Solus Christus
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Turn the burden with grace. Good morning. My name is Spencer again. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in a series called the Five Solas. These are the five dividing lines of theology that ended up forcing the Protestants out of the Catholic Church and started the Protestant Reformation.
We are in the fourth sola today, which is Solus Christus, which is Christ alone, the very thing we just sang about. So we'll be looking at that. About a month ago, I went to Houston, Texas. I took Ben Johnson, who's one of our members. He's the director of a missions organization called 1040 Hope, and they plant churches across the Middle East and North Africa. He's actually currently over in North Africa right now.
And I took him there because I said, Ben, part of what he does here is he raises money for church plants and mission projects over there. I just said, Ben, if you want to raise money, I want to introduce you to something called Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the pockets of people who can give to plant churches. Let me take you there and introduce you to some people. So we went.
We had a good weekend. I got to preach at my longtime friend and mentor's church, a Methodist church in Houston. And at that church, I sat in the front right by the choir loft, which kind of felt nice to be a part of the choir because I'm never going to be allowed to do that up here. But I got to sit up there because, you know, in that tradition and other traditions, you have the pastor that sits up front the whole time. We don't do that here because not every face that stands up here is ready for prime time. You can guess who that might be.
But we... I got to stand up there. And because of that, Ben saw my face as we went through some of the liturgy that the Methodist church does. I came to faith in the Methodist church. I love the Methodist church. I'm obviously no longer a Methodist.
But I appreciate so many of the things that they do. And as we went through the liturgy, as we sang things like the Gloria Patri and things that we don't do here, I was very excited. Ben said your face was beaming, like you were glowing. And then we got to the Apostles' Creed, which is something that I grew up Presbyterian and I came to faith in the Methodist church. Both traditions say the Apostles' Creed every single Sunday. And as we said it, I just was so...
I was like, man, this is so good. Because it's a truth. It's a creed that goes back to the 4th, 5th century that binds us all in Christian faith. Whether you're Catholic or Protestant or whatever, like this binds us together. It starts with, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That is the Father, right?
That's who we believe in. Then it gets to Jesus. It says, All of those statements are about Christ. And we, yes and amen, all of them. Like we believe that, yes, He came, was born of the Virgin Mary. That, yes, He did die a death on the cross for us that we deserve.
That He rose to new life in Christ at the resurrection. That He will come back as judge one day, but currently sits at the right hand of God the Father. We believe in all of that. And Catholics and Protestants would both say that our faith is in Christ alone. We both would say that. We both are bound together that Jesus is the centerpiece of our faith.
We don't believe in any other God. We believe in Christ. So if that is true, why is it that this is one of the five solas? Why is this one of the dividing lines for us? It has to do with how we define alone. As Protestants, we put a period there and say, amen.
In Catholicism, there's a bit of an asterisk in how you define that. And as we're going to see today, part of that is bound up in how we have access to Christ. That is going to be the difference. So I want to quickly go through the history of solas Christus, of Christ alone. I want to look at the power of it, why we believe it's good and how powerful that is for us. And I just want to leave us with some encouragements of what that means for us as Christians.
So let me pray for us and then we will dive in. God, I pray that you'd help us be present this morning. You would speak to us. You'd open our hearts to receive your word. And that you would help us see how good it is that Christ alone is whom we have. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Okay, first I want to look at the history of Christ alone. So as we've said in this series, that there are, that the spark that lit the powder keg of the Protestant Reformation was Martin Luther. There were things that happened before him and after him, figures before and after that helped this come to being. But he was really the spark that lit it.
And the event that lit it, as we've talked about in the last few weeks, was when he posted the 95 theses, 95 objections, really, to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. Now he had written some stuff before then. Check over that last week. He'd written some 97 theses before covering this. But the 95 that he wrote, well, this really lit the Protestant Reformation.
And there's a lot in there that deals with some of the things we talked about faith alone and grace alone. There's a little bit of what we see, the beginnings of this in Christ alone that later gets developed by the Protestants. In Thesis number 6, it says, the Pope cannot remit any guilt except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God. And what he's getting at there is that only God forgives sins. the only power that the Pope, the only power that a priest has is to acknowledge the work that Christ has already done. There is no one that stands in the middle here. And Luther and the Reformers began to develop this further in their theology as time progressed.
Chet last week talked about sola fide, which is faith alone. He talked about the cell of indulgences. The cell of indulgences were sold, indulgences were sold so that they could lessen their time in purgatory or get family or friends out of purgatory. So they bought these indulgences to do that. And Chet walked us through last week how problematic that is. You could actually buy and purchase salvation.
That is, that traveling preacher Tetzel said, he said, when a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. He walked through how that doesn't line up with the gospel of faith alone. But also, it's not just a problem that you could teach that someone could purchase salvation. That's not the only problem. What makes that doubly terrible is the idea that anyone could stand in the middle between us and God. That there is any mediator, someone who stands in the middle between us and the Lord.
1 Timothy 2.5 says, for there is one God and there's one mediator mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ. That's what we believe. That's what the reformers continue to come back to. There's only one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, the man Jesus Christ. Now, we've talked about this a little bit in the past few weeks. I just want to make this more clear now.
