are here. That we would quit holding Jesus at arm's length and that we would choose instead to surrender our things as a knowing and willing symbol that we are submitted to Christ. Not just as our Savior, but as our Lord. Let's pray. Father, we love you and are grateful for you. Thank you for your son. God, I pray that we, I pray that we would trust that you've just got a better plan, God. Whatever it is that we want, whatever it is that we're holding on to, whatever it is that we're protecting, whatever it is we think we're going for, whatever it is we're reaching for that we think is going to make us happy or bring us joy or bring us fulfillment, whatever that is, if it's not you, would you simply give us the faith to trust that it's something better if we would simply reach for you instead? If we walked in this morning responding to you as Herod does and did, keeping you at arm's length because we're afraid of what you might ask of us, we're afraid of what you might change in us or about us. God, would you give us the faith of the wise men to say, here, take it all, I'm yours. And have the courage to let you reprioritize and rearrange who we are and what we're about. God, thank you for Christmas. Thank you for this place. Thank you for the chance to worship together. God, I pray that you would hear our praise as we continue to do that. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you. Good morning, Grace. My name is Taylor LaCivita, and today I'll be doing a reading from Luke 2, verses 8 to 15. The angel said to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let's go to Bethlehem and see the things that have happened, which the Lord has told us about. Thank you so much, Taylor. You guys are going to get to see how strong I am as I move this table forth. All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace, and I'm so excited this morning to be able to preach as we are kicking off our Christmas series, our Christmas sermons, our Christmas series called Renewed Wonder, where we step back and we take a look at some different perspectives within the Christmas story. And as you guys might have been able to guess, based on the fact that we sang the banger, Go Tell It on the Mountain earlier, mixed with the passage that Taylor just read for us, that this morning I get to go through the story from the shepherd's perspective. Now, for me, and I bet a lot of you guys are in this same boat, because I know a lot of you grew up in church and grew up especially in church around Christmas time, that that story that he just read is one that we know very well. Honestly, it's one that probably a lot of you could get up here, and you could probably recite it almost word for word just because you've heard it so many times. And honestly, that's where I was as well. And so the fun thing about Christmas as you go through it is to be like, okay, so what's different or what's new? Well, let me tell you that as I was tasked to take a specific look at the shepherd's experience in this story, this story kind of took on some new meaning for me. I was kind of slapped in the face with how incredible, how unbelievable, and honestly, how straight up nuts this story is. Because when you look at this story from the shepherd's perspective, what you see is this. You see that these dudes are out in their field at night. They're shepherding, they're sheep herding, if you will. They're moving their cattle to the left and to the right and forwards and backwards. You know, they're doing the shepherd things. And as they're shepherding, comes this angel down to them in their field in pitch black night. And not only does this angel come, but as this angel comes and appears, so does the glory of God shine upon them to the point that they are terrified. Which obviously, as we just went through Revelation, and as we see throughout the Bible, as the glory of God is brought down and is shown to people, that they kind of just cower in fear because that is how big and powerful just simply being in the presence of God is. But I would contend that even if the glory of God wasn't anywhere around, that probably they still would have been straight up terrified because this is just a random angel that came down from heaven in the middle of the night. These aren't like, and because the thing that I think about that feels a little bit different for me in this way is that these aren't like prophets or preachers or, you know, I don't even know how many of them would be like Jewish believers in this God. They're just these random dudes out in a field. And so this like had to be the most shocking and like awe-inspiring thing because not only do these people come down and they're in the glory of God, but as they are resting, as they are trembling in the glory of God, this angel goes, yo, you need to stop being afraid. And here's why. The reason is because I have the best news in the history of news to tell you that today a savior has been born to you. This news of this savior being born is literally going to bring joy to the entire world. That is how big and that is how important this news is. And here are these dudes just being like, sick, nice, all right, cool. But like, it's just so completely random. And then not only that, but as they get done with telling them, hey, so here's all of this news, then they're like, you know what, honestly, if you'd like to go meet them, if you'd like to be among the very first people to actually get to witness this person in person, then I'll just tell you exactly where they are. But before you go, what I would love to do is I'd love to invite down a bunch of my friends. And so we're going to have this holy host of angels literally singing an angelic song to you just to send you on your way to see the Savior that we just told you about. And so they just stand and they get to witness as this cloud of angels sings glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests. Like I said, that story is straight up nuts. Like, and I love it. I love it so much. And I also love it because something that I really love, the term that I use is to be surprised by wonder. Not like in the sense of, you know, like you guys all came to church this morning, so you were probably anticipating somebody coming up here and running their mouth to you. That's not a surprise. But we all have those times where out of nowhere, simply timing we're in the right place at the right time, we get to experience something that just leaves us absolutely awestruck. One of my favorite stories of my whole life, one of my favorite experiences I've ever had is one of these moments where I was completely and utterly surprised by wonder. So we fast forward back to my UGA days, which go dogs, hashtag we're number two, baby. But back in my UGA days, myself and one of my buddies were heading to campus. So to give you an image of what we're dealing with, we go and we park in this parking deck. It's the one that I always parked in, so I knew it pretty well. And when you come out of the deck, there's a big building. So, you know, think building. There's a building that you can either walk through to go to the bus stop, or you can walk around to take a longer path to the bus stop. Well, sometimes I took the path around because it was pretty, it was nice, it allowed me to walk more. This day was kind of urgent. We were trying our best to be as quick as we could to get to the bus stop. Not because we had finals, not because we needed to find a place to study, but because we needed to as quickly as possible hop onto a bus to allow it to drive us around campus so that we could play Pokemon Go. That's true. We literally, so Pokemon Go, for those who don't know, is just a phone game where you just go around and it's connected to your maps. And as you're moving and as you're walking around, you can catch different Pokemon. So that game was really hot back then. And so we had to get to the bus so we could sit inside of that bus, we can ride around, and we could catch as many Pokemon as possible without actually having to walk around or use any physical labor to do so. So that's what we were doing. That's why we chose to walk through this building. Now, I had walked through the building a lot. This building, we were definitely allowed to walk through it. But I would say that overall, as far as just like whether or not we were welcome in the building, I wouldn't say it was a 10 out of 10 that was just okay that we were in there because it's an athlete's building. It's where most of the teams went to practice or to weightlift. There was a huge weightlifting facility on the left, so you would walk by and you'd see some