Upside Down Christmas - Week 2

INTRO:

- When I was in high school, I had an obsession with soccer jerseys. Anyone watching the World Cup this year? You ever notice that soccer jerseys are just some of the coolest styling and design? I freaking love them. But here’s the thing, soccer jerseys are expensive. And your boy wasn’t exactly “flush with cash.” Luckily, a buddy of mine found this great website where we could by authentic jerseys (of any sport) for pennies on the dollar. I’m talking, they were like $15 a piece. We had discovered a gold mine. We were buying jerseys left and right. We were running a distribution center. My guy would buy these jerseys by the truckload, and we would dish them out to everyone who ordered them. I had so many jerseys of all my favorite soccer players in the world. But I need to tell y’all something. Those jerseys said they were authentic, but in case you hadn’t connected all the dots yet, they absolutely weren’t. They were, shall we say, fake. They looked shiny and new for about 1 or 2 wears, but as soon as they got thrown in the wash 1 time, they disintegrated. The numbers were gone, the stitching would rip, gone, kablooie, toast. So, now, I have a box in my garage of these old jerseys. They were once beautiful and shiny and I thought they were great, but now I can never wear them because they’re ruined. One wash showed me what they really were—fake. And I tell that story because that’s exactly what Matthew is trying to show us in Jesus’s birth story. You see, at the time of Jesus’s birth, there was a fake king on the throne. And Matthew is trying to show us that fake kings are not meant to rule our lives. He’s ultimately trying to show us this…and if you’re taking notes tonight, I would encourage you to write this down…

Jesus’s upside-down kingdom is the only kingdom worth being in.

{PRAY}

BODY

If you haven’t already turned there, go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew 2.

Transition: The first way that Matthew shows us that Jesus’s upside-down kingdom is the only kingdom worth being in is by highlighting this reality…

There are two kings.

“Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” (Matthew 2:1-4, ESV).

- Do you notice how often Matthew uses the word “king” in these early sentences? He is carefully setting up a tension that we might not at first glance catch or feel: there are two kings in this story. And they’re both claiming to rule the same land and the same people.

Herod is one of the kings.

Jesus is the other king.

- Let’s think about the contrast of these two kings.

Herod lives in a palace // Jesus was born in a manger

Herod fought and clawed his way to the top // Jesus never had to fight because the kingdom was rightfully his.

Transition: Which leads us to the next truth in tonight’s passage that shows us that Jesus’s upside-down kingdom is the only one worth being in because…

Jesus is the unlikely yet promised king.

“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,” (Matthew 2:5-6, ESV).

- This is not the first time Matthew has used the phrase, “spoken by the prophet” or “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken.” In fact, in these early chapters, Matthew will use this phrase 5 times.Matthew is going to great lengths to do his homework and research. He’s doing some beautiful and masterful Old Testament Bible study here. He is showing us that: Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament hopes.This is a side note, for free, tonight: We cannot fully appreciate the magnitude of Jesus’s coming and the power of the gospel without the Old Testament. And Matthew realizes this. By just including 5 examples of Old Testament prophecy about Jesus, Matthew is showing his audience and us, that the whole story of the Bible leads us to Jesus.

So, you might be thinking, if that’s true, how was he really “unlikely”?

Well, I’m sure that you all have experienced this before, when you have certain expectations that don’t end up matching reality? Maybe your parents told you something was coming, or that you were going to get a really special gift at Christmas. And you thought it was going to be a PS5 and you were planning out your entire Christmas break thinking of how you could use every last minute to play the new season of Fortnite. And then you opened your gift, and it was a pair of hand-knitted socks from your great-great-granny. You heard “a really special gift” and your mind filled in the blanks with what you thought would be really special. But your parents meant something really special in an entirely different way.

- So, here’s what happened: Jesus did in fact fulfill all of the long-expected prophecies about the coming Messiah, God’s promised Savior and King who would defeat Israel’s enemies and conquer the world. But he didn’t do it the way that Israel expected. Israel expected a king like Herod—that’s why they were so okay with letting him rule over them, despite the wickedness that he caused. And this is why the religious leaders got so mad at Jesus when he claimed to be the Messiah—it wasn’t that they weren’t expecting a Messiah to come. It was that they never expected their Messiah to be such an upside-down, inverted version of their expectations.

