The Joy of Christmas
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. This is our Christmas gathering. This is the time where we get to, it's the last Sunday of the year we get to meet, so we get to celebrate the coming of Jesus and all the joy that comes with that, all the anticipation and excitement that comes with that. It's the one Sunday I can bust out a bright red sweater, and it's okay.
It's not over the top. So we're going to be in Matthew 2 today, which is on page 471 in your blue Bibles. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home, but we're going to be in Matthew 2. And today we're going to look at the story of the wise men, and we're going to see something a little bit different.
I think oftentimes we're very familiar with this story, but I want to expand a little bit. I want us to see a little bit how this story fits in the bigger picture of Jesus and how this story points forward. But before we do that, I want to set it up a little bit. I want to walk through a little bit of Jesus' birth story, starting in Matthew 1, verses 18 through 25. It says, Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus. In the first two chapters of Matthew, God gives us the intro story to Jesus. And good introductions that we see here, we see in the Gospels, and they point forward to the rest of the story. It's God tipping his hand a little bit of where the story is going, because good introductions do that. I think it's one of the greatest movies that's ever been made, The Dark Knight, which is Christopher Nolan's, it's his magnum opus, it's his greatest, I think his greatest achievement.
And it's brilliant. In the intro scene, there is stuff in it that points forward to the rest of the story. The first scene's a bank robbery, which is the Joker, it's his M.O., he robs banks, and in this bank robbery, each of the people who are involved in the bank robbery are wearing clown masks. It's pointing forward, this is the Joker who is involved here. And as this is happening, the music that sets the tone for this, it really sets the tone for the rest of the film, is unnerving. It's meant to put you a little bit on edge, which is pointing to the madness that is the Joker.
And as this bank robbery unfolds, each of the characters starts to build up the legend of the Joker, starts to tell more about him, you're starting to see more of who this character is going to be. And in this bank robbery, it's genius, it's a mastermind plot, but it's also chaotic. And that's because the Joker is an agent of chaos, as he is a genius. And finally, the big build-up to when you finally see the Joker, he takes off his mask, and his face is even more insane than the mask. And he says, I believe that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stranger. And that's it, like it hooks you.
This man is a madman, he is insane, and this movie is going to be just like this. And it's genius how it points forward, because that's what good introductions do. They point forward in the story, and that's what we get in the Gospels. That's what we get as we walk through Matthew 1, the birth story. It tells us that Jesus was born of a virgin, which means this baby, this son, is different than every other child that has come into this world. That he has set apart.
There's something unique about him that says he will be called Emmanuel, which means God with us. That this is the God-man. This is the God-child, God in human form, that has come to dwell amongst men. It says that he will save the people from their sins. That this is going somewhere. That he is going to save the people.
It's pointing forward to the cross. And then, and then we get to Matthew 2. When we look at Matthew 2 and this story that we're so familiar with, it's actually pointing forward to a bigger part of the story. So we're going to zoom in on this and catch a glimpse of what God is doing here in this story as the wise men come and visit Jesus. And ultimately, we're going to see this story is hope-filled. This story is joyful for all of us that follow Jesus.
And we'll get to see that in this season as well. So let me pray, and then we'll dive into the story. God, I'm so thankful that you came, that in this season we get to celebrate the joy of your coming. God, I pray that you would help us see that. You would help us feel that as we walk through this story. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Alright, starting in verse 1 and 2. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose, and I've come to worship him. Now, there's a lot going on here in these first couple of verses. And a lot of it, honestly, is informed by nativity tradition.
By our understanding of the nativity. The nativity scenes, we're all very familiar with them. That tradition helps inform this. And what I want to do this morning is I want to throw a little bit of a wrench in that tradition. It's going to mess up your nativity scene just a little bit. It's going to be a little bit painful, but it'll be good.
Because it's helpful to know things even if we don't understand them. Recently, this happened to me. For 20 years, I have worn contacts. And then recently, a few weeks ago, I had one of those days that it just wasn't fitting right, and I was messing with it, and I was trying to get it to submit to my eye, and finally, and you know how that, even if you don't wear contacts, you know having something on your eye, it drives you insane. But I was like, I've had days like this.
This happens. I'm going to make it work. Came into the office here, and then Chet goes, hey man, I see that you've been struggling this morning. Maybe, maybe you put it in backwards. To which I said, no Chet, you can put contacts in any way you want. They're reversible.
And he said, no. They're really not. There's only one way to put it in. I was like, no, I've worn contacts for 20 years, Chet. I think I know how to put a contact. He's like, I don't think you really do.
I'm like, says who? He says everyone. Optometrists, the internet. So finally, we went to Google. And I learned a thing. Contacts are not reversible.
That for 20 years, I've been putting, I've been forcing them on my eye. I know that some of you are thinking, man, bless his heart. What an idiot. To which I say, slow your roll, okay? First, I blame, I was 10 when I started. I blame the optometrist for not teaching me.
Secondly, what you should be thinking is, is how amazing are his eyes? I have superhuman eyes. They could force contacts in the submission for 20 years, and I can still see. So, it's impressive, but it's helpful to actually know the truth, to actually know how to do that. And I just want to correct a little bit, the nativity scene for you, starting in the first part, when it says, now after Jesus was born. That is an indefinite period of time.
Directly after this passage, which we won't get into today, King Herod feels threatened by Jesus, and his kingship. So he has all males under the age of two, he orders them to be killed. Which begs the question, why under the age of two? And the reason is, is that he has figured out, that sometime in the last two years, sometime in the last two years, Jesus, this Messiah, was born. Which means, he could have been two, when the Magi, when the wise men visited. He could have been one.
He could have been 18 months. We don't really know, but it's, it's pretty clear from the text, that the wise men, were not at the birth, of Jesus. So, you can do what my son does, every morning, when he comes down to, his little people nativity set. You can come down, it's all nicely put together, you can grab the wise men, and you can throw them under the couch. Just kidding, if you like the wise men, we have another one that's wooden, the kids aren't supposed to touch. Keep them, they're nice.
Just know, what's actually going on here. The second part of the nativity change, that may be helpful for some of us, is the text says, that wise men from the east, came to Jerusalem. They were wise men, not kings. I know we three kings, is special to some of you, but that kind of messes up your brain, a little bit. The word that more accurately, reflects what's happening here, the wise men, is the word magi. That's what the text is getting at.
Magi were priests. They were magicians. They were astrologists. They were dream interpreters. They were alchemists. They dealt in the mysterious.
We see this in the Old Testament, when Pharaoh is going, when Moses is going toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, and Moses does a miracle, and the Pharaoh, his wise men, his magi, come out, and they start doing magic tricks, to answer Moses. We see this in the book of Daniel. In the book of Daniel, in chapter 2, he becomes head of the magi, head of the wise men, and Daniel is a dream interpreter. So, by the time we get to the New Testament, it's still, that is true, and they serve specifically in royal courts. They serve kings. They're a part of royalty.
They use their gifts of looking at the stars, and the planets, and studying all of this, which means, when a star appears in the sky, that was not there, when creation itself, bends to something, that catches, people like the magi's attention. And then, we don't get this from the text, but we can tell, by the time they show up to Jerusalem, that God has come to them, and said, that there is a king of the Jews, that has been born, that this star, is shining upon. Now, I want to pause for a second. I know that some of you, that may like the mysterious, will go, cool, so like tarot cards, and horoscopes, and all that, that's, that's, no.
Let me pause for a second. We can have a separate conversation after this, if you want to. We don't deal in that anymore. We don't deal in the mysterious, because Jesus is the mystery of the universe, that has been revealed. And that in Christ, all of that, is gone and put away. We don't need that.
We have Jesus. If you want to come and talk to me later, we can have a conversation, about that. But these are magi. They are from the east. The, the original hearers of this, of this gospel, would have understood the east, to be Persia, Assyria, Babylon. All people that, that traditionally, the Jews do not mix with.
They've had a bad history with. But they're from the east, and they're not kings. So, we get to, verse 2, and it says, Where is he, who has been born, king of the Jews? This is the magi talking. For we saw his star, when it rose, and have come to worship him. When Herod heard, Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
So after they get, giddy, after they're excited, the star in the sky, has led them, to Jerusalem. We're getting closer, closer and closer, to where this star is. They land in Jerusalem, and they start asking around. And they're going to stand out. These are foreigners, a part of royal courts. Like, they're going to stand out.
And it says that when, where, when they ask this, that, that, that, that, that both Herod, and all of Jerusalem, they were all, uh, troubled. Which means, they weren't just going to Herod, and asking, where is this king? They were talking to anybody, that would listen. Where's this king, who was born? Who, you mean, King Herod? No, no, no, smaller, baby king.
Where is he? Uh, how, how did you know to come here? We followed a star. This starts to get the whole city stirred up. Jerusalem's a, it's a big city, but this is the kind of city, where buzz is going to circulate. And they start to get, uh, stirred up, and Herod is trying to figure out what's going on.
It says, verse three, when Herod, the king heard this, he was troubled. And all Jerusalem with him, and assembling all the chief priests, and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them, where the Christ was to be born. So Herod, he believes this, and he wants to find out what's going on. So he goes to, uh, the scribes, and the chief, and the chief priests, to the religious leaders, who know the Old Testament, to try to figure out, uh, where this Messiah, is coming from. It picks up in verse five, it says, they told him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least, among the rulers of Judah.
For from you shall come a ruler, who will shepherd my people, Israel. So they reveal to Herod, yes, the Messiah, from the prophets, uh, Ezekiel, from the prophet Micah, in the Old Testament, the Messiah is going to be born, in Bethlehem, this is true. So then Herod responds, and he says, then, uh, verse seven, then Herod summoned the wise men secretly, and ascertained from them, what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go, and search diligently for the child, and when you found him, bring me word, that I too may come, and worship him. So Herod, he doesn't have, good intentions.
He wants to find out, where this child was born, where Jesus was born, because he feels threatened. His earthly kingship, is threatened. He has a plot, that he's going to try, to kill Jesus, in order to protect, his earthly kingship. So, he tells him, go, find him. When you come back through here, tell me where he is, so I can come, and worship him too. And we're not going to get into this today, but that plot is full.