tennis players working out. On the right was an entire gymnastics thing. I don't know what you call those, so we're going to say gymnastics thing. And you got to see that. What I knew is that there was an upstairs because I'd walked through before. So I'm with my buddy Blake, who's never walked through this building, and I'm like, I'm going to take him upstairs because what's really cool is that UGA's basketball, practice basketball courts are up there. And sometimes you'll get to see him practicing. So we go up. I'm like, dude, I got a surprise for you. So let's go on up. And so we're walking. How it's set up, there's this huge window right here. And then there's a wall and then a huge window on the other side. There's a ton of people in the hallway at this point. And like I said, we're not 10 out of 10 supposed to be there. We're not not supposed to be there, but also like lingering is probably frowned upon. So as we walk up, there's a huge group of people in the hallway. And I'm like, oh, snap. So I'm like, all right, we got to play this cool. I don't even look in the window because I'm like, I've seen this a thousand times. This is what I do as I live in this building. So I'm walking, you know, just kind of doing my thing. I don't look, Blake's going nuts next to me. And I'm like, I'm getting furious with him because I'm like, Blake, dude, you've got to chill out. We're not supposed to be here. We're going to get in trouble if you keep acting like we're not, we're literally not supposed to be here. He's like, oh my gosh. So once we got to the second windows, I recognized in full exactly why he was freaking out. Because as I turn and look, I look up and standing about five feet from me through this window is Kent Bazemore. So for everyone online, I gave a good pause because everyone in here definitely, I mean, there were just the look of shock and awe on the faces. I mean, gasps o' plenty were had in here, but I'm just kidding. I know that very few of you know who Kent Bazemore is. I would be surprised if three people in this building knew who Kent Bazemore was, but for Kyle, who is a giant Atlanta Hawks fan, what I know is that is our starting shooting guard that we heavily overpaid, but we still loved him because he was on our team. And so there I am looking, staring in the face of Kent Bazemore. And as I look beyond him is the entire Hawks roster working out and practicing in this UGA practice facility. And I'm going nuts. I mean, not physically, because still trying to act like I'm supposed to be there, but in my mind, I'm going absolutely nuts. I look off in the distance, and one of their commentators is there. Not Bob Rathbun, but Dominique Wilkins, the greatest hawk in the history of the franchise, one of the greatest players of all time. And here I am just standing here a few feet from Dominique Wilkins watching the Hawks play, and I'm going absolutely insane. And there I was, just completely and utterly awestruck and surprised by wonder. No anticipation of this. I had literally no idea that something like this would ever happen. And it just absolutely blew me away. And I know you guys have those stories as well. And they're so special, not simply because we got to experience getting to see those people or getting to do these things or whatever your stories might be, but because we had no idea going into those that they were going to happen. I didn't go to a Hawks game and then go absolutely bonkers when I saw the Hawks. I was just walking through a practice facility at a college. And then I think about that we can add every one of our stories up and it still completely pales in comparison to this story that the shepherds got to experience and to the glory that the shepherds got to experience by experiencing this angel of the Lord, by experiencing the full and utter presence of the Lord that left them trembling, getting to experience this holy host of angels singing to them, all just simply to be able to tell them this unbelievable thing that happened and then tell them exactly where they can go and experience it for themselves. Because the thing is, Taylor only read the first half. When we jump into the second half, we see that they went. Let's just go ahead and go here. In verse, we're going to, it's going to be Luke 2, what the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. That's the reaction we're looking for. That's the reaction that I had where I'm just, I can't not like, I'm just going nuts. I'm telling everybody, I'm taking tons of pictures. I'm sending them out to everyone. I'm trying to FaceTime people. I'm like, just all of it. And that's literally what they do when they step out and when they actually go and they actually get to see, witness, and experience that this Jesus that they said is real. And when they actually knew, oh my gosh, it was real, then they just go absolutely nuts. They have to tell everyone. They have to literally, it says the whole way returning back, they're glorifying and they're praising God because they have no other thing that they can do. And that is an unbelievably awesome story. And to me, what makes it, I think, even more significant and even more awesome is the fact that the shepherds were some of the least deserving people to witness such a holy occasion. Background behind shepherds of this time, I would say we kind of know what shepherds are. They're these people who are out in the fields. They spend most of their time with animals. They're kind of out away from everyone else in the town. That's a pretty good symbol of kind of their social status during that time. They were rough. They were mangy. They were sinful dudes, not great guys, probably didn't have the best mouths, didn't say the nicest words. They didn't have really any status. They didn't have any position. People like kind of hated them. Like it was like, it was a job that no one really wanted. And it was a job that if you had, people just kind of didn't like you. They were kind of the student pastors of their day. But these, these are the people that the Lord shows up to, to bring this news. I love the way that David Jeremiah puts it in his book, Why the Nativity. I was going to say, Why the Jerusalem, which is not it. Why the nativity? He says, They had as little status, position, right to being able to witness such an incredible host of things or really to witness literally even one part of it. They had no right. They had as much right to that as some Pokemon nerd had to getting to witness an NBA practice. And that's literally zero. No right at all. But then my story begins to diverge from their story in this. That while I stumbled upon wonder, the shepherds were invited into it. If we reread verses 8 and 9, it says, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. The angel of the Lord, the Lord came down. The rest of the angels, they came down seeking out these angels, excuse me, seeking out these shepherds on purpose. To bring them this news. To invite them into this glory. And to me, that's one of the most incredible and one of the most shocking parts of this is not only did they not deserve it, but also, man, their blessings just keep on coming. It's so easy to stop and to get caught up in, oh my gosh, how unbelievable is it that this angel showed up and brought this great news to these people who didn't deserve it. But ultimately, the angel coming down and the glory of God coming down was simply used as a device to invite them into the true glory of getting to experience Jesus. And honestly, that's why I believe that the shepherd's joy was made complete only in experiencing Jesus, the promised Savior. I mean, an absolutely glorious invitation and message that they were able to receive. But man, did that just pale in comparison to the glory of actually getting to look Jesus in the face, this baby, and experience this glory of the Lord and know without a shadow of a doubt that that is the baby. I know it. I know it with every part of me. That is the baby that I was promised and that is the baby that has come to save this world. That is going to be the joy of this world. That is going to be the Savior that literally, word for word, the angel said, the Savior has been born to you. That's him. And that is ultimately where their joy rested and where their joy came from. Only after they got to experience that did they go and did they tell. Only after they experienced Jesus for themselves did they completely just turn to worship and glorifying God. I take a look back at the story and I put it into simpler words and I see this group of lowly, dirty sinners invited to experience Jesus with nothing to bring, nothing to give