Advent Week 5: To honor a King...

Well, it’s December 26th and we just had Christmas! I hope you had a wonderful day with family and friends. I also hope and pray that if this is a difficult time of year for you, for whatever reason, that you felt the comfort and peace of God.

As we’ve been looking at these last 4 weeks of advent I can’t help but be encouraged and also pray for those who need this Savior we celebrate the birth of. And I feel a bit like Paul says, “I need him most of all...”

/ / Jesus truly is our Hope. He really is our Peace. He is Joy unspeakable, unending and overflowing. And He is love itself. Jesus said in John 15:13-14, 17, / / There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command… This is my command: Love each other.

And whether we find great joy in Christmas, or great difficulty, He is all of those things. He gave his life, he became a sacrifice, so that we could experience the fullness of what we celebrate in Advent. Jesus gave everything of himself, so that we, who have nothing to give, could receive everything of who He is.

I’ve said this before, but I believe it is absolutely true, the greatest tactic of the enemy, the devil, anything or anyone that would try and keep you away from life and the goodness of God, the greatest weapon used against humanity is to make you think that you’re alone, and that alone is the best way to be.

For some reason as humanity when we are hurt we want to isolate. When we feel broken, we want to hide. When we’ve done what we feel is wrong, we want to disappear. When we feel ashamed, we want to shrink away. But the reality is that healing comes in community, healing comes in connectedness, healing comes in the humility of stepping out of what feels like a comfort zone, and embracing the connectedness of others, AS MANY TIMES AS IT TAKES, until we truly feel connected. We don’t always change instantly. It would be nice, and sometimes we experience miracles of God’s power that do instantly change us, but most of the time, in my experience, the change we experience in life is a journey. The power is the same, we wouldn’t ever have changed without God’s grace, but it’s usually a slower process than we want. We have to be committed to the journey of healing, of friendship, of connection. These things take time. I’ve shared this before, I had a very difficult time believing that anyone would ever love me. That’s not something that just disappeared, that’s something that changed as I learned to embrace friendship and eventually relationship.

I like to say around here that we’re all masterpieces, and remind ourselves we’re all a real piece of work. But it’s true. God made me something absolutely wonderful, and yet, I have been, and continue to be in this moment and until the day I die, be a work in progress. And I’m ok with that. I keep trying. I keep moving forward. I keep believing.

If the holiday season is difficult for you, there is comfort to be found!

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, / / “Come to ME, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

If you carry what feels like a heavy burden, Jesus has healing for you.

If you carry a weight that seem to much to bear. If you are tired, weary, broken and hurting. There is healing!

And this is why I say don’t run from community in those moments:

Paul wrote in Galatians 6:1-3, / / Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Now, that’s what Paul is saying to people who need to respond to the hurt and pain we see around us, but if we read between the lines a bit here, we easily see that when WE are the ones that are going through something, we can’t run and hide… we can’t shrink away from those around us. Isolation is not the answer. We are meant to find healing with those around us. And that does take a bit of humility, doesn’t it? I need to be comfortable enough to let you first SEE my burden, and second, HELP me with my burden.

Why is it that “I’m good” and “naw, I’m ok” have become such quick and easy answers? The reality is:

When I’m sad, I might need YOU to make me smile.

When I’m frustrated, I might need YOU to encourage me.

When I’m angry, I may need YOU to calm me down a bit.

When it’s Christmas, and I am reminded of the reasons that Christmas is difficult for me, I need to trust you enough and be humble enough to say, “Ya know what, Christmas isn’t the greatest time of year for me.” Or maybe this is the first year it is difficult because of new circumstances, new struggles.

One of my biggest frustrations is not with the people who isolate, because we all do these things to protect ourselves. It’s a human response to our human condition. No one can be faulted for that. But what frustrates me, and what makes me upset, is how the enemy works overtime to get people to think that way.

In the garden of Eden, when Adam & Eve ate the fruit of the tree they weren’t supposed to eat, it says in Genesis 3:8-11, / / When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”

“Who told you that you were naked?” The Lord God asked...

Interesting question, isn’t it?

Not, “You’re right you are… what shame.”

Or, “Yes, you always have been… what’s your point?”

No, God asks them, “Who told you that you were naked?”

See, the wonder of the garden of Eden before the fall of man was that there was nothing separating God and man. There was no fear. There was nothing that Adam & Eve felt exposed by. There was no shame.

We hide because we are ashamed.

We hide because we want to cover up.

We hide because we think we will be rejected if people see us as we truly are.

Or because we don’t want to deal with the hurt. We don’t want to face the pain. We want to ignore the feelings. We don’t want to be hurt again, go through what we did before. It feels easier to just ignore it, hide from it, walk away from it.

And I want you to know, life is not better hidden. Life is not better isolated. Life is not better going through it alone. I get that sometimes we need to just work some things out. I get that sometimes we need to think on some things, that we don’t fully understand. Some of us are internal processors, and all of that is ok, and all of that can be very healthy. But don’t allow the enemy to convince you that you’re better off alone.

Don’t let yourself be convinced that no one cares. Listen, we don’t always do it right. People don’t always get things the first time. We don’t always see right away what someone else needs and we might stumble in this thing called relationship and community, but that’s the whole point. We haven’t arrived at community, we’re building community! / / And I would rather the reality of not doing it perfectly as we learn how to do it to the best of our ability, rather than not trying at all! We get to be a work in progress together!

If this has been a hard season, reach out to someone, say, “Hey, you got time for a coffee? lunch? Can I come over?”