God has a plan here. They go back a different way. It picks up in verse 9, it says, after listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star which they had seen, when it rose, went before them, until it came to rest, over the place, where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced, exceedingly, with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child, with Mary his mother, and they fell down, and worshipped him.
Then opening their treasures, they offered him, gifts, gold, and frankincense, and Mary. And being warned in the dream, not to return to Herod, they departed, to their own country, by another way. So, they leave Jerusalem, and they know they're close. Bethlehem, geographically, even today, is not that far from Jerusalem. So they know, they're getting close.
And you have to remember, these are, these are men, that have devoted, their lives, to the study of the stars, and the planet. And God has come to them, told them about the, king of the Jews, and the star, is shining over the city, there, this town, Bethlehem, they're getting closer. And as they come up, over the hill, into Bethlehem, they see, where it is shining. And they're getting closer, to the house. And there's this, anticipation, that is building up. And finally, they knock on the door.
And when the door is open, and Mary and the child, are there, the text tells us, they rejoiced. They rejoiced exceedingly, with great joy. Which is just, they lost it. They were so excited, they had stumbled, they came and found, this child, that God had led them to. This baby king. And they fell down, and they worshipped him.
They said, ma'am, we came all this way. We followed this star, for your son, he is a king. And we didn't come, empty handed. We brought gifts. They bust them out. We brought gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
Now, there's been a lot of people, over the years, that have tried to figure out, the meaning of these gifts. There's a lot of different things, that can be a little bit confusing, and trying to pinpoint that. There is something, that is a common thread, in each of these gifts. These gifts, are meant for a king. These are royal gifts. Gold, frankincense, which is an incense, myrrh.
These are expensive gifts, that you would bestow, on a king. And they come, and say, here are the gifts. Here they are. Here, and another thing, with the tippy tradition, we don't know actually, if there were three magi. We do know, that there are three gifts, and I like to think, that it makes sense, each of them, would be bringing, a gift, to the king. So they, bestow these gifts, they lay them at their feet, and they rejoice, and they are, worshipful.
This is a, joyous occasion. They have, they have come, and they have seen, the child that is going to change, the course, of history. And they're doing this, and I want you to picture this. They are, joyous. They are, celebrating. They are, high-fiving.
They are, worshiping. They are, so excited. And Mary, and Joseph, are standing here, and they are watching this, and there's a part of me, that thinks, that in their head, they had to be thinking, this is great. Why are you here? Like we, like they've seen a lot, at this point. They've, they remember when Jesus was born.
They remember, uh, the angels, that were bursting forth, in praise. They remember the shepherds, who came, and, and, and worshipped, Jesus. They remember when they, presented Jesus, at the temple, at the temple, when the prophet, and the prophetess, were prophesying, that he was the Messiah. They remember, all these things. They were treasuring, these things, in their hearts. But all that, was inside the house.
All that, was amongst Jews. So there had to be, a thought, why are you here? Foreigners, magi, from distant lands. Why have you come here? And that, is the part, of the story, that points forward. That's the part, of the story, where God is, tipping his hand.
God calls, magi, wise men, from the east, to show you, who he was coming for. To show that, these were the very, kind of people, that Jesus was coming for. They represented, the very people, that Jesus was going, to reach. This baby king, was not just going, to be king of the Jews. He was going to be, king of the nations. And this story, is tipping its hand.
It's not an accident, that God calls, magi outsiders, to worship the baby king. He's telling us, where the story is going. That Jesus is coming, for the outsiders, for the lost. And that means, me, and you, and everyone, that wasn't a part of, the Jewish people. This is a, hope filled, story, for the world. That the light, that lit up Bethlehem, is going to light up, the world.
It's going to light up, the nations. That's how, I love the gospel of Matthew. It starts with a picture, of God tipping his hand, that God is coming, for everybody. And it ends with, go therefore, make disciples, of all nations. This story, is the first glimmer of hope, for all of us, who are outsiders. This is why, we sing songs, in this season, that are joy, to the world.
Because God is coming, for all of us. It is a, hope filled story, that we get to, pause every year, and remember, and be joyous, and be glad. But I get it. I understand that, for some of you, that is hard to do, in this season. For some of you, this season brings up, really difficult memories. For some of you, this has been, a really difficult year.
And it has been hard, to be joyous, and to remember the gospel, to remember that, glimmer of light, that was shining, in the desert. It's hard. Because some of you, have had a rough year, you've experienced, real loss. And preaching the gospel, to yourself, in this season, has been difficult. It's lost its flavor. Some of you, have gone through, real temptations, you've gone through, real trials, this year.
And it's, you are just tired, and it is hard, for you to be joyous. Some of you, have wrestled with, with sickness, with physical suffering, with mental illness. There's been, all kinds of suffering, that you can feel deep, in your bones, that you can feel deep, in your soul, and the cynic in you, wants to post a meme, that just destroys, the holly jolliness, of everybody around you. Because it's been hard, and it's been rough. And I want to say to you, specifically, I know it is difficult, but I want you to pause, in this season, and join the chorus. I want you to fight through, and I want you to see, the light that lit up, the darkness.
I want you to feel, the hope that came. Because that hope, that came for you, is the hope, that secured a place for you, that one day, you will be in the presence, of Jesus, for eternity. And that day, there will be, no more tears, there will be, no more pain, there will be, no more suffering. That's the joy, that we get to celebrate, that came to this world. And I know, that you felt alone. I want to say very clearly, for those of you in Christ, you were not alone.
Jesus did not abandon you. And I want you to, to fight through, and remember, that he is going to carry you home. He has put you on his back. This is a real, and actualized, and vivid, and joyous hope, that I want us to pause, in this season, and see. I want us to feel, and I want us to remember. That's why this Friday, we get to do a worship night.
Because I want us to pause, as a church family, and remember, the Jesus that came, the humble babe, that came in this world, to rescue each of us. I want us to pause, like the Magi, and celebrate, and be glad, and be joyous, and remember. That's the hope, that we remember at Christmas. So as the band, comes up, and as we celebrate, communion, I want us to remember, this. As we approach the table, I want us to remember, the way that Jesus, came into this world. He came in naked, and humble, in the form of a babe.
Because it helps us, remember the way that He died, naked, and humble, on a cross.
Come and Die
Transcript
I went to Sheely's with my wife, my father-in-law, and I sat down and he goes, you don't like green beans? And it's like, well, it's not that I don't like green beans, but I know how to do buffets. And I'm at Sheely's. Green beans have no place on my plate at Sheely's like rice. Hash, baked beans, barbecue with a little bit of collards and some macaroni and cheese. I know what I'm doing.
I've been to these before. And so I'm not getting green beans. But what I like about it is that you have to choose. You have to pick. You have to decide what matters, what's important. And the truth is in life, we're doing this all the time.
We're deciding what matters most. We only have so much room on our plate. We only have so much time. We only have so many resources. We're deciding all the time what's going to fit, what doesn't. We do this on autopilot a lot.
We end up putting things on our plate that if we really had thought about it, if we really had seen what we were giving up. See, that's what I like about a buffet. You can see what you're giving up if you put this on your plate. Jim Gaffigan, one of the great thinkers of our time. He's a comedian, for those of you who don't know who he is. You're like, oh, look him up.
No, don't. He's not like reading any books or anything, but he talks about getting to the end of a breakfast buffet, and that's where they kept all the bacon. And you're immediately like, bacon. If I had known you were here, I would have only gotten you. He's like, you're looking at your plate going, why do I have fruit here? And that's what we're doing in life, though.
We're always filling our plate with something. We're always putting something on here. We're choosing. You have a limited amount of time. You have a limited amount of energy. You have a limited amount of dollars.
And you are choosing what's the good stuff. What do I want to put on my plate? What do I want to have here? And the problem is that so often we do this on autopilot. We just kind of do whatever's there, and we just go forward. And sometimes we make conscious decisions, and sometimes we don't.
What we're looking at today is where Jesus is going to press on to decide to hear. He's going to talk about his mission as he sends them out. He's going to talk to them about making those decisions, about deciding what has value, and what doesn't, deciding what is ultimately worth and what isn't. So right now, we're in the third week of our gift series. What we are trying to do is raise money, partner with 1040 Hope. 1040 Hope is an organization.
I thought about Ben Johnson and his wife. He's here. I thought of our church family. I just recently submitted the membership. But what they do is they're trying to plant churches and launch people in the 1040 window.
It's one of the most unreached places. We talked about this last week. And so what we're trying to do is partner with them specifically in Egypt. So in our gift series, around this time of year, we always call ourselves to generosity. We always call ourselves to do things that are eternal with our money, to do things that ultimately, infinitely matter. And so we're partnering in Egypt to try to see people meet Jesus there.
There's a place in Minya, Egypt, where they are already seeing some growth. They're already seeing some things happen. We're trying to partner with them to fund them for a year. Here's our goal, which is a big goal for our church. We believe that the Lord would have to move, that he'd have to work in us for that to happen. We don't. $15,000 isn't.
Y'all know us, right? You know you. You know your budget. That's big for us. We're trying to buy them a tuk-tuk. It's the first thing we want to do.
My wife was asking for clarification after our first week. She said our gift project is to buy a motorcycle for a guy in Egypt. I was like, we didn't explain that well. We're trying to. It is a tricycle kind of motorcycle thing. And it's for them to be able to travel, for them to be able to get their leaders to travel around, for them to be able to do some sidewalk Sunday school stuff.
There's a lot of opportunities for them if they're able to move throughout this area. I know some of us are like, well, all I'm ever really able to do is $20, $30, $40. The truth is if that's for your budget, that's beautiful. The one lady that's highlighted for giving in the New Testament, she gave a mite, which is like nothing. It's like a shaving of a – it's like you took a penny and like scraped some of it off and put it in there. But that's all she had, and Jesus said she gave the most because she actually gave what was her first, what was her best.
