Christmas 2016
Transcript
Well, Merry Christmas. Turn to Matthew chapter 1. We will be spending our time there this morning. It's going to be on page 471 if you're in one of the white Bibles. If you don't own a Bible, don't have one at your house, Merry Christmas. That Bible that you're holding is a gift to you from us.
We want you to own a Bible. We want you to read it regularly. So we'd like for you to have one. So our goal today is pretty simple. We usually, when we talk about stuff, we talk about what God has done. We talk about what Jesus has accomplished for us, that the gospel is good news about what he's accomplished and that we respond.
And today we're not going to have so much of a here's what we need to go do. Here's how we're going to respond. We're just in our time this morning. We're trying to kind of do what Faye was just reading about, where the shepherds, I love that the shepherds look at each other and they say, let's go see this thing. Let's go see this thing that the angels just told us about.
And that's kind of what we want to do this morning. We just want to look at the Christmas story and we just kind of want to see it. We just want to take some time to consider this mind-shattering, world history-changing event where God becomes a human. We just want to take a minute to consider it. And then we want to respond maybe in the way that Mary does, where it says she just pondered these things in her heart. We really just want to take this and look at it as best we can, begin to see some of the realities of God becoming a human, some of the realities of what we get to celebrate at Christmas.
And then we just want to hold on to those as we go through the rest of this week. And it's going to be busy for many of us. You're going to have a lot going on that you have to try to get done and accomplish. And you can get so caught up in everything that's on your to-do list. And then Christmas will be here a week from today. And then it's almost like it's just over with.
And I just want to take a minute this morning for us to just pause, let's just see this thing, and then hopefully be able to kind of ponder it in our hearts throughout the rest of the week. And as we go into Christmas day next Sunday, and just kind of be able to reflect on and remember and roll around inside this truth that is actually a little bit too big to consider and too big to get into view. And we're going to spend some time looking at it this morning. So pray with me that we'll be able to do that. And then we're going to start reading some of the text. God, we thank you.
We thank you for what Christmas is and what it means. We pray that you'd be at work in us this morning, that we would be able to take it into view, that your Holy Spirit would be active as we read your word. We love you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Jump down to verse 18. We'll pick up there, Matthew 1, verse 18.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, okay, so she's going to marry a guy named Joseph. That's what betrothed means, they're engaged. But in this culture, in this society, they would have been fairly young. I read something this week that said Mary's probably no more than about 15 years old. And a betrothal worked similarly to marriage.
Basically, parents would be involved. They would say, okay, your child's going to marry my child. It was a very strict kind of agreement. And in order to break a betrothal, you had to actually go through a legal proceeding to get a divorce. It wasn't, so it was like an engagement, but it was more intense than our engagements. So she's betrothed to Joseph before they had come together.
So that means they're engaged, they're betrothed, but nothing's happened. They're not married yet. There's no consummation of anything. Before they had come together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that's, we get more of her story in Luke chapter 1. An angel comes to her and says, oh, favored one.
And she's like, that's a weird way to talk to me. And she's kind of, I'm talking to an angel. She feels uncomfortable. He says, you're going to give birth to a child. And her response to him is, okay, how? Because she knew where babies come from.
I think sometimes when we read stuff that happened a long time ago, we just kind of arrogantly and maybe a little bit snobbishly assume that we're more intelligent. Like because it happened a long time ago, their IQs are lower. Like because I have Google and could drive a car and have electricity, I'm somehow smarter than them. But even if you looked at my Google history, you'd know it wasn't because of how many times Google had to say, did you mean this? Because I couldn't even spell the thing I was Googling. Were you trying to type this?
Yes, Google, I was. But for some reason, when I read something that happened in history, I just assume they were gullible. They believed everything that someone told them, that they all were just kind of dumber than me. And actually, I think that probably the amount of television I watched and the amount of time I spent on Google and how much I can ask Siri things and I don't have to remember anything actually means it's likely they were more intelligent than I am because they actually had to use their brain more. I don't know. But Google makes me seem way smarter.
You remember before Google existed when you thought, I wonder about this. And then you had no way. You're watching a movie and you thought, what else has that person been in? And then you had to think about it and remember. Maybe you had that one family member you could ask. And I was going to pause it.
That guy, what else was he in? And they knew. But otherwise, you couldn't figure it out. Like, we just assume because of the technology we have, we're more intelligent. But she basically, we're going to see that both Mary and Joseph kind of respond in a, okay, wait, how's this going to work?
So Mary says, how's that going to work? And he says, God's going to do it. Through his power, through the Holy Spirit, you're going to give birth to a son and he'll be the son of God. And Mary's response is, I'm your servant. Let it be that way. Since you're big and you're God and you're good, I'll just trust you.
It's not like she doesn't seem very excited, but she basically just says, okay, I'm your servant. So just think about this for a second. She's betrothed in a shame and honor culture to be married to a guy named Joseph. We don't know how well they know each other, but it's a small town. They probably knew each other. She's probably looking forward to her wedding day, to her life.
And she's thinking, I'm going to start my life with Joseph. We're going to begin to have, and an angel comes up and says, hey, God has decided to ruin this for you. You're going to get pregnant out of wedlock. Talk, people can do math. They know how long it takes for a baby to be. So even if he still agrees to marry you, they'll know when the baby was born and when y'all are married.
It's not going to work out well for you. Most likely, your betrothal is off. And she says, okay, I submit, I surrender, I'm Jesus, I'm God's servant, whatever he says. So here's what we get. Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And I love that Matthew includes, it was from the Holy Spirit.
He says, she's found to be with child, but we know it's from the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, so he already calls her his husband, even though they haven't really been officially married. But that's how intense betrothal is. So she comes to Joseph and says, Joseph, I'm pregnant. He says, how did that happen? She says, it's God's baby.
He says, okay, we're not getting married. At best, you're lying. At worst, you're crazy. And it says he's a just man. He cares about her. He's not mad at her.