Many of the things that the Catholic Church was doing at the time, they are no longer doing. Right? So what happened after the Protestants protested and had their objections and were forced out, the Catholic Church thankfully did look in the mirror at some of their practices. They had something called the Council of Trent that lasted for a couple of decades where they looked at the sale of indulgences. They looked at some of the inquisitions and some of the horrible things that they had done and they said, we can no longer do this. And thank you, Jesus, that they did.
They reformed a lot of their own ways. It's the reason why the Catholic Church is the way it is today and not how it was 500 years ago. We're thankful because there's lots of brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church. Absolutely, yes and amen. However, on some of these dividing lines of theology and specifically this one as well, they said no and that's why the Protestants left and did not come back. On this issue of Christ alone, we have a different understanding of how we have access to God.
We walked through faith alone and grace alone and how the Catholic Church, even the Council of Trent, very aggressively said no to that. They believe you're saved by faith and works. Well, how they define works is bound up in the means of grace. That's the language that they use. The means of grace that the priesthood administers. The Pope, bishops, cardinals, priests, that the grace is something that they control and administer and we find that incredibly problematic as Protestants.
I read one Protestant scholar, this is pretty thick but I'll walk through it, I think he absolutely nailed this. He said, outside the Roman Church there is no salvation, which, that is a standard Catholic doctrine, that we, because we are not a part of the Roman Catholic Church, at a minimum and their eyes are going to purgatory, which Protestants say purgatory isn't biblical, we don't agree with that, no, but that is Catholic doctrine. Outside the Church there is no salvation outside her walls, no infused grace can be found. As much as Christ is man's exclusive Savior, which we look at that and say, yes, Jesus is our only hope, He is our only Savior, yes and amen.
He says, the Church is needed as mediator of the grace that Christ gives. And we say, no, no, there is no mediator between us and Christ. No. He goes on to say, salvation cannot be based upon the work of Christ alone, solus Christus. Rather, Christ is in the Church, Christus in ecclesia, which is just Latin for Christ in the Church, and the Church is in Christ, ecclesia in Christo. Simple trust in Christ is not alone.
I think He accurately describes it there, but I read that, and I was like, but you are a Protestant. I said, I think it's fair. We spent a lot of time looking at different Catholic doctrine over the last few weeks. I was like, let me hear actually their arguments to see how they teach this. So I did it, I had some fun this week, and I went through the Catholic Catechism, which is very long, and was not as fun as I just described it.
But, I went through the Catholic Catechism, and I'll just show you a few places where they fleshed this idea out. In one section of the Catechism, the Catechism is the teaching that they give to the people. So the Catholic Church members have the Catechism that guides them in faith and practice. In the Catholic Catechism, in one section, it says, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith in baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time, hear this, the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door.
And what they just said there was, is that the Church is necessary for salvation, because they are the ones, and more accurately, the priesthood is the ones who administer baptism. And for Catholic faith, to enter into faith, you have to be baptized. That is initiation into faith. You're saved through the first work, which is baptism. So they're the ones that control that, the priesthood.
Then it goes on to say in a different part of the Catechism, through the ordained ministry, especially that of the bishops and priests, the presence of Christ as head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers. And that last part is beautiful. when it says the presence of Christ as the head of the Church is made visible in the midst of the community of believers, we say absolutely, yes and amen. We absolutely believe that, wholeheartedly. That we are, and yes, that Christ is beautifully made visible in this Church body right now. Yes and amen. But that's not what they said alone.
The qualifier on that is especially that of the bishops and the priests. That there is something special about the priesthood as a part of the Church. So, how specifically is the Church necessary for salvation? How specifically are the bishops and the priests the most necessary, especially necessary part of it? Because they are the ones that deliver the means of grace. And specifically, when they talk about means of grace, they mean the sacraments.
The sacraments. The language they use for sacraments are channels of grace. Alright? We, as Protestants, look at that. Sacraments are practices that Jesus ordained that are holy. We, as Protestants, said we think there's two of them in the Scriptures.
Baptism that we practiced last week is a picture of faith in Christ. And the Lord's Supper, which we'll practice this week, which is a reminder of what Jesus did for us. We look at that and we say that's what these holy practices are. The reminders of the goodness of the Gospel. But for the Catholic Church, they're more than that.
They are channels of grace that initiate and sustain faith. There's baptism, there's confirmation, the Eucharist, which is the Lord's Supper. There's penance, there's anointing the sick, there's matrimony, which is marriage, and there's the holy orders, which is ordination. But a few of those are especially really important, right? Because if you want to be saved, you have to be baptized. And you need a priest to do that.
If you want to take part of the Eucharist, which is the Lord's Supper, they believe in something called transubstantiation, which is just a big word of saying, that they believe that literally becomes the body and blood of Christ. And that gives you spiritual power as you partake of the literal sacrifice of Christ every week. If you want to sustain your faith, you have to take part in this. But the priesthood is the only one that can administer this. If you want to repent of your sins, you must take part in penance, which is going to confession, which is having the priest tell you, you should say, seven Hail Marys, go help a widow, and make good on your penance.