And so for some of you like that, best I can do is $20. But the truth is we're trying to buy phone cards. A phone card is $20. That would allow one of the leaders to be able to use a phone for a month. That's a really cool thing if you're able to do $10, $15, $20. But we're trying to ultimately raise $15,000 so they can do this for a whole year in an area where people, the whole area in general, does not want the gospel.
They're hostile to it. So what we're doing in our Give Project is saying we want you right now while everything's – you feel spread thin and your budget is tight, we want you to pull money out of that and give it to a place where they are receptive to the gospel and hostile to the gospel. There are people who are fighting against the gospel spreading here where it is dangerous and where there's a lot of people who when they hear this good news receive it joyously. We want a partner there. You see, ultimately, at this time of year, we've been celebrating that Jesus is the ultimate missionary, that he was born, he came out of heaven, was born on earth, lived a normal life to pursue us and to ultimately to suffer and to die, that we might have the gospel, that he's a light that shines in the darkness.
And last week, Spencer was talking about that his plan from the beginning of forever was to have the nations be glad, to sing his praises. And what I love about that is that it is not a begrudging submission, but that he wants to steal our hearts. That he wants the hearts of the globe so captivated with him, so overwhelmed by him, so joyous that they can't help but be glad, they can't help but sing songs of praise. That he, through the gospel and through his work on the cross, is going to redeem people for himself, that we have actual beautiful good news to share. That Jesus Christ, through his blood, saves sinners.
Now, I'm going to do something that's a little bit different for us, but I want this to be clear as we move into this text this morning, what we're going to try to see. I'm going to read a few statements to try to help us see clearly what it is that we're trying to look at today, what it is we're trying to cement in our minds, have become real in our hearts. As we study, and if you'll grab your Bibles and go to Matthew 9, that's where we'll be this morning. Matthew 9, we'll start in verse 35. Jesus is sending his disciples out, and then, like I said, there's a scarcity of resources. You only have so much time, so much energy.
Ultimately, you will die, and you will have spent the time, the energy, the money you had, the abilities you had on something. You'll have lived for something. You'll have died for something. And so Jesus is calling us to make wise choices with what we put on our plate. So Jesus, I want to read a few of these statements to try to help us see what we're trying to see today as we go through this text.
Jesus is of such supreme value that there is nothing in existence that can be sacrificed for him that will outweigh what is to be gained in him. He is of supreme, infinite, unmatched worth. Jesus is to be loved and treasured above all else. See, this is what he's showing them as he walks through this, as he sends them out. He's trying to help them understand his supreme value, his worth, the joy in knowing him in the gospel. There's nothing on earth of comparable value to Jesus.
And he eternally rewards those who follow him. This makes all human sacrifice for the cause of Christ wise investment rather than foolish risk. Not one thing laid down in devotion to Jesus or his mission to reach the globe with the good news of his suffering and salvation on their behalf is wasted or forgotten. If we love our earthly treasures more than Jesus, if we value them higher than him, we will not get Jesus. We will not deserve Jesus. We will be unworthy of him.
And we will gain something that proves worthless, losing what is eternally priceless. Because the one who loses everything to gain Jesus ultimately loses nothing and gains everything. To put it simply, Jesus is better than everything else and is therefore worth giving up everything for. So our goal today as we study this passage is to cement this truth in our hearts so that the eternal unmatched worth of Jesus might propel us to invest all that we have. To see those who don't know him receive him. And we might see his value and know the wisdom in the seemingly reckless way we're called to lay down everything in response to his call on our lives.
There was a very good professional cricketer. And I know that that means so much to the people in this room. In the late 1800s in England, cricket is like baseball but weirder because they flatten the bat out and they bounce the balls and they run back and forth. So just pretend that he's English baseball and then it makes more sense. But he was very good at it.
He was a professional. His name was C.T. Studd. He became a Christian, continued playing cricket and over time started realizing that what he was spending his time doing, what he was spending his life for, what he was spending his energy for, he decided it wasn't worth it. So he stepped away from it and ended up being a missionary in Africa, China and India.
He wrote a poem at one point and the refrain that he keeps coming back to in his poem is, Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. So as we walk through this passage in Matthew, as Jesus looks at his disciples and sends them out and he's going to give them specific coaching as to what that's going to look like.
And as we're thinking right now about what's on our plate and what matters most and what we're going to do with our money and what we're going to do with our time. And as we're thinking about joining with these people in Egypt who are giving up everything for the sake of the gospel and everything for the sake of the king. We're going to look at this and hopefully have the Lord stir in us his supreme value, his supreme worth, so that it only makes sense for us to have the appropriate response. That everything's on the table. So I would ask you.
All the Christians in the room. To pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help us see where we've made poor valuations. As we study this together this morning, so let's pray. God, we believe your word. We believe in eternity. So often we get focused on what we can see and feel.
So we ask that you'd help us to clearly see what we've put on our plates and what we've given up. The trades we've made. The value you have. So that we might live. As your people. In Jesus name.
Amen. So Matthew 9 verse 35. Says and Jesus went out, went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. So Jesus is going around. He's proclaiming the gospel of the gospel of the kingdom, which is that the kingdom is coming among you. And then he's displaying as he proclaims.
He's displaying the gospel because he's healing afflictions and diseases. And he's ultimately showing practically on earth what the gospel is going to do eternally, spiritually, that eventually there will be a place where Jesus reigns, where it is the fulfilled kingdom. And there won't be sickness and there won't be crying and there won't be death and there won't be pain. And so he goes through healing afflictions and sicknesses and disease to display. This is the kingdom. This is what it's going to look like as he proclaims the good news of the gospel.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. My grandparents were missionaries in Nigeria. Most of us don't know much about sheep or goats or anything. I mean, unless you grew up on a goat farm. So most of us don't know much about sheep or goats.
It's not really an American thing. But in Nigeria, they had sheep and goats. And they said that when the tail is up, the brain is on. And when the tail is down, the brain is off because a lot of goats have their tail point up and they are intelligent. And sheep have their tails point down and they are stupid. So if you know sheep and Jesus says they're like sheep without a shepherd, what he's saying is they're in trouble without him.
That he ultimately sees these crowds and he sees how they're living their lives, that they're harassed, that they're helpless, that they are in the darkness and they need the light to shine in the darkness so that the darkness cannot overcome it. They need to be rescued. They need to be saved. They need to be cared for. And so he says he cares for them. He has compassion for them.
Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful. So he's looking at these harassed sheep. And now he changes and he says his harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. So what he says is there's plenty of people who need me.
But there aren't plenty of people who are going to go and tell them this amazing news. So I want us to take a second. And as earnestly as we can pray in about 20 seconds, I want us to ask, join Jesus in accomplishing what he's asking here. And let's pray to the Lord of the harvest that he'd send more people into his harvest. Let's pray for many.
Let's pray for the 1040 window. Let's pray for right here where the majority of the people in our area don't know Jesus. Heard of him. They don't know him. Let's pray that he would change hearts, that he would send more laborers.
Can we do that for 20 seconds? Amen. So he tells him to pray that he'd send more laborers into his harvest. And then it says this. And he called. This is chapter 10, verse 1.
He called to himself his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the 12 apostles are these. And then it lists them off specifically. And so what this is saying is that Jesus calls specific people to himself. He calls them specifically individuals with names and stories and backgrounds. He calls them specifically.
And then it says this. Verse 5. These 12 Jesus sent out. So they went from being learners, disciples, to being apostles, which means sent. He sent them out instructing them. And then we're going to get to see what the instructions were in a second.
But Jesus says pray that the Lord would send out laborers. And then he picks people and says prayer answered. Go. I hope that he does that with us. That he burdens us to begin praying. And then while you're praying, he taps you on the shoulder and says, pray your answer.
Bosnia. I just hope he does that. I hope he begins to work in our hearts that we would go, that he would say, you know that place you work? You know that giant mass of cubicles? You're an apostle now. You're sent.
That's what he does. And he calls people to himself that he might send them out. This is what he did with Ben Johnson. He shared this with us a week ago. That he was in school studying Bible. It was Bible school.
And this guy gets up and starts talking about the children of Ishmael. And Ben said, I started to weep. And then I left class. And I went home. And I continued to weep. And he's like, I didn't care anything about Muslims until that day.
But it was like a lightning bolt struck him. And Jesus said, go. So what he does. Calls specific people and sends them out. And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to read his specific instructions to them.
We can learn helpful things as we go through this. But they are specific instructions. So sometimes he tells you, go here, do this. This is where Christians sometimes get confused. Somebody will start arguing with you. Well, we're supposed to do this.
And it's like, maybe you're supposed to do that. We're supposed to proclaim the gospel. He told you to go there. He told me to go here. As long as we're going, as long as we're proclaiming. All right.
Verse five. These 12 Jesus sent out instructing them. Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he says, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.
So he's telling them, you get to spread the gospel the way I have spread it. You get to push back on darkness. You received without paying, give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey or two tunics or sandals or a staff for the laborer deserves his food. So he says, go.
People will take care of you, but don't get rich off of this. Your goal is to not make money. To be provided for is fine. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it.
But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave the house or town. Truly, I say to you, it would be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. One of the things that's helpful to understand from this is he says, go. And go to the people who receive you. And the people who don't want to hear it and fight with you.
Go to the next house. Eventually, if a whole town tries to run you off, go to the next town. He's preparing people to receive this. One of the things our group prays for on a semi-regular basis is that he would send us to the people he's preparing. That he would send us to welcoming, open people. Verse 16.
Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. That's not very encouraging. He's saying this will be dangerous. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues. And you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.
When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say. For what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death and father his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. This is happening right now in the area we're trying to partner with.
One of the pastors in Lebanon, his wife divorced him after he became a Christian. The majority of the pushback that comes in some of those areas is from the families that are responding very negatively and poorly. It's people in their family becoming Christians. That's what Jesus is talking about. That brother will turn brother over. That father will turn son in.
That this will go poorly. For truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the son of man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher nor a servant above his master. It is not enough for the disciple to be. Is it not enough? It is enough.
