Who Will Bring The Good News?

Intro:

Last week we studied Luke chapter two verse one through twenty.

This is a passage that most have heard many, many times. It is one of the main passages that is read during the Christmas season.

In it, we see the story of three main characters.

The Shepherds, Mary, and Joseph.

What God was trying to help us see is that He chooses whom He will call and that calling isn’t based on our natural abilities or talents.

God calls those that are willing to say yes to the call.

As we step out in faith, God provides everything we need to accomplish the work that we are called to.

In the Christmas narrative, we see that God uses three very unlikely players.

They were unlikely, not based on God’s standards, but on the standards of their culture.

Mary was a young, unknown Jewish girl.

Joseph too was young and unknown.

The shepherds were extremely low on the societal scale as well.

This begs us to ask the question: Why did God choose to use and reveal himself through them and what does that mean for you and me?

We often make the assumption that the people that God is going to call certain people to do things.

We base this belief on how the world operates.

If you are really good at your job and work hard, you will get the promotion. You will get greater responsibilities.

While that can also be true of our calling, that call is not based on that merit alone.

All believers are asked by God, to partake in ministry, not just a chosen few.

God doesn’t use the same metrics that the world does.

He doesn’t choose us based on past performance or qualifications.

He calls us based on what He knows we are capable of.

(That is always far more than we consider!)

God often specifically chooses those that the world overlooks.

That is exactly why He called Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.

God choose them because they could be trusted to obey God’s directive and they couldn’t take credit for what God was doing.

God could trust them to say yes and He could trust them to follow through with the task that He gave them.

It was because of their devotion to God that they were chosen.

It was also because of their devotion that the hope and joy that the world had been longing for finally arrived.

We discussed that neither Mary or Joseph was ready to have a baby, much less the savior of the world being born into a world that wanted him dead.

Yet God knew more about those two than they even knew about themselves.

He knew that with His help they were more than capable of taking care of Jesus.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the sinless savior of the world was entrusted to a couple of sinners?

Today we are going to look at Matthew chapter two.

This is a passage that is typically reserved for after Christmas because it happens well after Christ's birth, but as I have prayed and studied this week, I have felt led to preach this passage.

Let’s read together about the coming of the Three Wisemen, then I will show you what God has been revealing to me this week, and then we will make some application.

Matthew 2:1–12 ESV

1 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, 2 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.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: 6 “ ‘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.’ ” 7 Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 8 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.” 9 After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. 12 And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

So as I was reading this passage this week and asking myself questions about it, I stumbled across something that had never dawned on me before.

Now, remember, I’ve grown up in church and have heard this passage preached many times.

I find it really interesting that these Wisemen are the ones that see the star and are searching for the “King of the Jews”.

Here’s what we can infer from this passage.

They were not Jewish.

They had heard some of the prophecies, but not all of them.

They were watching for the sign that the prophecy had been fulfilled.

They went searching for what they believed to be that sign.

Now, you and I have spent the last year studying Exodus and have talked at length about the fact that all of Isreal was waiting, hoping, and praying for the fulfillment of God’s promise that He would send someone that could restore their relationship with God.

God’s people missed Him.

The people that have been waiting for thousands of years.

The people that had certain men set aside, whose sole responsibility was to commune with God on the people’s behalf.

Those people who had Angels declare his arrival to the shepherds.

They missed Him.

Even though they knew all the details of his coming they didn’t know He had arrived.

Dead Religion - There are many of us in this room that have spent years trying to rid ourselves of dead religion.

This church being planted was the result of that desire to leave what was dead and experience for ourselves, who God is.

I want to be clear that I am not bad mouthing other churches. We were willing participants in that deadness until God finally got through to us that there was more.

God revealed Himself to us, taught us how to hear His voice, and to abide in Him.

We were really excited and growing in that relationship, but at some point we stopped growing and became complacient.

In our passage today, we see these Scribes and Priest, whose job it is to be in communication with God.

If God was speaking, these are the men that He would be speaking too.

But they missed God.

They knew all the prophecies.

We know this because when Herod ask them where this Christ was foretold to be born, they knew!

They had all the information and the star was in the sky, but rather than them seeing it and understanding, they had to be informed by these outsiders that they had missed the single most important moment in all of history!

Here is my fear.

I’m afraid that in our complacency, we have become just like scribes and priests.

Here we are, with all the information, yet we are missing God.

We have been here for five years.

We know how to hear from God.

However, we have been here for five years.

We know how to abide.

This place should be busting at the seams with people.

We should have a need to start new life groups on a regular basis.

We should be needing to start another TGP because this building is too small.

I

All of this growth that I’m describing isn’t the result of a church growth plan.

It would be the result of a group of believers that are so in love with God that they cannot help but tell everyone they know about how amazing He is.

God’s activity in our lives would be all the evangelism we would ever need.

John 4:14–15 ESV

14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus is describing the process that happens in us when we come to know him.

He becomes like a spring, welling up inside of us.

Describe a spring - they may not know what that is.

We studied the book of Acts.