- Tonight, I don’t want to take us through all 300+ Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled, I just want to look at the small case study that Matthew is highlighting for us in his gospel account:

You see, there’s something really beautiful and powerful that Matthew does that shows us the spiritual reality underneath the historical events that were happening around Jesus’s birth. Matthew shows us just how wide and deep and how tragic the gap was between these two kings. And just how destructive it was that Israel had adopted a fake king (Herod) as their ruler.

Transition: Through some really intricate weaving of biblical easter eggs and prophecies, Matthews shows us that…

Herod is a new snake, but Jesus is the snake crusher.

- Now, let me explain. I’m going to take you guys all the way back for a minute to the very beginning of the Bible’s story. Remember where Adam and Eve were placed? The Garden of Eden. Remember how Satan took the form of a snake in the Garden and tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit that led to them to be kicked out of the Garden? So, in Genesis 3, God is laying out the consequences of their sinful choice—their removal from the Garden being one of them, the pain and toil and death that has entered the world another, and then he turns to curse the snake. God addresses Satan and tells him that even though he was scheming to try to bring ruin to humanity, God is actually going to bring life and light out of darkness. And in Genesis 3:15, we get the first promise of Jesus ever. But you may have missed it because it’s really cryptic and poetic. Because of this, I’m going to read this in the NIV translation, because in this verse this translation captures a nuance that gets a bit lost in other translations:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel,” (Genesis 3:15, NIV).

- And you’re sitting there thinking, how on earth does a woman’s child crushing a snake’s head point to Jesus?

Well, that’s the great question the Old Testament was trying to answer!

All throughout the story, Satan keeps coming back to attack God’s people—the snake that was in the garden reappears time and time again to keep coming after the woman’s (Eve’s) offspring.

Ultimately, what happens is that Satan appears in the story of the Bible not just as a snake in the Garden, but in the way he controls and influences some of the great and famous villains of the Old Testament story. The “snake” that is constantly at war with the “offspring of Eve” is seen throughout the Old Testament in all the ways that the enemies of God’s people tried to attack and destroy them.

One of the most famous examples of this happening occurs in Exodus.

Many of you are probably familiar with this story. God’s people, Israel, are a nation enslaved in Egypt. The Pharoah (king of Egypt) hates them and is fearful that they are going to overthrow him because they are too strong and numerous, so he orders all the baby boys to be killed. There is a great tragedy in human history recorded right there in Exodus chapter 1. Pharoah kills an entire generation of Israelite boys. It’s horrifying. And this atrocity leads the Israelites to cry out to God and God ultimately delivers them out of Egypt in the famous exodus (10 plagues, parting the Red Sea, all that).

Why do I go back and replay that horrible event? Because, it was one of the ways that the “enmity (or anger and hatred) of the snake” played out against the “offspring of the woman.” God said in Genesis 3:15 that what happened in the Garden between Satan and Eve was going to get played out over and over again until one day, one child of a woman was going to defeat this great enemy. Pharoah in Egypt is depicted as a new snake attacking the offspring of the woman—it’s like the villain of the story heard the prophecy and didn’t want his head to get crushed, so he decided to eliminate the possible snake crushers. You guys tracking so far?

- Because this is why I recap all of that: Matthew has depicted Herod as the new Pharoah. He’s the wicked king who is ruling over God’s people, Israel. And he is so afraid of what this offspring of the woman (Mary’s child—Jesus!!) is going to do to him and to his kingdom, that he starts killing the children of Israel.

- In Matthew 2:16-18, we read of another tragedy in human history:

“Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more,’” (Matthew 2:16-18, ESV).

- Notice what’s happened? Herod does exactly what Pharoah did. Herod, the king of Israel, the fake king, has recommitted the sins of Egypt. He has attacked the children of God. Matthew has cleverly shown us that Herod is the new snake from Genesis 3:15.