Sorry. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, which Satan. How much more will they malign those of his household? John Child, this has been in the news the past couple of weeks. He's prepared to go as a missionary to a small island off of India where it is a group of people that have largely been untouched by everything.
It's a tribe there that they're not supposed to send missionaries to. He went. He had been before. Told them that he loved them and Jesus loved them. They shot an arrow at him. It stuck in his Bible.
He got back in his boat. Decided to go back. All we basically know is that he landed at night and they were dragging his body back out and laying it on the shore in the morning. There's been a general reaction in our culture that this is ridiculous. First of all, he's a fool. Secondly, Christians are imperialists trying to force their ideas on other people and just leave them alone.
And I say if our ideas are that there's an eternal hell and a saving king who died to redeem us from our sins, imperialize away. We don't have to outsource capitalism. We don't have to outsource westernism. We don't have to convince them of anything other than what's here. But what's here is such good news.
But he was hated. So is his savior. He was killed. So is his master. We shouldn't be surprised. We should keep going.
So he says. He told them to beware. Be aware. Be aware they're not going to like you. Be aware they're going to hate you. And then he says this.
So have no fear of them. So be aware of them. Be wise as a serpent. But have no fear. For nothing is covered that will not be revealed. Or hidden.
That will not be known. What I tell you in the dark say in the light. And what you hear whispered. Proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear. Those who kill the body.
But cannot kill the soul. Okay. I think that's one of those sayings that we hear Jesus say. And we're like hmm. Because Jesus gets away with saying things. And I think we've gotten used to hearing him say things.
But did you hear what he just said? Killing the body is one of the things that we're in general kind of afraid of you guys. Like that's kind of a big deal. Is that your body would be killed. Like if you were looking for homes. And you were with a real estate agent.
And they took you to this area. And you said. Now isn't this kind of a rough area? Is this like a house? This neighborhood? Is it kind of dangerous?
And they said. Don't worry about this neighborhood. Don't be afraid to live here. All they do in this neighborhood is kill the body. Excuse me. What?
They'll just kill your body. They can't touch your soul. Also we do need you to sign some paperwork that says once they kill your body. We can immediately put this back on the market. Because that's actually how this just came open. But have you seen the countertops?
Like you would be like. Okay. I'm going to need a new real estate agent. Because this one is crazy. Also probably don't want to live in this neighborhood. But when Jesus says this to his disciples.
He says don't fear them. All they can do is kill the body. He's speaking as if he has seen and known eternity. It's as if he knows the limited amount of time that we are here. And the infinite mass of eternity. And the infinite worth of his glory and his name.
It's as if his perspective is so different from ours. And then he continues and helps clarify this for us. And it is different from ours. Do not fear those who kill the body. But cannot kill the soul.
Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. He says no, no, no, no. The worst thing that tribe can do. The worst thing they can do. Is get your heart to stop pumping. And drag a limp carcass back out onto the beach.
Let me tell you who to fear. There's a king of the universe. Who ought to be so supreme. Because you understand. That he doesn't just hold bodies and breath. But he holds souls and eternity.
And he says he'll destroy souls in hell. And one of the things that we've done in the American church. Is we've kind of responded with like. Well we don't want to talk about hell. Because we don't want to be offensive. And we just want to talk about God's love.
And let me explain something to you. If you're a Christian and you believe in hell. Do you know how absolutely unloving it is to not talk about that? To not share that with people. To not explain to them the reality of an eternity without God. He says I'll tell you what to be afraid of.
There's an eternity coming that could come at any moment. It's wet outside. It could come today. You could turn onto a road. Someone could slide through. And you could be entering into eternity.
And let me explain something to you. An SUV can kill your body. But there is a king who rules your soul. That's what Jesus says. He says let me tell you what to be afraid of. You can get a house in any neighborhood you want.
The worst thing they can do is kill your body. But there's a gospel to be proclaimed. That has to do with souls. And there is a hell that is a reality. Where the flame does not die. The worm does not die.
And it is not quenched forever. And I have come to redeem you from that. I've come to die. To take that onto my own back. And all we're supposed to do is go proclaim this reality. So he says I'll tell you what to fear.
But then listen to what he says. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Now that doesn't translate well into English. Can't you get a rotisserie chicken from Costco for five dollars? Isn't there a chicken plant in West Columbia? Next to some really nice apartments that's stinking the place up.
Chickens are rolling through. You see those big trucks? I see them in West Columbia and I say sorry buddy I know where you're headed. And later I'll see you at Egg Roll Station. What he's saying is. That's what it translates to.
Don't chickens die all the time? And then listen to what he says. Not one of them will fall to the ground. A cart from your father. There's not a chicken that's died at that plant that didn't die at the will of the father. That's why I don't mind eating meat.
Because God was in control of that. He oversees all this. And so what Jesus is saying is there's a king who rules eternity. And let me explain something to you. You when you follow after him will die at the exact moment that his will allows it. And not a moment before and not a moment after.
That you can say I'm going to this people group. I'm going to this people. That John Chow died the exact moment that the Lord was ready for him to die. That his blood was spilled to the exact ounce that it was supposed to be spilled to. And that we can send another missionary. And we can send another person.
And they will last as long as the Lord wants them to last. But he has a kingdom that will reign forever. And he will claim those whom he's going to claim. That we're told in Revelation chapter 5 and 7 that there will be people from all nations around that throne. Not all the people. But there will be people from all nations.
And if that is a distinct people group on that island I can tell you one thing. Somebody from that island will be proclaiming that Jesus is king around the throne. Because I've seen it in Revelation 5 and Revelation 7. You see. There is a reality to a heaven and a hell and an eternity. But there is a God who rules over it.
Verse 30. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Not counted. Numbers. Fear not. Therefore.
You are of more value than many sparrows. So. Everyone who acknowledges me before men. I will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men.
I will also deny before my father who is in heaven. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. That's a downer at Christmas time. Peace on earth and mercy my Lord. But he says.
I have not come to bring peace to the earth. I have come to bring not peace but a sword. That would be a different song. Swords on earth. It just doesn't have the same. Net King Kull can't make it work.
I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father. And a daughter against her mother. And a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A person's enemies will be those of his own household. Jesus demands singular allegiance.
So that when he enters into a household. And you place your faith in Jesus. And your parents say we're going to need you to stop. When Muslims are coming to Christ. And their parents say you don't belong to us anymore. The son or daughter who's placed their faith in Jesus.
Is supposed to say you're right. I have a new father. I've been purchased by a different brother. Now I want you to know him. But I want him more than I want you.
What's happening in our culture. As we shift away from Christianity. Is it happening in reverse. That there are a lot of parents who love Jesus. Whose children are saying I don't want this. I don't want you to try to push it on me.
I don't want you to try to tell me about this. I don't care. Where we decide. What are we holding with a closed hand. And what are we holding with an open hand. What are we going to try to cling to.
A person's enemy will be those of his own household. 37. Whoever loves father or mother more than me. Is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me. Is not worthy of me.
And whoever does not take his own cross. And follow me. Is not worthy of me. Jesus says I am of such supreme. And matchless value. That if you think you can put anything else on the scale.
And it's going to even out. You are wrong. You have done the equation incorrectly. You have not seen me. Fully. You are not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. You got a plate. And so many of us are running around trying to find life. Trying to find something that's enough. We're trying to find something that will fill us up.
We're trying to find something that at the end of the day. We can hang our hat on. That we can say this is enough. This makes me good. We're trying to find our life. And what he says is.
If you run around doing that ultimately. You will get to the end of the days. You will enter into eternity. And if you have piled your plate with anything other than Jesus. You've lost it. But whoever will take their plate.
Turn it sideways. Hand it to Jesus. And say whatever you want. You'll get more life than you ever understand. During World War II there was a poem that was written in it. And it says this.
It says some men die by shrapnel. Some men die by flames. Most men die inch by inch. Playing silly little games. See the truth is. You are going to live your life for something.
And you are declaring with every moment. That that something is also worth dying for. You are living your life for something. Your heartbeats are going to something. Your energy is going to something. Your talent is going to something.
Your treasure is going to something. And Jesus is ultimately. He's the only thing worth laying everything on the altar for. This is why in the American church. Where we've begun to teach our children. That security and safety is primary.
I want us to know. That as we do that. As we proclaim that with our lives. And our decisions to our children. We are lying about the gospel. Because Jesus says there are some things worth dying for.
And I'm not saying. You need to just put your children in undue risk. But I am saying. That there are some things worth risking for. The idea that you can't be a missionary. Because you have children.
Is false. Is false. 40. Whoever receives you. Receives me. And whoever receives me.
Receives him who sent me. That's why we go. Because if they'll receive you. And the proclamation of the gospel. They get Jesus. And if they get Jesus.
They get the father. And they get everything. That's why we send a John Chow. That's why C.T. Studd was right. To put down that crooked flat baseball bat.
And go do something else. Because if they'll receive him. They'll get Jesus. He's of infinite worth. The one who receives a prophet. Because he is a prophet.
Will receive a prophet's reward. The one who receives a righteous person. Because he is a righteous person. Will receive a righteous person's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones. Even a cup of cold water.
A phone card. A tuk-tuk. Because he is a disciple. Truly I say to you. He will by no means lose his reward. Jesus says there's not a thing that's wasted or forgotten.
That will extend into eternity. Won't be forgotten. See Jesus doesn't ever look at us and say. Don't want reward. He says fools. There's an eternity of reward.
Why are you spending it all here? If you went to stay four nights in a holiday inn. After your first night you thought. You know these sheets are scratchy. These countertops are lame. And that wall art is terrible.
Putting in new countertops. I'm buying new sheets. I'm going to get a better bed in here. Eventually even the people that own the hotel will be like. Thanks but are you a moron? You're only here for four days.
Why are you tricking out this hotel room? And that's what Jesus is looking at them and saying. Go for the real reward. Make an investment. That continues to turn over. Make something that doesn't waste.