You need the priesthood for all of that. Do you understand how that is a problem? That have access to God, you would need someone in the middle to deliver these means of grace. As Protestants, we looked at that and we said, no. Like when they started to, I mean, Luther very early on wasn't objecting to this, but as they continued to search the scriptures, the reformers looked at the Bible and they looked at the practice of the priesthood being necessary for faith and for sustaining your faith, and they just said, no. Like they were zero days old when they realized this isn't true, which is one of those memes, the zero days old memes.
Like if you're zero days old when you figure out a thing. Like I looked at this week, there was one meme. A meme is a picture, y'all, that has words on it. There was a picture that had words on it and the picture was a picture of IHOP. All right?
And the word said, I was today years old when I realized there's a smiley face in the logo of IHOP. I was like, ah, that's cool. And I looked at another one and it said, I was zero days old when I realized that flames don't have a shadow. And I went, wait, what? And I had a picture of a match and behind the match there was no shadow of the flame. I was, my mind was blown.
Like I was in the office and I ran down, I was like, I grabbed Chet and Isaac and I said, Chet, Isaac, look at this. I had a lighter and I had my flashlight and we went to a dark room, probably a little, lit it, no flame, no shadow behind the flame. And I was like, there's no shadow behind the flame. And they were like, yeah, of course there isn't. It's a light source. Why would you believe that?
And I was like, don't act like you're not impressed. That is amazing, y'all. You're welcome. That, it blew my mind. They, they looked at this, the scriptures and said, no. And it blew their minds.
They said, no, we don't need a priesthood to have access to God. They ultimately said, we are the priesthood. That's why we believe we're the priesthood of all believers. That's the Protestant teaching. That we believe we all equally have access to God. That is what we believe.
That is what we maintain. That we have this access to Christ. That's the history of it. Now, I want to look at the power of this. Because I want us to see how this is unbelievably good news by looking at the power of Christ alone. In 1 Timothy 2, 5 again, it says, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Jesus Christ.
Here's the deal. You can read that on a Facebook post. You can see that on a billboard. Alright? You can open a Bible and read that. And if you are not a believer, you can look at that and say, I need a mediator.
I need somebody to cover my sin. I need the gospel. I need Christ. You can place faith in Jesus and get in your car to go tell your family or friends that you place faith in Jesus and then a semi takes you out and you are dead. And in that very next moment, you are standing in the presence of God for eternity. You did not need a mediator for that.
You did not need a priest to come and give you this. You read the word of God. God saves you, redeems you. Christ is our mediator. You don't need a priest to be baptized into faith. You don't need to take part of the Eucharist and thinking that the literal body and blood of Christ is what is going to sustain your faith.
You don't need a priest for penance. You have direct access to the great high priest in Christ. Look at the book of Hebrews that talks about this, this great high priest. I just want to show you two places. In chapter 4, it says, Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. Let us hold fast our confession that we have a great high priest that went Christian when you pray.
Offering prayers to the Father, Jesus stands at the right hand of God and He is our great high priest who is taking our prayers and our worship. It says, Verse 15, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin. It's not just that we have a great high priest, which we do. We have a great high priest who understands what it's like to be human, who understands what it's like to be weak, who understands what it's like to be tempted. He was tempted and tried by Satan himself in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights after fasting.
He knows what it's like to suffer. He knows what it's like to lose. He knows what it's like to experience the sting of death. He understands all of it and He stands in the heavens right now and is able to sympathize with us as we pray to Him. Verse 16, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. What that means is that you can approach our great high priest with confidence.
Like we don't have to because some of us look at our sin and our brokenness and our rebellion and we just you might think I can't approach God I gotta figure this out I gotta clean up my life I can't look at Him I just feel so dirty I feel so ashamed and the goodness of the gospel is that you get to in your sin approach Christ with confidence because the confidence isn't from our own it's from what He gives to us that we can boldly enter the throne room of prayer and offer up praises and prayer to Christ because of what He has done and not what we have done.
Two Kingdoms
Transcript
It's good to see y'all this morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. This is the first week of our Give Series. And so every time around this time of year, as soon as Thanksgiving's over, we have a Give Series where we intentionally give money away. So Merry Christmas.
This is a wonderful time of year. Here we are meant to celebrate well. We're supposed to. One of the things in the Old Testament that I was thinking about a good bit from Thanksgiving and into this time of year, one of the things about the Old Testament that God commanded His people to do was to save money so that they could help the poor, so that they could take care of the priests and the temple who did not have an inheritance among them, but they were supposed to take care of the Acts of worship and what they were supposed to do as a nation, and they were supposed to save money so that they could celebrate.
There were times where they were supposed to spend money to feast, to enjoy the good things that God had given them, to celebrate how He had blessed and provided. And as we go into Christmas, this is one of those times where we get to do that. And Christians ought to celebrate, well, we should have some of the best food and some of the best parties. You should gain some weight. You'll lose it in January. I believe in you.
