Introduction

We come now to our penultimate message in our series “A man unlike men.” Today we look at the fact that Jesus was a man unlike men in that he was a man of love.

Now to understand what is meant specifically, let’s think about the relationship between love and trust. Who do you trust? Or let me ask it this way, “What type of person do you find yourself trusting?”

A person who is intelligent. We tend to trust doctors, people who are lettered and credentialed, book writers, conference speakers. They seem to know what they are talking about, so we trust them.

A person who is experienced. Maybe you want to vacation in Italy. We trust the person who has been to Italy over a person who has not to give us reliable information.

And we might list a half dozen other descriptors of the type of person we deem trustworthy. Now interestingly, the most significant factor in why we trust someone almost never makes our list. You want to what the most significant factor is in our decision to trust? Here it is: Love. If we believe that a person loves us, we implicitly trust them. There are numerous studies that show this.

So we TRUST people who we believe LOVE us.

And conversely, we distrust people who not love us.

Now the story of the Bible, the entire story of redemption can be looked as a story of trust - distrust - trust. The Bible begins with the creation of Adam and Eve and this Father-God who gives them good things and they TRUST HIm because they believe he LOVES them. But there are elements of the relationship that begin to call that trust into question.

We see that Adam and Eve are not equal with God but subject to this Father-God.

But also has given them, not complete freedom but work to accomplish

Commands them to do things

Prohibits them from doing one thing.

He makes one LAW that he asks them to keep. YOu can eat from any tree, but you may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Over time a question arises, why? Why not? There is plenty of to eat. I don’t need that fruit, but I want to know why I can’t have it. A bit of uncertainty rises. A bit of doubt. Maybe he is withholding from me something that is good? Initially that thought is repressed; but it’s not gone; it lies dormant; it’s still there. And occasionally it resurface, why these rules? Why the commands? Eventually, these questions rise to the level of suspicion.

Can I really trust this God? The serpent came and suggested a lie that contained two parts.

The father does not love you and that’s why he makes rules. The father is restrictive, self-absorbed, and selfish since and that’s why he won’t let you eat from the tree. He’s trying to keep something good from you. If he was loving, he wouldn’t do that.

Because the father does not love you, he’s tricked you. There is no consequence to disobedience. You can eat the fruit and you won’t die.

When the love of God is undermined, his words of course can no longer be trusted. Everything he says is now eyed with suspicion. And then this horrible cycle begins.

When God is not trusted, well of course he is not obeyed.

When he is not obeyed, we experience the consequences of disobedience which is painful.

Then in our pain, we cry out, God why do you allow evil into this world? If you were a good God, you would never allow evil. If you cared at all about me, if you loved me you would stop this evil.

And because those evil consequences are felt so strongly, God is further distrusted, the suspicions that he is unloving are confirmed

So he further ignored and further disobeyed until finally he is hated.

Do you see the horrible cycle that breaks down when we believe the most dangerous of all lies, the lie of lies.

Several thousand years later and we are still in the cycle. What is the most common reason people don’t believe in God? Because he allows evil into the world. And if evil is in the world, well then God must not love us. And how can we trust a God who does not love us?

Do you know what Christmas is? Christmas is delivering us from that lie. That’s what we are going to see today. You see, Jesus came to earth to give us everything he had, to give us the life in himself, and, in so doing, deliver us from the lie that he does not love us so that we might trust him with all of our hearts.

Now, I want to explore this idea from the first five verses of the book of 1 John. John was an apostle of Jesus and wrote three books of our NT. And the reason that is important to point out is that this makes him an eyewitness testimony of the events we celebrate this Christmas Sunday.

And interestingly, he begins his book by pointing out that eyewitness testimony, what his eyes saw, the details, the flesh and blood historical details of the person of Jesus Christ.

Now the main thing he’s saying here is this.

The first step in trusting is knowing. And God came to earth that we might know him.

The Word of Life in this passage is speaking of Jesus. John says that this word of life became manifest…meaning Jesus was always there, but he was not visible with the sense of sight. Then at a point in time, He was manifested and we were able to perceive HIM with our senses. That’s what manifest means.

You manifest your invisible thoughts…how? By speaking them. And then someone listens to you through their sense of hearing and can perceive what was always real but had been unknowable. My wife tells me this all the time. Honey, I can’t know what you are thinking….you have to talk….

And in this passage, the word of life, Jesus, was always there but not perceivable through any of the five senses. Then at a point in time he became manifest in the person of Jesus. Meaning, now, suddenly for the first time in history, God could be seen, touched, talked to and handled.

That may seem obvious, but believe me, this is not obvious. Why was it important that God needed to come in human form? Why was it important that he could be touched and seen and heard? Why was it important that God be manifest IN THE FLESH?

Let me illustrate this.

Here’s a coin that might not look all that significant. It’s a penny. The date is 1943.

And if you know anything about pennies made in this era they were made of steel because of the shortage of copper in the war. Now even though most pennies in this era are made of steel this particular penny is made of copper. There were only 40 of them made, and they were made sort of by accident. As they were switching over to steel, the minting machine still had a little bit of copper left in so they ran the rest of that through with the new die and then the new steel material became the 1943 standard. Now because a 1943 copper penny is so rare, they are extremely valuable. The last one sold for 1.7 million dollars.

Now, I used to collect coins and when I learned of this I went through my coin collection, and what do you suppose I’m holding in my hands right now? In preparation for this sermon I wore a bullet-proof vest.

I’m suggesting something to you aren’t I. How will you ever know? How would you come to believe the claim? You would have to what? You would have to do exactly what John is doing here. You would have to look upon the object with your eyes. You’ve touched it with your own hand and turned it over and over to verify it. Inspect it carefully. Handle it over and over to make sure your eyes are not deceiving you or that someone is trying to play a trick on you.

Of course your asking the question is that a real 1943 copper penny? Dude, I drive 1999 Honda Odyssey. What do you think?

You see, it’s through the senses that we ascertain WHAT IS REAL, it’s through our experience that we determine what is KNOWABLE.

To make a claim that God came in the flesh and became a man is a giant claim. It’s a claim that if true would be incredibly rare. It’s one penny, so to speak, among the billions upon billions that exist. And how would you verify this claim? How would you discern if this was a man just pretending to be God or a man who was God?

How would you discern if this was indeed the WORD OF LIFE come to EARTH or just another man with an unlikely claim? You’d have to touch and living among and see and experience and observe. At every turn he would surprise and amaze and invert the expected. And John says, I saw it. We saw it. Eyewitness testimonies. Hundreds and thousands of people saw it. He dwelt among us.

Let me ask it again: Why was it important that God be manifest IN THE FLESH?

So that you might KNOW that the creator of the UNIVERSE, the God who made you….he is REAL and he is KNOWABLE. Jesus Christ is God and he can be known. That is incredibly significant.

The point of the Christmas story is that God came down, out of the heavens and dwelt among us so that we might know him. John 1:14 says the word became flesh, something you could touch. This is what was had been prophesied 700 years earlier by the prophet Isaiah and what was fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus.

The meaning of the name is explained to us because is not a normal name. This would be like having a baby boy, and your friends coming and admiring him and saying, “Oh, he is so beautiful. What’s his name?” And you say, “Oh, his name is GodWithUs. Can you change, GodWithUs’s diaper. Can you feed GodWithUs.”

It’s intended to shock you into realizing the strangeness and uniqueness and the once-in-history nature of this Messiah-God. A God that existed among us that could be handled and seen and touched and talked to.

By contrast, it’s not the gods of the Greeks and Romans that live in the clouds that influence us but cannot be reached or known. No, this God can be touched like a COIN and inspected and seen and known.

So, the first step in trusting God is knowing God. And what particularly do you have to know? That he loves you.

Now the way this point is made is interesting in the text. He makes the point that the WORD of LIFE (which we’ve learned is Jesus) is ETERNAL LIFE. Look at this in the text.

The wording there is a little awkward, but catch what he’s saying; he is saying that the word of life which is Jesus Christ is in the eternal life.

Let me try to make clear the grammatical construction.

The phrase a city totally in ruins RENAMES Rio de Jeaneiro. They are one and the same.

Now take that exact same construction and map it on to 1 John 1:2

So in the same way, the words “eternal life” RENAME The life made manifest (that’s Jesus). Jesus and eternal life are ONE AND THE SAME.

Here’s the significance.

Jesus does not merely provide life.

It’s not a power he possesses.

It’s not even something he dispenses.

HE IS LIFE. There’s a massive difference between those two ways of thinking.

If you are hungry, it’s the difference between the guy at Olive Garden who can provide you with tasty salad and bread sticks and the salad and breadsticks themselves. Jesus does not point to a source of life outside himself. He is the life. He doesn’t point to spiritual food. He is the food.

All through Jesus ministry he was making this point about himself.

Jesus didn’t say, “Are you hungry? Okay, let me show you where you can find bread.” He said, I am the bread of life. That was the symbolism behind feeding the 5000. Out of me comes food. You have to consume me if you are to be satisfied.

Jesus didn’t say, “I see your stumbling around and wandering.” Let me hand you a flashlight, and with this flashlight you can find enlightenment. He says I am the light. The only way you will have light is if you look at the world through my eyes.

All our needs are met in Jesus and cannot be divorced from him.

You want to be sustained? I am the vine.

Are you lost? I am the way.

Do you need a leader? I am the good shepherd.

Are you confused? I am the truth.

Are you feeling dead? I am the life. Are you actually dead? I am the resurrection.

And the ultimate of course is John chapter 8, before Abraham was, “I AM.” I am everything you need. I am the great I am. I am the ising one. I am not the provider of the source of all life, all goodness, all blessing. I am life. I am goodness. I am blessing.

This causes us to realize that all the blessings we want from God, peace, happiness, satisfaction, love, are not gifts that God gives. They are the result of possessing God. This is the great emphasis of the NT and the reason that the epistles over and over and over and over again talk about the life we have “in Christ” It is not life that Christ gives us. It is literally the life of Christ. You cannot divorce the blessing of Christ without having Christ.

It’s like saying, I want the blessings of marriage without being married. It’s marriage itself which is the blessing.

It’s like saying, I want the satisfaction of running a marathon without actually running a marathon. No, it’s the marathon itself that provides those things.

And in the same way, we look to Christ himself, not to the benefits that Christ gives us because Christ himself is the benefit.

This becomes one of the most significant concepts about the way you view Jesus in a manager. This will transform the Christmas story. Jesus did not come to give you gifts. He came to give you himself. He is the gift. Jesus is not a genie in a bottle to get you what you want. He is what you want.

We are here this Christmas morning and I want to ask you, what is it you want from Jesus?

Do you want eternal life, peace, joy, satisfaction, freedom from sin, health, family…

Then what you want is Christ! Because he is that. He is holy. He is family. He is truth. He is salvation. He is LOVE, the thing we ultimately all want more than anything. We want love and he is LOVE.

He does not provide it. He is it.

The Marrow Controversy

I want you to see that this applies right now. Here’s a piece of church history probably very few if anyone here knows anything about. It’s called the marrow controversy that took place in Scotland in the early 18th century.

Now the entire controversy began when a young Presbyterian minister named William Craig was standing before a board of examiners waiting to be ordained for ministry. And this question was put before him:

Mr Craig tell us if this is Orthodox or Unorthodox. Tell us if this is true or false.

What do you think about this statement? Turn it over in your mind. Do you agree or disagree?

The way he answered is unimportant because what ensued after this was a debate that would take decades to iron out.

Let’s analyze this together: what is at stake in this question, whether you see it or not, is man’s response to the LAW of God.

Here we are faced with the law of God. And I am in violation of it. But it’s worse still. I actually love the fact that I’m in violation of it. I love my sin. I know what the law says but I love what I’m doing. I can’t not love it. Now what?

So how do I come to Christ in this condition? Should I forsake my sin in order to come to Christ?

This statement is dangerously, exactly reversed from the message of the gospel. EXACTLY wrong.

We cannot forsake sin because we ultimately love sin. We love sin until we see something more loveable that then displaces our sin. That’s why we must come to Christ first, because when we do that, we find something better than our sin. We find what we were really looking for in our sin and our sin no longer has appeal because it is clearly less capable of fulfilling OUR EMPTY HEARTS.

Here we are 300 years later and we haven’t moved an inch from this controversy. This same error rears it’s head in two UGLY forms.

Here you and I are and we are faced with the law of God. And again, we find ourselves in violation of it. What do we do about it?

Here’s a song that we sing that has a suggested answer. You are in violation.

“Come just as you are.”

Certain ones among us will not like the way that is phrased. We can’t just come to Christ all full of sin. God is holy. We need to repent of that sin and get right before we enter into his presence. That is so irreverent. What are you saying? That we should just not even care about our behavior? There’s a certain standard here, folks?

The Bible calls these types of people legalists. They abide by the legal standards. They are the ones who essentially say that to please God we must obey the rules. They try to make themselves more acceptable by conforming to the rules.

“Come just as you are.” Some hate that statement.

Now on the other hand others love that statement. “Come just as you are.” They say, “Wow, God loves me just as I am. I don’t have to change. It doesn’t matter if I break his rules. Wow, how great that God just accepts me as I am and I don’t have to change.” The Bible calls these people lawless.These are people who don’t care about the law of God or don’t think it applies to them. They imagine a God who turns a blind eye to their lawless living. SO THEY try to make themselves more acceptable to God not by obeying the law but by removing the law.

Now here’s the deal. These are not opposite errors on a pendulum. The legalist does not need more lawlessness and the lawless guy doesn’t need more legalism to get him balanced.

Those are two expressions of the exact same deadly problem. Both mindsets refuse to believe that God loves them. They don’t believe it. And you are saying, “How does that behavior relate to the love of God.”

Think about it. Go back to the garden with Adam and Eve. When God gave Adam and Eve a LAW. Do not touch the fruit. What lie did they believe. That the reason this rule exists is because God does not love me.

Both the legalist and the lawless man believe that same lie. They both assume that any commands God gives is evidence that he is unwilling to bless us. Both fail to see obedience as the path to our happiness and the path to living according to our design. Both, INSTEAD, see obedience as something imposed on us by a God who is not willing to give us joy unless we do quite a lot of work. The only difference between the two is that the legalist begrudgingly assumes the burden while the lawless guy casts it off.

Neither trust that God loves them.

So what’s the answer? Flee to the one who does love you. Believe he loves you and that you don’t have to do anything to be loved by him. Of course you come as you; what other way can you come? Come as you are but nobody leaves as they came. Because when you hide yourself in Christ, then all that is Christ’s is now yours. His power is your power. His righteousness is your righteousness. His love is yours. You love him as ultimate and supreme….His love is yours.

There is no condition there. Flee to this God.

So, the first step in trusting God is knowing God. And what particularly do you have to know? That he loves you. And once you know that God is loving, there is a response required of you and that is that you TRUST him.

Now this is where this is all headed. There’s implications of the Christmas story for every one of us in this room. And it’s my hope that none of us leave here the same. I really mean that. I hope that we will all be changed. But it will only happen if you understand the connection between the facts of the Christmas story and your life experience.

Now to illustrate what I mean by that, I use the BBC news app to stay current on what’s going on in the world. And every once in a while I get pinged if it’s a particularly newsworthy story.

This week I got pinged because Boeing announced that it would halt the production of it’s 747 airliners due to two recent crashes until they fixed the problem. They know exactly what the problem was. The problem was that a sensor sent faulty data to the automatic stall detector and basically sent the plane into a nose dive at very low altitudes; Both crashes were fatal.

Now like most news stories, you read it and it’s just data. Your processing facts and information. Your analyzing. And that’s what I’m doing right now is giving you a report about the facts of something that happened.

But for Paul Njoroge this is much more than just facts because onboard the Ethiopian plane was his three children, his wife and his mother-in-law. For him, this is not just data. That true fact, devastated his life; his life was changed forever because the reality of this fact intersected his life irreversibly.

And I want to draw a parallel because there is way in which we could read about Jesus, the wise men, the manger, the angels, Mary Joseph almost like a news story from the BBC. And boy, it’s an interesting story. We love it. It could in fact be your absolute favorite story. And all our preaching could be, at the end of the day, just really good story telling. We could preach and imagine the various experiences of the characters in the story, we could really develop the plot and thicken the atmosphere by reminding of the evils of Herod and the mystery of the wise men and the mysterious star and that would be good and right.

And further, none of use would even for a moment doubt it was true. After all, John saw him, touched him, lived life with him, saw all the miracles he performed. Sure that happened.

But we close the cover of our Bible like we do our news app and walk away because it’s just one true, inspiring story among the tens of thousands of other true inspiring stories that has nothing to do with me DIRECTLY. But John is telling us today, it’s not just a story. We can’t do that. That fact, intersects you. Your invested in the story.

You see what is happening here. John is writing this book 50 years after Jesus lived, died and rose to heaven. He’s writing to people living around AD 85-90. Jesus is nowhere to be seen with physical eyes.

And yet he’s saying, this Jesus that we lived with, this word of life, this ETERNAL LIFE, we proclaim to you and you can have fellowship with him.

All of verses 1-5, by the way, hinge on this word PROCLAIM. The word proclaim means something like bring news that influences you. To declare something of importance. What kinds of things to you proclaim and declare?

You proclaim, “The war is over” You declare your independence.

These types of things are facts in history that affect you. And John is writing to people 50 years after the ascension of Jesus, declares that you can have fellowship with him. How can you have fellowship with a man who is not physically here.

If you want life, if you want eternal life, I am declaring to you, I am proclaiming to you that Eternal Life is Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ himself is available to YOU. And that in possessing him, in fellowshipping with him, that life will be yours because he is yours, and he is the life.

Jesus in his prayer to God in John chapter 17 says this.

We don’t say, “Believe in Jesus so that he can show you the way to life.” We say, believe that Jesus is life. Know Jesus and know eternal life.

Conclusion

Now I want to come full circle here. Remember we said that the story of the Bible could be though of in terms of trust - loss of trust - trust.

Adam and Eve believed the lie of the not-to-be-trusted-because-he-does-not-love-me-false-Father.