but themselves. They had nothing but themselves. They had no status or significance that would qualify them or give them the right to be there and to get to witness Jesus, except that the Lord had invited them to. He had invited them into the glory of his son, Jesus. And to me, when I hear that, I just hear the gospel. When I hear that, what I see is while God is literally writing the gospel, he's creating the gospel in this story. He's creating this gospel of here is this Jesus that I'm sending and I'm sending for all of the world. The point is this Jesus, but just because I'm the best, just because I'm the best, I'm going to write these side characters in. I'm going to bring in these shepherds, these lowest of the low people. And I'm going to say, you get to be the people who get to experience Jesus, even though you have nothing but a willingness to. This Jesus that's going to grow up, he's going to live a perfect life. And then he's going to be killed on a cross. And he's going to be killed on a cross to save those people, to save all of these people in this world, to save all people for all time, simply that would just have a willing heart to be able to come to him and experience him. Taking on our sin and killing it on the cross and then being raised back to life, signifying that death will not be the end and will not have the last say for him or for anyone who would come to him. All of that to ensure that you, that you, that I, a group of lowly sinners, are invited in to experience Jesus. Though we have nothing to bring but ourselves, we have no status or significance that would give us the right to experience Jesus or his glory or the glory of God, except that he invited us to through his son Jesus. And ultimately, that's why I think and I believe as I've gone through this story that the most significant part of this story and the most significant truth within this story is that the shepherd's invitation into the glory of Jesus' birth is a foreshadowing of our invitation into eternal glory with God through Jesus' death and resurrection. To close, I just want to read this. It's another quote just as they had kept watch over their sheep by night, someone far greater was keeping watch over them. That someone was Jesus. And the joy and the security that they found in that Jesus, their Savior, is the exact same joy and the exact same security that we have in our lives because of Jesus. That's the gospel, and that is the true joy and the true wonder of Christmas. Will you bow with me as we pray? Lord, I thank you so much for all that you are. I thank you for your son, for sending your son. I thank you for what that means in my life and the lives of literally all who would turn to you. Lord, through this Christmas season, would you remind us why we are celebrating this Christmas season. Lord, today, this week, let us just take time to love you more. Let us take more time to just rest in your love because there's just nothing more wonderful than it. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.
Thank you. Good morning, Grace. My name is Taylor LaCivita, and today I'll be doing a reading from Luke 2, verses 8 to 15. The angel said to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let's go to Bethlehem and see the things that have happened, which the Lord has told us about. Thank you so much, Taylor. You guys are going to get to see how strong I am as I move this table forth. All right. Good morning, everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here at Grace, and I'm so excited this morning to be able to preach as we are kicking off our Christmas series, our Christmas sermons, our Christmas series called Renewed Wonder, where we step back and we take a look at some different perspectives within the Christmas story. And as you guys might have been able to guess, based on the fact that we sang the banger, Go Tell It on the Mountain earlier, mixed with the passage that Taylor just read for us, that this morning I get to go through the story from the shepherd's perspective. Now, for me, and I bet a lot of you guys are in this same boat, because I know a lot of you grew up in church and grew up especially in church around Christmas time, that that story that he just read is one that we know very well. Honestly, it's one that probably a lot of you could get up here, and you could probably recite it almost word for word just because you've heard it so many times. And honestly, that's where I was as well. And so the fun thing about Christmas as you go through it is to be like, okay, so what's different or what's new? Well, let me tell you that as I was tasked to take a specific look at the shepherd's experience in this story, this story kind of took on some new meaning for me. I was kind of slapped in the face with how incredible, how unbelievable, and honestly, how straight up nuts this story is. Because when you look at this story from the shepherd's perspective, what you see is this. You see that these dudes are out in their field at night. They're shepherding, they're sheep herding, if you will. They're moving their cattle to the left and to the right and forwards and backwards. You know, they're doing the shepherd things. And as they're shepherding, comes this angel down to them in their field in pitch black night. And not only does this angel come, but as this angel comes and appears, so does the glory of God shine upon them to the point that they are terrified. Which obviously, as we just went through Revelation, and as we see throughout the Bible, as the glory of God is brought down and is shown to people, that they kind of just cower in fear because that is how big and powerful just simply being in the presence of God is. But I would contend that even if the glory of God wasn't anywhere around, that probably they still would have been straight up terrified because this is just a random angel that came down from heaven in the middle of the night. These aren't like, and because the thing that I think about that feels a little bit different for me in this way is that these aren't like prophets or preachers or, you know, I don't even know how many of them would be like Jewish believers in this God. They're just these random dudes out in a field. And so this like had to be the most shocking and like awe-inspiring thing because not only do these people come down and they're in the glory of God, but as they are resting, as they are trembling in the glory of God, this angel goes, yo, you need to stop being afraid. And here's why. The reason is because I have the best news in the history of news to tell you that today a savior has been born to you. This news of this savior being born is literally going to bring joy to the entire world. That is how big and that is how important this news is. And here are these dudes just being like, sick, nice, all right, cool. But like, it's just so completely random. And then not only that, but as they get done with telling them, hey, so here's all of this news, then they're like, you know what, honestly, if you'd like to go meet them, if you'd like to be among the very first people to actually get to witness this person in person, then I'll just tell you exactly where they are. But before you go, what I would love to do is I'd love to invite down a bunch of my friends. And so we're going to have this holy host of angels literally singing an angelic song to you just to send you on your way to see the Savior that we just told you about. And so they just stand and they get to witness as this cloud of angels sings glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests. Like I said, that story is straight up nuts. Like, and I love it. I love it so much. And I also love it because something that I really love, the term that I use is to be surprised by wonder. Not like in the sense of, you know, like you guys all came to church this morning, so you were probably anticipating somebody coming up here and running their mouth to you. That's not a surprise. But we all have those times where out of nowhere, simply timing we're in the right place at the right time, we get to experience something that just leaves us absolutely awestruck. One of my favorite stories of my whole life, one of my favorite experiences I've ever had is one of these moments where I was completely and utterly surprised by wonder. So we fast forward back to my UGA days, which go dogs, hashtag we're number two, baby. But back in my UGA days, myself and one of my buddies were heading to campus. So to give you an image of what we're dealing with, we go and we park in this parking deck. It's the one that I always parked in, so I knew it pretty