The hatred that God predicted would follow the snake and the children of the woman has come true in the story of Jesus’s birth. And it’s tragic.

But, if Herod is the snake in the story…who does that make Jesus?

Jesus is the offspring of the woman who has come to crush the head of the snake!

Said a different way…

Jesus is better than the fake kingdoms of the world.

- Matthew has shown us in just a few early chapters that this baby who was born, that we celebrate at Christmas, is really the true and rightful king of Israel. And more than that, he is the fulfillment of the ancient promise. He is the child who has come to deal a final and defeating kill shot to the snake—to Satan himself.

- Jesus didn’t come just to topple Herod’s fake kingdom. He didn’t come just to flip Jerusalem upside-down. He came to destroy the power that Satan had on the world. Jesus came to defeat evil at its core.

And that’s why this still matters today.

That’s why this is good news for you and for me.

Because while we aren’t living under King Herod’s rule and reign, we are living in a world that is still under the authority of what Paul would call “rulers and principalities” in Ephesians 2.

There are still fake kings and kingdoms that we give ourselves over to. And they promise to fulfill us and satisfy us, but really they don’t. The tricky part is, these kings are more abstract and harder to nail down—to name a few, they are; consumerism, idolatry, greed, envy, jealousy, the desire for power or pleasure.

These fake kings will try to convince us that they’re real and powerful and worth devoting our lives to. But like Herod, they will fail. And like Herod, they will eventually lead to destruction and ruin in our lives.

But Jesus came to topple those kingdoms and offer a radically upside-down way of living, a radically upside-down gospel. Not of power-grabbing and greed and status, but of lowly, humble servant-hearted love and compassion. This is the king that we celebrate and worship at Christmas. This is the king who gave his life for us, to defeat the power of the snake once and for all. This is the king who defeated death by dying in our place and rising from the grave. And he offers us true and lasting life. And tonight, the invitation is there for you to trust him as your king and enter freely into his kingdom.

CONCLUSION

But the reality is that some of you here tonight may not think following Jesus means giving up the things of this world. You would much rather continue to live under the rule and reign of the kingdoms of this world, keeping chasing after consumerism and wealth and status and all those things, because really they aren’t nearly as bad as I’m making them out to sound.

To recall the opening illustration, if the worst thing you’re going to get out of a life not lived for Jesus in his kingdom is a jersey with peeling letters, that’s not that bad of a gig.

And you would be right. But there was more to the story.

- You see, when I was in college, I really wanted some more jerseys. I couldn’t go to my buddy who had the hook up anymore, so I had to do it myself. Luckily, I was able to find the website that he ordered the jerseys from and I was able to find the jersey that I wanted by clicking through the super sketchy website and I was able to type in all the numbers to my credit card which I had just received and I ordered the jersey for myself. I waited expectantly for that package to arrive and to get to wear my shiny, cheap but “authentic” jersey around campus. And I kept waiting. The jersey never came. But what did come was something much, much better. Bankruptcy! My credit card got hacked (did anyone see that coming? College freshman Garrett certainly didn’t)! The website was obviously fake and a scam. It was designed to do exactly what it did to me. And I lost all the money that was in my bank account. You see, for a long time, I thought the worst thing that would come out of that website was a jersey that might get ruined in the wash. No big deal. But eventually, I discovered that the real cost of buying those jerseys was opening myself up to have all my money stolen.

- Please hear me, students, there is a cost to every decision we make. There is a cost to choosing to not follow Jesus. There is a cost associated with continuing to live a life following the kings and kingdoms of this world. You might not feel it at first, but eventually, it will catch up with you. God will keep pursuing you and pursuing you and chasing after you, but if you continue to live without him eventually God may just give you what you want. And that is not what we want for you.

- The cost to enter into Jesus’s kingdom might mean giving up certain privileges and desires that you had, but the gain is life eternal. Abundant life in his kingdom. Peace that surpasses understanding. Hope inside the storm. And so much more. So…

even though Jesus’s kingdom may look upside-down, it is really the only kingdom worth being in.

Tonight, my prayer and hope is that you would choose Jesus’s upside-down kingdom.