And that plunged them into sin and the consequences of sin that have ravaged us up until this day.

But do you see what Christmas is all about? Christmas is about delivering us from the lie that God does not love us.

It reveals that…

behind the coming of Christ,

manifested in the baby in the manger,

embodied in the worship-object of the Magi

is the love of a Father who gives us everything he has: first his Son to die for us and then his Spirit to live in us and his eternal life to become our own.

Listen my friends, you do not forsake sin in order to come to Christ. Come to Christ and you will forsake your sin because you will see in him something infinitely more superior. God’s love is poured out to you. He loves you. He has given himself for you. You must simply receive it. You must trust that he loves you and that what he tells you to do is for your good. Jesus Christ offers himself to you without condition, without price.…

The prophet Isaiah says…

“Come everyone who thirst, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

Look to the manager. Look to the cross. Can you not see that he loves you. Has he not proven that he loves you? All the sorrow we ever experience is because men have not trusted this good and loving God. Trust him! Cast yourself upon him!

Whatever sorrow you are experiencing today, trust him. He loves you.

Whatever pain you feel in your heart, trust him. He loves you.

Whatever sense of loss you have experienced, trust him. He loves you.

Look at the evidence of his love in the person of Jesus Christ and trust him. Refuse the lie that that he does not love you. He has proven his love for you. Your earthly fathers will disappoint. Your earthly fathers do not love very well. He has proved his love to you. And now trust him. Believe in him.

If you want to place your trust in Jesus Christ. I want you to come up to the front here after the service and there will be a prayer team here who loves you and wants to just talk with you and pray with you. Okay? Anyone here. For all of us who have done that, let’s thank God that he loves us and that he is trustworthy.

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Are you in Christ? You know it’s interesting, many of us would identify as Christians (and that’s fine by the way) but that’s not how the Bible identifies followers of Christ. Christianity is not fundamentally signing off on a creed. It’s not less than that but it’s more than that. In fact, it’s interesting that the word Christian is only used once in the Bible and it’s in a pejorative way. It was developed by the enemies of Christ followers. Or you are little Christ’s. Your followers of that dude we nailed to the cross.

How does the Bible speak of follower’s of Christ. It speaks of follower’s of Christs not as little Christ’s but people who are “in Christ”, those who have fellowship with Christ, who are united with Christ. And because you are in him, everything that is his, is now yours.

Slideshow for this message is available

Good morning Church! My name is Trent Houck for those who don’t know me and I am the Youth and Family Pastor here at FCBC. I’ve been married for ten years, and have a nearly two and a half year old son. I’ve lived in Boise, ID for almost a year and a half now. If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 2:7-23. We will read the passage in its entirety, then I will pray, and then we will break it apart together.

SCRIPTURE TO BE READ:

Hear God’s Word:

7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

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16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

PRAYER:

Heavenly Father, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my[our] lips will praise you” (Ps. 63:3) “… you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (Psalm 86:15), Oh [we] give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! (Psalm 107:1). This morning we long to be satisfied by your love.

Jesus, we pray that you would be glorified this morning by the meditations of our hearts and minds. Cause us to take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). Lead us this morning as we are taken from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18) as we behold your glory.

Holy Spirit, accomplish your work in us by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. You who are at work in us, help us to see that nothing can separate those who are in Christ from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:39). We pray these things as one body in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

EXPOSITIONAL INTRODUCTION

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This morning we are looking at Matthew 2:7-23, You might remember that we are four sermons deep in a series entitled “A Man Unlike Men.” So far we have seen that Jesus is:

1. A Man Without Beginning (1 Peter 1:20-21)

2. A Man Who Was Promised (Matthew 2:1-6)

3. A Man of Consequence (Luke 2:8-14)

4. A Man who Divides (Luke 2:7, 24)

Today,

5. A Man Who was Hated (Matthew 2.7-23)

We will conclude this series by look at Jesus as a

6. A Man of Sorrow (Luke 2.25-35)

7. A Man of Silence (Mt. 26:63, 1 Peter 2:23; Hab. 2:20; Zeph. 1:7; Psalm 50:21)1

The series is geared to cause your affections to explode with gratitude. The series is aimed at causing you, like the Psalmist says to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry…blessed are all those who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12), and to exclaim with the writer of the Song of Songs, “Behold you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful” (Song of Solomon 1:13). The hope is to again in a fresh way to, behold, revel in, or savor the goodness of God in Jesus Christ: to behold his glory as people who are being transformed from one degree of glory to the next (2 Cor. 3:18).

But, as we describe this man unlike men as “without beginning,” “who was promised” “of consequence” “who divides” and now, “who was hated.” There is a chance that you are feeling alienated from him, rather than drawn to him. You see the divide, the great chasm, between this man and your Christian life, and it’s making you wonder whether he’s real. So, to set up where we’re going today let me just give you five implications of these messages that might help you draw near to God:

1. Jesus is the Son without beginning, so that we might be adopted as sons with eternal endings.

2. Jesus was the man who was promised, so that we might be the recipients of all of God’s benefits in Christ.

3. Jesus was a man of consequence so that our lives as sons and daughters of God might be flooded with meaning and significance.

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4. Jesus was a man who divides so that we who are in Christ might be united to Christ for all of eternity.

5. Jesus was a man who was hated, so that we might know the Father’s Love.2

As Christians, we must recognize that Jesus’ atoning death saved us from the wrath of God and all its consequences, but his perfect, sinless life merits us all the affections of God the Father as Jesus gives us his righteousness. We are now sons and daughters. Ray Ortlund summarizes the Gospel this way,

“God, though the perfect life, atoning death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, rescues all his people from the wrath of God into peace with God, with a promise of the full restoration of his created order forever—all to the praise of the glory of his grace.”3

MAIN POINT:

So, the main point of our passage this morning is this:

Jesus was hated so that we might know the Father’s love.

Summary: The hatred that was aimed at Jesus was unique in that it served as the canvas for the perfect display of human sinfulness and at the same time the perfect love of God the Father for sinners. If I can put it even more provocatively, the human hatred experienced by Jesus was the training implement in the hands of the Father to equip his Son to bear the wrath of God on the cross. Each evidence of human hatred was a vaccination against the ultimate disease of human sinfulness that would be borne by Jesus on the cross of calvary. And at the same moment, the hatred that Jesus experienced was the means by which the Son accrued for us the righteousness in which we freely stand, loved by God by sheer grace. And all this, for us.

EXEGETICAL INTRODUCTION

Let me briefly illustrate why it is the Father’s love that we want. J.I. Packer writes in his book Knowing God that there is no higher privilege in the Gospel than to be adopted as sons of God. He argues that it is even higher, better, more satisfying than the message of justification by faith alone. He writes, “To be right with God the judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater”4 He says, “Adoption is higher [than justification by faith] because of the

3 Ray Ortlund, The Gospel, 16.

4 J.I. Packer, Knowing God, (188).

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richer relationship with God that it involves.”5 In fact, he writes that the entire New Testament could be thematically summarized by this phrase “Adoption through propitiation.”6 If we understand the implications of this for us as Christians, we will agree with Packer that the New Testament is all about sinners by nature and by choice being brought up into the family of God, legally, finally, lovingly, eternally by the substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice of the lamb of God. This is so meaningful for us, that we are, as Packer says, “…all as fully loved as Jesus is loved.”7 That is what the Gospel offers you: the fullness of God the Father’s love for the price of the life and death of his Son.

My assumption this morning is that you not only want this love, but you need this love.8 If you are in the Son, God will never leave you nor forsake you. My assumption is that there are a thousand attacks on this unconditional claim of God’s love on you. Whether from your past, or your present, or from this morning, or your future, the claim that God the Father loves you “…as fully as Jesus is loved” is being assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil. My hope this morning is that God will do a work of defanging and declawing the teeth and claws of those lies so that you will rest secure in Christ today.

Because Jesus was hated, you can be loved. Jesus was hated for you.

MAIN QUESTION/TENSION:

We see human hatred in the yelling matches of our politics, the conflicts of our family both extended and immediate, but most predominately (at least) in students today, we see human hatred concentrated internally in the human psyche as self-hatred. We may encourage our students all we want to love their neighbors as themselves, but until we learn that we are fully loved, we have no power to love anyone else. The Gospel flow of love is “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19). To see that this message is catching fire, you don’t have to look further than famed psychologist Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, his second rule being “Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping.” We may laugh at this, until we realize the consequences of someone who treats themselves with hatred and disdain, and until we realize that our own children have no regard for themselves.

I think this self-hatred is most apparently illustrated in Jean Twenge’s book Igen. She writes, “After declining during the 1990s and stabilizing in the 2000s, the suicide rate for teens has risen again. Forty-six percent more 15- to 19-year-olds committed suicide in 2015 than in 2007, and two and half times more 12- to

5 Ibid., 187.

6 Ibid., 194.

7 Ibid., 196.

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14- year-olds killed themselves”9 She stated previously, “Teens are now lonelier than at any time since…1991.”10 Twenge points to this generations lack of religious persuasion, the breakdown in social relationships, the oversaturation of media and technology, and economic factors to explain this, concluding that this generation is “…both the physically safest generation and the most mentally fragile”11 Therefore, young people are most lethal, and hateful toward themselves, and not others.

I don’t want to over-psychologize this passage, or to read anything into it, but I bring this up to show that hatred in our day takes place along the landscape of our internal monologue, our indifferent, cold, electronically curated relationships, and unless we see this, we will be alienated from our passage, which describes extremely dark physical violence, real exile, and the infiltration of God through dreams, and angels.

The problem of hatred today, though it may be on the inner walls of our souls is still very much a problem today, and because of humanity’s sinful nature, this hatred problem is here to stay, unless we allow the Gospel to address us in its fullness, and we’re given a new nature that is unified with Christ. That is why I think this passage is here for us this morning.

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5).12

For this to be good news, we must acknowledge that Jesus was both hated by us so that we put him on the cross, but that he was hated for us so that through the cross he might triumph by sacrifice over our sinful hatred of him. That, I think is, what this passage teaches. And we will belabor the point no longer.

OUTLINE:

Here is my outline:

1. A Man Hated to Reveal the Nature of Sin as Self-Worship (Matt. 2:7-8)

2. A Man Hated to Reveal the Nature of True Worship as Extreme, Self-forgetful Joy in God (Matt. 2:9-12).

9 Jean Twenge, Igen, 110.

10 Jean Twenge, Igen 97.

11 Jean Twenge, Igen, 312.

12 This is what it means that Jesus was hated, so that we might know the love of God. Jesus was certainly hated by humanity, but this is not a hatred that saves. But a hatred that condemns

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3. A Man Hated to Reveal the Nature of the Father’s Love: Out of Egypt I called My Son (Matt. 2:13-15)

4. A Man Hated to Reveal Meaning in Sorrow: They Were No More (Matt. 2:16-18)

5. A Man Hated to Reveal Something Good From Nazareth (Matt. 2:19-23).

A MAN HATED TO REVEAL THE NATURE OF SIN AS SELF-WORSHIP (MATT. 2:7-8)

First, we must examine the epitome of sin in humanity: self-worship. Sinful hatred finds its expression first in the heart of a worshipper, who has taken for himself the wrong object of worship, namely, himself. We read,

7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”

Herod’s hatred problem, his sin problem, was first a worship problem. Herod the first, known for his brutal executions, his bloody rise to power, his ruthless building projects, the murder of his three eldest sons and one of his ten wives, was a worshipper. He was someone who was meant to live in the presence of God and for the glory of God. And yet, his sinister self-worship crowded onto his personal resume. We see from verse 3 that the announcement of this Jewish King was troubling for Herod so that he made a full enquiry of the matter. His throne of self-exaltation was being threatened. He called secret meetings. No doubt his mind was fully preoccupied with this question: what will happen to me? There are two things we need to learn about sin from this passage:

First, sin is self-worship. Herod “summons”, “ascertains”, and “sends” all for the purpose of exalting the all-powerful “I”. He delicately disguises his self-exaltation with, “That I too may come and worship him” (2:8). We know from later in the passage that Herod had no real intention of worshipping Jesus. Herod is like the dragon in Revelation 12, who waits for the birth of the son of man like a nurturing midwife but with the internal intention “…to devour him” (Revelation 12:4). Self-worship commands, investigates, and even promises worship for God, but it’s only true aim is self-preservation and protection.

Second, sin is hatred disguised as love. As Puritan writer and Pastor Thomas Brooks says, the devil is skilled in “painting sin with virtue’s colors.”13 So is Herod. “Search diligently,” he says, “for the child…”. Make a careful religious inquiry. Make me the first to know. Why? Oh, because I want to worship him.

13 Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.

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There is worship that has no reward. When we serve to be noticed, worship to be accepted, suffer to be congratulated, preach to be applauded, lead life group for solely our own benefit, these are examples of self-worship. And God will take no part in it. Jesus was hated by Herod in a disguise of love so that all of our false religious practice, all of our self-centered attempts to earn God’s favor would be exposed on the canvas of Herod’s self-obsession. If you want your Bible reading to explode, ask yourself the question: “how am I like all the villains of Scripture?” not “how am I like the victors?” Read Scripture to see that our self-obsession is a worship problem. In our sin, we love God with the same self-centered secrecy as Herod the first. Jesus was hated to reveal this to us. There are times in my life when I am sure that Jesus looked at my “worship” and said, “Your worship reminds me of Herod the First.” Why are we so afraid of this man who means to overthrow our kingdoms of self-obsession by the sheer weight of his kindness and mercy? To all of us who worship ourselves, this question remains. The wise men show us a better way.

A MAN HATED TO REVEAL THE NATURE OF TRUE WORSHIP AS EXTREME, SELF-FORGETFUL JOY IN GOD (MATT. 2:9-12)

Second, Jesus was hated to reveal the nature of true worship as extreme, self-forgetful joy in God. We will all find in this passage that our worship has been lukewarm, even cold. God means for us to enjoy him personally, experientially, truthfully so that we are filled with extreme joy. Let’s read starting in verse 9:

9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

Hate filled, self-preservationist, false worshippers, like Herod, send real worshippers to find something worthy of their worship. True worshippers have to resist the urge to worship everything.

For example, I have recently taken a liking to coffee for its energy production, help in focus, and rich-bodied flavor. I am tempted to worship coffee. It makes me a happier person. It drives me as an introvert out of my cave of self-talk. I am tempted to center my life on coffee. To make it the highlight of my day. To practice the presence of coffee all throughout my day. To evangelize for coffee. To preach the coffee gospel, which is preached most compellingly by Dutch Bros.

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I know many of you who suffer the same weight. Maybe it’s not coffee for you, but it’s mountain biking, skiing, skydiving, your work, your family, your brewing unspeakable beverages, your computer, your phone, etc.

I want to show this because these wise men were truly wise. Notice how they resist false worship. As astrologers, how did they resist the gravitational pull of worshipping the star that led them so perfectly? How is it that they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy that it had led them to the house of the Jewish King, and not in the star itself? How is it that they resisted the Catholic urge to worship Mary the Mother of God, for her indispensable role of bringing the Son of God into the world? How is it that they fell down and worshipped only him?

C.S. Lewis helps us here:

“The books or the music [or the star, or the house, or the woman in the home…] in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we [en]trust [ourselves] to them; it was not in them [the star, or the gold, or the frankincense, or the myrrh], it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only a scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a far country we have not visited.”14

Lewis argues that we so infrequently feel this surge of true joy, this exceedingly great joy, this ecstatic mega joy, because our souls have shrunk to worship the means of our joy and not the object of our joy.

I think there are four applications that we can take from this:

1. Follow the “star” all the way up to God. If you want exceptional joy in worship, follow the enjoyment of created things all the way up to the Creator. Imagine if you were going to meet your most cherished friend and upon arriving you stayed outside to admire the road. “Yeah, now there’s a great road. I knew you were the right road. I wonder what you’re made of. Smoothest road ever, and headed in just the right direction.” Um, honey, it’s time to be with the family, we drove 16 hours to see your best friend…“Just a second, I just need to see about this road.”

14 C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

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2. Accept that joy is received as grace, not actively taken by works. The wise men enjoy the sheer gift of God’s grace in their joy. The literal translation is that they were rejoiced, or they were filled with joy, exceedingly great joy. They were filled with the joy not their own, like a father who designs a treasure map and seeing his son find the treasure, delights together in song and dance with his son in the finding of what he had purposefully hidden for the sheer joy of discovery. This is shared, God-centered joy.

3. Realize that true worship is a call to humility. Even in their great, miraculous discovery, they fall down, prostrating themselves before a child. They recognize that there is someone of more worth and value than themselves. And so, they lower themselves.

4. Recognize that true worship opens the treasure box of the heart. When you have the object of your greatest desire in front of you, the peripheral objects and possessions that you have attained come flooding to the feet of Jesus. What value does gold have except to give to Jesus? What value do our families, cities, our nation, our homes have except to give them to Jesus who gives them their real substance and worth?

How many addictions would be prevented if we only saw that happiness, joy, and true satisfaction does not enslave, but frees. How many affairs would be prevented if only we would see that beauty comes through people and not because of them? That people in themselves are not the substance but the means of enjoying God. That the only thing in all the universe that truly has substance is God himself. And the rest of us just borrow from him. As Lewis puts it, this worship is “The whole man drinking from the fountain of joy.”15 This is what God wants for us in worship. In every life group, in every meal, in every activity, we are to be enjoying God by means of his good gifts to the end of his glory.

This kind of worship expands the soul, frees the mind, and restores life to the body. This kind of worship takes the weight of expectation off of your families and friends to be everything for you, and frees you to take delight in God. This takes the pressure off the worship leader, the preacher, when God is the one desired.

Our sin was shown through self-worshipping hatred of Herod. True worship is illustrated as hating all other things by comparison to our love for Christ. And

15 C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

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now, we see that Jesus was hated so that God might make a display of his love for the Son.

A MAN HATED TO REVEAL THE NATURE OF THE FATHER’S LOVE: OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON (MATT. 2:13-15).