well. And when you come out of the deck, there's a big building. So, you know, think building. There's a building that you can either walk through to go to the bus stop, or you can walk around to take a longer path to the bus stop. Well, sometimes I took the path around because it was pretty, it was nice, it allowed me to walk more. This day was kind of urgent. We were trying our best to be as quick as we could to get to the bus stop. Not because we had finals, not because we needed to find a place to study, but because we needed to as quickly as possible hop onto a bus to allow it to drive us around campus so that we could play Pokemon Go. That's true. We literally, so Pokemon Go, for those who don't know, is just a phone game where you just go around and it's connected to your maps. And as you're moving and as you're walking around, you can catch different Pokemon. So that game was really hot back then. And so we had to get to the bus so we could sit inside of that bus, we can ride around, and we could catch as many Pokemon as possible without actually having to walk around or use any physical labor to do so. So that's what we were doing. That's why we chose to walk through this building. Now, I had walked through the building a lot. This building, we were definitely allowed to walk through it. But I would say that overall, as far as just like whether or not we were welcome in the building, I wouldn't say it was a 10 out of 10 that was just okay that we were in there because it's an athlete's building. It's where most of the teams went to practice or to weightlift. There was a huge weightlifting facility on the left, so you would walk by and you'd see some tennis players working out. On the right was an entire gymnastics thing. I don't know what you call those, so we're going to say gymnastics thing. And you got to see that. What I knew is that there was an upstairs because I'd walked through before. So I'm with my buddy Blake, who's never walked through this building, and I'm like, I'm going to take him upstairs because what's really cool is that UGA's basketball, practice basketball courts are up there. And sometimes you'll get to see him practicing. So we go up. I'm like, dude, I got a surprise for you. So let's go on up. And so we're walking. How it's set up, there's this huge window right here. And then there's a wall and then a huge window on the other side. There's a ton of people in the hallway at this point. And like I said, we're not 10 out of 10 supposed to be there. We're not not supposed to be there, but also like lingering is probably frowned upon. So as we walk up, there's a huge group of people in the hallway. And I'm like, oh, snap. So I'm like, all right, we got to play this cool. I don't even look in the window because I'm like, I've seen this a thousand times. This is what I do as I live in this building. So I'm walking, you know, just kind of doing my thing. I don't look, Blake's going nuts next to me. And I'm like, I'm getting furious with him because I'm like, Blake, dude, you've got to chill out. We're not supposed to be here. We're going to get in trouble if you keep acting like we're not, we're literally not supposed to be here. He's like, oh my gosh. So once we got to the second windows, I recognized in full exactly why he was freaking out. Because as I turn and look, I look up and standing about five feet from me through this window is Kent Bazemore. So for everyone online, I gave a good pause because everyone in here definitely, I mean, there were just the look of shock and awe on the faces. I mean, gasps o' plenty were had in here, but I'm just kidding. I know that very few of you know who Kent Bazemore is. I would be surprised if three people in this building knew who Kent Bazemore was, but for Kyle, who is a giant Atlanta Hawks fan, what I know is that is our starting shooting guard that we heavily overpaid, but we still loved him because he was on our team. And so there I am looking, staring in the face of Kent Bazemore. And as I look beyond him is the entire Hawks roster working out and practicing in this UGA practice facility. And I'm going nuts. I mean, not physically, because still trying to act like I'm supposed to be there, but in my mind, I'm going absolutely nuts. I look off in the distance, and one of their commentators is there. Not Bob Rathbun, but Dominique Wilkins, the greatest hawk in the history of the franchise, one of the greatest players of all time. And here I am just standing here a few feet from Dominique Wilkins watching the Hawks play, and I'm going absolutely insane. And there I was, just completely and utterly awestruck and surprised by wonder. No anticipation of this. I had literally no idea that something like this would ever happen. And it just absolutely blew me away. And I know you guys have those stories as well. And they're so special, not simply because we got to experience getting to see those people or getting to do these things or whatever your stories might be, but because we had no idea going into those that they were going to happen. I didn't go to a Hawks game and then go absolutely bonkers when I saw the Hawks. I was just walking through a practice facility at a college. And then I think about that we can add every one of our stories up and it still completely pales in comparison to this story that the shepherds got to experience and to the glory that the shepherds got to experience by experiencing this angel of the Lord, by experiencing the full and utter presence of the Lord that left them trembling, getting to experience this holy host of angels singing to them, all just simply to be able to tell them this unbelievable thing that happened and then tell them exactly where they can go and experience it for themselves. Because the thing is, Taylor only read the first half. When we jump into the second half, we see that they went. Let's just go ahead and go here. In verse, we're going to, it's going to be Luke 2, what the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. That's the reaction we're looking for. That's the reaction that I had where I'm just, I can't not like, I'm just going nuts. I'm telling everybody, I'm taking tons of pictures. I'm sending them out to everyone. I'm trying to FaceTime people. I'm like, just all of it. And that's literally what they do when they step out and when they actually go and they actually get to see, witness, and experience that this Jesus that they said is real. And when they actually knew, oh my gosh, it was real, then they just go absolutely nuts. They have to tell everyone. They have to literally, it says the whole way returning back, they're glorifying and they're praising God because they have no other thing that they can do. And that is an unbelievably awesome story. And to me, what makes it, I think, even more significant and even more awesome is the fact that the shepherds were some of the least deserving people to witness such a holy occasion. Background behind shepherds of this time, I would say we kind of know what shepherds are. They're these people who are out in the fields. They spend most of their time with animals. They're kind of out away from everyone else in the town. That's a pretty good symbol of kind of their social status during that time. They were rough. They were mangy. They were sinful dudes, not great guys, probably didn't have the best mouths, didn't say the nicest words. They didn't have really any status. They didn't have any position. People like kind of hated them. Like it was like, it was a job that no one really wanted. And it was a job that if you had, people just kind of didn't like you. They were kind of the student pastors of their day. But these, these are the people that the Lord shows up to, to bring this news. I love the way that David Jeremiah puts it in his book, Why the Nativity. I was going to say, Why the Jerusalem, which is not it. Why the nativity? He says, They had as little status, position, right to being able to witness such an incredible host of things or really to witness literally even one part of it. They had no right. They had as much right to that as some Pokemon nerd had to getting to witness an NBA practice. And that's literally zero. No right at all. But then my story begins to diverge from their story in this. That while I stumbled upon wonder, the shepherds were invited into it. If we reread verses 8 and 9, it says, and there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. The angel of the Lord, the Lord came down. The rest of the angels, they came down seeking out these angels, excuse me, seeking out these shepherds on purpose. To bring them this news. To