What Child is This? 4

Intro

This is our last sermon in our advent series

You guys excited for Christmas?

Does anyone have any Christmas traditions

What are some traditions you guys do?

As we end our advent series this morning

I have mentioned this every week

We don’t celebrate Christmas for Santa

Presents under the tree

Or Mariah Careys greatest hits

We do it to celebrate the birth of our Messiah

Whose name is?? help me out

Jesus was born of an immaculate birth

And as we talked about last week/ Jesus born in stables and placed in a manger.

There were shepherds in the fields with their sheep and they went to go see Jesus .

However the story doesn’t just end with Jesus being born

Before we get there I want to talk about the name of our series

As I have shared each week many times when we think of the Christmas story

We think of This (SLIDE)

However this is much different than how the Bible explains it

There would have been much more stress, pain, and even frustration

Mary and Joesph were real people

That had real emotions

And so my hope for you as we go into this series

A new view of This story

A new view of the characters in this story

A new view of the Little baby in the manger

A new view of Christmas as a whole

Same as the past few weeks have alot of scripture to cover

Stand and read

Candy for who brought their Bible

Matthew 2:13–23 “After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance. Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.” When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.””

The last few weeks all of our points started with things about Jesus. saying that “Jesus is”

We are going to do that again today, but it will be “God is”

1. God protects his plan

Matthew 2:13–15 “After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.””

How many of you guys know those dudes are?

Those guys are Orville and Wilbur Wright AKA

the wright brothers. who knows what they did significantly in history

They created and successfully flew the first air plane

I actually got to go see where they flew the first plane at which is kitty hawk NC right near the Outer Banks

Thats where the first flight was however does anyone know where they were from?

Dayton OH

However what I find most interesting about the wright brothers

On paper what they did never should have worked

They had so many things going against them, and truthfully. its a surprise that they were succesful

They had slim to none when it came to funding

neither of them had engineering degrees

They were constantly mocked so much in the newspapers

There were so many other government organizations who were also pursing the same thing

however even though they had all of things going against them they still were able to create the plane

It was almost as if it was meant to happen

I share this story because

As we look at our scripture we see almost the same “against the odds kind of story”

you have a newborn baby

fresh out of the womb baby

with two parents who are just normal people

don’t come from any royalty

against one of the most cruel, and notably insane rulers at the time

I was doing some research, and I am going to get a little bit PG here for a moment

During King Herods life he ruled in a constant state of paranoia

So much so that during his reign is estimated that he was the responsible for around 7,000-10,000 killings during his reign

King Herod didn’t just order for the mass killings of jewish babies that we see in our story

He ordered mass executions of court officals, loyalists that he didn’t like, and politcal rivals.

Herod was so cruel that he ordered killing of his own family

He killed his wife, His mother-in-law, and 3 of his own sons

all that being said

You have this power crazy king

against a literal child

but what happens?????

An angel sent by God intervenes

And the plan that the Lord has is protected.

From our worldly view this makes no sense

right it almost sounds like a sucide mission

But regardless of the fear they felt

regardless of the power Herod had

Regardless of the fragile state of newborn baby Jesus

God protects his plan

so here is what i want you hear this morning

Your Yes to Jesus is enough

what do I mean by that

Mary and Joesph didn’t know what was going to happen to them

But they gave a yes to Jesus

If you remember that angel came to Mary and Joesph before this whole thing started

And they both said yes to Jesus

God protected them

For so many of us we have given Jesus our yes, but we still live in fear

We are afraid that we still aren’t good enough for God

We are afraid that he is going to change is mind about us

We are afraid that we have let him down to many times

And I believe God wants to tell some of you this Christmas season

“If you are mine. you are apart of my plan”

And NOTHING. I mean NOTHING can change that

because someone at least one person in here has to be dealing with that

You have gone to summer camp, winter retreat, kids camp, you were in ignite

But you still leave those spaces and you wonder

am I good with God? does he really love me? Does he really want me?

And constantly clawing to try and be good enough

When God is simply asking for your yes

2. Evil Exists

Matthew 2:16“Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.

Have you guys ever had someone that you wanted nothing to do with

When I was kid in 3rd there was a kid that drove me nuts

Gage

All the time he always wanted to be the center of attention

I thought he was annoying

But he feel like he constantly followed me

Picked on me

I share this because

in our story we see from the moment that Jesus is born there is already someone that is out to get him

Some one who was annoyed by him

The scripture shows us that Evil exists, but not only that it exists, but that it is after Jesus

here is what I want you to hear

When we follow Jesus, The devil doesn’t like it

I don’t say that to make you afraid

But I tell you because it is an important reminder

When we serve Jesus there will be opposition

When you step out in faith there will be times that it is not easy

fear can set it

Nervousness can set in

Now another thing that is important for us to note

Not everything is a demonic attack right?