Third, Jesus was hated to reveal the nature of the Father’s love. The main point of this passage is found in verse 15, “Out of Egypt, I called my Son.” Don’t gloss over those words. Of all places, Egypt? Let’s read starting in verse 3:

3 Now when they[the wise men] had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

So, now you see Herod’s real motivation exposed. What looked to be a pious attempt at worship turned out to be a maniacal plot to slaughter God’s own Son.

We can summarize this bit swiftly: all of the events in verses 13-14 took place in order that the divine word from the mouth of Hosea (11:1) might be fulfilled that said, “Out of Egypt, I called my Son.” This phrase, in its context, is loaded with meaning. We don’t have time to retell the entirety of Israel’s story, but know that this is Israel’s salvation narrative retold as divine intervention in one sentence. The nature of the Father’s love is salvific, it is saving, rescuing, redeeming, red-sea parting love. God’s superintending, sovereign love caused Jesus to be pushed out of Bethlehem by means of Herod’s self-centered volitional choices in order that the Word of God might prove true.

Let’s just say two things about the nature of the Father’s love.

First, the Father’s sovereign, saving love is mediated through responsible human agents. All the commands that will ultimately fulfill God’s word are presented as real choices for Joseph to obey. The imperative to rise, take the child, flee, and remain are all instituted by divine direction but obeyed and activated by a responsible human person, “a just man” (1:19). Joseph is God’s man for the job. He expects Joseph to take the lead. Joseph is the primary active party of verse 14, “He rose...” and “...[he] took the child...” and “[he] took the child’s mother...” and he departed and took the 75-90 mile journey to get out of Israel.16 And he kept him there until the death of Herod. The responsibilities for both protection and provision are

16 Carson and Wilkins disagree on the exact length of this journey to Egypt’s border.

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placed squarely in the hands of Joseph, even as God superintends his sovereign leadership through exceptional dream warnings.

This truth has implications for our parenting as well. While we are entrusted with our children as stewards, God is ultimately sovereignly responsible for the outcome of their lives. This is illustrated in the fact that Joseph was not conducting research studies on geopolitics, calculating grade point averages to prevent governmental intervention, or helicopter parenting when he received divine instruction for the preservation of his adopted son. He was sleeping! As parents, we would do well to follow Joseph’s example. Go to bed!

Second, the Father’s saving love calls his Son “out of Exile.” We should notice the divine reversal going on here. The safest place for Joseph to go is away from the “promised land” and into exile in Egypt. Egypt and Israel have traded spaces. Bethlehem is about to have its children exposed just as Pharaoh threw the Hebrew boys into the Nile. Exile is the true place of safety, where God dwells, and where God calls.

Again, I think there are implications for parenting here. We are terrified of our sons and daughters being sent into exile. We are afraid of them being rejected, maligned or in any way mistreated, but we must acknowledge they are not as spiritually safe with us as we might assume. I’ve spoken to many young Christians who leave the Church upon graduation. They go through Christian schools, they have Christian parents. They were raised in a Christian bubble, but when they leave home they say, “I met Jesus when I was enrolled in a secular university.” Suffocated under the pressure of protection and self-preservation, when they are allowed to breathe the air of spiritual freedom, they begin to notice God.

This is, in many ways my own story. I met God not in the pews of my childhood churches or at the desks of my Christian schools, but in the slums of San Francisco, and in the spiritually impoverished lowlands of my public high school.

Here’s the point: we have a God who meets us in exile. We have a God who calls his own Son from an unlikely, spiritually bankrupts, genocidal place.

Let’s not be afraid of statistics and fear-tactics. Our young people must trust the God of the Gospel, who never fails, never grows tired or weary. He is not confined or restrained in his saving freedom to the smallness of our churches, or the walls of our schools, though I pray he uses them. He always completes the work that he starts, even in exile. But, let us beware of our own Herodian, false worship tendencies. Let us be people with whom God delights to dwell.17

Jesus then, is hated and sent into exile, in order to bring exile to its end.

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A MAN HATED TO REVEAL MEANING IN SORROW: THEY WERE NO MORE (MATT. 2:16-18)

Fourth, Jesus was hated to reveal the meaning of sorrow and to bring an end to exile. The Son is called out of Egypt, out of exile, but before he is, one final act of hatred and rebellion must take place. Let’s look at verse 16,

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Herod’s sinful, self-worship and consequent fury and rage meant the death of between 10-30 sons in Bethlehem. This is staggering not for its grandeur, but for its pettiness. It’s one thing to slaughter the children of a nation, its another thing to squash the hopes and futures of the little town of Bethlehem. C.S. Lewis helps us to catch the unfathomable weight of this for mothers: “Never, in any place or time, will she have her son on her knees, or bathe him, or tell him a story, or plan for his future, or see her grandchild.”18 If we have been through it, we know that “...each experience of grief is unique”19 Each child made uniquely in the image of God as a son to his mother, but no more. There are two things we must say about this:

First, there is no worldly comfort in the seemingly infinite exile of grief. C.S. Lewis describes grief this way, “Grief still feels like fear. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn’t seem worth starting anything. I can’t settle down. I yawn, fidget, I smoke too much. Up till this I have always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”20 In grief, what was lost was truly lost. No false promise could comfort. This text gives us permission to express the full range of emotions in loss. Weeping and lament are the only proper response. As Christians, we can be too quick to offer trivial comforts. And we can be surprised when they are rejected. But we would be wise to listen to Job’s rebuke: “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2), and “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left

18 C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 26-27.

19 Madeleine L’Engle, Forward for C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, xiii.

20 Lewis, A Grief Observed, 33.

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of your answers but falsehood” (Job 21:34). We would do well to take Psalm 62:1 with us when we counsel our grieving friends: “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.”

Second, the presence of almighty God in exile is the answer to worldly grief. Matthew notes that, when the Son of God comes, again the women will weep as if they are headed to exile, losing their children, their heritage, and their blessing. They will refuse to be comforted as they did in Jeremiah’s era. The presence of Jesus fulfills this grievous word. D.A. Carson writes, “...the tears that began in Jeremiah’s day [at the result of exile] are climaxed and ended by the tears of the mothers in Bethlehem. The heir of the Davidic throne has come. The exile is over. The true Son of God has arrived, and he will introduce the New Covenant promised by Jeremiah.” 21

I remember laying on the couch in the middle of the night after my parents had separated. Never in my life had I experienced such grief, and loneliness, and never in my life had I wanted the presence and person of God more than in those moments.

If you are not a Christian this morning, doesn’t this evoke longing in your heart? Christianity does not paper over your griefs with false promises. God the Son comes in person to bear our griefs. To be with us in exile. He is comfort and peace. Christianity says that there is nothing in this world that can take away your pain, but that God comes in Jesus Christ to bear your pain, and he does this through his word and by his Spirit. Jesus was hated so that we would know that.

So, Jesus was hated to show the sinfulness of self-worship, to reveal the nature of true worship, to show the Father’s saving love, and to bear our sorrows on his own shoulders.

A MAN HATED TO REVEAL SOMETHING GOOD FROM NAZARETH (MATT. 2:19-23).

Fifth and Finally, Jesus was hated to reveal something good from Nazareth. We’ve descended deep this morning, but I think this portion will bring us back up to the surface. Let’s read starting in verse 19:

But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23 And he went and lived in a city called

21 Carson, Matthew, 95.

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Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

So, Jesus was hated for all of these deep reasons: self-worship, to reveal true worship, to reveal the father’s saving love, to bear our griefs, and finally here Jesus is hated to bear our surface-level name calling and quick-witted, sarcastic slams. Let me just give you an example, when Phillip tells Nathanael that he thinks he’s found the Christ, Nathanael responds with famous disdain. I dredged up the most diverse grouping of translations that I could find to help us feel the dripping sarcasm (Jn. 1:46).

New International Version "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" New Living Translation “Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

Berean Literal Bible And Nathanael said to him, "Is any good thing able to be out of Nazareth?"

New American Standard Bible Nathanael said to him, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" International Standard Version Nathaniel asked him, "From Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?" The Message: Nathanael said, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Phillip’s response is, “Come and See!” Some attribute this to the fact that Nazareth was a military outpost, so anyone from there would be conflated with them.22 But, Matthew is simply trying to make the general point that Jesus would be hated because of his hometown. To give a personal example, and I apologize if this hits too close to home, but when I meet people generally, I have learned to tongue in cheek say that I am from the West Coast. Upon arriving here initially, people would ask, “Where are you from?” To which I would reply, “California.” Oh. What part? “Southern.” Oh. Generally, Boise natives are very calm and welcoming, but when they hear that I’m from Ventura, CA, their thoughts are confirmed, this place really is being thrown to the wolves.

22 Walvoord & Zuck, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, 23.

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In God’s eyes, we call come from the wrong neighborhoods, and Jesus was placed in the wrong neighborhood to prove that God can take anyone from anywhere and make them anything he chooses. Jesus was placed in a place of the absolute lowest expectation to show that our identities should come from God alone, and not from our city, our neighborhood, our family, but from God. We’re family not because we share genetics, or exact bloodlines, or heritage but because we share one Lord and savior, who was hated so that all of our superiority complexes could die at the cross. So, Jesus was hated in all these ways, but I want to draw our attention in closing to a final way that Jesus was hated. Surprisingly, Jesus and his family did not live happily ever after in the wonderful land of Nazareth. Jesus came to bear the hate of sin and the weight of sin such that all human hatred was mere preparation for bearing divine wrath on the cross. And Jesus took all of that human hatred up with him to the cross so that he might bear something that was infinitely greater than our deepest disdain: he bore the wrath of God.

God made him who knew no sin to become sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus took our human hatreds, bearing the weight of all our sorrow for every exile hatred has caused, and he brought an end to it by drinking the cup of God’s wrath and pouring out on us lavish grace. So, we will close by simply saying: Jesus was hated so that we might know the love of Father.

Let’s pray.

Introduction

We are in the advent season leading up to Christmas where we are looking a the various ways in which Jesus was a man unlike any other man who has ever lived.

We’ve seen that

Jesus was a man without beginning

Jesus was a man who was prophesied and last week we looked at the fact that…

Jesus was a man of consequence.

To set us up for today’s theme, let’s review what we meant by that. We saw that, very much unlike Caesar Augustus, Jesus became a man of true consequence by surrendering his consequence. He didn’t fight for power, he surrendered his power. And he did it for a reason. He did it for our sake. He did it out of love. And it was that love and self-sacrifice and emptying of consequence that made everything he did so consequential.

Now, Jesus was a man of consequence for that reason. That is true but that can’t be the total equation. There are plenty of people who have surrendered all and are absolutely loving in so many ways and don’t change the world. In fact, most people who surrender for the sake of love if we are honest, get pushed aside. They don’t tend to write history, history overwrites them. When you surrender power, someone else picks it up and uses it against you.

What was unique about Jesus? What made his story matter? What caused him to be remembered. Because, after all, the story ends worse than it begins. He dies on a Roman cross - the ultimate position of humiliation, insignificance and lack of consequence. There were thousands of men who tried to start revolutions are were put down by the cross and their names are completely forgotten. The cross was brutally effective at erasing the memory of pretender kings. How is it that Jesus could meet such an ignominious end, be stained with such reproach and then literally cleave our calendar in half and change world history such that today 2000 years later, millions of churches are erected whose expressed purpose is to worship him?

Here’s the answer. Because God destined that it would be so. God decreed this coming Son to enter into the world and have impact. And the reason he had impact was because his message was so radical and so unique that you were forced to be either for him or against him.

Jesus came with a message that divided the world, that wedged peoples from peoples, and in some cases brothers from sisters, daughters from mothers, and children from parents. What we want to do this morning is place ourselves beneath the sovereign stream of God’s gracious decreeing work and just confess that the God of the universe came to love the world by sending his Son, Jesus Christ and that love divided mankind. History is divided by this giant wedge of Jesus Christ and we want to understand why it is that the wedge of Christ divides and how we are to respond to that.

Jesus Christ is a man unlike other men in that he is a man who divides. If you doubt this is this case, you can experiment with this right after church.

Just go around say, “I love my wife.”

I love chocolate.

I love the Sea-hawks

People smile and nod. But if you say, “I love Jesus Christ,” that is not a neutral statement. Either you evoke in someone feelings of great warmth and affection or feelings of aggravation, offense and turmoil. Something of consequence is felt when the name of Jesus is mentioned.

Now in the Christmas story we sense this divided reaction.

Last week we read that a birth was announced to the shepherds; the angels came to them while in the field and sang, “Glory to God in the highest and PEACE on earth.” Jesus came to bring peace. The text says they went away “glorifying and praising God”

So that’s one reaction to the birth of Jesus. That’s Luke 2. Matthew 2 has a different reaction. Here we read of Herod of who hears of the EXACT SAME Messiah-king who is born and is so threatened that he begins a genocide which wipes out every baby in Bethlehem two years and younger.

Same announcement. Opposite reaction. Jesus is a man who divides.

Now today we look at another place, a very interesting place, where this diametrically opposed reaction is felt quite sharply. Today we’ll look at Luke 2:21-38

So we are continuing our passage from last week where we looked at the birth of Jesus revealed by the angels to the shepherds. We are told that the shepherds go to Bethlehem and find the baby Jesus, as the angels had predicted, wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger. The shepherds then return to their flocks, rejoicing and praising God.

Verse 21 picks up the narrative 8 days later. Mary has recovered from the trauma of the delivery and with Joseph’s help is able to make the five mile journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to visit the temple. And here’s what we read in

Now just so you understand what is going on here, this text is wrapping three ceremonial laws together into one event.

If you had a firstborn male child, you could expect three temple ceremonies:

God taught that in the act of childbirth the mother is defiled for a certain number of days. Now why do that? That offends our modern sensibilities. Here a mother goes through tremendous labor and pain and what is your reward? You get to be defiled for 7 days until the boys circumcision and then afterwards for another 33 days for a total of 40 days. Why? God is very, very wise. It was a perpetual reminder that all men are born into sin. As cute and wonderful and cuddly as this baby is the sin problem still looms. Death has not been conquered. Yes there is joy, but a redeemer is still needed.

Back in Exodus 12 God had said that every firstborn Son was to be dedicated to the service of the temple. But after setting apart the tribe of Levi in Num 8, the firstborn son of other tribes could be redeemed from this obligation by a payment of five shekels. This would be like $50 or something like that. Once again, built into the birth is the reminder that priests are necessary because a redeemer is still needed.

Now this record of the circumcision of Jesus is not just a trivial detail and it is very relevant to what we are talking about today. Why was Jesus circumcised? Let’s roll back to when God first instituted this right.

Think back clear to Genesis 17. God made a covenant with Abraham. Now a covenant was always between two parties and the way you would make a covenant would be to cut an animal in half and lay one half of the animal on this side and another on this side and both parties would walk through the two halves of the animal as a symbol of your commitment to the covenant.

So the word covenant literally means to cut.

The symbolism went like this. You see this dead animal right here and here. I’m literally walking through the consequences of what will happen to me if I do not keep this promise to you. If I am unfaithful to my part of the bargain, then may the fate of this animal befall me. If you don’t keep your word, then may God do to you, what we have done to this animal.

So God wants to make a covenant with Abraham. God says bring me a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat and a three year old Ram and a turtledove and a pigeon. He says I’m going to give you a future land and many descendants and future blessing and I want to make a covenant with you, So Abraham prepare the ceremony. So Abraham kills all the animals, divides the animals in livestock in half, but the turtledove and pigeon are left whole. What is supposed to happen next? Both parties are supposed to walk through. But if you read the text, God puts Abraham to sleep and God himself is the only one who passes through while Abraham saws logs. That is very significant. This is a covenant between you and me but it’s one sided. I bind myself to the covenant irrespective to your faithfulness. Abraham, there is nothing you or your descendants can do to break this covenant.

Now as a sign of this unconditional covenant, God instituted circumcision.

Now not to get overly graphic here but the symbolism is important. The organ responsible for the preservation of future generations bears the scar of this promise that was ratified.

It’s a symbol that through your seed, Abraham, redemption is coming. This promise will be realized through your physical offspring.

So this was a massive deal in the OT. To be identified with Israel was to be circumcised. It was this confession that yes, Lord, redemption is coming. We believe your promise. We trust in your promise. So, the receiving of this symbol was vital because in receiving it you were including yourself in that future blessing. In not receiving it you were cutting yourself out of the blessing. That’s why God says to Abraham a few verses later.

So the big idea here is that God promised to bless Abraham through his seed. This was so important. The right of circumcision was looking forward to this future REDEMPTION, this future BLESSING.

Now keep in mind, Abraham was 75 when God first made this promise. Are you sure God? I’m like an old dude. He waits and waits and waits. Nothing. He has a son through Sarah’s handmaid. That displeases the Lord. God said, I told you I would give you a son. Keep waiting.

God gives finally gives him a son when he’s 100 years of age and then asks Abraham to do the unthinkable. To sacrifice him on an altar. God asks him to sacrifice the VERY seed that God promised would save the world. And you know the story. God provides a ram caught in the thicket and that RAM would become the substitute.

Now what was the point of that exercise? To get ABRHAHAM to the point that he would believe that God would be faithful to his promise no matter what. And God reminded Abraham of that promise with the knife still quivering in his hand.

There is coming a day, when your offspring will bless all nations.

Now let me ask you, is the word offspring there singular or plural? You can’t tell. It’s singular in form but you could be speaking of a single offspring or hundreds of offspring. It’s ambiguous. It’s the same in Greek and Hebrew. It’s what’s called a plural singular.

Paul in Galatians 3 interprets this passage for us and gives us the prophetic intent.

So let’s come clear back to it. Mary and Joseph go up to the temple, in obedience to the Mosaic law like every other faithful Jew has done for the last 1500 years since Moses. I mean, this is what every faithful Jew would do.

- And in Mary undergoing purification, she acknowledges that the problem of sin remains. In the text we read that the sacrifice Mary and Joseph offered was a turtledove or two young pigeons. Normally the sacrifice was a lamb, but there was exception made for the poor.