We have seen what happens when people devote themselves to the teaching of the word and loving one another as Christ did.

Look with me at the first chapter of John.

John 1:1–5 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:9–13 ESV

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

john 1:9-13

John is telling the sharing the same facts that Matthew does in his gospel.

He came to the world, to his people, and they did not know him.

BUT some did...

“To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.

John is saying the same thing that we have been saying for years.

This isn’t up to us to complete some great work for God.

John is very clearly saying that some missed him, but others did not.

Which are we going to be? Which are you going to be?

John is reminding us that it was not due to anything that the people did.

It was God. God does the work.

He offers the light to all, but not all are willing to receive it.

In Utmost this morning, Oswald says this,

“When God begins to draw me to Himself, the problem of my will comes in immediately. Will I react positively to the truth that God has revealed? Will I come to Him? When God speaks, never discuss it with anyone as if to decide what your response may be (see ). Belief is not the result of an intellectual act, but the result of an act of my deliberate will whereby I deliberately commit myself.”

-Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers, 12.22.19

We can either will to follow Christ or we can will not to. There is no other option.

Jump back with me to Matthew and let’s see what happens when we will to not follow God.

Matthew 2:13–15 ESV

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

God’s people hated Him.

God’s people, who were waiting for their savior, try to have him killed.

How crazy is this!?

After all the years of waiting, longing, and asking for God to send them a savior, they respond by trying to have Him killed.

Let me ask you a question.

What is the difference in seeking to kill God versus killing his activity?

The book of John starts with the statement; “in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”

Track with me on this.

God is the word.

When God speaks things happen. His word is His activity.

When He speaks a word into your life, and you ignore it when you act as if it doesn’t exist, or you purposefully forget it, what are you doing?

You are in essence, killing that word of God.

You are seeking to do the very same thing that Herod tried to do.

You are killing the work of God.

God does not speak frivolously.

If He speaks to you it is for a very specific purpose and that purpose is to reveal himself to you and to those in your proximity.

mat 2:16-18

Matthew 2:16–18 ESV

16 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. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “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.”

In verses 16-18 we see that Herod ordered the massacre of all of the male children in Bethlehem and the surrounding region.

I have said this so many times and I feel like we still don’t get it.

How we respond doesn’t just affect us.

Our response can make the difference between life and death, joy and sorrow for the people in our lives.

To complete the thought from the last point that I made, about fear.

My fear is that we are purposefully ignoring God and in doing so we are creating our own flavor of dead religion.

The result of this is to raise up a new generation that is also trapped in that deadness.

We are condemning them to a life of dead religion that we have tried so hard to escape from.

God’s people passed down death.

At the very end of this passage we see that years pass by, Herod dies, but the hatred that he felt towards Jesus did not.

He passed that to his son.

Matthew 2:19–23 ESV

19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” 21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. 23 And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

We are all a product of our upbringing.

This is true for both our physical and spiritual lives.

You are the product of the household you grew up in and you are the product of the church you grew up in.

Don’t believe me? wait until one of your kid's steps on your last nerve and tell me you don’t sound just like your mom or dad when you fuss at them.

If you compare your spiritual life of today with that of the one you had in years past, you are going to see some similarities with those that frustrated you before.

Can we change?

Sure, but not on our own.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make the change in our lives.

He will prompt the change, but we must have the will to allow those changes to happen.

We must continue to grow.

I was telling someone last night that if we aren’t growing we are dying.

You see this in nature everywhere.

The moment anything stops growing, it starts dying and unless something changes, that death process will continue until it is complete.

Closing:

We have spent the last five years learning what it means to be the church.

We did a year on who we are called to be as a TGP church and how to spread the Gospel.

We did a year walking through the gospels with the sole purpose of discovering who Jesus is through his interactions with people.

We spent a year on what it means to live in community.

We spent a year on what it means to be a multiplied community.

We spent a year on joining God to set people free.

How long will we hear these same messages and not respond?

God’s call for our church is to know Him and to make Him known.

We have been given more training on how to do that then most people will get in their entire lives!

This is not a complicated process and God has been clear on the expectation that he has for us.

I can’t speak for you, but I will never be satisfied with just doing church.

Life is too short and knowing God is the only thing that matters!

This is why we were created.

We celebrate Christmas because we can see that the promise of God has been fulfilled.

We know eternal life because Jesus humbled himself to come as a babe.

I know that typically, the messages before Christmas are warm, fuzzy kind of things that make us feel good about ourselves.

I am aware that this is not that kind of message.

God has called us to be a community of people that set others free.

We should take that very seriously.

It should be way at the top of our priority list, not somewhere near the bottom.

My hope and prayer for us as a church is that we as a church would have a very serious contemplation of the gift we have been given.

Christmas is about celebrating the beginning of the good news for our people.

Our celebration should be part of the way that we share the gospel.

As we spend time with friends and family this week, give serious thought to your call as a believer.

Ask God to reveal the ways that he is working in the lives of the people you are with this week.

Ask him how you are to be involved in that work.