invite them into this glory. And to me, that's one of the most incredible and one of the most shocking parts of this is not only did they not deserve it, but also, man, their blessings just keep on coming. It's so easy to stop and to get caught up in, oh my gosh, how unbelievable is it that this angel showed up and brought this great news to these people who didn't deserve it. But ultimately, the angel coming down and the glory of God coming down was simply used as a device to invite them into the true glory of getting to experience Jesus. And honestly, that's why I believe that the shepherd's joy was made complete only in experiencing Jesus, the promised Savior. I mean, an absolutely glorious invitation and message that they were able to receive. But man, did that just pale in comparison to the glory of actually getting to look Jesus in the face, this baby, and experience this glory of the Lord and know without a shadow of a doubt that that is the baby. I know it. I know it with every part of me. That is the baby that I was promised and that is the baby that has come to save this world. That is going to be the joy of this world. That is going to be the Savior that literally, word for word, the angel said, the Savior has been born to you. That's him. And that is ultimately where their joy rested and where their joy came from. Only after they got to experience that did they go and did they tell. Only after they experienced Jesus for themselves did they completely just turn to worship and glorifying God. I take a look back at the story and I put it into simpler words and I see this group of lowly, dirty sinners invited to experience Jesus with nothing to bring, nothing to give but themselves. They had nothing but themselves. They had no status or significance that would qualify them or give them the right to be there and to get to witness Jesus, except that the Lord had invited them to. He had invited them into the glory of his son, Jesus. And to me, when I hear that, I just hear the gospel. When I hear that, what I see is while God is literally writing the gospel, he's creating the gospel in this story. He's creating this gospel of here is this Jesus that I'm sending and I'm sending for all of the world. The point is this Jesus, but just because I'm the best, just because I'm the best, I'm going to write these side characters in. I'm going to bring in these shepherds, these lowest of the low people. And I'm going to say, you get to be the people who get to experience Jesus, even though you have nothing but a willingness to. This Jesus that's going to grow up, he's going to live a perfect life. And then he's going to be killed on a cross. And he's going to be killed on a cross to save those people, to save all of these people in this world, to save all people for all time, simply that would just have a willing heart to be able to come to him and experience him. Taking on our sin and killing it on the cross and then being raised back to life, signifying that death will not be the end and will not have the last say for him or for anyone who would come to him. All of that to ensure that you, that you, that I, a group of lowly sinners, are invited in to experience Jesus. Though we have nothing to bring but ourselves, we have no status or significance that would give us the right to experience Jesus or his glory or the glory of God, except that he invited us to through his son Jesus. And ultimately, that's why I think and I believe as I've gone through this story that the most significant part of this story and the most significant truth within this story is that the shepherd's invitation into the glory of Jesus' birth is a foreshadowing of our invitation into eternal glory with God through Jesus' death and resurrection. To close, I just want to read this. It's another quote just as they had kept watch over their sheep by night, someone far greater was keeping watch over them. That someone was Jesus. And the joy and the security that they found in that Jesus, their Savior, is the exact same joy and the exact same security that we have in our lives because of Jesus. That's the gospel, and that is the true joy and the true wonder of Christmas. Will you bow with me as we pray? Lord, I thank you so much for all that you are. I thank you for your son, for sending your son. I thank you for what that means in my life and the lives of literally all who would turn to you. Lord, through this Christmas season, would you remind us why we are celebrating this Christmas season. Lord, today, this week, let us just take time to love you more. Let us take more time to just rest in your love because there's just nothing more wonderful than it. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.
How old are you, pal? Four. Four. When's your birthday? My birthday is in October. Speaking of birthdays, whose birthday are we celebrating for Christmas? Jesus's. Um, baby Jesus. Jesus's birthday. Now, where was Jesus born? Do you remember? In the manger. In the steeple. In the steeple? Who else was in the steeple with Jesus when he was born? The animals. What kind of animals do you think? Tows and donkeys. What about tigers? You can't look to the audience for help. Was anybody else at the manger with them? God, for sure. Do you know his mommy and daddy's name? Do you know the city that Jesus was born in? Bethlehem! I just watched that movie. I watched it. That's the bright star with those two little donkeys with that bird. That Jesus was in Bethlehem with those mean dogs. But at the end of the movie, the mean dogs turn into nice dogs. That's great. That's a Christmas miracle. Is that your favorite Christmas movie? Uh-huh. I watched it when I had a sleepover with my Nana and Papa. Sorry, Kendall. I'm sick. How did the shepherds know that Jesus had been born? Because they were smart boys. Now the wise the soul of Bethlehem. The wise men. I don't know what, but I think you gotta tell me. Um, those, links and more. Kendall, you might be the smartest four and a half year old I've ever met. How many wise men were there, do you know? Two. Two? You know, that's just as reasonable a guess as any other answer. First, um, Christmas, I am going to make Jesus a tank. You're going to make Jesus a tank? Oh, a cake. It'd be way better if you made him a tank. If you got to give Jesus three presents, what presents would you give him? A chew toy for when he's a baby. Sure. I'll go with my genie cup and a baby Jesus doll. Sure. I'm sure Jesus would love a baby Jesus doll. I think those are all the questions I have for you buddy. You did so good. I think I want to do one more question. Is there anything else that we should ask? Anything else? No. to meet you. I'm so glad that you're here. And like Kyle said, thanks so much for making us a part of your Christmas celebration. I know that you have a lot of options on Christmas Eve. It's the time when you're supposed to go to church. And so we're so glad that you chose to spend that with us. When we think about the Christmas story, I think all of us probably go to a very similar place, whether we're church people or not church people. If we come to churches like this a lot, or we come a little, we all kind of know where to go for the church story, right? It's Luke chapter 2, and though we might not know the reference, we know the content. We think about probably the peanuts special, right? When Linus quotes it, I think that's the one who does it, and it's the old King James, and it's, lo, they were sore afraid, the angel of the Lord shone round about them, right? And the shepherds were in the field giving watch over their flock by night. Like, that's what we think of is the Luke chapter 2. We think of Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem for the census. There's no room in any of the hotels, so they got to stay in the manger or in the steeple, which was really, really great. We've got it that they can't stay there, and the baby Jesus is born, and we celebrate it, and the wise men come, and it's a whole party, and that's the deal. That's usually what we think of as the Christmas story, and if that's what you think of as the Christmas story, then that's right. That is the Christmas story. That's what we celebrate at Christmas. But I really think that to have a deeper understanding of the Christmas story, to really understand what's happening there, what we're celebrating, what are we all gathering here to celebrate for? What are we meeting with family and exchanging gifts to celebrate? Why did the angels appear? Why do we talk about the joy of Christmas? What's really the reason for the season? When we start to ask questions like that, I think