- And in redeeming their son from the priesthood, they acknowledge the necessity of the priesthood because why? Sin remains. - And in having their son circumcised, they put their trust in a promise made to Abraham 2000 years ago that an offspring of Abraham would come to bless the world and fix the problem of sin that remains.

And now he’s here. This is the offspring, the singular offspring that would come to save men from their sins. This is the offspring predicted clear back in Genesis.

Are you starting to see the significance…it’s said so casually…

As in like, 2000 years before. Jesus means salvation. Sure, the angel told Mary his name was to be Jesus, but he’s just kicking the ball down the field the next little bit. This is the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham. The name Jesus was given clear back in Genesis 14 and 17 and 22. Abraham I’m giving you a sign that one day through your physical descendants SALVATION is coming, Jesus is coming.

Jesus’ physical lineage plus the rite of circumcision made him eligible to be that Savior, that fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham. That by the way, is why Matthew points his genealogy to Abraham.

It is also why Jesus when talking with the Pharisees in John chapter 8 says.

To What was the JEW looking? He was looking for the SIGN to which circumcision pointed.

All this rich symbolism is coming together. The mother’s purification through blood sacrifice, the redemption shekel, the promise of future blessing through the sign of the circumucision.

Joseph and Mary are literally watching this promise from Abraham become fulfilled before our eyes. The sign of circumcision pointed to this man, Jesus Christ. Can you imagine? They had grown up in church so to speak learning about these promises from the time they were itsy bitty little kids. But who really thinks it’s going to happen in their lifetime? That’s only for prophesy nuts, right?

Well, here it was happening RIGHT BEFORE THEIR EYES.

And to confirm that it was happening before their eyes we read of a prophet, Simeon.

Now here we have a man who seems to be a sort of “aged watcher.” The Holy Spirit had somehow revealed to him that he would see the promised Messiah before he died. And the way the text reads, it sounds like he was getting so old, that death sounded like a relief. Like an imprisoned exile, he was yearning for his release. Day after day, he waited.

A light for revelation to the Gentiles… " in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed." What did the Abrahamic covenant say? In your descendants will all the nations of the earth be blessed. That word nations means GENTILES, non-JEWS. Simeon is relating the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant to ministry that Jesus will have. Jesus will live a life that will result in the fulfillment of what was anticipated clear back in Genesis 22.

This whole cutting of a covenant, symbolized by circumcision was God’s way of promising to Israel that blessing would come to the nations through a man. And now, finally, that is being realized in Jesus Christ.

Now why did they marvel? Could this really be the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant? How could a little baby of such insignificant means have this kind of impact? Joseph and Mary. You marvel at that? Well, fasten your seat belts. Because this blessing would come through tremendous suffering.

Blessing would come through the seed of Abraham that was thrust into the world like a wedge. Jesus came, not to bring peace but a sword. *Jesus came with a message, “Behold the kingdom of heaven is at hand.* The promise made to Abraham is here.” Will you be part of the covenant of blessing or will you choose to be cut off from that blessing.

In what will you choose to trust? Jesus came to cut right into the hearts of men and say, “In whom will you trust for your life?” Who do you say that I am?

Jesus is like a wedge.

Today we are considering the fact that Jesus was a man unlike other men in that he was a man who divides. Think of Jesus as wedge that is inserted in the human race. You must be for him or against him. You can’t have it both ways. The more seriously he is considered the more divisive he becomes.

I have hear a log that is in the process of being split by this wedge. When the wedge first enters, it’s no big deal. Just a mere flesh wound. The log still feels very fortified, very solid, very impenetrable. How could this solid log ever crack in half.

The entry of the wedge doesn’t seem all that serious.

But as the wedge is driven in, the hardness of the wedge is realized. Wow, this is more substantial than I realized.

Not a single molecule of the iron alloy yields slightly.

The only thing that yields is what is around it.

It shape begins to exert extreme forces on the log.

- Pretty soon hairline fractures begin to reveal themselves.

And eventually the very core of the log is revealed and laid open and one half is divided from the other.

Jesus is like this wedge. And I want think about three characteristics of the wedgelike person of Jesus that are revealed in the text.

Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be the cause of the rising and falling of many in Israel. In other words, Jesus would be a wedge that cuts and divides. Some will rise and others will fall. A wedge is like a fork in the road. You stand at the fork and you must decide. Prior to the fork, there was no decision, but the fork makes you decide.

On the one side of the wedge, the one fork, men rise on the other side of the wedge, men fall. And all must choose. There is no middle ground.

The gospel, the good news, that emerges as a result of the birth of Jesus Christ is this: if you submit to Jesus Christ, if you confess him as your Lord, you will live. If you are against him, you will perish. Jesus becomes the wedge.

In the same way that a covenant slices and divides those who are included in blessing and those who are cast away from blessing, Jesus enters into our world to divide humanity into those two groups. Those who have life and those who do not.

So that is why Jesus divides. It doesn’t allow us a third option. Well if I have to choose, I choose against him.

And so I ask you, which side of the wedge are you on? Do you have the Son and the life he offers? Or are you choosing to reject the Son and the life he offers?

Life is available to all who believe. Will you believe? Will you turn to Jesus and surrender? Will you thank him for sending his Son to redeem you from your sin?

Think about this wedge in this piece of wood. No matter how much it is disliked, it can’t be ignored. You can try to resist it, because the wedge ultimately resists you. You can try to confront it but the wedge ultimately confronts you. It does so by nature of the fact that it is fundamentally a more superior material.

The soft wood can’t crack or dent or scratch the metal. The metal will always scratch and dent and split the wood.

Jesus functions as a heart wedge. And men don’t like their hearts being wedged open. And so we oppose it. We don’t want something penetrating and cutting and forcing us to choose. So we resist it.

So we try to attack Christ but in the act of trying to attack, we are confronted with his strength and hardness. We see that it is futile to throw your weight against something with such mass and force. Do you really think that your small idea is going to stop the force of the person of Jesus which has come down through history these 2000 years? Millions have tried to stop the name of Jesus from spreading. Millions have given their lives to propaganda and persecution and speeches designed to squelch the name of Christ.

Simeon prophesied that the name of Jesus would be a “sign that is opposed.” So many have opposed him but without success.

But the fact is Jesus is made of tougher material than that. He can’t be put down or squelched or squashed by such a slight force like the words of mere man. How can this soft wood have any impact on the man Jesus? The wedge just keeps pushing, keeps dividing, splitting, pulling apart truth from error, reality from fiction. In the end, truth wins. And Jesus, because he really is God, cannot be resisted or confronted. Jesus because he really is God will confront you and resist you and challenge you and break you. You cannot fight God. You cannot win against God.

Jesus is the battleship and you are the lifeboat. Resist all you want, but your not made of strong enough stuff to have your resistance matter. The wedge will crush, separate, split, divide and cleave.

You can only submit to God or rebel against him. God has given each of you a decision. Which side of the wedge are you on? Are you on the side of life or on the side of death?

Jesus, the prophet Simeon says, will be a a sign that is opposed… What’s the sign? That God has come among us. The promised seed of Abraham has arrived. The promised seed of blessing is here.

And Mary, don’t be surprised. This is always the case when God inhabits his people.

And what, pray tell, are you going to do with it?

The final way in which Jesus is like a wedge is that not only is he wedging his way through the world separating individuals, he’s wedging his way into our heart revealing the contents.

Notice that it is through the opposition that hearts are revealed. I think that is so instructive. The things we oppose belie what we love. The things we resist reveal and betray what we are protecting and holding onto. When someone hotly opposes what you have to say, you know you’ve struck a nerve. There opposition to you reveals what’s in the heart.

Why is there so many who are violently opposed to industries which destroy the earth? Because they love the earth.

Why are there so many who are violently opposed to churches who teach God’s view on sexual fidelity and marriage between husband and wife? Because they love their sexual freedom.

Why am I violently opposed to media and devices littered with youtube syrup? Because I love my kids and I don’t want to see them destroyed by it.

What you oppose is an indicator of what you love. Jesus Christ came to save sinners. And he came to save sinners by proclaiming a message that begins with “You are sinner who needs saving.” Many oppose Jesus because they oppose the fundamental basis of that message.

The reason Jesus is offensive, is because he reveals the heart. Nobody wants to square into the ugliness of your own sin. As I age, my hair is starting to thin up top. And I don’t like that. I’d actually rather not look at it. But it’s there and pretending like it’s not there doesn’t make it any less not there.

The reality is, we all have a terminal illness that Jesus reveals. But in his mercy he also offers a cure.

“that the thoughts from many hearts will be revealed”

Conclusion

It is my prayer that redemption has come for you. It is my prayer that you have seen the consolation of your soul as you trust in him completely.

We are going to have a prayer team afterwards. If you want to ask questions about the message today or pray to receive Christ for the first time, we are going to invite you up to do that.

Introduction

Well we are in our series looking at various ways in which Jesus Christ was a man unlike all other men who have ever lived:

We’ve looked at the fact that Jesus was a man without beginning

We’ve looked at the fact that Jesus was a man who was promised.

Today we look at the fact that Jesus was a man unlike men in that Jesus was a man of true consequence.

We could perhaps summarize this idea from Matthew chapter 20. Here we have the mother of the son’s of Zebedee talking to Jesus and saying, “Hey, you know I was thinking. Jesus, when you get to your kingdom, do you think that my sons could sit on your right and left hand. Like, I know your president but could they be like, VP and Secretary of State?” And Jesus seeing this clamoring for power and significance and CONSEQUENCE says this:

Jesus was a man unlike other men in that in surrendering everything he became something. By surrendering consequence he became consequential. In losing his life he found it.

Now the story of this losing, this surrendering, this inconsequential beginning was beautifully read to us this morning and we want to now go back and consider three characteristics of true consequence.

Seeks the Insignificant

Last week we talked about the wise men. We read of the wise men in the Bible and when we read that our ears, understandably hears, wise men. But that’s a bit unfortunate as I don’t think that’s what would have been heard by the 1st century Jew. Last week we tried to restore a better understanding of the more likely way that word Magi was probably heard by Matthew’s readers.

And the way we did that was to just look at the Bible itself. The word magi is simply the idea of magician. Elymas, Simon the Sorcerer, Baalam, the magicians in Pharoahs courts in Nebuchadnezzar’s courts. Those are all magi. In every case it was negative. Magi were magicians an sorcerers and I think the Jewish readers who read that magi were at the feet of Jesus worshiping would have recoiled a bit at the thought. What in the world are sorcerers doing worshiping at the foot of the Messiah?

Now if you compare our instinctive reading of Magi to our instinctive reading of shepherds, most people have a much better idea of where these guys fit in the social strata.

Most people understand shepherds to represent the downtrodden and despised of society. But here, I think we actually need to adjust our thinking as well. We don’t need to entirely reverse the idea but likely heavily modify it. Shepherds were certainly less wealthy than other occupations. But to say they were despised is way too strong, especially to a Jewish reader. Often times we will here people say that shepherd’s were the lowest class, totally outcasts of society.

Support for this idea comes from either a few quotes from Aristotle who despised shepherds but he lived 300 years earlier in a totally different culture or it comes from the Babylonian Talmud and much of these sources are very, very late.

If you look at the shepherd examples in the Bible and think like a Jew would have thought, it’s hard to see anything except a positive notion.

Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. And who could be loved more than Abraham, Moses, and David who were all shepherds at some point in their lives. We don’t despise shepherds for the same reason these guys didn’t. The hero’s of our faith were all once shepherds!

When Herod inquired of the Magi where the Messiah was to be born they quoted the prophet Micah.

God loves the imagery of the shepherd.

“The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps 23:1).

All through Jesus’ ministry, he liberally uses the metaphor of the Shepherd. Over and over again in very positive ways, never negatively. Remember the shepherd who has a hundred sheep and then out of love for the one, leaves the 99

I think one of the best evidences for the fact that shepherds were not despised is right in the Christmast story iteself in verse 18 of Luke chapter 2. After the shepherds get done visiting the child, they begin proclaiming what they saw liberally.

If shepherds were despised, they most certainly would not be listened to. Their voices would carry no weight. But their story had an impact.

What I’m trying to point out is that being a shepherd is not intrinsically a bad thing. Other occupations are intrinsically unredeemable. You would never say, “I am the good tax collector. I am the good sorcerer." But you can say, "I am the good shepherd.” To be a shepherd was to be poor but not despised. Maybe in our culture a parallel might be a machinist or arborist or harvestor. They will never be wealthy but they are not despised.

Now this is important setup information so you can appreciate what’s coming next. Who were these shepherds in the field? We are told they are tending their flocks in the same region as Mary and Joseph. In other words, they are near Bethlehem. Now let’s get your bearings here. Where is Bethlehem in relation to Israel?

Now two things to notice on this map. This map shows the likely route of Joseph and Mary as they made their way to Bethlehem for the census. But what we are trying to point out is how central Bethlehem is to Israel and notice also how close it is to Jerusalem, only 5 miles.

Here’s a picture of that exact area and even today, just outside of Bethlehem you can find shepherds tending sheep. Were these just ordinary shepherds? Perhaps, but I think we can do better.

Here’s how we can do better: if you read the Mishah, which was the oral law that represented the oral tradition of the Jews around Jesus time, it expressly forbids the keeping of flocks throughout the land of Israel, except in the wildernesses. (Baba K 7.7)

Now if that was true, that would certainly mean that shepherds were not allowed in the land of Judea right next to the capital city of Jerusalem. This is prime country where sheep were not supposed to be. So how do we explain this?

Well, there was an exception: you could keep sheep in the land that were destined for temple sacrifices.

Now that adds a bit of poetic color to the narrative if Jesus is coming, yes to the humble shepherd, but not just any shepherd, the very shepherds whose job it is to manage the victims ready to be slaughtered upon the altar.

God comes to shepherds because he is announcing to the shepherds the birth of the ultimate shepherd. Shepherds, a few miles away, I want you to know that the great shepherd of Israel has been born. And I am commissioning you as men who understand the job of shepherding better than anyone to be my herald and mouthpiece of the GREAT shepherd.

I understand your job. I understand what it means to tend skittish, dumb sheep. I understand that because I am the good shepherd.

And as the good shepherd I have come, not to tend the sheep as they await their death upon the altar, but as the good shepherd I come to lay MY life down for my sheep.

One of the unfortunate side effects of being a shepherd was that it was very difficult to stay ceremonially clean. Why? Because you were in constant contact with beasts who rendered you unclean. Many will use this as evidence that shepherd’s were outcasts. But being ceremonially unclean was not a social stigma at all. You could become unclean for all sorts of reasons. You might accidentally touch a grave. If you were a woman and you were in your cycle you were unclean. It was not stigmatized, it just meant you were, at that moment unfit for temple worship. The temple had high regard for concepts such as blood, death, purity and God wanted those concepts to be treated very carefully.

Perhaps a parallel might be working in the nursery. If you have a cold or get sick, we don’t want you in there, not because we don’t like you or you are stigmatized - we all get sick - we just want to protect. And if you worked in a profession where you were constantly exposed to germs and getting sick, we’d have compassion on you, not stigma.

A shepherd was in constant contact with things that rendered him unclean. Now think about how unfair that is. What is the shepherd doing? He’s caring for the needs of his flock! He’s giving them food and water and what is his reward for that? Ceremonial defilement. By identifying with the sheep, by caring for the sheep, the sheep defile the shepherd because the sheep are unclean.

Jesus comes and identifies with that. I identify with you shepherds in that by loving your sheep you are stained by them. I accept the reproach that is the unavoidable consequence of loving my sheep.

Over and over again, Jesus would use the metaphor of shepherd and sheep to describe his relationship to us.

The angels say, “Good news temple shepherds, I bring you good tiding of great joy. I’m going to make your job obsolete. The ultimate sacrifice is here and these sheep are free to go.”

None of this is in the text explicitly, but it adds that poetic element that is so common in so much of what Jesus does. The metaphor a shepherd in the NT is rich and Jesus uses it so frequently.

So the meaning here is intended to be double. Yes, Jesus is a man of consequence in that he seeks out the insignficant. And while I believe it is true that shepherds were not outcasts, they certainly weren’t kings. Jesus could have showed up in Rome in the palace. But he chose shepherds.

But he was really seeking the sheep. The truly insignificant were the sheep destined to be placed on the altar to atone for sin. It was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel that Jesus came. And Jesus becomes a man of consequence by seeking out those rebellious, stubborn, ungrateful sheep.

And how might that look for us? I don’t think this is necessarily a call to find the marginalized in society and serve them, although that is a very good thing to do. I think this is a call to say, “Where will the gospel not naturally go, unless I seek them out?” Where will my reputation get stained if I associate with these people for the sake of the gospel?

This is the heart behind missions and outreach. We don’t wait for them to come to us and say, "What must I do to be saved?" Of course we would love for that to happen, but the pattern has been given to us. We seek out those insignificant people who would otherwise have no chance of hearing the good news. God intersected the shepherds on that starry night and said, here the good news of great joy which will be for all people, a Savior is born who is Christ the Lord.

So where are you going, what person, due to their lack of social standing, lack of education or exposure, lack of linguistic ability, would never have a chance to hear the gospel?

So Jesus is a man of Consequence because he seeks the insignificant. Secondly,

To make this point as crystal clear as possible, we need to just paint the contrast. If you want to be significant in the Roman world, what do you do? Let’s ask the question this way, If you want to be the most significant person in the world, what position are you seeking? What is the greatest possible seat of power and significance in Rome? Answer? Emperor.

Now Luke 2:1 begins,

We know an awful lot about this guy. He was known by all sorts of names which makes it very difficult to keep him straight. Gaius Octavius, Gaius Julius Caesar, Gaius Octavius Thurinus. This Caesar Augustus was the very first emperor of the Roman empire but he didn’t get there without some serious struggle. He was an adopted son, and as such began his life at a disadvantage. He was a natural fighter; he was the grandnephew of Nero, and he had to scratch and claw his way to power by defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

He was a man of such force and organizational ability that he established a rule that would go on and on for hundreds of years known as the Pax Romana, this period of peace where the empire that was free of war so much so that etched into a stone found in three different towns inscriptions:

Here’s one of the three inscriptions but they all read similar:

“The God Augustus, Son of God, Caesar, the absolute ruler of land and sea, the Benefactor and Savior of the whole cosmos, the people of Myra [have set up this statue].”