Look, I'm a Carolina fan. Good things always happen in the future. We'll get it together. It'll be nice. January us is going to crush this. Right now, let's eat some food and celebrate.
We're meant to do that, but the danger for us is that we would get so caught up in that, so caught up in the things that are right in front of us, what is tangible, what we can see, that we would lose the thread. We would lose that our celebration is meant to help us look upward. It's meant to roll up in praise. It's meant to help us see beyond the horizon. It's meant to celebrate something of great significance that has an eternal aspect to it. And if we lose that, then our celebration becomes very dull.
It's very earth-centered. It's just here and now, and we miss the point. And so in that tension, we always as a church have had a gift series where we intentionally try to celebrate well while reminding us and remembering together that we are eternal people with an eternal purpose and we want to give some money away. Rather than just having it all terminate here, we want to send some on ahead. We want to live as eternal people. And so we ought to celebrate well and we ought to be generous and give and remember the eternality of this season.
And so that's our hope as we do this, that we would help walk that tension well and that we would celebrate well and walk generously, live generously. And I didn't mean to just give all those t-shirts a shout out, but we would live as generous people as we move forward together. So I'm going to pray and then we're going to talk about this section of text we're getting to look at today. Lord, we pray that you would bless us as your people, that we would take this time to celebrate well. This would be a season of joy, of welcoming one another, of hospitality, of enjoying the good food, the good time that we get to have.
And we pray, Lord, that it would be a season of generosity, that we would not get so focused on what is right in front of us that we would miss the point. And so may we celebrate well and may we live well in generosity with an eternal hope in mind. We pray that as we study this scripture today, that you would help us grow in that and that you would bless this gift project that we're going to get to focus on this year. In Jesus' name, amen. Turn to Matthew chapter 2. So what we did, we're working through the book of Matthew.
We just skipped Matthew 1 and 2. When we started, we started in Matthew chapter 3 and we're going to look at Matthew 1 and 2 for the next four weeks as we celebrate Christmas because these are more Christmassy type passages. They deal with the birth of Jesus. And so rather than doing them first and then hitting Christmas again, we just said, we'll save that. We'll start. We'll do it out of order.
Some people probably appreciated that and some of you are probably frustrated by it. But now, Matthew 1 and 2 for the next four weeks. Today we're going to look at King Herod. Then we'll look at Joseph. Then we'll look at the wise men.
And so we'll read through some of the same passages together, repeatedly focusing on different areas. And hopefully it'll help us celebrate well and push us towards generosity. In C.S. Lewis' book, The Silver Chair, there's a prince named Prince Rillion. And he is captured by a witch who can also turn into a snake or a snake who also turns into like a beautiful enchantress witch lady. He's captured and she takes him underground.
So he was supposed to be the prince. He was eventually going to be the king over this wonderful kingdom that is joyous and welcoming and at peace that has good relationships between all the people. He was going to be the king over this kingdom. But he's captured and she enchants him so that he no longer knows who he is and he begins to serve her and she takes him underground and they begin to build an underground army. And the plan is with the underground army, dig a big tunnel, pop up in the middle of the kingdom that he would have been king over and overtake it. So he's actually working to try to conquer a kingdom that would have been freely given to him because he's lost who he is.
And there's this tension between this kingdom of darkness, this underground kingdom that's trying to conquer this kingdom of light, this kingdom that lives out in the sun and this story unfolds. They have to send some people to go try to find him and get him back. And as I read this, I realize that this has a lot of similarities to the actual world that we live in and what we meet in the scriptures as the Lord tells us what this was supposed to look like, that we were meant to be sons and daughters of the king, that we were meant to live at peace with one another, that he was going to freely give us all good things to enjoy and that we've been tricked. That the enemy of God, Satan, has blinded our eyes so that we only focus on what we can see and we actually fight, claw for what God would freely give us.
And we try to, as best we can, defend our own little territory and claim our own little kingdom. We're blind, we're living in a kingdom of darkness, and we're fighting for what God has openly, freely invited us into. And there's these two kingdoms that are at war. There's this kingdom that can only see what's right in front of it, and there's this kingdom that's meant to be more. And we're actually getting to look at some of that play out today as we look at two kings and how they interact with one another. So, Matthew chapter 2.
We're going to look at these two kingdoms and these two kings. And hopefully, as we look at this together, we will see that we get to make a choice, that we get to choose which kingdom we're going to live in and which king we're going to follow. Verse 1. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the east, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. All right, so they come to Jerusalem where the king is.
Jesus is born in Judea in the area that the king Herod had jurisdiction. It's really interesting. He's born into the Roman Empire under the jurisdiction of the emperor and king Herod. Now, king Herod was ruthless and very politically savvy. He's one of the only people who in the Roman Empire gets to have the title of king. Most of them get titles like governor.
They get a title that clearly says they're underneath the emperor Caesar. And Herod gets the title king because he's politically savvy and he's ruthless. And the Jewish people were hard to manage and so the Romans were capitulating a little bit because they were having consistently difficult times with the Jewish people. And so, King Herod was an Edomite related to the Jewish people but not fully Jewish. So, when he wanted to make his run for king, he wanted to get this power from the Romans, he married a lady who was from the Maccabees. None of this is in the scripture.