He's not trying to put her to shame. He's just going to as quietly as he can break this betrothal. It's a small town, not make a big deal out of it. But he also knows how children are made. And he says, no, no, God doesn't get, no, that's not how that works. So we're not, no, they're not getting married.
Can you imagine how much pain is involved in this story for Mary, for Joseph, what they thought life was going to look like? Jesus shows up and just derails it. How many tears are shed in that few verses we just read? How much they had to wrestle with God and his plans? But, verse 20, 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. You should 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 of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.
So Joseph does the same thing. He obeys what God says, even though he also realizes, okay, at best they'll think we kind of sinned together prior, so this child will be born in kind of a shame situation. At worst, the people who are close to me who already knew I was trying to work out a divorce, I'm going to have to go seem crazy too. I'm going to have to act like I actually believe what she said, that God is the father of this child, and they're going to either think that I'm crazy or just the most gullible fool they've ever met. But okay.
That's the situation that Jesus is born in. And then Matthew, as he's beginning to tell this story, he kind of gets to the point here and he says, okay, here's Jesus. Jesus is going to save his people from their sins, and he's going to be Emmanuel, God with us. So Matthew, right off the bat, says, here's the point of my story, here's where we're going. Christmas, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. As Christians, we believe not that Jesus was just a really good guy, not that he was just a prophet.
We don't just believe that God's spirit was on him. We don't just believe that God worked through him or that he shows us kind of what divine status looks like. We don't just believe that he was a really good man who became a God. We believe that he is God who became a man. We believe that he's the eternal creator God who became a human, that God is with us. That's what we celebrate at Christmas.
That Jesus is God who became a man, that he's fully God and fully man. From the time he's born, that he's God with us. That's Christmas, that God became a baby. And so Matthew says it's Emmanuel, God with us, and that he's Jesus. He's going to save people from their sins. So Matthew, right off the bat, says, we're talking about Christmas and we're talking about Easter.
This is the point of the book he's writing, that Jesus is going to grow up. He's going to live a perfect, sinless life. He's going to die on a cross. He's going to atone for sin. He's going to be buried. He's going to rise again.
He's going to save his people from their sins. Now, if the point of the Bible was just you need to be a good person, it's just about morality, we wouldn't have Christmas. God wouldn't have to join us. If the point of the Bible was just that God loves everybody and he forgives everybody, we wouldn't have Christmas. God wouldn't have to join us. He wouldn't have to come in.
But see, it's a God of both morality and love that joins us at Christmas to save us from our sins. And I love that he's come to save us from our sins. You know, that could say, and I think people sometimes try to act like what this should say is that Jesus came to save his people from sinners. And that would be a really sad thing for it to say. He says he's going to be Jesus because he's going to save his people from their sins. But if it said he's going to save his people from sinners, that would mean there are good people and bad people.
And then we'd have to work really hard to try to figure out whether we were the good people or we were the bad people. But what does it say? He's going to save his people from their sins. Jesus is the hero who came to rescue the bad people. Now that's worth celebrating Christmas over.
I'll raise some eggnog to that. That sounds amazing. That Jesus is going to come save sinners. That's us. You see, at Christmas, we're kind of, we're almost bombarded with this over optimism. It's like collectively, culturally, we come together and say, we can do it, you guys.
If we just believe in belief, if we just open our hearts and our minds, we can love everybody and we can eradicate poverty and hatred. That's what the Christmas spirit is. If we just come together, everything can be beautiful and bright and work out well. And that is beautiful, but it's not the Christmas spirit. The Christmas spirit is we're in trouble. The world is dark.
There is no hope. Humanity cannot save itself. Humanity is the problem. So getting more of us together collectively just causes more of a problem. Christmas is the celebration that Jesus entered the world. That a savior came to rescue us.
And that he's ultimately going to live a perfect, sinless life and die to save us. That's the Christmas story. That's what Matthew's getting at. That's the point of the story he's about to tell. So he's going to tell us this epic, unbelievable, history-altering story.
That's what, he's got all this to write. He's got to tell us that God became a baby. And then he's got to tell us that he lived a perfect, sinless life. And that hope has entered the world. That where it was dark and bleak and sin reigned, God enters the world. And it's almost like a light, a little candle is lit in the dark.
So if it was pitch black and there's just one little candle, everybody's eyes come to this place and it says there's hope, there's light in darkness. That's Christmas. And then he's going to tell the story about how at Easter, after Jesus has healed blind people, has taken people who've never walked before and let them walk, how he's walked on water and fed 5,000 people and he's healed everywhere in towns he went. And he's proclaimed the good news that at Easter, that little candle is going to be snuffed out. It's going to be a few wisps of smoke and darkness. That death is going to defeat life.
Hatred is going to defeat love. Fear is going to win. And that this God that we celebrate who's going to be born is going to be a God that we mourn because he's going to die. But that three days later, of atonability, that candle lights itself again. And it doesn't just become a candle. It becomes what was just a hint of a dawn in Christmas becomes full noonday sun at Easter.
We get the full and complete picture of what God's come to do, that he's Emmanuel, God with us, and he's Jesus who saves us from our sins. That's the story Matthew's going to tell. And so Matthew has this epic, earth-shattering, world-changing story to tell. And he's got to put pen to paper. And you can almost feel like the ink is trying to jump out of his writing utensil here. He's got to write this down.
And what's the first thing he's going to put on paper? What's the first thing he needs us to see as he begins to tell this story? Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac. And Isaac, the father of Jacob.
And Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah, the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez, the father of Hezron. And Hezron, the father of Ram. Ram, the father of Amminadab. And Amminadab, the father of nation.
Oh my goodness. He does this for 17 verses. He's got this epic, life-changing, earth-shattering story to tell us. And he starts off by the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. And it's almost, almost as if he wanted to bore us before he told us the good stuff. He's going to, at the end of the chapter, he's going to get into what Jesus came for and who he is.
