The King of Lights
Notes
Transcript
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had thought this over, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name him Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
Christians have hope no matter how hopeless today seems.
We have a King who is Defeating Evil.
We have a Hero Restoring Wholeness.
We Have a Father Drawing Close.
Introduction
Introduction
Christians have hope no matter how hopeless Today Seems.
Christians have hope no matter how hopeless Today Seems.
Why?
Matthew 1:18–20 (NASB 2020)
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. 20 But when he had thought this over, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
Imagine for a moment that you are Joseph. You are engaged to the love of your life. You are planning both a wedding and a life together. You dream of a future with your significant other. Of having kids, grandkids, working otgether, laughting together, crying together.
And then in an instant your entire future seems to dissolve into nothing by your fiance letting you know that she is pregnant.
Look at this painting by James Tissot a french painter.
Can you feel the anxiety. The weight on this man. He has work to do but he is consumed by the tension of what he is going to do.
And then the angel comes and tells you about the hope that you have for a future. The hope that we are able to have in common today. And it centers around the identity of the unborn child.
The first reason that Joseph, Christians and disicples of Jesus are able to have hope is that:
We have a King who is Defeating Evil
We have a King who is Defeating Evil
See, the angel does not just say that Joseph is going to be a dad. That Mary is not lying. More is revealed here by the angel and the writer of this story Matthew.
First, Joseph is called “Son of David”.
Second, the story begins with “the birth of Jesus Christ”.
Now, if you are like I was as a young Christian , you believed that Christ is his last name. But it is not! It is a title. It would be like me walking around and people calling me Patrick Pastor.
In the original language it is “Jesus the Christ.” OR. “Jesus the MESSIAH” OR “Jesus the Anointed one.”
What does this have to do with anything?
Context.
All that they had was Hope. Hope that a King was coming who would defeat evil.
And so at the time of Jesus birth there was an equal part political, religious movement…what Josepheus called “a Philosophy” That said it was time for “God alone to be King.”
“They saw no prospect of any human leader arising from such quarters to do what had to be done, to fight the battle, overthrow the pagans, cleanse and restore the temple, to establish the long awaited rule of Justice and peace.” - NT Wright
Now in their imagination there had only ever been one king that had personified this. That God had worked through in this way. King David.
13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah.
David is known as the Anointed one. The one who God worked through. God’s spirit coming upon him and working through him.
Now David not only worked for God, but he was incredibly close to God. He was known as a man after God’s own heart. He Loved God more than anything or anyone. The book of Psalms in the bible is mostly written by him or inspired by him.
One event though for David changed everything. When David was king, living in a giant palace, he saw where the people went to worship God. Where God dwelt. And it was a tent. So David decided to build God a Temple. A temple that became the focal point of Jerusalem. A Wonder of the world at the time.
And because David did this, God made this promise to him.
12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.
God is promising that in the future, one of David’s offspring would have a kingdom that is established by God. Forever. And he would be the Son of God. There is even apart about what is going to happen at easter.
And so Joseph and all the people in his life have this narrative. They have this hope that evil will be defeated by a son of David, an anointed king, who is a son of God. And they are just waiting for him.
Their music was full of songs like this
16 The Lord is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
17 You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
so that mere earthly mortals
will never again strike terror.
Imagine being a people living under the rule of a cruel empire, and all you could do is hold onto this hope. Week after week singing about your coming rescue from the Anointed one. The Messiah. The Christ. The Son of David.
In an early Christian writing as they were thinking about this story, they wrote this
By addressing him as son of David, he sought to recall to his memory the promise of God to David, that of his seed should Christ be born.. - "PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM"
When I was 12 I was in a kickball league…
The angel is telling Joseph to not be afraid.
The king they are waiting for is here. There hope has arrived.
And not only that. But Joseph is getting to take part in the process. See Mary is pregnant with him. But he will not belong to the lingeage of David without being adopted by a Son of David.
What does the angel call Joseph?
Son of David. And then
21 She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
In their culture, when you named a child they became your own. Joesph is instructed to name the Child Jesus. Making him a son of David. Making him the fulfilled promised descendant of David.
And then notice his name. What does the name Jesus mean?
Jesus = God Saves
And if the Angel was not clear, Jesus was going to save them from their sins.
And so the second reason christians and Joseph can have hope in a hopeless day is
We have a hero restoring Relationship.
We have a hero restoring Relationship.
Now I know that Sin is such a churchy word. It has lost its teeth and gained a ton of baggage.
Sin is missing the mark of what we were created for.
Loving God and Loving others.
Relationship, Goodness, and Wholeness.
Sin is anything that breaks or misses that.
Now what is a point of tension throughout Jesus life is just this fact that he is saving people from sin.
Why? Remember, what are they all waiting for, a king to save them from the oppression and corruption. Of other people. They fail to see the disease they themselves have.
OFFICE
Israel could not see their own sinfulness. They could see they symptoms in the world around them. But they were blind to the disease in themselves.
In his book “The Prodigal God” Tim Keller talks about how both the older and younger son in the story of the Prodigal Son are at wrong. How? He describes sin like this?
Most people think of sin as failing to keep God’s rules of conduct, but, while not less than that, Jesus’s definition of sin goes beyond it. In her novel Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor says of her character Hazel Motes that “there was a deep, black, wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.” This is a profound insight. You can avoid Jesus as Savior by keeping all the moral laws. Tim Keller
Anytime that we are not in relationship with God, loving him and others, seeking good in the world with him, it is sin.