And doesn't go away. I'm telling you even a cup of cold water in for God. Go somewhere where the reward is matchless. Jim Elliott. Was a missionary. Got a lot of things that rhyme today.
Because they help stick in my brain. These are things that have stuck with me for a while. But Jim Elliott. I'm sorry. I introed it that way. This doesn't rhyme.
Jim Elliott was a missionary. He showed up to a place. They got off on the land. And were immediately met by the people there. And killed. It found written in his journal prior to this.
It said he is no fool. Will give up. That which he cannot keep. To gain. That which he cannot lose. I want to tell you all a story.
About some Swedish missionaries. To the Congo. They went to the Congo. This was in 1921. There were two couples. Joel and Bertha Erickson.
And David and Savia Flood. David and Savia had a son. It was a two year old named David. They had been there for a couple years. And Joel and Bertha came to David and Savia. And said hey.
We're leaving. This is a waste of time. God has abandoned this. I don't know. He's not in it. And David looked at Joel and said.
There's that one boy. That we've led to the Lord. And Joel said. Yeah one boy. We're going to die of malnutrition. Or malaria.
And we don't even really know. If he understands what we're talking about. So Joel looked at David and said. Bertha and I are leaving. We want y'all to leave too. And David and Savia said.
We're not leaving. Joel and Bertha left. They didn't go all the way back to. They were from Sweden. They didn't go. Switzerland.
Sweden. Sorry. They didn't go all the way back. They went to. A kind of a mission outpost. Still in the Congo.
But not in the area they were in. It was more dangerous. So David and Savia continue to work. Savia gets pregnant. Has a daughter. Named Ana.
And when she's 17 days old. Savia dies. Of malaria. And complications from birth. David digs her grave. Standing over her grave.
Decides. God has forsaken this. This was a waste. And I'm done. Going back home. Starting my life over.
He goes back to the mission outpost. Joel and Bertha. Beg him. To not take. His newborn baby girl. With him.
Says she won't make the journey. It's 1921. It was a very difficult journey. From there. Back to Europe. So begrudgingly.
Takes his son David. And he leaves. Then about eight months. Joel and Bertha die. David's little girl. Is adopted by some American missionaries.
Who name her Agnes. Eventually. She grows up in this home. Eventually they leave. They go back to America. She gets married.
On her 25th wedding anniversary. She raises up enough money. To go. Visit her dad. Her birth dad. For the first time ever.
He's 73 years old. He's. Consigned to a chair. Because he's had. Some strokes. She goes in to see him.
He hugs her. He says. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to have to. She says. It's fine.
God took care of me. This he tensed up. And said. No. God abandoned us. She said.
No. There are right now. About 600 Africans. That we know about. In the Congo. Who know Jesus.
That little boy. Grew up. And he led. His entire village. To the Lord. And we know.
About 600. It wasn't a waste. And God didn't abandon. A couple years later. She gets to go to an evangel. An evangelism conference.
In England. There's somebody there. From the Congo. Who is standing up. And declaring. That there are.
10,000 Believers. In the Republic of Congo. Who now follow Jesus. He talks about the work. Being done there. The church is being planted.
When he gets down. She goes over to him. And she says. Sir. Have you ever heard. Of David.
And Sibia Flood. He says. Ma'am. Sibia Flood. Led me to the Lord. She said.
Sibia Flood. My mom. And immediately. He started crying. And said. Thank you so much.
For letting your mom die. So that we can live. They later. Went back. With him. To that spot.
He knew where the grave was. So he showed her the grave. They gathered a church there. To proclaim. The goodness of Jesus. And the pastor taught.
From John 12. 24. And I'm going to read it to you. Truly. Truly. I say to you.
Unless a grain of wheat. Falls into the earth. And dies. It remains alone. But if it dies.
It bears much fruit. Jesus looks at his disciples. And he says. If you won't pick up your cross. And follow me. You're not worthy of me.
And we have. To die. To our schedules. And our agendas. And our wallets. And our plans for our life.
And hold out our plate to the Lord. And say. What do you want? Because it's worth it. He's worth it. And one day.
There might be. Two people. That are in eternity. Because we poured out everything we had. There might be. One person.
That's in eternity. That's before the king. That is not spending. An eternity in hell. That is in. Gathered around the throne.
There might be two. There might be ten. There might be ten. Thousand. That are proclaiming. The name of our king.
That are joyously singing. With the rest of the nations. Glad songs of praise. Because God has so captivated. Their souls. And captured their hearts.
And we. Get to be a part of that. When God invites us. Into mission. Into service. Into sacrifice.
It is an invitation. Into so much more. It's not even a cold cup of waters. For God. As we finish up today. I just want us to take a minute.
A minute to listen. To the Holy Spirit. That if you. As we've been here this morning. If the Holy Spirit's been working on you. Maybe he's been working on you for months.
Maybe he's been talking to you for months. Maybe he's been nagging. And working in your soul for years. We know that we're sent. That's true for the church. But there are times.
When he calls out names. Specific. Men and women. And says I want you to go. I want you to go here. For this purpose.
For my purpose. And if he's doing that. I want you to listen. Because it's an invitation. Into living a life. For his matchless worth.
Some of us. He's pressing on us. Just because we're not even willing. To go across the street. Or go at work. And I want you to listen.
Listen. I want us to think. For just a second. If you can. If you can close your eyes. And picture your life.
And if you can picture. What you've put on your schedule. What you spend your money for. Where all of your energy. And ability. And intelligence goes.
And want us to ask. Have I filled my plate. With the right stuff. Do I live. As if I understand. The weight.
And the reality. Of eternity. I don't always. Fully believe this. In my soul. I don't always have it.
I wrestle. And I struggle. Because I'm weak. But I can definitively. Tell you that it's worth it. Whatever the Lord's.
Pressing on you. Whatever he's asking you. That feels like a sacrifice. At this moment. It's worth it. That feels like a loss.
At this moment. It's worth it. He tells his disciples. There's not a single thing. That's given up. That isn't given.
A hundred fold. In eternity. And a hundred fold. Here with suffering. That we. Enter into joy.
And gladness. Here with suffering. And eternity. There's no pain. There's no crying. There's no.
None of that anymore. There's no. There's no. There's no. There's no. I don't know.
What the Lord may be saying. Right now to you. I just know you ought to listen. I know if he's leading you to repent. If he's leading you to confess. If there's somebody you need to talk to.
I know you need to do that. If he's leading you to. Open your wallet. Or open your schedule. If he's telling you right now. Somebody you're supposed to go share the gospel with.
I don't know. But we're going to take a minute to just try to listen. Some of you right now. Need to realize the weight of eternity. And for the first time ever. Turn your life over to Jesus.
And just say I'm yours. I trust that you died for me. I need you to pay for my sin. Because I don't want to stand before you. And have to pay for it on my own. And I need you to change me.
I need you to rescue me. But I know as a church. That we ought to give. And we ought to go. And that none of it's wasted. Not a minute.
Not a dime. Not an entire life. That if you live to be 85. And spend your whole time pursuing Jesus. It wasn't wasted. And if you are killed at the hands of people.
Who hate Jesus. And hate the gospel. In the next year. It was not wasted. God we ask right now. That we would listen.
That we would yield. That some of us right now. Would begin to clean off. All the stuff we've piled on our plate. And we would just hold it out to you. And say.
What do you want? What do you want here? Jesus we trust you. You died to save sinners. We can do nothing to make ourselves. Redeemed.
Or fixed. Or saved. You've done all of that. And we ask that in a correct. And appropriate response to that. That we would live our lives.
As if eternity was real. Working us in this next moment. We're going to sit. For just a minute listening. And then. We'll stand and sing together.
For just a minute. And I'll see you here. Thank you. Thank you.
Let the Nations be Glad
Transcript
Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here with Mill City Church. We are going to be in Psalm 67 today, which is on page 275 in a blue Bible that is in front of you or beside you. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. That is our gift to you.
We want you to be able to have a Bible that you can read at home. We'll be walking through Psalm 67 today. We are in our gift series. Every year around this time, we pause to walk through this gift series because this time every year, collectively as a culture, we kind of lose our minds. We kind of get really materialistic and get obsessed with things. And every year around this time, we want to pause and say, no, for those of us that are called in Christ, we don't become obsessed with things.
God has called us to generosity. And then every year we walk through this to be reminded that we are called as Christians to be generous. And around this time every year, we also do a give project. And we've had different give projects over the years. A few years back, we were able to partner with a church plant in Chattanooga. Last year, we partnered with a church plant locally in Two Notch.
We've helped a women's shelter in the past. This year is a little less tangible because we are partnering with 1040 Hope, which is the organization that Ben and Patricia Johnson, who are members of our church, that you'll hear more from a little bit later. We're partnering with 1040 Hope specifically to help a church plant in Minya, Egypt, that we might cover all of next year's budget. And we're excited about partnering with this to see God bless the nations. And that's where we're going today in our text as we continue this gift series. So, Psalm 67.
You can go ahead and flip there. We'll jump to that in a minute. Have you ever pictured, ever wondered what eternity is going to look like? Have you ever thought about what heaven is going to be like? I feel like we do this a little bit. And sometimes when we do this, we picture heaven filled with some of our favorite hobbies.
Like if you like football, and maybe you're a Gamecock fan, it's like maybe in heaven, maybe in eternity, there's football, maybe there's some Gamecocks that are playing, and they actually win games consistently. Not excellent, just very good, never disappointing you. Maybe you're like me and you love music, but you're not really gifted in that department. And eternity is filled with maybe like, for me, it's like Matt Freeman invites me to come help lead worship, and I pick up a guitar and I start playing, and I can actually play. And I sing. And it sounds like poetic joy coming from my vocal cords, which is not exactly what happens when I sing now.
Maybe it's filled with food. I know that we have some biblical pictures of it being a feast, and I like to think it's kind of like Thanksgiving, except you don't feel terrible after you eat it. We fill it with hobbies. We fill it with pictures of loved ones, grandparents that have gone on, parents that we've lost, friends that we've lost, that we might be reunited with them again. Sometimes we have biblical pictures of what heaven is going to be like. We focus on what worship will be like, that we get to eternally worship the King, that we get to be in the presence of the Lord, that there's going to be a place of no more pain, of no more suffering.