But he starts off with 17 verses of this person was the father of this person, was the father of this person. Now, we're distant from this because we're Americans to a Jewish audience. This meant a lot. Because he's telling, he's telling them that he comes in the line of prophecy. He's telling them that he comes in the line of, but Luke includes this. He doesn't start with it.
It's important. Luke says, that's not the way you start a book, though. You ever been to a movie and they run the credits first? Like all of them? You'd be like, what the heck? Show me the movie.
That's what he's doing. He's showing you this. What's the point? Why does he do this? Why does he think this is so absolutely essential for us to get right off the bat? Do you know who has genealogies?
Humans. Real, live, flesh and blood humans have a family line. My wife and I, a couple years ago, learned we were going to have a son. So we got on Ancestry.com and we just started looking up our family. Some people in our family had done a lot of work to kind of fill out our history, family history, our lineage. So we just started doing work to find names.
There were a bunch. We wrote names in one color from my family, names in another color from her family. And our goal was to have one name from each family. And they were great. Like we had some winners in there. We had Garland.
Caskey. I was fighting pretty hard for Caskey. Bayless. That's probably coming back if we have another son. It might be a girl. But we like, it took us a while.
Like we had to try to find names that we ended up, we like Silas. I really like Silas. But I wear a lot of plaid and I have a beard most of the time. And I didn't want people to think I named him after Uncle Si off of Dunk Dynasty. I don't watch the show, but people assume things. And so we really went round and round on Silas and we're like, I don't know if we can do this.
The other thing you have to do, it's really hard to name a human. Those of you who have done it, I'm proud of y'all. It's difficult. I had to walk, like I walked around my house trying to say the name. Because you just, you just read it or you just say it. It's like you had to put it in context.
So I would walk around with names. So like, so we picked Bayless or whatever. And I'm trying to think, you know, you have to sing the banana manamofana song or whatever to try to see how inappropriate it gets at the end. Like there are certain names you gotta, you can't do. You have to try to think up what will first graders call them? Like what are bad nicknames here?
I would do stuff like I'd go, um, Caskey Bayless on the tackle. Like I would try to think through what would this sound like over a PA? Like if it was like, would Bayless Phillips please report to the principal's office? Like I have to realize, I know me. Look, I'm not, I'm not putting on airs. I gotta realize I've gotta shout this name in Walmart at some point.
I know I've gotta be like, Bayless, if you don't put that down, boy, you get over here. Like I know I've got, I had to practice this at my house. We ended up going with Archer O'Daniel. We actually was gonna be Archer Daniel, but he was gonna be born on the 20th of March. And I told my wife, I said, all right, how about deal? Daniel's an old last name that they Americanized.
It used to be O'Daniel because it came from Ireland. I said, if he's born on St. Patrick's Day. We go, O'Daniel. And I stuck my hand out. She said, okay.
So she shook hands on it. We found out on the 16th, he was gonna be, had to have a C-section the next day, which was St. Patrick's Day. We're on the way home. And she goes, I knew it. I said, what?
She said, I knew as soon as I shook your hand, he was gonna be born on St. Patrick's Day. I was like, then this is the breaks, girl. You just gotta deal with it. The reason we were able to do that is because our son's a real human who comes from real humans and a real genealogy, a real family line. The reason Matthew begins here is because he wants to make so absolutely crystal clear and concrete in our minds that Jesus is a real human born into real history in a real family line.
What he's about to tell us is going to seem insane. It's going to sound crazy. It's going to be unprecedented in human history. It's gonna baffle Jewish people who would not ever believe that God could become a human. This is outside of what they would have believed. He's going to begin to tell us that this Jesus is gonna be perfect and he's gonna die.
And when he dies, it's gonna be a vicarious death for all those who would place faith in him. That he's gonna be laid in a tomb and he's gonna rise again. And then later he's gonna ascend into heaven where he's gonna live eternally. And he's going to tell us this story. And he starts off by saying, I don't care if I bore you a little bit. You need to realize this is a real person born into real history in real time.
He does everything he can to set it on the bedrock of actual living history, family line, because he wants us to be certain as we continue to read Jesus stepped into real life. This is fact. As crazy as it's about to sound. And you know what's beautiful about that? The gospel of Matthew does not start once upon a time. It doesn't start with in a village far away.
Because when we hear those things, we hear once upon a time, when we hear there lived a man up in the mountains, we know what we're getting ourselves into. We know that we're gonna hear a story. Maybe it'll be entertaining. Maybe it'll have a point, like a moral thing we're supposed to take away from it. Maybe it'll be just a story about how we ought to live. We know when we get into a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, what kind of story we're getting into.
There's gonna be heroes. There's gonna be darkness and enemies. There's gonna be champions. There's gonna be light versus darkness. There's gonna be good triumphing over evil. Life is gonna defeat death.
Love is gonna defeat fear. We know the kind of stories we're getting into. But see, Matthew's about to tell that type of story. But he wants to make sure you know this one actually happened. This is a real story. And here's what's going on currently, kind of in our culture, and as we get older.
We say those stories are good stories, and we enjoy those stories, but they're for children. Those are children's stories. That the prince rides in and saves the princess. That somebody shows up and defeats the dragon. These are Disney movies. But real life, adulthood, it's not black and white.
They're shades of gray. Good doesn't always win. Evil does sometimes. Darkness defeats light sometimes. Death swallows up everybody, and we end up being just particles in the universe later. We're told that as soon as we can kind of wrap our minds around that, the better off we'll be.
And it's almost weak to believe in these magical stories where good always wins. That it's not realistic. But the beautiful thing about the gospel story and the Christmas story is that it's a historical story. That Matthew's gospel story and Christmas story are going to be a historical reality. So that the reason we love all these other stories is ultimately because they point us to Jesus.
We actually want Beauty and the Beast to be true. We want to believe that someone can come along and love us enough to save us from the monster we've turned ourselves into by our decisions. We want to believe that Sleeping Beauty is true. That there's a love that conquers our stupor, that brings us to life, and that someone does ride in and defeat the dragon. We want to believe that. And because this story is true, because the Christmas story and the gospel story are true, real life historical fact, when we believe these stories, when we tell these stories, we actually are just getting to point to a greater reality beyond them.