The word Caesar means holy. Prior to this time the word Caesar had been only used to describe the gods of the Romans. So Augustus not only procured this title but he was also the first Caesar to be called Augustus by vote of the senate which means majestic.

He enjoyed a royal palace. Here’s a fly through reconstruction of it.

Now keep in mind, this is the exact same Caesar Augustus who is being written about in Luke chapter 2. The shepherds are out in the field tending their flocks at night on some straw while Caesar Augustus is bedded down here. Attendants, the best foods, wines, etc. So here we have a man who through tremendous self-advancement became the “savior of the world” and when he died he was elevated to the status of God. Here’s a man of consequence. He did it. He died 2000 years ago and we are talking about him still. He elevated himself to a place where he had consequence. He sought self-significance.

Now how did he accomplish this? Here’s the reality.

Through brutal force of thousands of crucifixions,

tens of thousands of executions,

rape, intimidation,

threats and heartless violence.

Wielding a sword dripping with blood, he took control of the known world using an iron fist and created an empire of “Peace.”

By grabbing as much power as he possibly could, by seeking self-significance, by elevating self, praising self, acquiring titles for himself, he holds a knife to throat of the known world and says, “Your Savior Gives you Peace.”

Jesus’ Methodology

Now it’s hard to describe how significantly opposite the method of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is the Universe-creating God. Jesus spins galaxies into orbit with a word. And rather than using that power he already possess to “save people” by forcing “peace,” he surrenders it all. He abandons the titles, he does not seek his own praise, he descends, he lowers, he stoops. He gives up all his power, takes on flesh, enters, not into the palace gates, but straight into a poverty stricken family, stricken with the stigma of an illegitimate birth. Born in Bethlehem the backwaters of the Roman empire.

Instead of being clothed with privilege, he clothes himself with shame. He was born without purple robes, no finery, no trappings of royalty. No signs of wealth or position.

Instead of identifying with the powerful and flexing his power, he identifies with the powerless, born in the city where the poverty stricken Ruth gleaned from the fields.

Jesus was the king of kings and lord of Lords and yet empties himself of all dignity such that his life begins in a feeding trough undoubtedly coated with decades of drool from animals.

And he did this not so that we might admire him for his asceticism; no, he did this because he loved us. Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 8.

He had every right to privilege but he loved something more than privilege. He loved us. For your sake, the text says, he became poor. And it was through his poverty that we became rich. What makes Christ so unbelievably consequential is that he loved. Jesus changed the world through love. We become rich because he loved us.

Caesar Augustus brought a form of peace. It was certainly better than barbarism. It became a model for government for hundreds of years to come. He was a political and military genius. And it is the best kind of peace that man can bring which is another way of saying it’s the best kind of peace that force can bring. But force has it’s limits. Can a man force a woman to love him? Many a man has tried and all have failed.

You see Jesus fixed the peace problem by fixing the sin problem. And in fixing the sin problem he fixed a love problem. And in fixing the love problem he created a power that far outstrips any sword or cannon or aircraft carrier or fighter jet. Men and women who love are men and women who can do more to change the world than a nuclear weapon. That is true, that is not just poetic niceties.

What sword can repair a broken marriage?

What cannon can make a child be sensitive and caring to his sister?

What instrument of pain can create a spirit of generosity and kindness?

You see God knew what he was doing. What the world needed was, in a way, a force, but a force far more powerful than armies and swords. The world, needed a force great enough to surrender all that stuff so that it could genuinely love. Physical force takes expecting everything in return but love gives expecting nothing in return. Jesus became nothing because he loved us. And in become nothing he gave us everything.

So Jesus is a man of consequence because: - he seeks the insignificant, - he abandons self-significance

and finally because he is praised by ultimate significance.

You see being consequential is somewhat of a relative concept, consequential in whose eyes? Using what metric? By what standard? We have all experienced a man who thinks he is quite substantial and consequential in his own eyes, but strangely nobody else shares that opinion.

So who gets to determine how significant and consequential someone is. Well, certainly not the person themselves. This is the principle behind.

So if it’s not self, then who? Well, let’s rachet up this principle. The extreme version of Proverbs 27:2 would be, “Let God praise you and not a mere man.”

You see if God says that you are consequential, well that vote means something. And here in this text we get one of the most significant divine commendations of consequence you’ll ever read about.

A baby was born in a manger. Of what consequence is that? What possible significance could that have? Equivalent births happen by the hundreds every day in third world countries. These inconsequential births do not move the needle in world history.

And yet, on that night, a baby was born into a feeding trough and heaven erupts with praises of consequence.

-So significant was this birth that heaven would force open the sky and begin to ring with the music of heaven’s song. -so significant was this birth that heaven burst to disclose her secrets -so significant was this birth that the GLORY of the LORD shown around them.

Now don’t skip over THE GLORY OF THE LORD without realizing what is being talked about there. It says that the shepherds shook with great fear. Now I’m sure the angel was scary and all, but that is DEFINITELY not what is frightening them. This is the fabled shakinah glory of the OT my friends. This is the glory of the God. The glory of YHWH. The presence of God himself. When God gets near, glory appears. And that typically freaks people out. Remember when the glory of God descended on Mt Sinai and the people were so scared and they said, you go up there Moses and tell us what God says. We are too scared to go.

This is the glory that Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6 and falls on his face and says, “Woe unto me for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.”

Now, here’s what’s really interesting, this glory appearing to the shepherds had much more significance than merely the wow factor.

We can trace the glory of the Lord in Israel’s history.

First that glory came and filled the tabernacle.

Later under David, it filled the temple.

But Israel began to rebel and disobey. And the further they got from God the more prophets he sent, and the more prophets he sent, the harder of heart they became until he finally abandons them and turns them over to the Assyrians and Babylonians. The temple would be destroyed as prophesied but before that happens, the glory of God departs.

In Ezekiel 10 and 11 we read of the glory cloud departing because of the disobedience of Israel. They were hauled off into captivity as we studied last week. The temple did get rebuilt but the glory never returned. For more than 500 years the people of Israel had been without a visible sign of the presence of God and now God’s glory appears, not to the priests in the temple, but to shepherds in the field. Why? To alert them that a man of consequence had been born.

God is returning to his people. The glory of God is returning to Israel. This is why the shepherds were shaking in their boots. This is why they were speechless and why the angels had to say, “Do not be afraid.”

All this happens because God is recognizing the significance of a baby boy. God is putting his mark on a man of consequence. He is indicating magnitude and weightiness.

Augustus sat in a gilded palace, as master of the world, and from his perch in his proud Roman phraseology, orders that a census be taken of the “the whole world.”

How could he ever have dreamed that that far away in a despised Judea a King had been born whose name would outstrip both the duration and brilliance of the sun.

Could he even have fathomed that a king had been born whose dominion would extend not only from sea to sea but yet to be discovered galaxy to galaxy. As amazing as Rome was, her glory would fade and become nothing more than a distant memory.

Even more ironic still, could he have even in his wildest imagination, conceive that in exercising his authority and power to demand a census, without even knowing it he pulls a string of history and the Messianic promise pent up behind thousands of years of prophesy begins to unwind. Like chain of dominos, this pagan king who couldn’t care less about the backwaters of Judea, the lamest part of the Roman Empire, begins a cause and effect chain that causes Messiah to be born, not in the town of Nazareth as might be expected but in the city of Bethlehem so that the word of the prophet Micah might be fulfilled.

The heavens tear open and the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men…”

Application

So the goal of today is to redifine consequence, Jesus style. The goal is to help us appreciate what real consequence and significance is. The world’s version never changes. It’s always, money, power, sex, influence, beauty….it’s as old as the sun.

But Jesus inverts all this silliness. A man of consequence abandons all of that and simply loves. What does this tell you? You do not need power to change the world. You do not need influence to change the world. YOu might be a mom stripped of all authority, stripped of any sort of influencial position that makes you powerful and consequential and noticed.

You might work a job that the world doesn’t care for. You might be like a shepherd whose occupation is just not all that high up on the charts. Nobody grows up and hopes to have your job.

You might have a disability that renders you inconsequential in the worlds eyes. You might not be as physically fit, or beautiful. You might be losing your hair or your years are flying away from you.

And you think to yourself, I have none of the advantages needed to be a person of consequence. Neither did Jesus Christ. Jesus changed the world by loving

We can always become poor for someone else so that they might become rich. As we serve others, we become like Jesus. As we love others, it releases a power into the world that changes everything.

On that night, a world totally unconscious of their deliverer carries on as the embodiment of love, emptied of power, gives for our sake. And in that emptying, giving, surrendering, he becomes the most consequential man who has ever lived, he turns the world upside down.

We are in our advent series leading up to Christmas and today we are in week two of a man unlike other men. Last week we saw how Jesus was a man without beginning. Jesus never had a beginning. For us our birth represented the beginning of our existence. For Jesus, his birth represented the beginning, not of his existence, but of his limitation.

And we marveled at this concept of Jesus - the universe-creating God - emptying himself entering into time/space both to reveal his glory and to redeem his people.

It’s just a staggering concept. Well today we focus on a second aspect of the uniqueness of the person of Jesus.

Jesus was a man, whose birth, life and death were promised hundreds of years before. My birth was prophesied in detail in precisely zero books by precisely zero people. Look in the Bible and try to find a prediction of your birth. You’ll probably be looking for a long time.

Jesus by contrast, was a man whose coming was predicted by not just a verse here or there but by the entirety of the OT. Just think about the storyline of the Bible. Genesis 1-11 is the story of why we need a Savior-Messiah and then Genesis 12-Malachi 4 traces the history of a chosen people who would produce the Savior-Messiah.

It’s so important to get away from this idea of looking for these one-off passages here or there that prove some aspect about the coming of Messiah. They certainly have their place but its so much better than that.

There is this giant story that is building. What makes Jesus so amazing is not that he matched a few details mentioned in Is. 53. Of course that’s true and we celebrate that and it is encouraging to our faith. But what really makes Jesus amazing is that he’s the climax of the story line that has been building.

The Ram caught in the thicket that saves Isaac suddenly explodes with meaning.

We look at the scapegoat in the OT and we marvel at parallels.

We look at the bronze snake lifted up on a pole, the curse upon which everyone must look in order to be healed.

Every word of the OT is either preparatory or predictive in this manner. It either prepares us for understanding the significance of Christ or it directly predicts the coming of the Christ.

Such that Paul could write in:

The OT is a massive setup. For thousands of years God is setting the stage, filling up words with meaning, laying down concepts, developing cultures, languages, ideas, allowing nations and kingdoms to try one dead-end solution after another. For thousands of years the despair builds.

The best stories are always like this - laying the backdrop, developing the characters, thickening the plot, arousing discord and discontinuity such that thick tension and desperation looms large. And then the hero flies in unexpectedly from the East and with a swooping move that nobody could have expected, resolves the problem.

The entire OT is a giant preparatory work for what we see explode of the pages of the gospels. The OT is like a bow that slowly gets stretched back and with every inch that it gets pulled back the tension increases.

Genesis and the patriarchs, Abraham is called out of his pagan culture and promised that from his loins a nation would arise.

through Moses and the wilderness we are given the concept of a priest who would intercede for the people

through the conquest and the judges desire for a king was created

through the period of the kings and the prophets we are taught that no human king will do

through the destruction of the temple and the deportation we are instructed of the consequence of the evil king we all thought we wanted.

prophet, priest and king are converging

It just keeps stretching and stretching back tighter and tighter, the mainspring of history keeps winding and winding. And then when the fullness of time had come, (when we open the pages of the NT) God sent forth his son… an arrow gets inserted into that bow and released.

With the force of all that OT preparation, the messiah gets launched into the world with a velocity that shatters history.

In a single message we couldn’t hope to do justice to the prophetic tension wound up in the OT which prepared and predicted Jesus Christ, so we’ll examine this preparatory work of God in preparing the world for the coming of Messiah through a single narrative event. The story of the wise men.

The Surprising Punctuation of the OT

Now to appreciate the prophetic element of the narrative we read this morning, you have to consider that to the OT saint their Bible is like an unpunctuated sentence that could be read a couple of different ways. I remember in school my teacher give us this example.

Do you see how the punctuation, flipped the meaning completely. The OT was like this. The content of the OT was there, but it was unpunctuated, meaning the OT saint didn’t have all the data needed to interpret the meaning completely. But that didn’t stop them from punctuating it according to their bias.

When Jesus came, he dropped in that needed comma, that missing colon, that critical aestrisk and opened up the interpretation.

And to many people’s horror, they discovered they had punctuated it exactly incorrectly, such that they had an entirely different concept of Messiah. When Jesus came, he punctuated it in a way that completely inverted their expectations.

Today we are going to think about the story of the wise men and we are going to look at a massive “Messianic Expectation Inversions”.

Messiah Came to Redeem the Unrighteous

Now here’s the first inversion.

The 1st century Jew was busy trying to be righteous so that God would bless them. This was their prayer, “Come Lord and bless and reward the righteous.”

Now that is actually a correct prayer and a very biblically astute OT prayer. Here’s a representative verse of dozens like it:

And we think, I want to be blessed. I want reward, therefore I better be righteous because after all, righteous people are rewarded. But of course we know the flaw in that thinking. We can never be righteous on our own. The only way to be righteousness is to receive the righteousness of God given to you. God declares you righteous by giving you the righteousness of another and then enables you to walk forward with clean hands that he will reward.

Jesus did not come to reward the righteous; rather he came to redeem the unrighteous and give them a righteousness not their own so that THEN they could be rewarded.

Jesus teaches this all through his ministry.

It’s not to the ‘righteous’ Pharisee that he seeks out but the unrighteous tax collector. Jesus said, “It’s not the healthy that need a Physician but the sick.” So this theme of inversion is all through the gospels and it begins in the opening paragraphs of Matthew’s telling of the Christmas story. Today we look at the visit of the wise men.

Some of you perhaps may know that this visit of the wise men did not happen exactly at the time of Jesus’ birth. I know this ruins all sorts of nativity sets, but it’s certainly the case. The wise men came, not days later, not weeks later, but months and months later. How long after his birth do the wise men appear?

Many will say two years? Where does that two years come from in the text? It comes from the fact that Herod asked the wise men when the baby was born and after hearing the answer killed all the babies two years and under. Now think about this. King Herod discovers there is a divine child born who is “King of the Jews”. He’s king of the Jews. That was his actual title. From everything we know of King Herod he was absolutely paranoid of any pretender kind. He killed so many of his own family members that the saying arose, “It’s safer to be the swine of Herod than his son." So the birth of Jesus is a horrible threat to this madman. So Herod asks,”How old is the baby?" We are not told what the wise men say; we are only told that Herod kills all the babies two years and under. Given that information, what do you think the wise men said? I’m guessing the wise men said, "He’s four months old or six months old." And Herod doubles or even triples it just to make sure he doesn’t miss anyone. See the point?

At any rate, Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus are living in Bethlehem and we are told that wise men from the East come and visit Jesus. Who were these wise men. The word translated “wise men” is the word magi. Some translations just use the word magi which is just transliterating the Greek word.

Elaborate legends have grown up around the Magi, virtually none of which have any basis in the text of Matthew and equally important, no basis in reality.

Most of the modern conceptions of the magi arose centuries after the New Testament period, including the identification of the Magi as kings. They were almost certainly not kings. In fact, even the identification of these guys as “wise men” is a pretty big bummer in my way of thinking.

Who were these men? I think the most important exercise here is to try and ascertain what the word magi meant in the 1st century. And there is plenty to go on here. The best place to start is the NT itself. The Bible identifies two magi. And we are going to look at both of them and I want you to answer in your mind, is being a magi a good thing or a bad thing.

Do you remember Simon the magician? Simon is identified in Acts chpater 8 as a magi. Simon was watching Peter lay hands on people so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. We don’t know what he saw and in what way the Spirit manifested himself because the text does not say. But whatever it was, Simon wanted it.

So there is your first example of a man who in the NT is described as a magi. What do you think favorable or unfavorable? There’s one other example.

So what do you think, good or bad? If we look at the Greek translation of the OT we have more examples of magi. The magicians who tried to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel are described as magi in the LXX. So is Baalaam the false prophet who tried to cast a curse over the nation of Israel but was thwarted by God. Even the magicians in Pharaoh’s court are called magi.

So the biblical data is entirely negative. What about extra biblical data? If we divide the literature in half between Jewish and non Jewish literature we can observe a pattern here as well.

If we look at the literature of the Greco-Roman Empire in general ranges from high regard for magi (“wise and learned” men, Cicero) to contempt (“absurdities,” Tacitus). But this is to be expected. It would be expected that many pagans would revere the magicians for their ability to do magic. That was, after all, their trade.

But, by contrast, Jewish extra biblical literature is uniformly negative toward magi. Various midrash sources portray magi as

“bunglers who provide the story with an element of comic relief”

Philo, a Hellenistic Jew, speaks of Balaam as a magus whom he calls the “most foolish of all men”

So the first century data, at least in terms of Jewish perception, was entirely negative. And Matthew is most certainly writing to a Jewish audience.

Now the point seems to me to be that Mattthew’s readers are expected to regard magi, generally, not as wise men but as lost fools in the same way that we would regard someone caught up in the occult. I mean, picture the person you would least expect to show up to church service on Sunday..someone enlisted in the domain of dark magic, encantations, wegee boards? What would that person look like in your mind? I think this is what the word magi would have evoked in the minds of the Matthew’s readers.

It was a surprise. It was an inversion of their expectations. God chooses to reveal divine truth not to the wise but to infants (11:25). The disciples themselves are going to be prime examples.

The magi were the opposite of who everyone expected God to come and redeem. Everything was the inverse of what was expected. We frequently make this point about shepherds, but the point is equally made with these magician/astronomers.