I'm just giving you some background on here. When he did, when he married her, he got rid of his current wife and son. Just got rid of them so that he could move forward. after a time of being married with this lady, married to this lady, they had sons. She was well-liked, was growing in power. The sons were well-liked and were growing in power and so he eventually, over time, had her put to death and had his two sons put to death because he did not want to have anyone try to take away from him his position and he felt like his sons were a threat. Now, can you imagine that?
That he so could only see what was right in front of him that he had no desire for his sons to have a throne after him or for him to manage that well. He just saw everyone around him as a threat. He killed two of his sons. As he got older and sicker, seven days prior to his death, he had another one of his sons put to death. So he eventually killed three of his sons.
The emperor Augustus actually made a joke and it's funnier in Greek because it's a play on words. But I don't know Greek and most of you don't either. So I'm going to say it in English where it's not a play on words. But he says it would actually be better to be Herod's pig than his son. Because Herod's Jewish so they wouldn't have eaten a pig. But his sons were in danger.
So he said he'd rather be his pig than his son. Those words are similar in Greek. So he was ruthless. And so they come to him. And this is the king that Jesus is born under. They come to him.
The wise men come to him. They come to J. And it says, verse 2, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and we have come to worship him. Okay, so it says wise men from the east. These weren't just like smart people.
Wise men was kind of this class of people that would have been kind of around a throne usually that would have given a consult to a king. So they're probably wealthy. They bring very good gifts which indicates that. So they most likely rode up on horses or camels. They were an entourage. They show up.
They go to the palace and they say, Where is the king who has been born? And Herod's like, You're 50 years late. Here I am. It took you a long time to get here. I'm the king. Like, he's the only king he knows of.
And so he, it says that they come to him and they say, Where is the king who's been born? King of the Jews. We saw his star when it rose. Meaning they studied the sky and they're saying creation has actually put on display that this king has come. Now if you know anything about Herod, you can imagine how excited at this news he was.
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him. I think had they had a better king, Jerusalem maybe wouldn't have been troubled. But when Herod's troubled, everybody's going to be troubled. But all of them are stirred up. What does this mean? Herod's troubled.
And it says this, And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So he calls the people who study the Old Testament and he says there are prophecies about this. They said they've seen his star. They've said the king of the Jews has been born. Where is he supposed to be born? His immediate assumption is this is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised one, the one who God's been saying over and over would come in the line of David who would set up a kingdom that will last forever.
This is the one who's coming. So he calls together his book reading, Bible studying friends says, tell me where he's supposed to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel. 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 have found him bring me word that I too may come and worship him.
That's surprising. That's an excellent response. So King Herod hears that the Messiah has been born and he gets together. The scribes, the people who have studied the Bible said, where is he to be born? He tells the wise men, go find him. When you find him, come let me know because I want to worship him too.
That's how a king ought to respond if you're the king of the Jews and the Messiah is born. You ought to understand who he is, understand who God is and say, my role now is to help facilitate this and make this go well. Seems very out of character for Herod but good for him. Verse 9, after listening to the king they went on their way and behold the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 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.
They saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures they offered him gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod they departed to their own country by another way. So God steps in and says don't go talk to Herod. Now when they
Had departed behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph that's Jesus' adoptive father we'll spend some time talking about him next week in a dream and said rise take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. I knew it!
When I went to college my younger brother got really into the TV show Mari and my parents had Teva and when I would come home he would have saved sections of his highlight reel of Mari shows and he would like have written down and he would have certain ones he wanted me to watch and so in college I got really into the TV show Mari I couldn't just say
That I had to blame it on my brother first but in Mari they do two things they do paternity tests which are always delightful to watch and they also do lie detector tests and so he'll read the results and so when Herod says this you can almost hear Mari saying the test confirmed that was a lie you had no intention of worshipping Jesus he just wanted to know where he was so that he could destroy him
Now follow the logic here let's think with Herod here for a second wise men come from another country and they tell you that the stars have moved and said king of the Jews has been born maybe you don't understand how they go about figuring that out I wouldn't but that's what they say we've come because we saw a star we're here to worship the king of the Jews
Now you don't know anything about this you don't know that there's been a king born you have no desire for this Herod's thinking okay I don't want another king I want to defend my kingdom I mean he wants to defend his kingdom so much so that he'll kill his own children like he then he thinks okay well if creation's involved probably
The promised Messiah from the Old Testament that God creator of the world has been telling us forever he was going to send so he calls together the scribes he says where is the Christ supposed to be born and his plan is kill the Messiah that's his plan it would make sense to me if he just thought this is nonsense like if it just said
He thought no don't know who that is like it would make sense to me if he just rejected it but he actually believes enough to say search the books tell me which city the Christ is supposed to be born in he understands enough to say this is actually the Christ this is actually the Messiah if the stars are involved it's him and then his plan is to defend his kingdom against creator of the world