Tim Keller is a pastor in New York. He wrote a book called Hidden Christmas, and he talks about this idea. I want to read a quote from that book. I thought it was helpful. He says, Put another way, even though the fairy tales aren't factually true, the truth of Jesus means all the stories we love are not escapism at all. In a sense, they, or the supernatural realities to which they point, will come true in him.
The reason our hearts scream and cheer and celebrate when we tell these stories, the reason we love Harry Potter so much is that we somehow innately know and believe that there is some dark force out there, some evil out there that wants to rule through intimidation and fear. And we want to celebrate a story where a child is. And we want to celebrate with the fact that he dies at the end, only to burst forth back into life and to destroy evil forever and let the sun shine again. See, all these stories, because this story is true, point us ultimately, because the Christmas story is true and the gospel story is true.
We get to celebrate that all of this is true. We get to celebrate that all of this is true. We get to celebrate that all of this is true. We get to celebrate that all of this is true. What we celebrate at Christmas is the beginning of that story where joy dawns and hope dawns in the world. As Christ comes to save sinners, as God joins humanity to rescue us from our sin.
Matt and Bianca are going to come back up here. And I really just, there's not any real things we need to go do because this is true. I want us to grow in our faith. I want us to consider this reality. So here's really how we do get to respond today.
If you are a Christian, my hope really is that we would just ponder this in our hearts. That we would remember the true, real story of Jesus' work on our behalf. That we were saved from our sin. We're going to take communion here in a minute during this next song. And if you're a Christian, I just want you to take a minute. We're not going to have the words on the screen.
They're going to sing. We're going to pray. We're going to consider. We're going to think about what Jesus has done for us. And then I want you to take communion, which is a celebration of the broken body of Jesus and his shed blood on our behalf. I just want us to celebrate that we have a hero.
Stepped into real life to rescue his people from their sins. That when he died, your sin died with him. You died with him. And when he rose again, you have the promise and the hope of an eternal life with him. Because God did not leave humanity in its sin. But joined us at Christmas as Emmanuel, God with us, to save his people from their sins.
But if you're not a Christian, Christmas is an invitation to you. What Jesus does at Christmas is he joins us. God doesn't sit far away and tell us to figure it out. God doesn't sit far away and tell us to get our act together. God joins humanity in poverty, in weakness, in life, and in death. If you're not a Christian, the invitation is simple.
Jesus came to save his people from their sins. God joined us to rescue you from all the things that would keep you from him. You can acknowledge your sin. And you can be saved by Jesus. That his work on the cross can apply to you. And if you're in here today and you're not a Christian, but you want to be, this is an actual historical fact that happened on your behalf.
The only thing you do is believe it. Respond in faith to what he's done. It's not about being good. It's not about following a set of rules. It's not about accomplishing anything. The reason we take communion is we remind ourselves that it was his work, his body, his blood that rescued us.
So if you're in here today and you're not a Christian, you can become a Christian right now because it's not about what you do. It's about what he's done. You can go take communion for the first time. Maybe you grew up in the church and you've taken communion a lot, but you never really placed your faith in Jesus. You were actively living as if Jesus came to save his people from sinners and that you had to be a good person that he could save you away from all the bad people. You can repent and you can take communion for the first time for real this morning, celebrating that his death and his blood and his life and his resurrection on your behalf will apply to you.
Let's pray. God, we thank you that you joined us, that you didn't leave us on our own to figure this out, that you didn't leave us on our own to try to be good or to earn something from you, but that you joined us, that you were born in a manger, that you really lived and you really died on our behalf, that you really rose from the grave three days later. It's in a fairy tale. It's not a legend. It's not a myth. It's not a story to help us know how to live well or to love well, but it's a story about how you lived and loved us, how you actually joined humanity and died on our behalf.
I pray, God, that as we go into this next week, that we remember this. We wouldn't lose sight of what we actually get to celebrate, that all the work is done, that we've been given life and forgiveness and salvation. We thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.
The Problem of Two Kings
Transcript
Good morning. How are you doing this morning? This side's doing good. Not hitting on much over here. My name is Chet Phillips. Excited to be hanging out with y'all this morning.
We're going to be in Matthew chapter 1. So if you've got a Bible, go to Matthew chapter 1. There should be some sitting on the rows. You've got some over there if you need one. And if you don't own a Bible, grab one of the ones on the rows or grab one of the ones on the table. And that's our gift to you.
Just snatch that on your way out. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 1. We're going to spend the next couple of weeks talking about Jesus as King and His kingdom. And so we've got to do a little bit of background work for us today to kind of set this, frame it up in our brains so that we can think about it correctly. So what happens is if you begin reading the Gospels, which are the accounts of what Jesus did while He was on earth, they're going to usually start, a couple of them are going to start with John the Baptist.
And John the Baptist is going to come before Jesus and he's going to begin to proclaim. They're going to say that he proclaimed, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then it's going to say that Jesus shows up and he begins to say the same thing. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And that sounds nice, but what are they talking about? Like what is the kingdom of heaven?
What do they mean by the kingdom of God? As Jesus goes through and He tells these parables, which are just confusing, illustrational stories. And so He tells parables about the kingdom and He's going to explain. Here's what the kingdom looks like. And He's going to do this over and over again. And so we're going to spend the next few weeks as we go through September and into October talking about the kingdom and unpacking what it is, how it works, how Jesus is a king, and what that means for everybody in this room and really everybody on this planet.
And so in order to do that, we've got to do a little bit of background work because we're ignorant, which just means we don't know. So it doesn't mean that you're dumb. So my dad used to, when I was growing up, he wouldn't call me dumb. He would just call me ignorant. And he said, ignorant. He'd be like, you ignorant boy.
And he was like, that's not offensive. You just need to learn things because you don't understand how stuff works. And so we're ignorant as far as how a king works. We just are. Like we base it off of maybe some books we've read, maybe some of our history classes that we had in school. So like maybe when you think of a king, you're going to think of King Arthur.