In our day, it may be the person we prejudge on the outside. That person isn’t fit for heaven. Lots of ink, lots of dark clothes, makeup. They must be into the occult and have no interest in God. What’s the message of Matthew? Perfect material for presenting gifts at the feet of Jesus.

Where Did They Come From?

Now the perception that these are wise men is not without warrant in the text. After all:

They very wisely travel hundreds of miles to lay treasure at King Jesus’ feet.

They very wisely and correctly identify the baby Jesus as Messiah.

They very wisely avoided telling Herod about Jesus and returned to their country.

That doesn’t sound like Magicians working black magic. Certainly they had been converted. But the title remains as a sort of reminder of their former stigma. Much like Matthew the Tax Collector or Mary the one who had been delivered from seven devils or doubting Thomas.

How did these workers of magic come to follow Jesus? The Bible doesn’t tell us directly but we could hazard a guess. How could it be that magicians from the East care anything for a Jewish baby born to the nation of Israel.

How could the birth of Jesus even be known by magicians who lived hundreds of miles away through a star that appeared in the night sky?

It could be just a miracle; and that would be enough. God could have appeared to them in the same way that he appeared to the shepherds in the field. That would certainly do the trick.

But we might be able to find a connection in the Scriptures themselves. The text says, these guys are from the East. But that in itself is pretty helpful. There’s only two possibilities of East from Israel and that is Arabia to the southeast or Persia to the northeast. Due east is inhospitable desert.

What is the nearest biblical antecedent of Magi from the East. Well 450 years earlier we run into some magi in Daniel chapter 2. Now let’s recall why Daniel is in the East and particularly in Babylon. The temple had been destroyed in 586 B.C. and Israel had been hauled off into captivity. In fact, tens of thousands had been hauled off such that according to some records, the Babylonians would not allow any more for fear of being overrun.

Now Daniel was part of the 1st wave of captives who was taken away because he was both young and educated which made him the most valuable kind of slave and so he’s inserted into the royal courts and immediately finds himself wrapped into it’s drama.

Let’s recall the story.

Now, Nebuchadnezzar knew this dream was from God. God made it obvious to him but he had no idea what it meant so he called the magi and said, tell me what my dream means. And they said, “Sure, what was it.” Nebechanezzar was smart. He was tired of their trickery. He says, "Nope, so I can know that the interpretation is from God, you tell me the dream and it’s interpretation."

And, just to lay a little pressure on, if you can’t do what I ask, then I will tear you apart limb from limb.

They came back to him twice and said, “Oh king, strong, great and mighty. What the king asks is very difficult. Who can do this except the gods themselves? And the gods do not have flesh and bones.” So the king became absolutely furious and the decree went out to destroy all the magi. Daniel heard of the decree and went before the Lord and prayed. And God revealed to him both the dream and the interpretation of it.

And so Daniel goes before the king and I’m guessing the magicians were there as well and the jaws of everyone were on the ground as Daniel calmly, matter-of-factly tells the king both what he dreamed and what it meant.

Now notice carefully what happens. Nebuchadnezzar was cut to the heart.

Now notice what happens next.

Now what do you suppose Daniel, as chief prefect over the wise men probably taught these wise men? Well, I’m guessing, among other things, the book in the Bible he wrote!

If you were a magi trained beneath Daniel the book of Daniel would have been the bread and butter of his Curriculum. And in this book he wrote, there are many, many indicators of when the Messiah would come.

Let’s start with Daniel 2 itself. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he dreamed of a statue with a head of gold, a torso of silver, thighs of brass and legs of iron. These represented four kingdoms before the coming of Messiah. And sure enough, like following a script we see Babylon fall, Medo-Persia, Greece and then Rome arises.

So attentive followers of the traditions taught by Daniel would be thinking, okay, four kingdoms have passed and now Messiah is to come.

Daniel chapter 2. The son of man identified in chapter 7.

Daniel 9 Prophecy

But possibly among the most intriguing and amazing and specific of Daniel’s prophecies is in Daniel chapter 9. Now I’ve got 10 minutes to do this and I spent 10 hours trying to make this as short and clear as possible so hold on to your seats folks.

This prophecy is virtually impossible to appreciate without background of where we are in the story of Israel’s history and what got her here. Remember we began by saying that God is winding the mainspring of history tighter and tighter and tigher and then when the fullness of time has come God sent forth his son. The mainspring of Daniel chapter 9 began winding clear back in Leviticus 25.

When God gave Israel the law clear back in Leviticus 25 one of the things he built into his law was the idea of a year of sabbatical rest. God was anticipating the day when they would have their own land and their own farms and they would be growing crops. But rest is a big deal to God.

He said, when you get into the land one of the things I want you to do is to take a rest every seven years. Every seven years is a sabbatical year where you rest and you let the land rest.

Okay so let’s visualize this.

Now God’s not done. It’s a little more complicated. Once you go through this cycle of seven years seven times, 7 years, 7 times - so every 49 years, the 50th year will be a year of jubilee.

Now so far so good. What does this have to do with wise men? You’ll see. So far I just described the system to you. But now I want you to listen to the ACTUAL language where God describes this cycle because it is going to be really important for what’s coming so pay attention.

God is going to call these first seven years a week.

You shall count seven weeks of years. And so he defines seven weeks. Seven weeks = seven times seven or 49 years. That’s super key.

So this Leviticus 25. This was God’s law given clear back at Mt Sinai. God starts winding that mainspring. Now just as God had promised, they conquer the land through Joshua and then through the period of the judges they occupy it and then God gave them a king. Now they were established as a nation and for the first time they have an administrative head and an administrative center whereby the could adjudicate this year of sabbath and almost immediately they ignored this command.

The history of Israel and her kings is one giant, flagrant act of disobedience. And from king Saul clear to the destruction of the temple in 586 BC. they completely ignore this command to keep the Sabbath rest.

God sent prophet after prophet and warned them what Moses had told them. If you obey you will be blessed, but if you disobey I will send in another nation to destroy you and carry you off into captivity. Prophet after prophet is sent until finally God had enough. Now listen to this:

Now do you see what he’s saying here? You haven’t kept 70 Sabbaths. And so I’m going to carry you off into captivity for 70 years to make up for the 490 years of ignored Sabbath rests.

So if you start at Saul and go all the way to the last king of Judah and the destruction of the Temple in 586, that’s 490 years which means that should have kept 70 Sabbath years. But since they didn’t, God would force it. The length of Daniel’s captivity was going to be 70 years.

Exactly what Jeremiah the prophet prophesied in Jeremiah 25.

So Daniel and all Israel are going into captivity for 70 years to make up for the 490 years of ignoring the Sabbath.

Okay, so are you tracking with me? What does this have to do with wise men. Hang on. Now we open to Daniel chapter 9. This is a book that Daniel as the chief officer over all the wise men of Israel would have taught the magicians.

Now let’s get our chronology straight? Darius’ first year was in 522 so this is like 65 years into the 70 years. Daniel knows he’s getting close.

Daniel said, I was reading Jeremiah the prophet, the one we just read, and I saw that the captivity was going to be 70 years long. And it’s year 65. Daniel is an old man. And he’s praying to God.

And in the midst of his prayer, which is a beautiful prayer of repentance on behalf of the nation of Israel, God send the angel Gabriel. And God let’s Daniel know what’s going to happen next.

They knew why they were there. Why? Because they hadn’t kept the sabbath for 490 years which of course was emblematic of all their sin. It wasn’t like God was just getting nitpicky about the Sabbath. They were wholesale rebelling against God. So because they had rebelled for 490 years, God was sending them into captivity for 70. But what is next.

Here it comes. Here’s the next chapter. Now, I’m using the NASB translation here for reasons I don’t have time to get into.

Seventy weeks have been decreed. Now that should sound familiar to you. What is a week? Remember back to Levitcus 25 if you can. What is a week? A week is a period of 7 years. So seventy weeks is how long? 70 x 7 or 490 years.

So do you see the parallel? He’s giving us the next chapter of history. And it’s a mirror image of what has just transpired. Now this is where it gets tough to explain in a short period of time. There are multiple views on this passage, but I’ll explain the right one. Ha ha.

The text divides the seventy sevens into three groups. Gabriel states that the first two groups (seven sevens plus sixty-two sevens) will conclude with the coming of “the Anointed One, the ruler” The word anointed one, is the word Messiah.

So what happens in this first seven (the first 49 years) - the section in green? The text says, “from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the prince will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.” So that first seven weeks is 49 years where they rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the temple which is recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah.

So the 70 weeks, the 490 year timer begins with a decree to rebuild the temple. When is that decree? There are actually five possibilities mentioned in the OT. You have two decrees by Darius another by Cyrus and two more decrees by Artaxerxes that range anywhere from 538BC to 444BC.

Now I won’t get into the details, although I’d love to. But for very good reasons, I think the best answer is the decree of Artaxerxes I to Ezra in 458 B.C. And so imagine being a trained Magi under Daniel and you’re watching this take place. A pagan king issues a decree to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. Why would they allow this?

The text says they would be allowed to build it but it would be in troubled times. Is this not exactly what happens in Nehemiah as he tries to rebuild the wall and he’s getting harassed by Sanballod and his men.

So Jerusalem and the temple are rebuilt. The Jews are steadily returning to their land.

So that was the first 7 weeks or 49 years. And then we have a period of sixty two weeks or 434 years - the purple area. So if we add that all up, what do we have. 483 years after the decree of Araxerexes to rebuild the temple brings us all the way to here.

Now if you are a descendant of wise men trained under Daniel and you believe that Messiah will begin his ministry at 483 years, then you deduce, well how old are kings when they begin to rule? About 30? If that were the case, when would the Messiah - prince be born?

See the point. While they might not have been able to nail it exactly, they could certainly would have known they were close. I think the star that appeared was not an astrological phenomena but a manifistation of the Spirit of God. There are too many indicators in the text that the star behaved very much unlike any other star we know. It came and disappeared and reappeared. It stood over a house so as to identify it, etc. So when they see this supernatural star, this manifestation of the shakina glory, they say, this is it. He must be here. Let’s go see this Messiah.

Now what about this last week? Again, multiple views but let me quickly explain my view. I think vs 26 is an overview of this last week. He says after 62 weeks Messiah will be cut off and the city and the temple will be destroyed.

When will the Messiah be cut off, (that’s a violent word that means death). I think the timeline is revealed in verse 27. So I think verse 27 is a further explanation of vs 26.

Okay,

Now here’s the point. And it took a long time to make the point. We have just traced a single prophesy through the lens of one group of magicians in a far corner of the Persian empire.

But the ENTIRE WORLD was being prepared for the coming of the Messiah. The entire world. Jesus was a man unlike other men in that he was promised. This universe-creating God, this sin bearing OT lamb was prepared before the foundation of the world….the promise made to Adam was carried on through Abraham, through Moses, through David, through Jeremiah, through Daniel such that magicicans, the most unlikely men of all, magicians from Persia, might traverse the desert for 3 months to welcome this predicted Messiah and present their gifts to him.

We serve an amazing God

Life of Christ Documents - Dropbox Link

The goal for us today is trust God in whatever good or bad circumstance you find yourself. And I want to open this morning, not with some zinger of an illustration or any sort of word wizardry or anything like that. Let’s just read a simple verse we have probably heard many times and just ask that Spirit of God impress this on our hearts in fresh and powerful ways.

What does it mean to trust in the Lord..WITH ALL YOUR HEART. In order to understand that you have to picture the heart as a vacuum. A vacuum cleaner works by exploiting nature’s aversion to having nothing when there could be something. Creating a vacuum is nothing more than creating a space where nothing exists. In nature, any time there is a void created, nature tries to fill it.

The human heart works in a similar way. It’s a vacuum. It is always sucking to find something to fill it, so that it can experience that state of equilibrium and peace, or in the language of the Bible, Shalom. Peace happens when you acquire something that fills the heart void and satisfies.

On a small scale we experience this when we are hungry or thirsty. That hunger or thirst is a vacuum and then we eat and fill that vacuum and are satisfied. I have four teenage boys that are literally like human food vacuums that can’t be filled. I think that’s a physics loophole that needs to be studied.

Now that’s small scale. Because of course there are people who are full of great food and drink and are not satisfied. Why? Because food and drink can only satisfy a very small part of our greater need. They don’t have the qualities necessary to ultimately satisfy. We need something larger and of a different shape to fill those other needs.

Spiritual vacuum is nothing more than spiritual hunger, that sense that your heart needs something very significant and you don’t have it. That vacuum is very uncomfortable. We hate that feeling. And we are always searching for things that might fill it. Maybe its career, money, sex, power, hobbies, homes, vacations, entertainment.

So we are always searching. And we begin to get hints as to what this thing might be. Whatever it is that fills this vacuum, we know it can’t be something easy; otherwise everyone would have it.

So it can’t just be money, it must be lots of money.

It can’t be just a job, it has to be a really amazing job.

It can’t be just marriage to any old person; it has to be marriage to the perfect person (The disney guy).

Since this is not easy, the significant fulfillment we are after - we realize this - it may be months, years or even decades away.

Now the heart has a little trick to avoid being perpetually miserable in this state of spiritual vacuum. Since ultimate peace almost always exists in the realm of the perpetually elusive future and wont be realized any time soon, there is a something called HOPE where TRUST something to get us from this obviously imperfect life I am leading now and the future fulfillment I hope to experience. And so we find something to trust to bridge the gap.

The object of our trust becomes a surrogate placeholder for fulfillment until the reality is realized. Let’s use money as an example, since its probably the most common false trust that American’s have.

All of us, to one degree or another, believe that more money will result in greater fulfillment. Since we believe it we pursue it. The more you invest in that pursuit, the more experience you have with the fruits. Soon you begin to taste the fruits - the extra home, car, boat, cabin, vacation and all the ‘worry-free living’ that goes along with being financially independent. Or maybe you don’t have any of it but you watch people around accumulate these things. With every reward that money yields, it increases your trust that money (while perhaps not absolute) is the best ultimate you know. The more you invest into this chosen direction the more established do you become in your trust of money.

Note carefully how increased trust relates relates to increased peace (no vacuum in the heart). Regardless of the circumstantial insecurity, if trust is high peace is high. With enough trust in a parachute, even something as unsettling as jumping out of a airplane can be exhilarating, exciting and even relaxing!

Many believe that regardless of how difficult and insecure their life is, money will save me. I am admittedly on a trajectory of death (my family is falling apart, my relationship are a mess) but I know that just around the corner, at retirement age, the kids will be gone and this golden parachute will open and rescue me from this descent into the deadly, void of meaningless existence. As long as that can be believed, the trust is high and the vacuum is low (peace).

The Disruption of Reason

Now here’s the problem. Money can’t satisfy. It can’t fill the void because it’s neither large enough nor the right shape. And because this is true, trust in money eventually will be disrupted by either reason or experience and usually both.

Consider this disruption sequence where trust is disrupted by reason. Imagine in your reading you are struck by the contrast between your obvious desire to be rich and the plain words of

That initial confrontation is made even more sharp by the still more plain words of

This disrupts your trust in money because in both these texts, the REASON you are trusting money is shown to be very UNREASONABLE. The world is passing away, money is passing away, so we are you trusting it and yet you too are passing away; it can’t stop you from dying; contrast that to the one who does the will of the Lord abides forever. In Hebrews 13 the implication is that money will forsake you but God will never forsake you.

It is not REASONABLE to trust money and it is reasonable to trust God and yet you are choosing money over God. That creates a crack in the money you have come to so faithfully trust.

The personal implication is clear and painful. You realize that you are being asked to surrender your trusted, experienced direction and you are being asked to exchange it for an untrusted, unexperienced direction. You have invested so much. Very quickly you feel threatened by this. There is a sense of insecurity rising; you feel as if your world is falling apart. Everything you felt so sure would bring you happiness is being called into question. You are being asked to consider an entirely new direction. What if this direction is incorrect? You are beginning to lose trust in money but you have no experience with this suggested new trust and an incredible trust vacuum is created.

Naturally, with this sort of disruption you are going to begin to feel some pretty strong emotions.

As the trust vacuum opens up in the heart, feelings of discontent, insecurity, anxiety and fear rise like giant sentinels trying to hem in and resist the departure of the previously trusted object. These emotions are counteractive forces trying to restore the loss of trust by pushing that trust of money back into the heart. Fear yells at you, “What do you think you are doing? You are will be nothing without money! What’s going to protect you as you age? Without money, how are you going to live the lifestyle you dream of having?” Insecurity barks, “Don’t you dare leave. I need you to keep me safe!”

These emotions are at their height as we contemplate the implications of living differently which will permanently take us away from our ability to trust in money. If I trust Jesus and serve him rather than money, l will lose opportunity to build wealth. What about retirement? What about that golden parachute I’ve trained myself to so unquestioningly trust?

Every decision I’ve made was in service to this love which I now verbally admit is untrustworthy. But now I must back that claim with new choices that remove me from the proximity of ever harvesting fruits from this love I’ve come to believe will fulfill me. Isn’t there a way I can trust Jesus and money?

Jesus said in the sermon on the mount. You cannot serve God and money because they both want everything.

The Disruption of Tragedy

But it gets worse; tragedy hits. Consider a man who loves his career and finds fulfillment in his career and its financially lucrative. He is at peace so long as he believes that continued pursuit of this career will bring him satisfaction. Massive vacuum is created, however, when he receives word that his son was in a car accident and is now in intensive care. The trust he has in his career to bring him satisfaction vaporizes. Suddenly, everything so important at work means nothing as he looks at his son struggling for life. No amount of money can solve this problem. The more significantly the object of his trust fails him in this critical moment, the more vacuum created.

Tragedy is one of the primary trust disrupters and this is why God uses it. Because it is true that no thing is trustworthy enough to ultimately fulfill; the cracks and weakness of our trusted love is revealed in tragedy. No amount of money, fame, success, beauty, intelligence can remove the sting of a dying relative. God often allows tragedy into our life to reveal the weakness of those things we so confidently insist will lead us to fulfillment.

As trials clip these unhealthy attachments, we stop trusting our idol loves and turn to the only one worthy of being ultimately trusted. This theme bleeds all over the pages of the New Testament. Consider Peter’s explanation of the purpose of trials.