Not a good plan that's his plan that's surprising to me but that's what he comes up with that's what he's going to do 14 and he rose that's Joseph and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt
I called my son just a quick tag we're going to spend more time on Joseph and the wise men in the coming weeks so I'm skipping a lot of things here because we're just focusing on Herod so if you're really interested in that come back we'll talk about it in the next couple weeks then Herod when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men became furious I mean it is in their name
They're wise so you should have seen it come and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and all that region who were two years old or under according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah a voice was heard in Ramah weeping in loud lamentation Rachel weeping for her children she refused to be comforted
Because they are no more so he sent to Bethlehem and the surrounding area and anyone any child that had not hit their third birthday any male child that had not hit their third birthday he had executed in our church family that would be eight children that area is not Bethlehem was not a big city it was not a huge area that it was covering but we're talking probably
In the 30 range and I can't even imagine someone coming to my home by presidential decree hand your son over I got a son who hadn't hit two yet he would be included in this he sent through an entire area and just slaughtered infants to protect his kingdom that's heinous it lines him up with Pharaoh who was doing this
To the Jewish people it's wicked but all he can see is the defense of what is right in front of him the enjoyment of what is right in front of him holding on to his power holding on to his position and having what he can see and touch and feel and he'll go to any length he can to keep it verse 19 and on says that when Herod died an angel came told Joseph they could go back
And they go back and there's two kings in this story and there's two kingdoms in this story and we've been reading ahead so we know what Jesus is going to be like and the type of kingdom he's going to have we've got King Herod and his earthly kingdom that he's doing anything he possibly can to defend and we've got Jesus who's a much better king with a much better kingdom Jesus comes and he starts to teach his disciples
About the kingdom of heaven and he talks about who's welcome who's brought in the weak the mourning those who are broken and hurting and far from God they're welcomed they're brought in we actually see as Jesus goes to the cross that he who was king who was ruling gave up his throne
So that we might have life and you have Herod who will take your life so that he might have his throne we have Jesus who will give up his position so that he can join us be crucified for us to welcome us in and Herod who will
Defend his position no matter what it costs you see Jesus consistently talks to his disciples and tells them to look beyond the horizon tells them to look to what they cannot see what is not right in front of them because
He is the king of heaven an eternal kingdom where there's joy where there's hope where there's life where there's fullness where there's all the good things we were meant to have and Herod's just fighting for what he can have right now and we get to
Choose because it's easy right now the kingdom of Herod and the posture of Herod see I read this and I think I'm not like Herod because that's the easiest thing to think I'm not like that I wouldn't do those things
But the reality is I'm closer and you're closer to being like Herod than we'd care to admit because it's very easy for us to be caught up in what affects me what do I enjoy what harms me what will mess with
My life and the good things that I have and let me defend it I think if you'd look back at some of my prayers and some of your prayers they're pleading with God to not mess with our territory to not
Take from us what we feel like he owes us to not encroach upon us that at some points we're actually talking to God and fighting against God in some ways the way that Herod was whoa whoa whoa whoa
Don't mess with that this is my zone that it's really easy for us to get caught up and worried about what we can grab and what we can have now and to miss what we're invited into to go back
To the story I told at the beginning we're we're the prince who can be tricked into fighting for what would be freely given to us who can be tricked into
Living a small underground life in the darkness with the hopes of tooth and nail clawing out what Jesus came to offer life joy hope position freedom fullness it's what Jesus talks
About one of the places Jesus talks about this a lot is money it's our gift series surprise do you know I was going to get the money do you see it coming Matthew Jesus talks about this in Matthew 6 he's talking about money he's talking
About possessions he's talking about how we treat what is in front of us how we treat our lives and he says this do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal alright how much
Are we told daily lay up for yourself treasures on earth how much are we told daily through advertisement through our own thoughts as we see other people enjoying things the goal of life the good life the hope of life the way to win at life
Is to lay up treasures on earth earth I know I sing that sweet tune to myself all the time look at somebody oh that'd be nice wouldn't it be good if one day one day I'm gonna have
One day we'll we'll get one day that's the hope treasures on earth I could just have this Jesus just flat out says don't do that moth and rust destroy herod was was the
King of this because he did not even want to leave a legacy or a lineage to his children we at least can see beyond our last
Breath most of the time most of the time people who are laying up treasures for themselves are like my kids can have it when
I'm gone here is like nope because I think they're going to try to enjoy it while I'm here I just want everything to be
Great until I'm gone I read this week studying up on Herod and one of the last decrees he gave was that his military
Would go through the area of his jurisdiction when he died on the day of his death would go through the area of his
Jurisdiction and kill every first born son because he thought it was likely people would be happy if he died and so he said
Go kill every first born son he died they did not do that because it was crazy but that was his plan but we
In the spirit of Herod can get caught up in what can I have now what can I enjoy now what makes life good
Now that's the point Jesus says don't do that isn't it refreshing how clear Jesus is on stuff were you thinking about doing that