Maybe we extend that picture even further, realizing that heaven is temporary, it is going to come down. There's going to be a new heavens and a new earth, and that Revelation 21 will be fully realized, that we'll be in the presence of God as He rules, and as He reigns for eternity. But we have this, and we do this. We picture what heaven is going to be like. So if you've done this, or if you haven't done this in a while, I want to give you a few moments to picture what eternity is going to be like.
Now, I want you to be honest. Who were the people that were there? What did they look like? Did they look like us? You see, often when I've done this, my picture has been incomplete. Because in my mind, I've welcomed family, and church family, which is a beautiful picture of what eternity gets to be like, and that's awesome.
But what I've failed to realize is that there is extended family, extended church family, every tribe, every tongue, every nation, that doesn't fit into my picture. That oftentimes, when I've sat down for the feast, and when I think through it, I think through the good southern comfort food that's going to be there. But what I've failed to realize is there's going to be plantains, there's going to be all kinds of other foods like curry that I don't picture in the feast in eternity. The music that I like to picture of what eternity is going to be like, it's indie rock music, which is kind of my thing.
Not some of your things, but that's my thing. But what I've failed to realize is there's going to be African drumbeats, there's going to be Indian sitars, it's going to be filled with the nations praising God. And I think that many of us have a muted picture of what eternity is going to be like. And I think that is in part to our incomplete view of mission. That we have a muted picture of eternity, and it's due to our incomplete picture of mission. So today, I want to fill this picture.
I want to fill this picture up and expand our scope for what mission is supposed to be as we walk through Psalm 67. What we're going to see is God's purpose in salvation is to claim all the praises from all the nations. That all people groups, that all nations will be in the presence of God joyously praising who He is for eternity with us. And because of this, as we walk this out of the church family, may we be motivated to see Chechens and Tibetans and Uzbeks and every tribe and every tongue being glad in the presence of God because we join God in the mission to see Him reach every tribe, every tongue, every nation with our focus, with our prayers, with our time, and with our money.
So I'm going to walk through Psalm 67. I'll pray. Then we'll jump in. Verse 1, May God be gracious to us and bless us. May His face shine upon us. Selah.
Selah, as we walk through in our Psalm series, we don't really know what it means. It could be a pause. It's just in the Psalms regularly. That your way may be known on earth, that you're saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you. Judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase.
God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear Him. Let's pray. God, I pray that you would fill this picture up for us, that our picture of mission may be expanded in such a beautiful and joyous way as we look at how your heart and your hope is that all the nations may be glad. God, help us be present this morning and speak to us and go to work on us.
In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, so verse 1 says, May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us. I love what the psalmist does here. He's getting ready to take this Psalm and show God's heart for the nations, but what he does is he takes a traditional Jewish blessing that was meant only for the Jewish people. This, may God be gracious to us and bless us, make His face shine upon us. This comes from number 6.
It was a priestly blessing for the people of Israel and what he's doing, he's taking a traditional Jewish-only blessing and he's expanding it for the nations. He's getting them to pray bigger, to think bigger. In college, a buddy of mine, we were praying specifically for a fraternity called Pike, which was notorious for having the most, the wildest, really the most just lost people and Matt Freeman, who was voted four years in a row the worst fraternity member, Pike. But we were praying that God would go to work and I remember praying something that I thought was so bold. I said, God, may you, homecoming weekend was coming up and a lot of alumni were coming back and I was thinking, God, may you change Pike so much, may they be turned over for the gospel so that when the alumni come and see it, they'd be disappointed.
They'd be disappointed because it looked nothing like they used to remember. And then my buddy, he one-upped me and he said, God, may you also change the alumni that they would love Jesus and come back and be glad to see the fraternity be changed by the gospel. And when he did that, I was a little bit offended because he just dunked on my prayer. But it just, it reminded me how small our prayers can be, that it needs to be expanded to pray bigger and that's what the psalmist is doing here. He's inviting them to think bigger, that God is going to bless all of the nations and we need that too because I think we're really good at praying for the person across the street but we don't pray for the lost people across the world.
So, comes to verse 2, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Now there are two really important words in this verse that help us understand what God is doing here. The first one is the word that. That is a big shift here. That is a word of purpose. May God bless Israel so that they may be a blessing to the nations. that they may display God's saving power to the nations because Israel was chosen and raised up to be a nation that would be an ambassador of God's saving power.
That's what you get from Isaiah 49, 6 when it says, but I will make you, Israel, a light to the nations so that all the world may be saved. They were supposed to be an ambassador of God's glory. Ambassadors are supposed to represent the best of where they come from. The best of their nation. We've sent out really good ambassadors. I think of John Huntsman and Nikki Haley who we've sent out to be ambassadors of our country to foreign nations.
But we also have some bad ones and some unofficial really bad ones. I don't know if you know this, but Dennis Rodman is our unofficial ambassador to the People's Republic of North Korea. He hangs out with King Jumun and they talk and watch basketball and laugh and he speaks on behalf of the American people which is kind of scary because Dennis Rodman's crazy. I don't know if you don't know who he is. He won titles with Michael Jordan. Also married himself.
Very crazy person. If you don't know who Dennis Rodman is, go back, Google the 90s. It's more than the Backstreet Boys and Friends. There's a whole lot going on there and Dennis Rodman was a big figure in the 90s and he represents unofficially our country. That's a little scary. He's a poor ambassador for what we stand for and Israel fell into the same trap over and over again.
They were driven away by idols. They did not represent God's glory well. They were chosen that this is what we walk through in Genesis when God raises up Abraham. They were chosen as a people that might reflect the glory of God to the surrounding nations and that's the second big word we need to understand is the word nations. Decades ago there was a movement in theological studies to understand what this word means because generally what it's been understood to mean is bigger nations like the United States like Nicaragua. But as they studied this more as they zoomed in more on this word what it actually came to realize is it's more specific.
It means people groups. People groups. Peoples that are unified by a common language by a common culture. So it's not just God is going after the nation of Indonesia that has 242 million people most of them who are Muslim. He's not going after Indonesia. He's going after the 300 plus people groups that make up the country of Indonesia.
God is specific. Hear this. He's specific in his battle plan. And taking back ground from the kingdom of darkness God is very specific in how he goes to war. In World War II and the Pacific Wars both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific Wars. One of them was a boilermaker on a ship.
The other one was an original member of Navy SEAL Team 6. The dude was bathabony. He'd jump off ships and swim for miles and scout out bombs. But they were both a part of the Pacific Wars and what was cool about the Pacific Wars is we didn't have this general plan that we're just going to fight the Japanese and win it. Then it was really specific.
It went sea by sea we're going to conquer ground. Island by island we're going to take back islands all the way to Tokyo because that's how wars are won. They are won with specificity. And God is taking back ground people group by people group. He is taking back ground from the kingdom of darkness. It is the reason why Ben Johnson who you hear from in a little bit was called over a decade ago to go to Lebanon to go to a foreign place that he might proclaim God's saving power to the Lebanese people.
It is the reason why church planting teams are raised up that they might plant churches in darker places like the region of Chechnya to see Chechnyans experience the glory of God. It's the reason why teams are raised up that they might smuggle Bibles into the hands of Tibetans which is one of the hardest to reach places in the world. It is the reason why translators spend 26 years translating the Bible into people groups into the language of the Alun people in Indonesia that they might actually have a Bible that they can read in their own language. God is taking ground people group by people group and he is very specific in how he is reaching this whole world.
We see God's specific plan and we see it all the way back to how the psalmist is describing this here. He says, that your way may be known on earth your saving power among all nations. Verse 3 Let the peoples praise you, O God. Like, take a minute and soak in that. The psalmist is overwhelming with joy that God's saving power might make the nations be glad. He says, let all the peoples praise you with an exclamation point.
There's so much anticipation to see this gospel advance. Like a kid on Christmas morning who's looking forward to seeing what's going to happen. There's so much anticipation to see God's mission unfold. That was the hope that comes all the way back to Psalm 67. But as we've seen before in the nation of Israel they did not fulfill this hope well.
They were driven by idols. They abandoned God. And that the light that they were in reflecting God's glory started to go away. Light was being snuffed out. Hope was starting to grow very dim until at the darkest point of creation in a town of Bethlehem light entered the world. And then what we see is that Jesus' entire life is the fulfillment of Psalm 67.
That when Jesus was born he had three foreigners three magi who came and visited him declaring that he was the king. And it starts to tip the hand that this blessing is going to expand further. It's the reason why Jesus in his ministry he specifically goes to a Samaritan woman and reveals to her that he is the Messiah that he is God and that the Samaritan people are going to be brought into this faith. It's the reason why when he looks at a Roman centurion the very person who represented the oppression of the Jewish people and points to a Roman centurion and says who has more faith than this man here?
He starts tipping his hand. He takes all of that work to the cross where he dies for all peoples everywhere. And he conquers death at the resurrection. And then after the resurrection before he ascends he tells the disciples and the followers of Jesus go make disciples of all nations of all people groups. and then the Holy Spirit falls upon the church in the book of Acts and then we start to see God's plan unfolding. Then in Acts 8 we see northern Africans the Ethiopian unit get exposed to the gospel.
In Acts 10 we see Romans like Cornelius who get exposed and believe in Jesus. We see Syrians who trust in Jesus in Acts 11. We see Cyprians in Acts 13. We see Greeks in Acts 17. And people group by people group let the nations be glad becomes the refrain of the mission of God. And the psalmist continues in verse 4 it says let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.
Selah. Let the peoples praise you oh God let all the peoples praise you. And nations are reached and churches are planted and new people groups are exposed to the gospel and there's a succession of believers and church plants that gets all the way to how we are in this room today. And then over time what starts to happen is that for those of us who have been exposed to the gospel churches denominations and people groups what happens over time is we start to forget that we are called to join our father in this mission to make all the nations be glad. And guys we are missing out. We are missing out on this mission.