Israel was trying to be good apart from God.
Now, I love my wife. More than anything. She is my best friend, the mother of my child, the person I cant wait to spend everyday with.
And if she said she was leaving, I would do everything I could to convince her not to. But because I love her, I would not force her to stay. I love her enough to let her go the way she wants.
But what happens after that. If she has seperated from me can she enjoy the benefits of being with me?
Logically no.
To have the benefits you have to be in relationship.
And that is the problem that ultimately alot of people have. They want their cake and to eat it to. They want what they want the goodness of God. They want love, joy, hope, beauty…Life! But they want it without God.
As Mark Sayers says
“We want The Kingdom without the King”.
But the world does not work that way. So God hands us over to what we want.
We want freedom from God? He gives it to us?
We want to worship idols? He lets us worship idols.
We want to have a human king, have a human king?
You want to have sex with whoever you want whenever you want, go for it.
You want to eat whatever you want, go for it.
You want to talk, watch, do whatever you want… go for it.
But God cannot be apart of it.
And so can we have eternal life with God if we have walked away from him? No.
CS Lewis of the chronicles of narnia would describe Hell as the complete seperation from God and everything good about him and his creation.
No Love, No light, no joy, no relationship, no pleasure… nothing.
If you arnt sure look at what God does in scripture. He rarely actually punishes anyone. He constantly talks about handing people over to what they want.
For example, Israel wants to be like other nations, so they worship other gods, build armies and treasure like other nations, and what does God do? He treats them like other nations and removes his protection.
And so Israel is waiting for King to come and save them, they are waiting for God to save them, but they are living out of relationship with him.
But David can have Hope because a Hero is coming to restore Relationship.
Jesus did not come to save you and leave you alone. He came to save you and bring you home.
And so
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
The final reason we can have hope in a hopeless day, that Joseph can have hope in a hopeless day is that we have a Father Drawing us Home.
David Benner describes Immanuel like this.
“As Jesus has begun to become more human and real to me, the invisible God of whom he is the image has become more accessible. Jesus bridges heaven and earth, the human and the divine. If he is so divine that we cannot meet him in his humanity, God remains wholly Other. But in Jesus, God is present.- David Benner
There is a huge difference between someone being close and someone being far. Just think back to during COVID. It was great that we were able to skype, facetime, zoom or messenger our families. But none of us would pretend that it is the same as being with our friends and families.
And so while we were seperate from God, Jesus was God coming to us. Or as the Jesus Follower John said
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Or as Eugene Peterson Translates it.
14 The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
Moved into the neighborhood.
No longer was God distant. No longer was God’s love and goodness unavailable.
While we were running from God, God chose to come to us.
Jericho, and Christians throughout time could have hope because they had a Father that drawing them home.
We can have hope when the day is hopeless.
Because we have a king who is defeats evil
Because we have a hero who is restoring wholeness.
Because we have a Father who is drawing us home.
Now you may be listening and thinking. “Patrick I do not have hope. I have heard these things before but you are being overly spiritual. You are not living in the real world. Look at what is going on around us.”
And I get it. I feel that way too. There are days especially when the sun sets at 4pm, that everything feels hopeless. The cancer isnt going away, My child isnt going to behave, there is no good political options. Everything is expensive. Russia and china are getting too powerful.
Or some of us are saying “Patrick I would not consider myself a Hopeless person.
But listen to this definition. A Hopeless Person is a person that...
Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling (Hopelessness)
... believes that the failures that plague them are representative of their entire existence. These specific weaknesses and others will last forever because they are irresistible, internal variables that the persons carry with them. They do not attribute the shortcomings to the circumstances that surround them. Rather, they blame their circumstances on their personal inability to make life any better. They fail to see any way that they can solve the problem and brighten their future. Failure is not due to bad luck or difficult challenges. Their failures are due to a lack of intelligence, or beauty, or another personal flaw.
Do you believe that you always fail?
Can you not except where you may be at fault?
Do you have a vision for a better future?
These are all signs that you are hopeless.
But what if what Jesus says is true. What if the Message of Jesus is really Good News. What if it is true that God has drawn close, that evil has been defeated and restoration is possible. No just spiritual. But that Jesus wants complete physical, mental, social, political restoration.
Now there are three stories that will keep you from seeing that hope.
We have a rescuer from earth.
We have a spiritual guru.
We have a wise teacher.
These are antithetical to who Jesus is. These are antithetical to Jesus being hope to our world.
If he is a rescuerer then we are just stuck in the pain today.
If he is a spiritual guru then he has nothing to say about the physcial pain and brokenness in the world around us.
And if he is just a wise teacher, what he says may not be true. None of these offer us any kind of hope.
But here is the message that Jesus taught everywhere he went.
17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Jesus’ message to them then and us today is to turn this way for the kingdom of heaven is near?
Why is this a message of Hope?
Well lets look at the word kingdom for a moment.
Dallas Willard describes the word kingdom as
“the range of someone’s will”
So Kingdom of England.
Kingdom of Gondor.
Narnia
Personal Kingdoms.
Work Kingdoms
Sadie Kingdom.
Now in Genesis 1we see God’s mission for us
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
That word rule is a kingdom word. We were meant to live in God’s kingdom and rule it with him. In the domain of his will help him manage it.
What is God’s will?