Yeah don't do that all that stuff is going to fail you you ever get something new you ever have like a really old
Ratty couch and the only thing that bothered you about it was that it looked gross maybe like it was real gross and you were
A little embarrassed by it you ever get a new couch and now you're stressed out over defending your couch like it's like either way like I have a ratty
Couch I don't want my guest to sit on that now I have a new couch well you can sit on it but you
Better sit on it right and don't go plopping down on it and put that a new TV you also probably need to go ahead and
Get a fire stick or a Roku or whatever because it was fine to have the little antenna sticking up behind your old TV I bought
My wife some mums and after I bought her some mums mums are flowers people seem confused I bought her some mums and after I
Bought some mums she was like we need to get a stand book there's a book called if you give a mouse a cookie
And it's about how said I'm gonna write a book called if you buy your wife some mums because I bought some $10 mums
It cost us like $60 it was the craziest thing that's how it is those mums are dead in my backyard now it's okay to have
Some enjoyment of things I'm not saying that it's wrong but he's saying don't have your treasure here that's some king hered stuff but
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys where thieves do not break in and steal for where your
Treasure is there will your heart be also can I tell y'all a beautiful story a better story king hered finds out that the
Messiah is born and he says I'm king for such a time as this let's pave the way for the messiah let's do everything
We possibly can let's find him let's protect him let's get him ready if he's going to be the king of the Jews let's
Make a plan here and he moves out of the way and then one day when Herod dies he's welcomed into that messiah's kingdom
And he's offered freely everything he would have fought for that's a better story it's not the one we get but right now we're getting to
Decide where are we going to be which story are we going to be a part of are we going to lay up treasures here that are nice here they're nice
No doubt about it probably nicer in our day and age than any other time I read about King Solomon in the Old Testament it
Says that the Queen of Sheba came and visited him and it says there was no other time in Israel's history where there were
Spices in Jerusalem like when Solomon was there after Sheba came and I'm like I can get on every once in a while I
Sit at my house and I think Solomon would have loved to have these digs they're nice and we can enjoy them and they're
Meant to be enjoyed as we look at a good God who is above us at a horizon that is beyond the one we
Can see we're meant to see an eternity and put some hope in an eternity and be welcomed into the place where our heart
Has been all alone you're supposed to give your heart to Jesus give it to his kingdom and when you die meet Jesus and
Meet the king who owns your heart in the kingdom where your heart has been all alone that's what he says lay up for
Yourself treasures in heaven because where your treasure is there your heart will be that's true and we can send things ahead through sacrificing
Not in the way that we used to have to appease the way the sacrifices worked where you were appeasing to try to atone for your sin no but just giving
Some things up he talks in this section in Matthew 6 he talks about praying where nobody gets to see you he talks about
Giving where nobody knows about it he actually says it messes it up you're getting treasure on earth when you give and everybody knows
About it I'd love to see a hospital building that says hospital and you're entering in the east wing and not just the McDaniels
Owens wing because whoever does that whoever gets to give all the buildings that I went to school every building had somebody's name slapped
On it because that was the person who paid for it would be nice if it was girls dorm number two somebody was generous
Just for the sake of generosity but do you get to give without anybody knowing about it so that you're not elevated so you're
Not held up high you get to serve you get to pray you get to labor he says not even a cup of cold
Water that's given to somebody because if cold water counts kid city counts I mean that we get to serve so this time of
Year when money feels tight when there's a desire to use our finances to make everything around us good we say yeah do that
As you celebrate who Jesus is and we say don't forget we're citizens of a better kingdom and send some money on ahead move your
Treasure out from under the tree move your heart so when you meet Jesus that's where your heart will have been the whole time
We get to write a better story than King Herod wrote I get the honor of introducing our give series projects this year they're
A little bit different and we get to do something a little bit different this year than we've done in the past so I'm excited we've got a lot
Going on right now with us trying to move to Casey and so this is even more fun for us because there's a real
Part of me that was like we got a ton of things going on with Casey and a lot of things to pay for y'all been
In that building it is beautiful that we are getting to move to a facility where there's a roof and where there's space and
Where the Lord has just in some ways just promoted us elevated us because how long would it have taken us to actually pay
For a place even like that but you walk in there and you are like we got some work to do some cleaning some
Painting for those of y'all who miss the green carpet that used to be in here I have got good news for you that
Place is green green and for those of you who maybe are color blind it's brown it's nice brown but they've everything over there needs
Work part of me was like why don't we just put our efforts there and then it was like no why don't we do
What we're always supposed to do just give some stuff away just send something that doesn't have anything to do with us that we just
Get to bless and not really get to partake in we get two projects this year we don't usually do two we're doing two
And we're going to give some money a church one Sunday they are planting a church in Charlotte so we just went to them
They're part of the grassroots network we help train and send church planters they've been over at midtown getting trained up they're about to
Go out they're taking 37 people with them which sounds awesome that are going to move to Charlotte to help plant a church that's a
Way better way to plant a church than the way we did so I hardly encourage doing that method than the one we went
With worked out but it's not the best one 37 people already moving up there getting jobs trying to be missionaries in that area