Light in the Darkness
Transcript
Good morning. My name's Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. This is the first week of our Give Series. I'm always excited about this time of year, love this time of year. This past week, our church got to, kind of led by the Kitty Wake Group, and Charlie Earp got to go to the Gentle Pines area with Turner AME, and was able to, on Thanksgiving Day, give out about 150 to 200 meals.
And so that's a really cool thing that gets to happen this time of year. And we get to start our Give Series this time of year. It's just a good time of year. I like Christmas. I like that it's cold. I like Christmas lights.
I like that all the food this time of year turns into meat and carbohydrates. Like, that's it. Like, if you play your cards right, you won't have to eat a vegetable again until the New Year. I mean, and if you do, it'll be like sweet potatoes, and they're going to put some, like, you know, pecans and brown sugar on top of that thing. So just eat the top and, you know, smush the rest of it around.
Like, it's going to be good. So we, in our Give Series, always try to rally our church towards generosity. It's what Spencer was saying earlier, that we're gospel people, that Jesus has changed us, and therefore we ought to live with a gospel generosity. That it's how he has given to us and how he has sacrificed for us, and that Christmas is this picture of him giving up heaven so that we might be welcomed in, and so that we get to join in that at this time. So grab your Bibles.
Go to Isaiah chapter 8. What we're going to do today is we're going to talk through some stuff, and then we're going to intro what our gift project is for this year, how we're kind of joining together and rallying together to give our money away for the purposes of seeing God work and seeing him work in us to change our hearts, because it's so easy for us to get caught up in consumerism and to get caught up in what I have defines me and that what I own is what brings me joy, and the Bible says none of that is true, but that our money is tied to our hearts, and so it's helpful for us to send some of our money away to help change our hearts. When I was about four or five, I was at my grandmother's house. My grandparents' names are Iya and Baba.
They were missionaries to Nigeria, and those are Nigerian grandmother and grandfather in Yoruba, and so I was at my Iya and Baba's house, and they had a fairly large house. He was a doctor, and we have a fairly large family, so it was all my aunts and uncles and all my cousins. There's like 13 of us. I was like four or five, so we were all over the place and running around, and at some point I went into their pantry, and their pantry is underneath a stairwell, so it's kind of like the thing that Harry Potter lived in, and so I went kind of into the back of the pantry. I don't know what I was doing.
My guess is trying to swipe some food, and the door closed behind me. I didn't have the light in the pantry on. I was just using the light that was coming in from the doorway, and so the door closes behind me. I don't know if somebody walked through that. It was kind of in the hallway under a stairwell, so I don't know if somebody walked through and just closed the door because why it shouldn't be open, or if I, being four, didn't know that it was just going to close behind me, but it closes behind me. It's pitch black.
They did have a light bulb with a string, conveniently adult height, and so there was no getting to that, although I tried, and then went to the door, and it was locked, and so I began to handle it really well as a four-year-old, scream and cry and bang on the door and yell for help, and nobody could hear me because they were all having a festive time two rooms away enjoying their Christmas shenanigans, and so I was in a closet in the pitch black with the inability to turn the light on and no ability to get out for an extended period of time until they... My mom doesn't remember how long I was in there. She said it was long enough for them to count up children and go, wait a second, we're missing one, which in this house, while everybody's running around playing, was a fairly long time. I was four, so it was ten years.
I was in a closet for ten years because that's how time works when you're four. I almost died in there. I didn't have a can opener. There was no way to get to the food that I was looking for. It was pitch black. They finally come around looking.
They hear me yelling. They open the door. I'm red-faced and crying, and they were like, did you yell? I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, intelligent, helpful four-year-old things. And what the Bible tells us about the state of humanity is that without Jesus, without God at work on our behalf, all of us are as effectively trapped as a four-year-old in a closet, that we are in the dark with no ability to fix our situation, no ability to turn the light on on our own, no ability to open the door on our own, no ability to do anything, but fumble around in the darkness and eventually die.
That is the beautiful beginning of the story to Christmas. It starts off very bleak and very dark and very painful and very hopeless, and then we get the hope and the joy and the peace that comes along with Christmas. Now, culturally, it's a little weird because if you remove Christ from Christmas, and I'm not just talking about putting an X on your sign at your store, I'm talking about if you remove Jesus as the centerpiece and the hope of Christmas, you don't actually have the hope anymore. It's flimsy. It won't hold the weight of the darkness that surrounds it. It can't fix the problem.
If you replace it with, you know, goodwill towards man, or peace, or just some generosity, or Santa Claus. Like, it can't handle the amount of darkness, the amount of hopelessness. That's why this time of year is collectively all of us kind of locking arms and saying, okay, be good to people, be kind to people, because we all realize that we're not. We don't have it together. We're not. This isn't, the world doesn't work the way it ought to, and some people get very, very depressed at this time of year because they can see the hopelessness, but no real reason for hope.
Isaiah 8. Isaiah is a prophet. He's speaking into a similar time where there's just rampant sin, there's darkness, there's hopelessness. He's in the bottom kingdom. He's in Judah at this time. So the kingdom of Israel was one kingdom for Saul, David, Solomon, and then it broke in half after Solomon.
You had the top kingdom of Israel with the top ten tribes, and then you had the bottom kingdom, Judah, with two tribes. Judah had some good kings. Israel had no good kings. They never got it together. Judah had some, but this is Ahaz, is the king now in Judah, and he is not a good one. The way 2 Kings describes him, it says, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel.
He even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. That's what it says in 2 Kings about King Ahaz, that it's the king at this point, that there was worship, it's rampant everywhere. Worship was all over the place, under every green tree they were worshiping something. He even sacrifices his son as an offering. And this is what Isaiah is speaking into this climate, into this time, with this king leading them in utter darkness.
Isaiah 8, verse 11. Let's look. It says, For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying, Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy and do not fear what they fear nor be in dread, but the Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary. All right, did you hear that?
He says, Don't go along with these people being afraid of everything they're afraid of and calling everything that they call a conspiracy. He says, Let the Lord be your dread. Doesn't that sound like a nice invitation? God's like, I'll tell you what to be afraid of. Me. And you're like, Okay, that sounds a little heavy-handed.
That's a little crazy. And then he says, Then I'll be a sanctuary. Because when we have God as the most fearful, most holy, most revered being in the universe, everything else is so much smaller. Everything else is so less fearful. My dad, when we were little, and we'd be like, Dad, there's a monster in my closet. Dad, there's something scary in here.
He'd come in. He would look. He'd go look in the closet. He'd look under the bed. He'd say, No, there's not. He'd go, Watch.
It's just because it's dark. You're scared. He'd turn the light off. And then he'd go, Oh, wait. No, it came back. Oh, no.
It's huge. It's got a closet. It's getting right. Oh, it's right near your face. And then he would turn the light on and go, Oh, no. It was dark.
That was our imagination. There's no monster here. He would come in a couple of times to check. You know, you keep saying, No, it's back. It's scary. Whatever.
Eventually, he would come in and say, Look, I am the scariest thing in this house. And you need to be way more afraid of coming and telling me one more time to look in this room because there is nothing in here that is scary. And I'm down the hall and I'm very scary. And then we would go to sleep because our father was scarier than the monster we were sure was there. And that's what God's saying. He's saying, If I'm dreadful, then you're free.
But that's what happens in culture. That's what happens in life. When God gets removed, everything else becomes scary. And I love that he says, Don't call everything a conspiracy. These people call it conspiracy because it wasn't just before YouTube. That conspiracies were everywhere.
YouTube just helps us find them better. But haven't y'all seen this? It's not YouTube, y'all. It's CNN and Fox News. Do you remember when Barack Obama was president and how many things you heard about what he was secretly trying to do? And what he was going to, what was going to happen around election time and what was going to happen and he was going to do this and there was something with the military and you had to...
Anybody in on those? Anybody in on the new ones about Trump? All his secret plans? Trump is either, he's pitched to us as either a buffoon who cannot put on his own pants or some evil mastermind. But no matter what, he's going to tear the country down and there's going to be the Democrats that are working at this and the Republicans that are going to do this and suddenly, all of a sudden, the Green Party is going to rise to the top.
Nobody believes that one. But... We hear things about the Russians and the Chinese and there's just going to be... And he's saying, look, don't join in. Not everything's that fearful when I am most to be feared. He says, I'll be a sanctuary and...
Pick up verse 14. And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both the houses of Israel. A trap and a snare to the inhabitants of it, Jerusalem. And many shall stumble on it and they shall fall and be broken. They shall be snared and taken. Eventually we're told that Jesus, ultimately the gospel, is the ultimate stone, the ultimate rock of offense.
The stone of... The rock of stumbling, the stone of offense. But there's this idea that God will either be a sanctuary or you'll fall completely over him. You won't be able to stand before him. Verse 16. Bind up the testimony.
Seal the teaching among my disciples. I'm sorry. I've got to pause for just a second. I should have said this earlier. We're going to read a lot of scripture today and we're going to move fast. A lot of times when you read the Bible, it's like a wine tasting.
You take one verse. You swirl it. You smell it. You put it in your mouth. You swish it around. You spit it out.
You put it back in. I think that's how they taste wine. You soak it in. It's like hard candy. You just hold it in there for a long time. Other times, reading the Bible is like jumping in a pool.
You just jump and you're like, whoa, it's cold. It's just you get the feeling of the sense that's what we're doing today. We're just going to move kind of quickly and we're going to get a lot all at once to try to paint one big picture for help us to understand and see this idea of darkness and light, hopelessness and hope. And so we're going to keep going and I should have said that earlier and I'm sorry. 16. For those of you with ADD, you're tracking.
Let's go. Bind up the testimony. Seal the teaching among my disciples. I will wait for the Lord who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob and I will hope in him. So this is Isaiah talking.
Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents and Israel from the Lord of hosts who dwells on Mount Zion. And when they say to you, inquire of the medians and the necromancers who chirp and mutter. So a medium would speak in between those and necromancers would speak on behalf of the dead and he says, they chirp and mutter. He says, should not a people inquire of their Lord? I love that he mocks them. He says, I speak clearly and they chirp and mutter.
They don't have a clear point. They're not helpful. Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? Verse 20. To the teaching and the testimony. So he's saying, go to what's written.
Go to what we know. If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn. Meaning they have no light. They're in the dark. They have no wisdom. One of the ways the Bible talks about darkness is that it's this lack of wisdom, lack of understanding that you would fall and stumble.
He's saying they have no light. Verse 21. They will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry and when they are hungry, they will be enraged and will speak contemptuously against the king and their God and turn their faces upward and they will look to the earth but behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish and they will be thrust into thick darkness. Okay, so when God is most fearful, everything else isn't as scary. And when you remove God, everything else becomes a conspiracy. The Republicans and the Democrats are coming for you.
Like everything else becomes spooky. Everything else becomes unstable. And then what it says is when everything starts to fall apart, they'll look upward enraged. This is a global thing. But that we would push away God, that we would not worship God and then as soon as everything goes bad, we go, see?
If there was a God, this wouldn't have happened. They look up enraged and then it says they'll look to the earth. This is verse 21. They'll immediately then say, we've got to figure out the problem. We've got to work it out. We'll look to the earth.
We'll solve this. And what they'll find, they'll look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be thrust into thick darkness. That without the Lord, all we have is darkness, hopelessness. There are a lot of good things that people are pushing for. There's a lot of good charities and things that are going to happen around the holidays where people are going to say, we need to do this, we need to do that. There's some good things that are godly things.
People will say, we've got to, we've got to, we've got to, the problem is ignorance. We've got to educate people. Or the problem is this, and we've got to fix it. And some of those things are right and some of them, but ultimately, if we say those are the, that's the only problem, that's the only thing we have to fix. If we fail to see that God is holy and that we are sinners and that sin is at work everywhere, we won't fix the problem. Ultimately, it will fail.
There are going to be people who tell you, look, the problem is this political party and this other one needs to rise up. The problem right now is men. They need to sit down. Women need to rise up. The problem is this skin tone. They need to sit down.
This skin tone needs to rise up. The problem is this political ideology, this economic ideology, but the issue is ultimately that we're sinners and we're in darkness and we're hopelessly trying to fix a problem that we cannot fix. We are thrust into deep darkness without God and that is a global problem. That without Christ, there is no fix and without Christ, as messed up as this world is, this is as good as it gets because one day we will face Christ and stand accountable for our sin. chapter 9. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.
In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. That's the northern part of Israel. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. Matthew quotes this, says this about Jesus. He calls it Galilee of the Gentiles. What he's saying is this promise of hope isn't just for the people of Israel, but the promise of hope is for everybody, for the Gentiles, for the nations, that there's going to be hope.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shone. That's the hope of Christmas. Some of you see the darkness. You know it. You feel it.
You listen to emo music. You watch independent film. Some of you know about the darkness. You know about... Some of you work in fields where you see it all the time. In social work or in police work.
Where it's in everybody. Everybody. You feel like everybody lies. Everybody cheats. Everybody. I got a speeding ticket this past... about a week ago.
I'm part of the problem. Because I am one of the reasons why we need police officers. Because if they weren't there, I would be doing whatever the heck I want on I-95 on my vacation. I would just be driving as fast as I possibly could. And I was until he pulled me over. And then I slowed down.
And I tried to tell my wife the odds of me getting two tickets in the same day are very slim. But the truth is we're all part of this problem. And he says there's hope. Light will shine. Verse 3. You have multiplied the nation.
You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as joy at the harvest as they are glad when they divide the spoil. I love that. The joy of the harvest that when... If some of you have a... Your work is seasonal and there's a harvest time.
There's this... Oh man, this is when it's booming. My parents... I grew up in a family where we sold swimming pools in the summer. We could do whatever we want. And then as soon as the fall hit...
Because my parents didn't budget, y'all. They just kind of... They just rolled with the cash we had, you know. As soon as the fall hit they were like, Alright. No more happiness in this house. Every year.
The joy of the harvest. This hope. This... And then he says when they divide the spoil that means you've won the battle. The relief. And the joy.
Clemson thought they were just going to roll over South Carolina. And they eventually did. And they felt relief and joy. South Carolina was like, We got some punches in and we feel good about it. This is when they divide the spoil. It says, For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken.
As on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For... So he says, The staff of the oppressor, the warriors, everything is gone. For... For...
To us a child is born. To us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now I want to show you all something interesting that happens here. He says a son will be born and immediately we're thinking, Okay, somebody, somebody's going to come along and they're going to fix this problem. And that's good news.
When Isaiah is... When he was prophesying this to the Israelites, they're like, Okay, we're going to have some kind of a Messiah. We're going to have somebody. But then he immediately says he's going to be called Mighty God. He's going to be called Everlasting Father. So this can't just be a regular person.
Can't. That wouldn't flex well with the God of the Hebrews who's the only God and does not share that. Remember how he's dreadful? He talked about it earlier. So he's saying this is going to be more than just a person.
Ultimately we know that this is Christ. That he comes who is God, joins us. He is Emmanuel, God with us. Prince of peace. Of the increase of his government, of the peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
All right. Jump to John chapter 1 because he picks up with the same idea. He's talking about Jesus coming and this idea of light entering darkness. And we're going to read through this pretty quickly. I'm going to point out a few things and then we're going to try to draw all this together to help us understand what's going on as we intro our gift series. So there's going to be someone born who's going to fix this problem.
This is Jesus. This is the hope of Christmas that everything was terrible, everything was dark, everything was awful and then somebody opens the door. Okay. At some point, I think we're going to teach through the book of John and when we do, we will approach this the way that John wrote it. He holds off telling us this is Jesus until way later. I'm going to ruin the surprise.
He's talking about Jesus the whole time, you guys. Okay. In the beginning was the Word, Jesus, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. all things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
I love that verse. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. There are, for some of us in this room right now, we feel, see, wake up with darkness. We go to bed with darkness. We feel it in us. We see it at work in the world.
We feel like we're in a situation that is just darkness. It's just hopeless. It's just sinful. It's just broken. And He says, the light shines into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. That's how light works.
I think when He built the world, He just said He did, He was like, I'm going to make light and darkness work like this and then later I'm going to say, I'm light. It's going to work perfectly. You ever turned a light on in a dark place and the darkness was so dark it just covered it up? No, because that's not how darkness and light works. Light always wins. Darkness is just the absence of light.
The absence of light. The sun does not timidly creep over the horizon. Before you can even see it, it's already lit everything up. It's not even there yet. Everything is perfect like I can see as far and then it's like, oh, there you are. Because light just wins.
And that's what it says, that Jesus is light and then He shines into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. That is worth singing about. That is worth celebrating. That is good news. Because without Christ, we have nothing. We're fumbling around in the dark with no ability to fix it.
Let's keep going. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him. He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. So, John the author is writing about John, another John, John the Baptist. He's talking about Jesus and then John just kind of interrupts.
He's like, okay, so there was this guy who talked about the light. He wasn't the light but he came to bear witness about the light but he wasn't but he talked about him a lot and he thought everybody would believe through him. Then he goes right back to talking about Jesus. Verse 9. The true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him.
He came to his own, that's the Jewish people, and his own people did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God. You ever heard someone say well we're all God's children? John chapter 1 says no. To all those who receive Christ and who believe in his name he gives us the right to be called a child of God. We're all created by God we're all God's creatures but those who trusted in Jesus Christ as King and Savior and Lord are brought in not by lineage not by effort but by Jesus and his work.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. John interrupts again. John bore witness about him and cried out this was he of whom I said he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me for from his fullness that's Jesus's we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through Moses grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Christ. Okay. The story of Christmas and the story of the gospel is such overwhelmingly good news that I don't want us to miss it. when we're told here's a cataclysmic eternal problem and then you're told but a son will be born that's why it's grace that's why it says grace came through Jesus the law came through Moses see Moses showed up and he gave the law he gave rules he gave here's what God wants from us and we can't do it we can't I kind of was trying to pay attention to what the speed limit was but there was something I just couldn't I couldn't do it I could kind of eventually there's something to us when we see God's law it's like we're a part of the problem but Jesus shows up and he does it for us and from Christ we receive grace that he's the light that shines into the darkness and he does the work for us that we have a manger a cross a crown a throne all of which are are filled by not us Jesus was the son who was born Jesus is the son and the servant who goes to the cross and Jesus is the son who reigns as king and that's good news because it doesn't have to be you you're not the one who has to fix the problem I did not have to MacGyver my way out of that closet I just wailed and cried and fumbled around and then here I am you guys I'm not still in the closet that's that's what gets to happen for us as Christians that you should when you see a manger scene when you see a nativity you should be so overwhelmed by the fact that he came to solve this problem that he rescued us so the question is that's the hope we have at Christmas that's the darkness and the light the true darkness that overwhelms the world and the true light that overwhelms the darkness that's what we get at Christmas but the question is what do we do with that how do we respond to that well first we believe we trust Jesus we get welcomed in we get rescued the darkness in us gets banished we get free and then we do what John did and I love that he can't keep his mouth shut even while it's in the middle of this it's like he's talking about Jesus but John the Baptist keeps showing up because he it's almost like he's interrupting the story to proclaim how good the light is and I love verse 6 7 and 8 it says there was a man sent from God whose name was John he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him he was not the light but came to bear witness about the light John who are you going to tell about the light all of them all of them are going to believe through me that's what John the Baptist is saying I'm going to so aggressively loudly constantly point to Jesus that all of them will know about the light because of me you ever had such good news you just wouldn't shut up that's what John is saying this light that shines into the darkness is that it's such good news so beautiful we can't not share it okay I have to take a second and talk to the people who might be listening to this on the internet later before I intro our gift project if you are listening to this on the internet you are not going to get to hear what our gift project is because some of the information is sensitive and we are not going to post it online have a nice day to decir you