And he had like a round table. And he had some knights with him. And when you think of King Arthur, you maybe are going to think about a couple of different movies. Maybe Sean Connery is going to pop up in your head. Or you're going to think about the quest for the Holy Grail, which is a really bad understanding of who King Arthur is and what Camelot was like and all that kind of stuff. So we just, we don't get kings.
We don't. A good example of this is I was talking to Raz. He's one of our group leaders in our church. And he's from Australia. And I didn't know this. Australia still kind of fits under the Queen of England.
Did y'all know that? Like I didn't know that. The Queen of England can go to Australia and fire their elected officials. Just kick them out. Because she's the Queen of England. That's why.
That's why she gets to do that. And so I was like, wait, what? So like she actually showed up in I think the late 80s, early 90s and fired their prime minister and parliament. It was just like y'all are out. Or maybe it was just the prime minister and all the people around him. And then basically said y'all have to hold a new election.
And so immediately when he said that, like that was, that affronted my sensibilities as an American. Because it was like who on earth is going to travel over an ocean and tell us what to do with our government. So it was like immediately was like no, no sir. And so I was asking him more questions about it. I asked him. I said okay, do y'all pay taxes to Australia?
I mean to England. Does Australia pay taxes to England? And he said no, we don't pay taxes. And I said you're welcome. They learned their lesson on that one. Just when you see an American and you think about the fact that you don't pay taxes to England, just shake their hand.
Tell them thank you. But we don't get it. We don't understand how kings and kingdoms work. We just, as Americans, we don't have a place for that in our head. We don't have a place for the authority. A good example of this is how much we freak out about presidential elections.
I mean America loses it over presidential elections. We will elect a president two years from now in 2016. And they're already talking about it. They were talking about it when Obama got elected. They started talking about the next election. I heard a conversation recently.
They were talking about Hillary Clinton. And they were saying should she line herself up with Obama? Should she separate herself from Obama? And they're going into statistics of when and how the parties flop back and forth and who's going to be president. And that person is going to be president for four years in a limited government. They can't just do what they want to.
President Obama can't just walk out tomorrow and say here's how America's running from now on. No. There's Supreme Court. There's people that decide on laws. He's got to take things through Congress. Like he has a very limited position and we feel like the president has too much power sometimes.
We hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of what a king looks like. So for us to understand as we read through scripture and Jesus shows up and says he's a king and that he has a kingdom. We got to know what that means. We got to understand what he's declaring how they would have heard it because we don't hear that right. It's like, oh, you own a castle? You got a moat?
That's cool. I'd like a moat, but I don't want to have to like cut the grass around it all the time. Like we don't, it doesn't hit us right. We don't understand. So let me explain just a little bit.
We're just going to do a little bit about how kings work and how they would have understood how kings work. So a kingdom is the extent of the rule and the reign of a king. So you have a king. The king has a kingdom. So wherever his rule and reign exists, that's his kingdom.
And he can have that kingdom. You can have a kingdom as long as you can defend it and rule over it. So you can have a kingdom as long as you're able to protect it. And so throughout history, kingdoms have just swallowed up other kingdoms. So President Obama recently with this whole Russia-Ukraine thing, he said you can't, he said we know that you can't redraw borders at the edge of a gun.
So the countries that we have have pretty much been the countries that we have for quite a while. That's not how history works. In response to that, it's actually, no, actually you can. You can redraw borders at the edge of a sword or the edge of a spear or on top of a chariot or at the edge of a gun because that's how borders get redrawn throughout history. So we've been in the United States for a while and we don't have to fight with Mexico all the time about our border.
We did, but we don't anymore. And pretty much now we buy things from people. But that's not how it worked in world history, in human history. It was you had a kingdom and your kingdom was your kingdom until a bigger, badder kingdom came along. And then they just owned you. So kingdom shows up.
We have a kingdom. Kingdom shows up. We get to decide, okay, they're coming at us. Can we defend ourselves? If we fight, can we stop them? So we sit there and we talk about it.
We look and we say, no, if we fight, we will all die. Okay. We'll call that plan B. Plan A will be, let's have a convo. Let's talk to these guys.
See how they're doing, what they want. And so that's pretty much what kingdoms would do. You would fight and defend your kingdom. If you could rule over it, you could. If a new kingdom showed up and they were badder than you, you could fight and die. Or you could surrender and pay taxes and then their kingdom ruled over you.
So throughout history we see Egypt had a kingdom. That's what we showed up there a second ago. Israel goes in and kicks out a bunch of these smaller kingdoms and becomes one kingdom. And then Assyria swallows that kingdom. And then Babylon swallows that kingdom. And then Greece comes up and swallows that kingdom.
And then Rome swallows that kingdom. And it was just who was the baddest? Got to have a kingdom. So whenever we hear kingdom declared. When Jesus says, I have a kingdom. It's automatically going to hit the ears of those listening to him as a militaristic declaration.
Kingdom advances against another kingdom. That's just how they work. Let me tell you how kings work. They're in charge. Period. Throughout history, that's how kings work.
So some of you are like, I'm the king of my own castle. No, you're not. Because your wife is in charge. She may let you pretend. But kings were in charge.
They were in charge. Period. They were in charge of how everything played out. So a king could just make a declarative statement. And that's what happened. And so we see throughout scripture.
I'll just give you some examples. Okay. So there was a guy named Xerxes. He shows up in scripture in the book of Esther. Xerxes. In Esther, he's called Ahasuerus.
Which was his Aramaic name. But Xerxes is his Greek name. So that's how we know him from history. But his name was Xerxes. He had a throne that was ginormous. And he used to sit on his throne.
And his throne had a big red carpet on it. If you sat on his throne, you died. If you touched the carpet that his throne was on, you died. So it was like throne, no touching. Carpet, buffer zone for the throne, no touching. He had 10,000 soldiers called immortals that surrounded his throne.