we have to take a broader look at the Christmas story. I'm so fond of telling the Christmas story in this way that my first Christmas with Grace, I told it in this way, but I so believe in it, and I believe in it helping us see the power and efficacy of what the gift is that I wanted to tell it to you again. So if you'll indulge me for the Christmas story, you got to go all the way back to Genesis chapter one. And since this is the second service, I'm going to take my time, baby. You got to go all the way back to Genesis chapter one and understand what's happening there. God's word teaches us that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, that there is a creator God and that he made this place and that he created you and I. And when he did, he said it was very good and to a good God, that means it's perfect. It was exactly as he intended. And you, whether you realize it or not, whether you've thought about it at all in 2019 or not, your soul was created to be in harmony and relationship with that creator God. And the creation was made to be in harmony with that creator God, and that's how it was perfect. Scripture tells us that lion laid down with lamb, which is a way to say that there was no violence. There was no death when God created the earth. There was no cancer. Children didn't survive. Parents didn't survive their children when God created the earth. Divorce wasn't a thing in the Garden of Eden. Abuse didn't happen. Greed wasn't there. Malice and poor intent and evil and violence, that didn't exist. Selfishness did not exist. It was perfect until sin entered in and broke God's creation. And when we think of sin, for those of us that know the Bible at least a little bit, we know about the garden and they ate the fruit and that was kind of against the rules and they shouldn't eat the fruit and she did and that's a bummer. But really what's going on there is the sin of pride. What's happening with Adam and Eve is God said don't do this thing and they said, you know what? God, I hear you. I appreciate that. But I actually trust my judgment and my own life to determine what's best for me. And right now what's best for me is to eat that fruit. So that's what we're going to do. And they elevated themselves to the position of God in their life. And that's what sin is. And sin broke God's good creation. The first thing it broke is our souls that were again created to be in harmony with creator God. And as soon as sin entered the world, their souls were out of harmony with God, and as we're born into this world, our souls exist in disunity with our Creator God. That's why if we don't know Jesus, if we're not in harmony with our Creator and with our God, in our quiet moments, we have this sense within us. There has to be more to life. There has to be more to what's happening here. This feels broken. This doesn't feel right. I would argue that if we have a soul that's not in harmony with our creator God as it was intended to be, that we will scratch and claw for that happiness and for that fulfillment in any way that we know how, and what we really need is for God to rush in. What we really need is reconciliation because we're broken. And it's not just us and our souls that got broken when sin entered the world. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but the world itself, creation itself broke. Do you understand that in the Garden of Eden there was no cancer and now there's cancer? In the Garden of Eden there was no abuse and now there's abuse. In the Garden of Eden there was no violence and now there's violence. In the Garden of Eden, lion lay down with lamb and now that is not the case. So the creation was perfect too and it was broken down by our imperfect decisions. And I think, I think Christian or not, whatever your background is, to be alive and aware is to know and to feel that there's something broken here. To be alive and paying attention is to get a sense there are some things here that are not right. There's some things that happened even in this last year that we look at that and no matter what your background or your worldview, you look at that and you go, that doesn't make any sense that that could happen. That shouldn't be so. That's not right. This place has to be broken. I saw on Twitter a couple weeks ago, one of those videos, it's like those heartwarming videos, right? That you watch it and there's like a bunch of cry emoji in the comments. And normally I don't watch those. My heart is as warm as it can be. And I just don't need any auxiliary help. But on this one, I thought, let me give it a whirl. And so I watched it, and it's these two children. They were probably seven or eight or younger, and they have cancer, and they're clearly in a children's hospital. And one was better able to get around than the other. And so the little boy that was able to get around takes the little girl that really couldn't move very well and sets her in his wagon and puts blankets over her lap and makes sure that the IV thing can follow. And he walks her down the hallway so that she can take a walk. And everybody watches that and they go, oh, that's amazing. That's great. This is what the internet is for. And I watched that and I thought, yeah, that's beautiful, but that's broken, man. Life shouldn't be like that. Kids shouldn't get cancer. That doesn't feel right. Why does that happen? And we felt the same way too. To be alive and aware is to feel that at times this place is broken. And Scripture agrees with that. In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul tells us that all of creation groans for its return, for its restoration to creation as God intended. All of creation cries out from the rocks and from its core. This is not right. There's something better. This is broken. This has to be fixed. This doesn't make sense. Life shouldn't look like this. All of creation groans along with you. When you see something in your Twitter feed or on the news or someone shares something with you and in your soul, you go, gosh, this just isn't right. This feels broken. Creation groans with you. And God himself agrees with you. Which is why in Genesis chapter 12, he enacted a grand plan to fix the broken things and to make the wrong things right and the sad things untrue. And to enact this plan, he went to a man named Abram, who would later become Abraham. And he made Abraham three promises. He says, you're going to be my guy and your descendants are going to claim these promises that I'm going to give you. And he promised Abraham the promised land that we now know as Israel. He said, your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore. And then he said, and one of your descendants is going to bless the whole earth. And Abraham might not have known it at the time, but we know it now. That was the promise of the Messiah, that one of your descendants will bless the whole earth. That was God promising, and one day, one of your descendants is going to fix all this stuff. That feeling in your core that things are broken, that disunity in your soul that longs for me, one day I'm going to send somebody who's going to be one of your descendants and they are going to fix these wrong things. I'm going to make this right. I'm going to fix it and I'm going to reconcile your soul to me. And it's going to happen through you, Abraham. And thus began the practice of Abraham and all of his descendants watching and waiting and hoping for the fulfillment of that promise. When is this going to happen, God? And it was funny for Abraham to receive that promise because he didn't have any kids. So if he's gonna have all this land and he's gonna have all these descendants and then one of those descendants in the distant future is gonna bless the whole earth, it would be pretty good to have like one. And he doesn't. And it takes longer than he thought it should. And his faith wavers. And he gets nervous. and he makes a mistake in his 80s, and he has a kid, and that kid is not the one that was promised to him, and so he waits more, and he has another kid in his 90s, and that was the one that was promised to him. His name is Isaac. No doubt in my mind, Abraham told Isaac of all the promises. Abraham told Isaac that he was a claimant to the things that God told him. That said, Isaac, you're going to have massive descendants. You're going to have this land and one of your descendants is going to fix all the broken things and is going to reconcile us back to our God. And so Isaac is now the carrier of that promise and he joins in Abraham and watching and waiting and hoping. And Isaac has two sons, one of them named Jacob. Jacob's name is later changed