Evil exists, but if you don’t study at all for a test, and get a bad grade thats not the devils fault thats your fault

Thats like praying to get somewhere safely and then texting and driving the whole way there

But evil is real

The devil does exist, and the more that he can make you live in fear

The more he can keep you away from following Jesus he is going to do it

But here is what I want you to hear that will hopfefully help you

God is Bigger

Its a simple truth

But its true

How many of ya’ll watched Veggie Tales growing up

God is bigger than the Boogie man

3. God can use even Tragedy for His plan

Matthew 2:17–18 “Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”

I have a friend who I have known for years

And I remember right at the beginning of our freindship in the span of less than a year

His Gradfather passed away

And just a few months later his 23 year old sister died of brain cancer

And I will never forget going through this whole prcoesss with him

One of the craziest things that stuck out to me was seeing how his view of God changed

He had had a relationship with God

But after he had dealt with the deepest trajedy that he possibly could have experienced

He was on fire for the Lord

Don’t get me wrong, he struggled

He greived, and it was hard

But what truly stuck out to me was how God used something so tragic to do something so significant in his life

And so when we think about our scripture

And we hear that babies infants were killed

Murdered

Think about the trajedy that is attached to just that alone

But God looks at this situation, and says “You know what I have a plan”

Here is what I want you to hear

In Christ nothing is wasted

Our stories

The things that we have had to go through

The tragedies that we have experienced

The moments in life where you wondered “why?”

Whatever story you have in this room

I want you to know was not for nothing

Romans 8:28 -

New International Version (2011) Chapter 8

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose

A very famous verse, but it points to ONE main truth

That in ALL things works for the good of those who love him

In what things?

All things

Your story is not for nothing

The pain that you have felt is not for nothing

The struggles that you have endured \

The way that that person hurt you wasn’t for nothing

God takes Broken things and makes them beautiful

As we already shared Evil is real

We are a broken world with sinners who do horrible things

But God is saying

“look I have a way out”

“And it starts with that Baby in the manger”

4. God fulfills his plans even if it is in unexpected ways

Matthew 2:19–23 “When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

In 2009 The Stockholm subway station in Sweden

had a problem

they wanted more people to use the stairs

They had like many Subway stations have

a set of stairs and right next to it an escalator

And can you guess what more people used?

Correct.

And so sweedan started come up with way to fix this problem

They wanted more people to be healthy

But also just wanted there to be less wear and tear on the escalators

Can you guess what they did?

They did what any normal person would think of

and They turned the entire set of stairs in a fully functioning giant size piano

Funny enough this actually fixed their problem

more people wanted to use the stairs

play notes as they go up

try to play songs

More and more people decided to ditch the escaltor and use the stairs

I give this example becasue it fixed their problem right. they wanted more people to use the stairs and it worked .

however the way they went about it was not all what you were expected right

In our brains we thing

“Of they could just build another escalator

Or just make the stairs bigger so more people have to use them right

But instead the problem is solved in such an unexpected way

In our scripture this is exactly what God does

It tells us that all the stuff I just read happened to full fill whats in the old testment

that Jesus was supposed to be Nazarene

Now what I find interesting was how it happened

It could have just been that Mary and Joesph moved their on there own

Or that there was a really good job opportunity there

But no

Our story has got angels directing people

People trying to kill Jesus as a newborn

Waiting on Kings to die to move

here is what I want you to hear this morning

God doesn’t always do things the way that we think he will

That may sound so obvious when you hear it

however it is good reminder

There are so many times in life that God does things not the way that you expect him to

You pray for courage, and God will sometimes start put you in positions where you have to wrestle with fear

You pray for patience and then you get assinged seats at school right next to the kid that you can’t stand

You pray for clear direction, and you find yourself in a postion where you have multiple different options

The point is God doesn't always do things with a snap of his finger

Many times in our lives we walk through a process with God

and he is not doing that to confuse

Irritate us or anything

He wants us to trust him

Just like Mary and Joseph did

it even says in our scripture that Joseph felt fear

But he still trusted the direction that God wanted to take him, Mary, and Joseph

Prayer

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