Peter is showing us the connection between trust vacuum events (a.k.a. trials) and faith in Christ. Trials create the trust vacuums that purify our faith by clipping from our hearts any unhealthy attachment we have to the world and then re-lacing those clipped chords to the person of Jesus Christ.

And so when that trial hits, when that trust of money begins to fail, you concede that it is UNREASONABLE to believe that it CAPABLE of fulfilling me, the soil of your heart is ready.

When you start trust God instead of money, all of the sudden, you experience peace.

Peace in God

The Sermon on the Mount illustrates this connection between peace and trust masterfully. After commanding us to not love money Jesus issues a trust command. “Do not worry about what you will eat or drink.” Positively stated, “Trust me for your food and drink and you will have peace.” Jesus say, I know you’ve always trusted money to provide you with those things, but I want you to now trust me. Here’s why that is better because you can run out of money but you can’t run out of me!

If your bank account reads zero and you are trusting in money, then you worry.

If your bank account reads zero and you are trusting in God, then you don’t worry, because you always have God.

Now admittedly, this is going to feel strange. Setting a new direction creates a vacuum in the human heart because we lack experience in uncharted territory. The previously trusted direction has been siphoned out of the heart and now an untested, unexperienced direction is now being suggested as the fulfillment trajectory. All sorts of fears arise as the heart tries to orient itself. A new direction means a loss of many things I have grown to love; it is the forever surrender of certain beliefs which leaves me disoriented, frightened and insecure.

The vacuum of the heart wants to pull back in its familiar trajectory and reestablish that sense of equilibrium. The heart, always resisting unexperienced (untrusted) directions, needs a force to resist degenerating back into old patterns of love.

When we trust God he becomes for us that vacuum-resisting disposition of the heart to believe - in the absence of experience - that God’s unexperienced, counterintuitive direction is superior to our experienced, intuitive direction.

It’s exactly the concept referenced in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

The most tragic thing a follower of Jesus can do according to this verse is lean on his own understanding, intuition and experience. Trust is the placement of confidence in an entirely different location. Rather than trusting our experience or reason, God says, trust me.

Now initially that might seem paradoxical. How am I supposed to trust without experience and reason? What do you mean, do not lean on my own understanding?

Is it not through my understanding that I evaluate my experience and determine what is trustworthy?

Is it not true that all trust must be established through experience?

How can we trust something with which we have no experience?

We trust chairs because we have experience sitting in them. We trust banks because we have experience with them. We either trust or don’t trust people as a result of our experiences with them. In what sense am I to not lean on my own experience/understanding?

Here’s the sense: Proverbs 3:5-6 is a call to leverage your understanding to not lean on your understanding. It’s a call to leverage your experience to not lean on your experience. In other words, given the sovereignty of God, his loving nature, his omnipotence is it really reasonable to think that your limited understanding of the world and your limited experience in the world is to be trusted over his direct command? The most reasonable, sensible things to do is chuck what you think and go with him.

We exercise this Proverbs 3:5-6 type of trust any time we try and assemble a piece of furniture from IKEA. You have an entertainment center vacuum sealed into a cubic foot. Somehow this is going to orgami into what I saw on the showroom floor. In these situations, we realize we have no experience and we need to lean on the experience of the guy who designed the thing to guide us toward the solution. When assembling furniture we get in trouble when we ‘lean on our own understanding’ thinking, “Oh, I’ve done this before. I know how this goes together.” Fifteen minutes later, the horror-stricken realization sets in that you missed a critical piece and the whole thing must be disassembled! The face-palm moment when you confess that you should have leaned upon the designer rather than lean upon your own understanding.

Now it might make intuitive sense to trust God who made us rather than our intuition. You’d get that right 100 times out of 100 on a test. So why is it so hard to lean upon God rather than our own understanding? Here’s the short answer. Because we believe our understanding is quite complete. Let me illustrate this.

Survivorship Bias

One of the main reasons we lean upon our own understanding rather than God, is that we believe our experience is pretty reliable and a pretty good representation of the available data. Well, it’s not and here’s why. During WWII, the Russian Air Force was losing a lot of aircraft and the engineers were tasked with making improvement to the plane’s defenses. A statistician named Abraham Wald began tracking patterns of bullet holes that penetrated on returned planes. Close examination of returning planes revealed patterns of bullet holes in certain areas.

Naturally, they began armoring the planes in these areas, but it didn’t help to increase the chance of survival. Why not? The obvious reality struck them! They needed to armor the parts of the plane that weren’t damaged since damage to the undamaged area was what brought down aircraft. They never saw returning planes damaged there because a hit in that area meant the plane would never return! Deadly penetrations to the gas tanks in the wings or the engines was rarely detected because those are almost always catastrophic and hence never recorded.

This has become known as the survivorship bias. The total evidence can never be seen since only the evidence of survivors is recorded.

Let’s apply the survivor bias to the concept of trusting in the Lord. It’s easy to misinterpret the fulfillment data in a similar way. We look around and we say, “People with money are better off then people without.” And the available data supports this.

David in Psalm 73

Here’s the problem. David is looking at sample data set which contains only the living. When I look at the living, it appears to me that the rich are the ones that are happy. They are full of great food. They don’t suffer and worry; they have servants and luxury and appear to be always laughing and full of great joy. They are posting on Facebook from Thailand and Hawaii and driving new cars and great big houses. And look at my life?

And so we look at the experience map of the living and we say to ourselves, “Self, to possess fulfillment, I need to armor myself up with money.” We put trust in armor applied in all the wrong locations (exactly the wrong locations).

That conclusion makes perfect sense if that were the entire dataset. What if we were to overlay the data set of both the living and the dead. When David enters the temple, God reveals this to him.

What happened to that plane that never returned? Where did it get hit? Behold the statistical pattern was exactly reversed!

God says, your armor map needs to be inverted because you’re looking at life through heavily biased eyes. Do you not see that a direct hit to the cockpit would bring him down? He appears fulfilled, but just wait till he dies (a direct hit) and you will see that his confidence was misplaced.

How much data do you have that God’s way will bring some level of fulfillment? Answer: if not tested, or only lightly tested, very little. How much evidence do you have that your way will bring some level of fulfillment? Lots. It is, after all, your experience. If you just look at the evidence based on your experience, the statistics reveal that your own way, is a way that is to be trusted. But be careful with that evidence! Trusting that evidence will lead you down a trail that leads to death. The data set is horribly ridden with bias. Clearly the full data is not seen. The full data would reveal a very different picture. The dataset of our life says happiness is to be found in all the wrong places.

Were you able to cleanse your experience palate of the survivorship bias, you’d see that trusting God will never disappoint. It’s the reason Hebrews chapter 11 is in our Bible’s. It’s the reason God records stories of great victories exercised in faith (Hezekiah). God resurrects those experience data points we don’t possess, and he gives them to us to bolster a trust, knowing that experience will follow if we continue in trust.

Here’s the point to bold in your mind: the only way to experience a new fulfillment claim is to abandon your trusted experience and trust something you’ve never tried. This is why the Bible actually commands us to trust and believe. Commands to trust and believe are commands to set aside experience as less reliable than the words of Christ. God says to us through these trust commands, “I know you think this will make you happy based on your experience, but I want you to trust me that your experience is wrong. I know you think this will make you happy based on the way you are reasoning, but I want you to trust me that your reasoning is wrong.”

Remember Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

What path is he referencing? The path to peace! The path to shalom. Stop searching for the path and trust that he is the path.

Application

Trust HIM that he will give you what you NEED. Trust is rooted in need. Trust admits need. Consider even an act as simple as sitting in a chair. The legs are fatigued from walking many miles; the body admits need for rest and trusts in a simple chair to provide that needed rest.

The concept scales to a man who admits his need for purpose and trust that a career will give it to him.

A woman admits her need for relational intimacy and trusts that marriage and family will give it to her.

Trust is a person’s vote of confidence in a power to meet a need. Faith is belief that the power exists. Trust is putting your confidence and hope in that believed source.

This is why the Bible says consistently that without faith (trust) it is impossible to please God. The fundamental posture of anyone who receives Christ is the posture of need. Lord, I need you and I trust in your sacrifice to meet that need.

Here’s the application. You have a need for happiness and everyone admits it. Where are you really searching for happiness? What are the what if’s of your life?

If only this….then I’d be happy.

If only I was married

If only I had married differently

If only I had kids

If only I had no kids

If only my father hadn’t been so cruel to me.

If only I didn’t have to live in the shadow of my brother.

If only I could finish school and get on with my career.

If only I was more beautiful

If only I had a that dream job.

If only I get that scholarship

If only I get recognized for my talent.

That reveals what you trust in.

The path is crazy crooked if you are trusting in other things. You try this and then this and then this. If only I had more fame, I’d be happy. Nope. Now let’s try this. Nope.

Trust in the Lord and the path is straight as an arrow. If only I had more of Jesus I’d be happy. Yes, that’s right. Say that and pursue that. Stay on that path. The further you go down that path the more sure you will be. I can testify to that absolutely.

You know what this is saying? “Go all in with Jesus. Don’t argue with God. Go all in with God.”

Consider the game Texas Hold ‘em. It’s a betting game where your wealth is represented in plastic chips. Generally speaking, the more confident you are, the more you bet. And the ultimate display of confidence in your hand is, "I’m all in!" That means you push all your chips onto the table. It’s all or nothing. If I win, I win big and if I lose, I have nothing to fall back on. I have invested everything that represents any value to me and it’s all on the table.

This is a pretty good illustration of trust. It is one thing to state the claims of the gospel, but it is another thing entirely to push it all in and trust those claims. It is one thing to say that Jesus is more precious that money, that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and that this world is not our home; it is another thing entirely to trust that those things are true and live in light of them. Most of the time we hedge our bets.

“Jesus is more precious than money. Who wants in?” “I’ll bet two white chips.” It is one thing to say that heaven is real, to sign a paper and affirm a statement of faith. It is another thing entirely to trust and push all the chips on the table. Do you see the difference hedging your bets and going all in?

What do the chips represent. Your life decisions. The actions you choose. You can’t just say you trust Jesus. If you do something different that means you really don’t trust him.

Consider an archer who is super skilled with a bow and arrow. And he draws back his bow and in display of amazing precious, 10 out of 10 times from 50 yards he nails the bullseye. And so he raises the stakes. And he says, “How many of you think that I can hit the bullseye if my assistant here holds the bullseye with his hands.” And you say, “Oh he’s good….no problem.” And sure enough, he hits it. *And then he says, “How many of you think I can put an arrow through an apple that my assistant is holding.* That’s risky you say to yourself, but he is good. “No problem! Let’s see it.” And sure enough, he hits it. And then he says, “How many of you think I can put an arrow through an apple that is resting on my assistants head. Let’s see a show of hands. And you say, “Oh wow, that is extremely risky, but he is really good. I think he can do it. Let’s see it!” So you raise your hand and he points to you and says, “Okay, put the apple on your head.”

In that moment, you are forced to move from intellectual affirmation to trust. The command to trust is a way of calling your bluff. You say you believe? Show me.

Do you believe enough to stake your life on it? Do you believe in such a way that you are willing to go all in? Many of the things God asks us to do feel like putting the apple on the head. We’ve never had apples plucked from our heads with arrows and the consequence of a mistake are fatal. Why should I trust? It seems crazy to do so.

Why should you trust God? Here’s the answer: Because he is powerful which i evidenced by the fact he made you and the universe. And he loves you which is evidenced by the fact that he sent Jesus to die for you.

Stop trusting in things that will fail you. It’s time to go all-in with God.

Application Prayer by Scotty Smith

Heavenly Father, many of us are living in seasons of transition and are facing decisions with weighty, long term implications. It’s over-the-top comforting to know you to be the God who works on our behalf. You’re at work in us, around us and through us.

There’s nothing passive or inert about you. You’re not a reluctant deity we have to motivate; a moody lord we have to placate; a celestial computer we need to program; a far away father we have to find; a god of contingencies, fine print, or bait and switch. Indeed, “who among the gods is like you, LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? (Ex. 15:11).

You do anything and everything you want, with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back your hand or say to you: “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35). Whatever pleases you, that’s what you do, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths (Psalm 135:6). Oh, the centering, settling, peace-infusing joy this brings!

So, gracious Father, we trust you to work in our hearts to fulfill your good purposes. Help us find our place in your Story. Give us a greater desire for your glory than for our happiness. Fill us with joy and anticipation, as we surrender to your plans and timing. Keep us from impatient obsessing; “walking by the light of our own torches” (Isa 50:11); and idol-laden scheming. It would be better if we did nothing, than to start leaning again upon the shallow and fragile foundation of our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

We know everything you purpose is good because everything you purpose has Jesus in view. All of history is being summed up in your Son (Eph. 1:10). Everything you do, Father, you do with the Day in view when every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to your glory (Phil 2:10-11).

So until that Day, we will seek to make our plans in keeping with your Word and the gospel of grace; trusting you to be the God who opens doors we cannot shut, and the One who shuts doors we cannot open (Rev. 3:7-8). Oh, the blessed peace and confidence this brings. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and majestic name.

Devoted Part 4 – Disciples Who Make Disciples

FCBC 10/27/19 – Billy Mogensen

2 Timothy 2:1-7

"You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything."

Mountain Bike race – thought I was killing it, but I’d veered off course.

There are times I do this in life – expending energy in the wrong direction – not even realizing it! I think that’s true of a lot of Christians.

“No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits” – have to remind myself. I could easily do that (triathlon, hobbies, recreation w/ family, my house… for you it could be ___.

Soldier’s “aim is to please the one who enlisted him” – wants to hear “well done”

What do I want to hear when I get to heaven? “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Worst nightmare would be to get there and realize I got off course and didn’t finish the race well. This is my LIFE. I don’t want to blow it in my life. I want to run well and finish well.

So what are we supposed to be doing? What will lead to hearing “Well done?”

#1 Commandment: Love God. #2: Love Others.

Rest hangs on those.

So what does it look like?

Jesus showed us – modeled to his disciples.

What it looks like is living as a disciple of Jesus.

AND helping others do the same – making disciples

That’s the reason behind this series – Devoted

Kirk has walked us through the mission statement the past 3 weeks:

“We Exist to Glorify God by Pointing the Affections of All Peoples to the All Satisfying Person of Jesus Christ.”

Is Jesus all satisfying to you? Do you love Him with ALL your heart? ALL your soul? ALL your might?

Often we don’t find Jesus, or his mission ALL satisfying, so we look to other things to satisfy us.

I want to share 3 things (pictures) I never knew about discipleship growing up in church and how they help me stay on course.

 [18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:18-20)

Rabbis & Disciples (Talmadim) (credit – Ray Vander Laan)

Rabbi’s – 2 Kinds

Torah Teacher (Teacher of the Law).

Masters of Torah = 1st 5 books memorized!

Rabbi with S’mikheh (Authority)

Masters of Tanakh = whole O.T. memorized!!

They had disciples (Talmadim).

Beth Sefer – “elementary school” Boys & Girls ~5-12 years old

Taught by Torah Teachers. Goal: memorize whole Torah

Beth Midrash  - Boys 12-15 years old - Study Tanakh

How were disciples selected?

Find a rabbi with s’mikheh to hang with

Ask him if you can follow him: “Do you think I could be like you in my walk with God?” Rabbi tests you and makes his decision

Beth Talmud –~15 years old = Talmadim (Disciples)

Like making the NBA; Study until 30 – become rabbi or done

What is a Disciple?

#1 Goal = BE what the Rabbi IS in his walk with God

Intense commitment to become JUST LIKE the RABBI!

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.  It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master.” –Matthew 10:24

“Whoever claims to abide in Him, must walk as Jesus walked.” -1 John 2:6

BUT: How many who asked Jesus, “Can I follow you?” ended up following him?  ZERO!!

What does Jesus do?  “Come, Follow Me.”

“I THINK YOU COULD BE LIKE ME”

AND: Jesus’ first disciples were fishing. Significance?

They hadn’t made the cut with a rabbi!

Jesus @ Last Supper – “Remember, you did not choose me. I chose you.”

-John 15:16

Why important? Life’s gonna get rough!! They’re going to doubt. Need to remember…

Even now, some of you are motivated by this – Awesome!

Others are discouraged. Feel like you’ve failed or can’t do this. Hearing all sorts of lies.

Imagine how Peter felt after he got invited by JESUS to be a talmid, and then said about his own rabbi, “I don’t even know the guy.”

But what did Jesus do after the resurrection? Restored Peter (and the rest). Lifted their chins and sent them back into the mission.

Ever been just stuck in depressed state of “I can’t do it”? Peter could have done that. But he didn’t.

Then after the resurrection, Jesus’ final words:

[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me [Big deal! S’mikhah.]. [19] Go therefore and make disciples [talmadim] of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:18-20)

Make Disciples of JESUS (you’re not the rabbi).

Baptizing them. Why? First step to becoming a disciple = need to know the Gospel – good news of Jesus –

that We have all sinned and deserve God’s judgment.

God, the Father, sent His only Son, Jesus to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.

Jesus, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible.

If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, "Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.

And being baptized is publicly declaring that you believe that and want to follow Jesus. You want to be identified with Jesus.

Baptism is no less than that, but I believe there’s more to it, particularly in regards to discipleship.

#2 – Baptized Pickles & Disciples

Baptize – BlueLetterBible.org – Two words: Bapto & Baptizo

The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words.

First – bapto the pickle (dip to clean)

Then baptizo it in vinegar solution – until it’s transformed into pickle.

The cucumber is so penetrated by the thing it’s immersed in that it takes on those properties of what it’s immersed in – so that it’s permanently transformed into a new thing. (looks, tastes, feels different)

Which do you think is used in Matt. 28 = baptize?   Baptizo.

Could have used bapto. Like John 13:26 (dipped bread last supper)

Baptizo is always used in reference to Christian baptism

More than just dip; and not just a longer dip;

Point – should be an ongoing transformation (spiritual)

Baptizo “In the name” – character, works, reputation

The fullness of who someone is (in this case, Trinity)

SO Jesus is telling his disciples to go NOT only dunk people in water and teach them some lessons they learned from Jesus.