When they went into battle, they carried his throne. He sat on it. His immortals sat around him. And then his army won. And he just got to watch. That's Xerxes.
Did what he wanted. All the time. There's a guy in the book of Kings. His name is Aboni Bezek. Or Aboni Bezek. Ann and I just found out that we're going to be having a baby.
And so I'm throwing that name in the hat. Aboni Bezek. That's a heck of a name. But anyway, this guy was in smaller kingdoms. He had captured 70 kings. In the book of Judges, he had captured 70 kings.
And he cut off their thumbs and their big toe. Which, just so you know, you need your big toe to walk around. Like, it's important. So it makes it hard to walk. So they didn't have big toes and they didn't have thumbs.
The reason humans are in control of the world is because we have big brains and opposable thumbs. These are important. If you've ever had, like, a hurt thumb, it makes it really difficult to do anything. He had 70 kings that he'd cut off their thumbs and their big toes. And their job was to sit around his table and pick up crumbs with these two fingers. So they walked.
And when he was done eating, 70 kings picked up crumbs around his table to show his dominance. Because he's a king and he does what he wants. And the truth is, like, 70 of them, but they're not holding an uprising. Because it would be like this awkward standing slap fight that they would lose really quickly. You slap them and they just push you down. They'd be like, now pick up the crumbs.
They'd be like, okay. Somebody help me up. There's a King Nebuchadnezzar. I love this story. There's a King Nebuchadnezzar. This is in the book of Daniel.
He's a Babylonian king. He has a dream that freaks him out. And when you're a king and you have a dream that freaks you out, you get to call on people to help you with your dream. When you're you and you have a dream that freaks you out, you get to tell your co-worker and they get to think you're weird. But when you're a king...
Man, I dreamed I was a clown last night. Dude, I don't want to talk about your dreams. Like, we're at work. When you're a king, though, he said he has this dream and he calls all of his advisors and wise men in to answer questions and his sorcerers and stuff. And he says, I had a dream. It freaked me out.
I want you to tell me what the interpretation is. And so they say, okay. Tell us the dream. We'll tell you what the interpretation is. And he says, no. If I tell you the dream, you'll make up an interpretation.
And I won't know if you're telling the truth. You tell me the dream and then tell me its interpretation. And they say, we can't do that. And he says, cool. Kill all of them. Because he's a king.
And kings do what they want. There are no re-elections. There are no runoffs. There is no impeachment. The way you get rid of a king is to kill him or to have a bigger kingdom that takes over his. That's it.
Otherwise, they're king forever. So we're freaking out that we're going to have a president for four years. And he's going to have a limited amount of power in our government. This king was king because he was born a lot of times. Or because he got an army and was really powerful. That's pretty much how it works.
So when Jesus declares that he's a king and when the Bible declares that he has a kingdom, it means something that we wouldn't hear. It means something to the people who were first listening that we don't get. It's like, okay, complete authority. Power. The ability to say, and it happens. It goes.
What you say is law and rule and final. And that your kingdom advances in a militaristic way. So that's how kingdoms work. So if you have a good king, you have a good kingdom. A generous king. A gracious king.
A king that fights on behalf of his people. A king that loves justice and peace. That's really good for the kingdom. If you have a ruthless, angry, bitter, psychotic king, that's a problem. Because a king rules over his kingdom with absolute authority. Okay.
That's just so that we get what a king and a kingdom is. Matthew chapter 1. I'm going to pray. We're going to hop into Matthew chapter 1. If you've got one of the Bibles on the rows, it should be page 523. So let's pray and then we'll look at Matthew chapter 1.
God, we thank you for this time that we get to gather as church family and open your word and learn about you. Pray that you would teach us. That your Holy Spirit would come and reveal to us truth about yourself. That you would draw us closer to you. We praise you. We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen. Matthew chapter 1. The book of the genealogy is Matthew chapter 1 verse 1. This is Matthew writing a gospel about Jesus, writing a story about Jesus, telling us what he did when he was on earth. This is how he starts. The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
Genealogy just means his lineage, his family history, his granddaddy and that guy's daddy and his granddaddy's daddy, that kind of thing. In the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, we're going to come back to that, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the first Jewish person. And so what he has immediately declared is that David was the first, like, legitimate good king. Saul was there for a while and then David was, like, the king after Saul. What he just started off with was Abraham, the first Jewish guy, David.
And he's saying that his lineage, he comes straight from Abraham through David to Jesus. That's what he's telling us here. Let me just pause for just a second and tell you this because I think it's helpful, although it doesn't really apply to what we're talking about today. But I just think it's helpful for us to know as people who live in the United States. Jesus was Jewish. Super, super Jewish.
There's some discussion in the United States about whether he was white or black. He was Jewish. Abraham to David, Jewish. Like, recently, like, we get in this discussion about Santa Claus. Jesus isn't up for debate. He was a real person.
He had, like, he was Jewish. Like, you don't get to come to me and be like, hey, I just want to let you know we're transferring you. You're Italian now. Like, that's not how that works. Like, that wasn't chosen for me. I'm going to be, like, pasty Scottish Iris my entire life.
You're not transferring that. Jesus was Jewish. Like, around Christmas, they were talking about Santa Claus, and then one of the ladies on Fox News said, she said, Santa Claus was white and Jesus was white. Get over it. No, no. He's Jewish.
Like, look, just so you know, for all the people in this room, in this book, no white people. They're not here, guys. They don't show up. So if you're always picturing, like, curly-haired blonde people, they're not here. No white people here. No blue eyes.
Wasn't here. There are some Africans in this book, but finding a white person in first-century Palestine would have been like, I heard a guy say it was like, it'd be like watching Bigfoot ride a unicorn through the middle of New York. It's just not happening. Amen. So just wanted to help you out with that.
Abraham was the father of Isaac. So it's the book of genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. That had nothing to do with what we're talking about. That was just free for y'all. Abraham was the father of Isaac. And Isaac, the father of Jacob.
And Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. And Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. And Perez, the father of Hezron. And Hezron, the father of Ram. And Ram, the father of Amminadab. And Amminadab, the father of Nashon.
And Nashon, the father of Sam. And Sam, the father of Boaz by Rahab. And Boaz, the father of Obed by Ruth. And Obed, the father of Jesse. And Jesse, the father of David, the king. Whew.
Matthew coming out swinging with this names on names on names on names. Just so you know, if you take a creative writing class, they're not going to tell you to do that. That's not how you start a story. Really hook people. Give a list of names for your main character's genealogy. That's what people like.
Nobody was reading that going, oh my goodness. This is a high quality literature. This is almost as good as my other favorite book, the phone book. Like nobody was doing that. Because we don't get what Matthew is saying. Jewish people, which is who Matthew is writing to, just freaked out.
Now, when a Jewish person reads this, they said, oh, Matthew came out swinging. And he's not playing around with what he's just about to tell us about Jesus. Matthew starts off and says, let me tell you about Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And then he goes through his list and he says, he's the son of David, the king. And Jewish people just said, oh, no. This has gotten serious really quickly.
And here's why. Old Testament, God comes to David and promises David. The God of the universe comes to the king of Israel, David, who's David the king. That's why he's listed that way. King of Israel had a bunch of kings. Judah had a bunch of kings.
David is the king. When you were a little kid in Israel and you were swinging a stick at a tree, you were being David. Everybody had the David action figure. Every time you threw a rock at a bully, you were being David. Like little kids were David. He's the king.
And here's why. God shows up to David and promises him that you will have a king that comes from your lineage that will be a king forever. That will never fail to be a son of David on the throne. And it will be an eternal worldwide dominion. That's the promise made to David. So that happens in 2 Samuel.
I'm going to go through and tell you just a little bit about this king that is over and over and over again prophesied in the Old Testament. 2 Samuel 7. There's going to be a king who comes from, this is God talking to David, comes from your body. I will establish his kingdom. I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me.
Your throne shall be established forever. Jeremiah 33. Prophets are declaring about this king. A righteous branch will come out of David. And he will never lack a man on the throne. Isaiah 9.
Another prophet throughout Israel's history who's declaring that a government will be on this guy's shoulders. He will be called God. He will be called Prince of Peace. He will reign on David's throne establishing justice and peace and righteousness. Isaiah 11. The Spirit of God will dwell on him.
And he will judge on behalf of the needy and the poor. Isaiah 42. He will judge the nations giving sight to the blind and setting captives free. Isaiah 49. Says he will be despised. But kings and princes will rise up and bow down to him.
Daniel 7. Daniel 7. Says that he sees a son of man. Which is Jesus' favorite name for himself. Says that he sees a son of man who's given authority, glory, sovereign power over all people's nations. Men of every language will worship him.
And he will have dominion forever. And a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Zechariah 14. Says he'll destroy his enemies and be king over the whole earth. Malachi 3. Says that God will send someone ahead of this guy to declare that he's coming.
And then he says who will be able to stand when he shows up. But throughout the Old Testament, over and over again, after this promise made to David, it's promised over and over. This king's coming. He's coming. He's going to have an eternal dominion. All other kings are going to bow down to him.
He's going to last forever. He's going to reign with righteousness and justice and power. And he's going to be sovereign over everything. And so when Matthew starts off and says Jesus came in the line of David the king, everybody's ears perked up and said, what are you trying to get at? Where are you taking this? I know you're not about to say that he's the king.
The promised king we all know about. Matthew chapter 2. That's what Matthew's saying. Matthew chapter 2. We'll see how this works. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.
Okay, so Herod is the king of Israel. It's really interesting that he's called king because they're ruled over by the Roman Empire. He's one of the only people in the Roman Empire who's ever allowed to be called king. So it just kind of points to his ruthlessness and political savvy that he's underneath another kingdom and still gets to be called king. So he says that Jesus was born in the line of David the king, and now he's telling us about another king.
In Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying. So wise men, this is why at Christmas you'll hear the song. We three kings of Orient are. Just thinking about these wise men. They weren't kings. They were wise men.
But they're from the east, and that's the Orient. In that song. That was also free, just so you know what you're singing about. Wise men came to the east from Jerusalem saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose. So a new star shows up.
That's why in all the nativity scenes you see there's a little star at the top. This is over top of where Jesus was. A new star shows up. We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. And all Jerusalem with him.
Yeah. Of course Herod the king is troubled. He's the king. And these wise men from the east said, Hey, we study the stars. We study astrology. And the king has been born.
So they come and say, We want to see the king. And Herod's like, I'm here. And they're like, No, no. The king. The one that's been born king. The capital K king.
The one who's been prophesied king. The one that creation bends to king. We came to ask you because we thought you might be able to help us find him. But you're not who we're looking for. Appreciate the autograph. You can put it back.
We want to see the real one. And so Herod's troubled because he's a king. And there's another king born. Just for the record, You don't have two kings. Kings don't coexist. They don't have tandem thrones.
It wasn't like a cute thing they used to do back in the day. One king. That's how he got to be king. No other kings. So Herod's troubled.
And that makes sense because they just said, Hey, we want to see the king, The prophesied king. The one that's going to rule over you king. The one that princes are going to rise up and bow down to king. The guy who's in charge of you, Even though he's an infant. Herod's troubled. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
He did not misunderstand what they were saying. He knew the prophecies. That's why he gets the people who study the Old Testament and says, Where is he going to be? Because they just said that he was born. That a star showed up for him. And he's here.
Where does it say he's going to be born? Because he knew exactly who they were talking about. The person we just read about. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him, In Bethlehem of Judea. For so it is written by the prophet, And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah.
This is Micah the prophet says this. Still talking about this king. 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. 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. The child's Jesus. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
Then 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 of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, They departed to their own country by another way. Okay. So they come.
They say, We saw this star. We're wise men. We study these things. We saw this star. We know what's happening. We know the old text.