to Israel, the namesake of the nation. He has 12 sons, and they make up the 12 tribes of Israel. The youngest son was a guy named Joseph. Joseph ends up in Egypt. And through a series of events that's really incredible in the book of Genesis, he ends up as the second most powerful man in the world. From an obscure nomadic tribe to second most powerful man in Egypt, therefore the world. And he is in control of all the food stores for that part of the world. No one survives the seven-year famine without going and seeing Joseph. He's estranged from his family. They don't know who he is. They don't know that he's there, but they are the remnant. They are the descendants of Abraham who are clinging to the promise of God that one day this will make sense and that one of our descendants will bless the whole earth and fix the broken things. That's what we know. And they're watching and they're waiting and they're hoping. Because of the famine, they have to go down to Egypt and they have to see the guy that's in charge of all the food. And they find out that when they get there, that that's their long lost brother, Joseph. Look at him. Look at his power. Look at how he provides. Look at how he fixes the broken things. And you have to know that his brothers and their little kids and the whole family and the whole clan wondered, yo, is Uncle Joseph the guy? Is he the one? Is he the one that was promised by God to our great-grandfather Abraham? Is he the one? But Joseph dies, and his bones are buried in the land of Goshen where his ancestors put down roots. And then as the people of God wait for the fulfillment of the promise, the Bible goes silent for 400 years. In between Genesis and Exodus, there's 400 years where we don't know what happens, where God doesn't speak, where the remnant of Abraham is left holding on to and claiming the promise, clinging to the hope of God. And at the beginning of Exodus, there's a guy named Moses who shows up. And I would imagine in the time of Moses that it was pretty difficult to continue to believe in the promise because Abraham's descendants, the Hebrew people, are now slaves to the Egyptian people. They are hopelessly in slavery. The Egyptians are the most powerful nation in the world. They are the slaves of the most powerful nation in the world. None of the nations around them care about them or are going to go in to rescue them, okay? There was no UN. They have no hope. They're just there. And I would imagine that to grow up a slave in Egypt made it pretty difficult to buy it when your grandpa told you about the promises that were made to your forefather Abraham. Hey, listen, I know it looks dark now. I know you've got to make all these bricks, but listen. God made a promise to your great, great, great, great grandfather. And we're his people. And one day, one of us is gonna fix the broken things and is gonna restore creation back to him and is gonna bring harmony to your soul. One day, that will happen, cling to those promises. I bet it was tough to cling. I bet it was difficult to have faith. But a faithful few, a faithful remnant of believers clung to the promises and held true to them and believed that God would keep his word and believed that God would keep his promises. And in the midst of clinging to that hope, Moses comes back from the desert. He had been exiled for 40 years. He comes back, and when he comes back, he's got the power of God with him, man. And he, God, through Moses, puts the 10 plagues on Egypt. They convince Pharaoh to let his people go, and now the people of Abraham go out into the desert, and they watch their savior, Moses, who delivered them from slavery and impossible bondage, part the Red Sea and defeat the armies of Egypt and miracle after miracle, day after day in the desert. And they watch as Moses goes up on the mountain and sees the presence of God and glows for days and brings down with him the 10 commandments and hands them a new religion. And they had to wonder, you can't tell me that they didn't. Is this the guy? Is this the one? He's got to be. He has to be the promised one. He's a descendant of Abraham. He's delivered us. He's begun to heal up our wounds and restore things to us. He's showing us how to be right with God, to unite our souls to him. This has got to be the one. But Moses dies before they ever enter the promised land. And he's not the one. And so Israel waits. And Israel watches. And Israel hopes that one day God will keep his promise. After Moses comes Joshua, they sweep into Israel and take it over, and that promise is fulfilled. Now the land is theirs. The problem is they don't have the infrastructure to be able to defend it, and so Israel kind of spirals down into this dark period in their history called the Judges, where all the different neighbors of Israel would come in and oppress them and take their stuff and bully them and make them give it to them, right? They couldn't keep their crops. They couldn't feed their kids. It was a tough time in the nation of Israel. And during that time, God would send judges to overthrow the oppressors and restore Israel to what it needs to be. And they had to wonder in the midst of this turmoil with every judge, is this the person? Is Gideon the one? Is Jephthah the one? Is Ehud the one? Maybe it's Deborah. Maybe it's Samson. They had to wonder, are these the people that God promised that are going to rescue us? Because it seems like they're doing it, but they weren't. The power of each judge was finite, and the timing of them was fleeting. The judges aren't the ones. And again, I wonder what it would be like to be one of the faithful remnant, clinging on to the promises that were passed down to them by their forefathers, when they can't even keep their own wheat harvest, when things feel really broken and life doesn't make sense. I bet faith was scarce in the time of the judges. Out of the time of the judges, Israel demands a king, and so they appoint a man named Saul. Saul was the guy that you would choose. He was head and shoulders above everybody else. He was very good looking. When you think of Saul, you can think of me. That's probably a good representation of who he was. But Saul was a terrible king. He was arrogant, and he used it for himself, and he wasn't the guy. But after Saul, there's a guy named David. David was the eighth son of Jesse. He was a little shepherd boy. But the last great prophet, a guy named Samuel, was directed by God himself to go and anoint David the next king. And what was said about David was that he was a man after God's own heart. And the mythology of David builds as he goes and he slays the giant Goliath. And all of Israel pays attention to him. And they make up songs about David and they celebrate him. And then he goes and he defeats their enemies. And he brings back the presence of God, the Ark of the Covenant. And he dances before it and he restores Israel, brings Israel to a place of international prominence that it had never seen. David's rule was so profound that he's the greatest king they've ever had and his star still flies over Israel to this day. He wrote the largest book in the Bible, the book of Psalms. And they had to go. David's gotta be be the guy. He's got to be the one. This has to be the one that was promised to us. Look, he's redeeming us. He's saving us. He's restoring us. He's fixing the broken things. This has to be him. But David wasn't the guy. David sinned profoundly. And I wonder how much faith wavered. But God, in the middle of David's life, in 2 Samuel 7, makes David a promise. He says, David wanted to build the temple. And God goes to David and says, you're not going to be able to build the temple in your lifetime. I'm going to let your son do that, but I've got something better for you, David. I still am going to keep my promise to your forefather, Abraham. I'm still going to send the Messiah. I'm still going to send the King of Kings. And when he comes, David, he's going to sit on your throne. And then this promise is a renewal of the hope of Israel. That God has not forgotten his promise that he made a thousand years ago to Abraham, that he still remembers. He's not forgetful of the things he said he would do. He still intends to keep his word. And when he does, he's going to sit on the throne of David and the hope of Israel is renewed. And it's good that it was renewed because after David comes Solomon. And then after Solomon, the country splits into a civil war from which it never recovers. And the northern kingdoms and the southern kingdoms have bad king after bad king after bad king after bad king. And the remnant gets smaller and the faithful get fewer. And