And we just went and said hey how can we help you out and they said well we're going to move we're going to be groups
That's the grassroots network does that we send in leaders we send in groups people to just be missionaries in the area we're going
To do groups first and then at some point they're going to want to gather and we said okay can we help with the gathering
And they said yes so here's some gathering costs here's our plan for them like I said we got two this one's happening in
Charlotte the cool thing we're here's the plan if we can raise fifteen hundred dollars we will give them an iMac we'll give them
Fifteen hundred dollars they'll buy an iMac for their gathering so they'll be able to run some of the stuff they're going to do so
They're already being in groups on mission but when they gather together there's a few things they want to get and so if we get
Three thousand dollars we will get them an iMac and a sound board so that when they get started they already have that they'll
Be blessed with that from our church so that they can just get started and worry about spending their money in other places working
On some other things if we get five thousand dollars they will also get speakers so everything is included if you hit five thousand
It's iMac sound board and speakers because at three thousand dollars they got a sound board but nothing that sends out sound so at
Five thousand dollars that sound board does some stuff and if we're able to do seventy five hundred dollars they'll get all the music
Equipment they need we said what will it take for y'all to do a gathering and they said seventy five hundred dollars I love
That I love that they're way more worried about having groups be on mission having people be missionaries and they said when we get
Together we'll need some stuff but not a ton of stuff you'll notice they left off the lasers and the fog machine so it'll be
Good worship it won't be great but they'll have maybe they smuggled it in they just said all music equipment maybe it's in there
Maybe they got things that will shoot glitter I don't know so if we can do $7,500 you'll have the opportunity to give to
Give directly to this we can do $7,500 from our church family we will send them off with everything they need to as they
Get started and when it makes sense they'll have to find a location they'll have to pay some rent but they'll have the equipment
They need to gather together and make much of Jesus together in Charlotte and I think that's a really cool thing we get to
Do and we'll get to as we give money away give to the kingdom give to some speakers we'll never hear sound out of
Possibly that we'll never get to be a part of but we'll just get to know there's some people worshiping Jesus just like we'll
Get to worshiping all together later and we're going to help them do that that's the first one first ones in the U.S. it's
In Charlotte we're helping send out a church plant the second one is in Minya Egypt so we worked with 1040 Hope last year
To sponsor a church plant in Minya and we were actually able to raise their entire year budget plus buy tuk-tuk they came back
Later and said since we got all this covered can we get some money from our people and instead of doing a tuk-tuk can
We do a van or a bus and we said sure sounds great so they did that then we sent a team to Minya
A handful of our church family to help do a conference over there to help train and equip and encourage their the beloved of Jesus also if
You speak the language it's called habib yes nailed it it means the beloved of Jesus or those whom Jesus loves what he does
Is in Egypt it's very stigmatized frowned upon to have any kind of physical deformity anybody to be a paralytic or have any kind of
Physical deformity a lot of times Spencer was telling us this in a sermon recently that they're actually they just kind of keep them hidden family
Doesn't talk about them it's it's kind of a bad Mark on your family because people might assume that you have some kind of
Genealogy issue some kind of genetic issue and so that it's harder for you to marry off your children and it's very they're poorly cared
For and so what he does is he actively tries to find them share the gospel with their parents share the gospel with them help
Them see that they're loved by Jesus and get them to where they are cared for out in the open known about that's his
Ministry so if you show the next picture this is actually while our team was there they got to be a part of one
Of his small groups where he is they gather together they worship they share the gospel they enjoy being a part of life together
Cared for loved prayed for and the Lord is doing some really cool things there so here's what we're going to do they do
Quarterly gatherings four big events a year it is very hard for people in this situation to get around they often don't go out
They have a difficult time traveling so what they do is they do four a year where they have 3,000 to 5,000 people they
Feed them a meal they give clothes away they worship Jesus their hope is those who already know and love Jesus would have a
Place to get together and worship to get to praise out in the open together with a large group to make much of Jesus
Together their hope is they will help de-stigmatize having a disability so that more people will come out in the open and be welcomed
And get to share the gospel with them and their hope is that people who are not believers will come and they'll get to
Share the gospel with them and they're seeing some really great things 5,000 people their budget is $4,500 to get the space to have
Everything they need to have people come preach the gospel to have things to give away to welcome so we thought if we could
Pay for one of these so one time next year 3,000 to 5,000 people in Egypt would gather to praise Jesus and not have
To worry about the cost they would gather to worship Jesus they pay for two of them if we get $13,500 they'll pay for
Three of them if we get $18,000 they'll pay for four of them let's do $22,000 and tell them they gotta do an extra one
Our hope would be that we can give $4,500 to Pastor Jurgis so they can have one of these where they gather and our
Church family just got to tag in our hope would be that citizen church would gather go out send out as missionaries and when
It came time to gather they'd already have the money in the bank or they'd already have the equipment sitting somewhere they'd be ready
To roll they wouldn't have to worry about it that's our hope that's what we're praying for you're going to have the opportunity over
The next couple of weeks be here let's send our heart and our money on ahead let's pray God we thank you for your
Grace thank you for your love we pray that you'd help us to be generous as you have been generous to us that you
Gave up your life that we might have hope and forgiveness in the gospel and may all of us who are citizens of that
Kingdom live as if that were true