Where is he? And he says, I don't know, but we'll find him. And he says, When you find him, let me know, because I want to worship him too. Now Herod's lying, and we'll get to see that in a second. And so that's what they told. They were warned in a dream not to tell Herod.
And they just to leave. And so wise men show up. And what they say is, We've seen signs that this is the king. We've seen signs that this is who we're supposed to worship. And their response is to an infant worship. And they open up their treasures, and they give to him, and they worship him as king.
13 Through 15, we're not going to read it, but it just says that in a dream, Joseph is warned that Herod's going to try to kill Jesus. And so they go to Egypt. So Herod does what kings do. He defends his throne with absolute authority. He just declares, Go in there, round up all males, two years older, younger, kill them. And they do.
But Joseph's family had been warned, and so they had left. Herod was a bad dude. He was kind of psychotic. He killed a lot of people. He killed a lot of his wives. He had more than one because he kept killing them.
He killed a lot of his wives and a lot of his sons. And one of the emperors actually said that it's better to be Herod's pig than his son, which is a Greek joke because pig and son sound similar. And so he made a little pun about, a little joke about, because he's Jewish, so Jewish people don't eat pigs. So he's like, if you want to be safe and live in Herod's house, be his pig, not his son, because he's going to kill you if you're his son. Because every time Herod started noticing anybody around him getting a little bit of power, he got rid of them, forcibly. So these wise men show up and say, we're here to worship the king, the capital K king, the prophesied king.
And Herod says, yeah, me too. Oh, that'd be great. Tell me where he is. And then when they trick him, he just kills all the infants he can find. Wise men want to worship, want to bow down, want to give everything in submission to Jesus. And Herod, because he has some authority, wants to defend it.
Now here's what's true. Jesus is the king in the line of David, the king, who is an eternal king. Which means that his rule and his reign comes to us through history because he is eternal. See, Jesus died, but he didn't stay dead. Everyone in this room is going to die. I saw a statistic recently that death rate in America is hovering right around 100%.
It's like 10 out of 10 people. It's really sad. Everyone in this room is going to die, and I can tell you something about you. You're going to stay dead. We won't have your funeral and then eat with you a week later. That's what they did with Jesus.
That's irregular. It is. And then he ascended into heaven, and he exists still and rules and reigns. And he is the eternal king who has eternal dominion. And one day he will return, conquer all of his enemies. Scripture tells us this.
And then he will have his kingdom forever. We have the same options that we hear in this story. We can, like the wise men, submit, worship. Or we can, like Herod, fight and defend our kingdom. Those are the options we have. Everyone in this room, you're going to make that decision.
If you decide to not do anything with Jesus, you've made that decision. I'll be king, thanks. I'll be in charge, thanks. That's how it works. Let me tell you something that's very true. You love being king.
It's your favorite. You don't think about it a whole lot, but you really love being in charge of what you do. I love being in charge of what I do. That's why I love being an American. That's why I own, like, 12 guns. Because I get to be in charge of what I do.
And if someone tries to keep me from being in charge of what I do, up until a point, let's go. It's go time. We love it. Let me tell you something else that's true about you. You're a terrible king. You're the worst at it.
You love it, but you're bad at it. You make horrible decisions. You give yourself the benefit of the doubt a lot, but you're terrible. Most of us are like, no, I'm a good king. I know I did eighth grade twice, and I'm in debt because I can't manage a budget. But I'm a great king.
And that's just not how it works. So the question becomes for us, is Jesus a good king? Because he declares that he's king. When a king shows up and declares that he's king, you have to do something with that. He is the eternal king. And so the question becomes, is he a good king?
Good king, good kingdom. Bad king, bad kingdom. Is he a hero? Is he a tyrant? And the second question that fits underneath that is, is he a better king than I am? Is he willing to do things for me that I'm not willing to do?
Is he willing to step in on my behalf when I can't fix situations? Is he a good king? Is he a hero? Matthew 1, verse 21 should be on the same page or a page back, depending on what your Bible looks like. Matthew 1, verse 21 says this. This is an angel talking to Joseph.
Jesus' adopted father. And he's talking about Mary. He says, Good kings defend their territory, ride in, and are heroes. You see, when you're in a place that's being ransacked, that has enemies, that's being torn down, you don't have walls, you don't have a defense, everything. A king rides up and says, I will fight for you. You say, thank you so much.
This place is a hot mess. We need some rules. We need some help here. Thank you. And when you feel like you have some control and some authority and things are going pretty well, you don't do that when a king shows up. But here's what it's saying.
It says that Jesus will save his people from their sins, which means that we have an enemy that we're losing to. That ultimately our problem is sin. That's what has marred us as humans. That's what's caused pain and destruction and rebellion. That's what's broken up our relationships. That's what's hurt us.
And that Jesus will save us from our sins. And what he did was he lived on earth a perfect, sinless life and died for us. That's why Jesus went to the cross. He died for us to pay for our sin. And then he rose again, rescuing us. And so I can tell you very definitively that Jesus is a good king.
And for every person in this room, he's a better king than you are. But ultimately, we've got the same two options. Follow, worship, love Jesus as king, or do everything we can to defend our own kingdom. With logical arguments. With excuses. With just, I don't want to get into that.
I don't want to think about it. I just want to do me. See, it's the choices. That's how it works. We're going to spend the next several weeks as we walk through this series. Just looking at what kind of kingdom does Jesus have?
What kind of king is he? We know that he's a hero that saves his people from their sins. But we're going to investigate a little more about what his kingdom looks like. But I just want everybody to know that Jesus is an eternal king. He does rule and he does reign. He is a good king.
And we all have the same options that they have. The band's going to come back up. We're going to sing some more. We're going to praise Jesus as king. Father, we thank you for your grace. We thank you that you are a good king.
That you did die on our behalf. God, we pray that through your Holy Spirit you would lead us. To like the wise men bow and worship you as a good king. Even though we seek to do everything we can to defend our own kingdom, our own sovereignty. Thank you, Jesus. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.