there are fewer and fewer people who still cling to the promises of Abraham and follow the religion that was imparted on them by their forefathers. And then each of the kingdoms get drug off into slavery, one by Babylon and one by Assyria. And I can only imagine how difficult it would be to grow up as a slave in Babylon or a slave in Assyria and hear your grandfather or your grandmother or your mom or your dad tell you, hey, hang in there, be faithful. You should follow these laws and these rules because they were given to us by a God that made a promise to your forefather, Abraham. It would be really difficult to not look at those promises growing up as a slave in Assyria and go, yeah, what are those promises now? Because we're not on that land and no one's coming save us, and we're slaves. I imagine faith was pretty tough in the time of exile for Abraham's followers. And because it was a hard time, because even the return and the restoration was a hard time, God spoke to them through the voices of the prophets that told them more about their Messiah. And we see these great prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Habakkuk and Zephaniah and Malachi and all the ones at the end of the Old Testament that are proclaiming the coming Messiah. And they tell us things like when he comes, he's gonna bind up the wounds of the brokenhearted. When he comes, he's going to give good news to the poor. When the Messiah gets here, the blind will see and the lame will walk and the deaf will hear and the prisoners will be set free and the slaves will be released. When he gets here, he's going to make the wrong things right. He's going to fix this broken place. He's going to reconcile your soul to your God, and he's going to fix this creation that our sin has broken. He's going to do it. Hang in there. Be faithful. The Messiah is coming. Wait and watch and hope. And the faithful remnant did. Generation after generation, voice after voice, until we get to the end of the New Testament. And in the middle of this waiting and watching and hoping and clinging to the promises made by God to their forefather Abraham, there's another 400 years of silence at the end of the Old Testament. Malachi speaks and closes out that part of the Bible. And then in this darkness and in the silence, Israel waits and they watch and they hope. And they wonder, is our God going to keep his promise? Or are we foolish for this? And in the midst of that silence, there's a righteous man named Simeon. And we meet Simeon in Luke chapter 2. The Bible says this about Simeon. It says, now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Spirit was upon him. Listen, Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. He is the personification of all of the hope, of all of Israel, of all of his ancestors for all time up until this moment. He is representative of the nation of Israel and those who are paying attention, the rest of the world, groaning for the restoration, groaning for things to be made right and for the broken things to be repaired and for their souls to be reconciled to their creator. He is the personification of their hope. He is representative of the thousands of years of history that lead into this moment. And in his righteousness, he prays. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. How crazy do people think Simeon was? I wonder how many of his friends he told. The promised one's coming. The Messiah is going to be here. God told me. I'm not going to die until I see him. How crazy would you have thought Simeon was? And he came in the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him, according to the custom of the law, on the eighth day of the life of a Hebrew boy, you take him to the temple and he is circumcised. And so moved by the spirit, Simeon goes to the temple to intersect with Jesus there. He took him up in his arms and he blessed God. And he said, I imagine the Simba moment as Simeon holds up baby Jesus and blesses God. And this is what he says, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel. Simeon says, God, I can die in peace. I'm holding the fulfillment of your promise. Do you understand what's happening in this moment with Simeon? Do you understand that he holds the promise, the ones that the faithful remnant clung to, generation after generation after generation, all the people before him that the culture told, you're foolish, you're dumb. God's not going to do that. If he's so powerful, if he's so good, if he keeps his promises, then why is this happening? All the people that ever asked that and got in clung to faith anyways, God is, Simeon is holding the fulfillment of that promise. He is holding the gift from God that through this Messiah, he is going to live a life in such a way that is perfect. And he is going to bear our iniquities and our transgression. And he is going to take our sin and our shame and all the things that break down our relationship with God. And he is going to hang on the cross for me and for you to reconcile our souls back to our creator God. That's what this baby boy is going to do. And that's what Simeon holds. And that's what he knows. But he doesn't just know that. He knows that everything else, this broken world, all the things that hurt and don't make sense and seem like they're broken, this baby boy is going to restore those as well. And so Simeon holds him up and he says, God, I can die. I understand. I get it. You have kept your promise. So let Christmas remind you that your God always keeps his promises. He always keeps his promises. Even when our life feels like the life when we're in the judges and we're getting oppressed by one thing after another, we're getting influenced by one thing after another, our faith is getting beaten up. It feels foolish to cling to it. We don't know if it's actually true. Remember, Christmas tells us that God always keeps his promises. Even when faith doesn't make sense to those who grew up as slaves in Egypt and are told about their powerful God and they say, if he's so powerful, why am I here? Jesus is a reminder that God kept his promises to them and he will keep his promises to you. And just like Israel went through dark times and had to cling to the promise, so do we. Sometimes life erodes our faith. Sometimes life picks away at our faith. Sometimes it makes it seem pretty impossible, but Christmas reminds us that for the faithful remnant that cling to the promises of our God, that he always keeps his promises. He will never let us down. And not only does that boy come to reconcile our souls to him, but he's going to grow up, he's going to become a man and go back to heaven, and one day he's coming back to fix everything else. And Christmas looks forward to that day too. So when we celebrate Christmas, go drink eggnog. Put a little something in it. Go nuts. Open the gifts. Enjoy your family. Celebrate all the blessings that we have. But know that this is what we celebrate. Know that we give each other gifts, not just because Jesus came to make salvation possible for you, but to make it possible for everyone to reconcile the soul back to its creator and that one day he's coming again and he's gonna fix everything else. He already came to fix your soul and he's going to come back again and fix creation and we cling to that promise. So let Christmas remind us that we cling to the promises just like the ancestors of Abraham and we anticipate the promise just like the followers of Abraham and that God always keeps His promises. That's why the angels sing. That's why they showed up in the sky. That's why the wise men came. That's why we celebrate it every year. Because the baby Jesus came and he restored your soul. And the son of God is coming back and he's gonna restore all of this. And so we cling to that hope. And Christmas is a reminder of that. That's the joy of Christmas. Let's pray. Father, you are good. And we are humbled by your gift. We confess, God, that sometimes things do feel broken to us. Sometimes it's hard to make sense of things. God, for some of us, even this year, even 2019 was one that has, if we're honest, eroded our faith. May we be reminded of the faithful remnant that clung to your promises, and may we be like them and cling to you as well. God, for those who are struggling, be with them. For those for whom this season is difficult, may they feel your presence. For those for whom this season is joyous, may they see with fresh eyes your blessings. God, may we never again reduce the gift of your son to a baby and a manger, but understand him for the God that he is. We thank you for Christmas and all that it represents. In Jesus' name, amen.