He was telling them to call others to join them in immersing themselves into the fullness of who God is so that they would not only be identified with him, but also be increasingly transformed to be more and more like

Which is the very definition of a disciple – to be like the master rabbi Jesus

[18] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. [19] Go therefore and make disciples [Talmadim who want to become just like Jesus] of all nations, baptizing [immersing/identifying – baptizō, like a pickle – permanent change] them in[to] the name [character, works, reputation – the fullness] of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] teaching them to observe [obey] all that I have commanded you [love God to the max, neighbor as self, etc.]. And behold, I am with you always [I’m with you in this!], to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)

#1 – Disciples are devoted to becoming JUST LIKE their rabbi Jesus.

#2 – Disciples should be transformed (pickled) by God

#3 – Disciples Make Disciples (2 Tim. 2:2)

Paul à Timothy & many witnesses à faithful men à others

Example: Billy à Nathan & others à Noah à Everett & Colin à

Your partnership is helping make discipleship happen at Boise State. In a place where thousands are desperately needy for Jesus, some are not only learning to grow as passionate disciples themselves, but they’re discipling others too.

I want to encourage you: Be Disciples who Make Disciples

Be a passionate disciple of rabbi Jesus – desiring to chase after and become like him – transformed into his likeness – and help others do the same

Practical Next Steps

1. Never stop growing as a disciple of Jesus.

Immerse yourself into His word.

Surround yourself with other disciples who will sharpen you.

Younger in your faith? Find someone to disciple you – to help you grow to be more like Jesus. Who comes to mind? Ask them.

Make disciples. Invite others into the journey you’re on in becoming more like Jesus.

If you can’t already name who you’re discipling, who comes to mind right now that you could buy a coffee or meal and invest in them over time, helping them follow Jesus?

Kids / family

Co-worker(s) & Neighbor(s)

Church – someone you’re a step ahead of in this journey

Consider getting several together that you could invest in (2-3)

I believe anyone who does this – who makes their #1 focus to grow as a disciple of Jesus and to disciple others – will find there’s nothing more satisfying in life.  And you’ll stay on course to hearing “Well done”.

Devoted - Living as Disciples to glorify God

Part 3 - Missionaries Chasing the Glory of God

We’ve called this series DEVOTED which could mean addicted, because I believe that describes the right response to Jesus Christ.  If we understand Who God is and what he has done through Jesus we will be DEVOTED or addicted to God, and living to glorify Him.

As I’ve thought about this idea of discipleship, I think that we often don’t grasp the heart behind why it’s so important…. So to illustrate, let me tell you about someone I heard about.  This guy.

DOWNLOAD 'SERMON NOTES' BELOW TO SEE SLIDES.

His name is Forrest Finn and he is a retired millionaire who was an art collector and had amassed a fourteen of antiquities including Chinese jade stones, gold bullion, gold coins and other precious items.  Well, in 2010 Mr Finn set out to write his memoirs, which he called “The thrill of the chase.”  In this book, he wrote a poem that described a now famous treasure hunt that he led people to take part of.  He apparently buried a treasure chest with some of his gold and others things worth millions somewhere north of Santa Fe New Mexico in the West.  This caught on and there are full forums of people talking about where the treasure might be…breaking down the poem to try and figure it out.  AND even giving their lives as some have died in dangerous areas of the Rocky Mountains trying to find it.

I wanted to share this for a couple reasons…I believe it captures a reality of what Jesus said in his parables, specifically in Matthew 13.

Jesus came on the sen and said, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand…it’s within my disciples…and here we have this bold story, that says it is of incomparable value.

More than Forrest Finn’s Treasure that people are happy to die for and invest so much time into….

So, if you are not yet a believer in Jesus here today, I want you to consider what you are devoted to.  Jesus says his kingdom is worth more than any pursuit you could be about right now. Whatever you pursue is your treasure according to Jesus and there is nothing more valuable than Him.  That’s his claim.

For those of that do trust in Jesus, this highlights why discipleship is so important.  We are literally in a chase for a prize treasure Given and guaranteed to us through God’s grace.  Discipleship is the weight of God’s glory, like this treasure, being pursued in an all in way in our lives.

And that’s what we are doing, taking a looking at what it means to glorify God by pursuing him and his kingdom.  We are doing that by taking another look at our church’s mission statement through the lens of discipleship.  That’s because we believe first of all, that our mission statement summarizes the Bible’s epic storyline. Here’s our mission statement again:

And it’s also because I believe that our mission statement matches up really well with Jesus’ final words and marching orders to his first disciples and all those that would follow him.  We get the idea of discipleship from chapter 28 of Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus says:

What we’ve been saying is this.  A disciple of Jesus is a follower of Jesus, a learner, that’s what the word means…To take on Jesus as the one who leads you in his masterclass for all of life…

And, to be a christian is to be a disciple…  There’s no such thing in the Bible as a Christian that isn’t a disciple.  There aren’t two classes of Christians…the believers and the super serious disciples…to be a disciple is to be a Christian.

We’ve also looked at some definitions of what disciples are, like this:

AND:

The last definition puts the emphasis where it needs to be…That disciples are people being changed by Jesus, through coming to believe and trust in Him, and worshipping him. That being a disciple is more about who we are than what we do.  And that’s where I really have tried to place the emphasis the last two weeks.  Because I know this…If we have a changed view of who God is and what he has done….and are changed in who we believe are, then we will change what we do.  That’s why Jesus said in Matthew 28  that discipleship incorporates baptism.  Baptism is about our new identity.  And that Identity is said to be in the image of all there persons of God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We’ve already looked at how being baptized into the name of the Father means that through His gift of his son, he has adopted us into his family.  We are beloved children of God the Father through the gift of his son sent to take away the penalty of sin and the power of sin through his death on the cross for us. God always planned to have a people and now that is us.

We are a glorious new people as the church.  We don’t just go to church, we are God’s church, an entirely new people, a new creation, a new spiritual family. Our whole existence is about glorifying God, showing the weight of who he is through all of our life and proclaiming his excellency through our new life together.

And, because our king, God the son,  served us so well through his example of a servant life and his death and resurrection, we now are His servants, we are Glory Pointers who serve one another and the world around us by showing who king Jesus is as we live and wait for his kingdom instead of living for our own. We serve the least and the lost, because we were the least and the lost served by Jesus.

Today, we look at how being a disciple is being baptized into our identity in the Holy Spirit.  That we are sent by God to chase down the glorious vision he has for this world.  We are GLORY CHASERS -we are missionaries sent to glorify God by pointing ALLL PEOPLES to Jesus.  Right in line with our mission statementwe are missionaries that exist to:

That’s the definition of a missionary, someone who goes to a people group to point them to Jesus. And so just like if you are a christian you are a disciple, God’s family, and a servant, you are also a missionary.  So here are all our baptized identities as believers:

And one important thing is to see that all the identity we have been talking about as disciples are not separate things, but interconnected.

Not I will be a learner today, family tomorrow, a servant today, a missionary tomorrow:

No, as you live out of your identity as part of Jesus’ new people you will have lots of opportunity to serve others as you were served by Jesus. As you serve others as you have been served by Jesus, you will have lots of opportunity to talk about Jesus, as as you talk about Jesus,  you will get questions you don’t know the answer to yet, and as you learn you will grasp who god is and who you are as part of his people and you will be revived to once again serve!  It’s a beautiful cycle…

The result is a radical compelling, counter cultural, christ exalting people.  And people get served, people get saved and God is glorified.  We together are:

And this starts with God, who he is and what He’s done…what his vision is for us to chase his glory….for us to be his sent people or missionaries.

God’s glorious sending vision

Like I did a couple weeks ago I want to survey the storyline of scripture to see this theme.

In Genesis God sends his word to create the world itself for His glory.He also creates Adam & Eve to SEND them as his co-regents in the world to glorify God. To image him and show what he is like.

They break his law and things get messy in rebellion that continues in the story, untilGod SENDS a call out to a man named Abram in Gen. 12, who He then SENDS to a land that is not his own to make a people for God’s glory…

After some time and Abraham’s descendants are in slavery in Egypt, God SENDS Moses to deliver them from the pharaoh.

After Moses, God SENDS Joshua to bring his people into their land…but they still rebel

God then SENDS Judges to continue to rescue his people and call them back to God…but they want a king like the world…

God SENDS kings to rule over - but kings go astray

God SENDS prophets to call the kings and the people back to him…

The prophets all end up saying something like this prophecy in the OT book of Habbakuk:

Habakuk says the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the lord  - not just Israel, or the Eastern World, or the middle east, but the whole earth…

Then after 400 years of silence God SENDS John the baptist to prepare the way and says BEHOLD the LAMB of GOD who takes away the sins of THE WORLD….

Not just for Israel, but NO for the whole WORLD.

God becomes man as He SENDS Jesus Christ to live a perfect sinless life in our place

He SENDS Jesus to take the penalty and power of sin as he substitutes for us on the cross.

Then at the end of the story in Revelation, we get a glimpse of the end and they sing, worthy are you Jesus for you have ransomed people from every tribe and tongue…

Our God has this big mission that he has been sending people, leaders, kings, prophets, and finally his own son to accomplish.  And it will happen…

We need to remember this as we grind out our daily lives…that WE are apart of something way bigger…a purpose and mission of God in this world.  He has sent us into the world for this….

This changes everything about how we view what we are doing and what church is.  We are not here int his room just to sing and in Life groups to have good nice conversations (though those are great things to do!)…

We are SENT here to labor with the trinitarian God to call our family, friends, neighbors, communities, cities, nations and world to chase after the vision of God’s glory…because it is arriving and it will be uncovered at some point.

When we see this epic eternal story of God’s glory it changes what we are about…BUT, it could also be a bit overwhelming…How are we going to do this…?

Jesus tells us it's going to have to be by His Spirit….We can’t do it!  But He has given his Spirit, to his disciples…

Chasing God’s Glory by going with the gospel

It will be by His Spirit, but it will also be by the power of the gospel…both. That’s how we will chase this glory of God. This supremely valuable vision.

In the other account of the great commission in Mark’s gospel, this is clear.  Mark 16:15-17

Gospel in the greek is the word evangelion - a bringer of the good news.  And we need to recapture this if we are going to live out our identity as missionaries…

We often don’t think of evangelism as bringing good news, we think of it as slightly awkward people bringing slightly awkward news in an awkward way…and we cringe. But it is meant to be good news that we are unashamed of (Rom. 1:16-17).

Jesus has given us our marching orders - GO into all the world - and so that is what we are to be about…and we are to be about it by preaching the gospel.  Again there is no separation in Jesus’ words between this and being a disciple….

Jesus has a mission and to be a disciple of Jesus is to be on Jesus’ mission.  It is one and the same thing…We sometimes think I want to follow Jesus but I’m not on that mission…that’s impossible…that is mission impossible.

To be a disciple of Jesus is to be on Jesus’ mission.

God’s people don’t have a mission.  God’s mission has a people -the church - God is sending God and we become part of his sent people when we have a relationship with him- its automatic

Now maybe some of you think…that is heavy, I don’t have the ability or the power to do that…I’m not naturally persuasive…I feel like I don’t do that well…

Thats ok - We aren’t able, so remember we need the Spirit.  Remember that before Jesus sent his disciples, he told them to wait for the Holy Spirit. Before living out their sent-ness, they had to wait and receive power….Jesus said then they would be his witnesses or missionaries in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth…

If we are gong to be his sent ones we need help, we need the  Holy Spirit…When we receive and trust in Jesus Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit, and then we bring the empowering presence of Jesus with us wherever we go.

It’s not that we are trying to be nice people..We have a mission and in both parts of the God's story, the Old and New Testaments, when God wants to accomplish his mission he wither puts his Spirit upon someone, or in the NT he puts his Spirit IN us.

SO it's the gospel’s power, and the Spirit’s power….the Good news is that I don’t have to be Jesus to people - I can let Jesus be Jesus to people by the Spirit through me.

We can stop trying to be Jesus.  We can let Jesus be Jesus through us by His spirit. We just pray….Spirit fill me and work through me to GO with the gospel and chase after God’s glory in the peoples around me. We do that individually…..

And, we also live this out in Life groups, GO LOCAL  teams, etc. All the while we are asking God to fill us with his Spirit, for Jesus to live through us and the gospel to be clearly proclaimed as the good news about who God is and what He has done in Christ…

I was particularly encouraged the other week when I got a few emails with people wanting to be involved in our GO Local Evangelism team and Response teams to bless people around our neighborhood as a church.

These are not big programs that we are running centrally, these are just you, the church being the church….sent to use your gifts to serve by being Spirit empowered gospel missionaries…

I truly do believe in the broadband approach to evangelism….To try as many methods as possible to get the gospel to as many of the all peoples as we can. So, here is one other opportunity coming up that I want to tell you about….

Some local churches in the Treasure Valley are helping to run a big event type evangelism called Harvest Boise. May 1-3, 2020

Now, this may not be our normal method or be the normal crowds , but it is a big local effort and an attempt to reach people who are lost…And its worth it because any method is worth it if the gospel is really preached.  And I do believe that the gospel will be preached at this event.  So pray about 3-5 friends you may be praying for and inviting to come with you to this evangelistic event.

If you don’t like it, that’s ok, but just remember something DL Moody the great American evangelist of the 1800's said to one of his critics…I like the evangelism I do, better than the evangelism you don’t do.

So if that's not your thing, then have your Life group throw a party for Halloween…or if Halloween isn’t your thing, then throw a Reformation party!  Either way, connect with some people and get the gospel out by the power of the Spirit working through you…

It really is that important…Jesus said all who believe and are baptized will be saved and all who don’t believe will be condemned…The stakes are high…That's why Charles Spurgeon said this:

So, it’s soberingly important….but maybe you wonder, how you can really do this in real life….Not just for big events, or teams that we set up, or as part of groups…How can I do this everyday? Your right, it's important to see how we can chase after God’s glory in the everyday among everyone.

Chasing God’s glory in the everyday among everyone

The first step is to again remember our identity….It’s part of who we are…

So, if we want to be real practical about everyday, we need to remember that we are all sent ALWAYS.  Here's some examples:

If you are a stay at home mom you are sent first and foremost to you kids to commend christ..to grow them in the Lord to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus in your home

And when you go to work

in your neighborhood

in the grocery store ( Just got to experience this the other day)

and even in traffic…

How would it change you if every single day you woke up and said I have been given the Holy Spirit to be a sent one in the every day things of life.

You are empowered by the risen living God of the universe by his Spirit to go about his work as part of his mission every day aspects of life…YES

So, try these things:

Take advantage of transitions in the day.

leaving an appointment

going to pick kids up

after lunch

at break

on the way to sports practice to drop kids off

Pray Lord help me to have eyes to see the needs, what is happening…etc. Help me live out my identity…This revolutionizes how you see yourself on this planet.

Organize your life around the mission of the gospel and not the other way around.  Be willing to take that time to go out with a work friend.  Be willing to have the time not only with the friends you are already comfortable with from church, but invite someone who is not yet a believer…

Next, it’s gonna take more love for Jesus…because you always talk about that which you love the most…

People are natural evangelists.  They talk about their families, their houses, their kids, their sports teams, their philosophies, etc.. You really can’t get people who love something to shut up about it!

So if you, like me can find your heater being cold towards the good news of the gospel, you’ll need to practice repeating it to yourself, and to others in church in order to get warmed and ready in the everyday things of life. Try telling yourself the gospel like this:

Good news that there is no condemnation for us because of the cross.

Good news that Satan sin and death are defeated…

Good news that though we were without hope and enemies, now in Christ we are perfectly loved and adopted.

Good news that we are not aimless or purposeless in life

Good news we can’t do anything to make us love him and will always be loved

Good news that we will never be left alone or separated

Good news that all things work together for good for those that love him

Good news that we cannot do anteing to merit this and it is all the radical free grace of god

Good news that no one can ousting the overflowing unceasing grace of God in Jesus Christ

Good news that though we might run from him, he runs faster wand we cannot outrun him

Its good news that if he began the work in you he will complete it

Good news that Jesus wins in the end and even if you are a loser in life, you win with Jesus in the end.

Believing this good news and rehearsing it to yourself and others everyday will make you a missionary. And there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about in any of those things!

As you preach the gospel to yourself, you get your awe of God's glory back...and that is what we want - we want to help others get their awe of God’s glory for the first time or back again..

Then people will ask…what is the hope in you ( 1 Peter 3:15)

Have a “people.” We are chasing God’s glory by being sent to point all peoples, so have a people!   That could be your neighborhood as a Life group, that could be 3-5 people out of your family and friends and colleagues that you are praying for and intentionally trying to relate to in order to share the good news with…but just have a people.It could be a targeted community in brokenness like the refugee community, or the homeless community, young people….on one level it doesn’t matter, as long as you are sent to a people! This really helps to clarify all the who, what where, when, why as we try to live in community and only have so much time, etc…

Then watch with joy as whether it is on your couch, at a restaurant, at a church meeting like this…watch with joy as these people become what Paul called those who came to know Jesus through his life and ministry - his joy and crown- his treasure….It is so much more worth it than any other treasure chase you could be involved in.

To bring it all together and close, look with me again at 1 Peter 2 that I began with two weeks ago.  Think of that day in glory, like it's the championship celebration  where you are not just at the event, but have been a participant in it…You will sing the praises of God while you watch those who also fulfill his glorious vision since they too were visited by grace .

There's nothing like this….When the church lives as a community - as a family, serving together, to see the mission of God’s glory come into lives that we are sent to.  This happened so many times in our small church in England that is was overwhelming,..

I pray if you don’t know Jesus as the ultimate treasure, you could realize that and today might be the day where you see he is the one worth chasing.

For the rest of us, as we go we will sing “Oh church Arise”, and lets try something different and sing it to one another…We are his church and lets sing this spiritual song to call each other to be committed to living out this identity as Glory chasing missionaries!