We need more invitations to hang out, more invitations to join in, more dinner, lunch and coffee time. We need these things for the health and growth of community! One of the reasons I think I’ve realized why I loved church growing up and still to this day is that it is a gathering point. It’s in the befores and afters that we end up connecting. It’s in the clean up, the set up, the moving and building and preparing.

God knows what he’s doing. If Jesus is all of these things that we have been talking about over these last 4 weeks, Hope, Peace, Joy & Love, the reality is, that Christ IN me, or IN you, and the Holy Spirit IN us, and the Father’s LOVE working and growing and being perfected IN us like we saw last week, are exactly what we both need!

Last week as we looked at the Love of God through Jesus Christ we read from 1 John 4, which said two really important things:

/ / God is love, all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

Love is a journey! It GROWS more perfect.

And it also says / / …if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

Yes, we know God’s love is the most important. 1 John 4:19 says / / we love each other because he loved us first, we can’t love without God loving us, But, it also means that you just might be the connection someone else needs to the very love, presence and hope of God! And I need you and what God has done in you in my life!

Because as much as I need God’s love, this scripture says that His love is perfected, or we find the full expression of his love as we learn to love each other!

So, this week we are wrapping up our series called the Reason, because after all the festivities are done, after the baby has been born, after the silent night, comes the response!

There is a response to this Advent. Remember, Advent means the coming, or arrival of a notable person, thing or event. So we’ve been anticipating the arrival of Jesus, and now that He’s arrived, what is our response?

We have / / Anticipation // Event // Response

So, today we’re going to look at our response to the arrive of King Jesus, as the wrap up of this Christmas story. And we’re going to look at the response of the people found in the bible throughout the Christmas story. And as we’ll see the response isn’t always great.

/ / 1. Sorry, There’s no room here

The first ones to respond to the arrival of Jesus were those who told Joseph and Mary that they simply did not have any room for them.

We have read the Christmas Story from the book of Luke the last few weeks, and we read that Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census that had been ordered by the emperor, and it says in Luke 2:6-7, / / And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.

/ / no lodging available… other translations say ...no guest room... others say there was ...no place for them in the inn...

Now, historically, from what I’ve read, Bethlehem probably didn’t have a hotel or motel, the word / / inn is also translated as guest chamber, or guest room.

We know that Joseph went back to Bethlehem because that’s where his family is from, he’s from the historical bloodline of David and Mary goes with him because she is betrothed to be married to him. And although there is no clear indication as to what happened, or how it happened, it’s a pretty short description, “because there was no lodging for them”, but the reason behind that brings some implication.

Here’s why:

It’s possible that Mary & Joseph are being / / rejected.

Here’s why I say that. I can’t imagine a pregnant relative coming to my door and me NOT making room for them. Nine months pregnant and I’m like, “ya, my garage should work for you...” Seriously. Especially when I start hearing what’s happening down there. I don’t know if you know this, but when a lady gives birth it’s not a very quiet ordeal. And they didn’t have an epidural to give her back then either. I don’t think this was a calm birth with a dulah…the midwife is there to coach her through this and make sure she’s hee hee hoo hoo’ing the right way, with Mary hanging out in a little birthing pool.

So, I’m sitting up in my living room, and I hear someone giving birth down in the garage and my response is, “ya, i’m sure they’re good”...

Why? Who knows, but for some reason it seems that they weren’t looked after very well. Maybe, just maybe it’s possible because Mary is pregnant and she’s only engaged to Joseph. That would not have been looked upon very well in an extremely religious culture.

It’s also possible there simply was / /just no room.

Luke says, All returned to their own ancestral towns… for the census

If you think of how many people would have had to go back to Bethlehem with their families for this census, the population of this small town would have ballooned.

So, like I said the word is guest room, and the housing structures would have most likely included a guest room, and then a lower portion of the house where the animals were kept as well. The guest rooms were full of relatives in town for the census. Maybe it could have been that someone actually took pity on them and said, “yes, the lower room where we keep the animals is all we have, but you’re welcome to use that.”

Either way, the reason matters little, the response is the same, whether they were turned away by family completely, or this young pregnant girl was put in the garage and there gave birth to the king of the world, it was decided by everyone they asked, there is no suitable room for you, we don’t want you in our view, we don’t want you part of our lives, and at the very MOST, we will tolerate your presence, but only at a comfortable distance for us.

The first question I want to ask this morning is simply that:

/ / Have we made room?

Do we give Jesus a place of prominence in our lives? Not just tolerate that He exists, or that he’s around, or that we go to church, but does he take up more than just the garage? Does he get past the peripheral areas of our lives? Does he get the best of our lives, or do we relegate him to the spaces we don’t mind him seeing?

Does his very presence make us feel uncomfortable? Like we’d rather hide, or have him hidden from view?

/ / 2. Here is my heart!

The second response we see in Scripture to the birth of Jesus is from the shepherds. Luke 2:8-20 tells the story of the shepherds who were looking after their sheep in the middle of the night. And out of nowhere an angel appears and tells them that the Messiah has been born, that they need to hurry to Bethlehem and find him. And then a whole group of angels join in and worship, saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

We’ve talked about this a little bit. Shepherds weren’t the most honored of people, in fact, they were pretty low class at this point in history.

I’ve been honest with you about my journey through insecurity and depression. Here’s the thing, when someone comes up to me and says, “Hey, you gotta come check this out.” I used to go through mental gymnastics trying to decide if the person actually wanted me around or not. Constantly, even when people said they did, I doubted.

So, this group of shepherds is told that the king of all kings, the Messiah of Israel, the one who they have been waiting for, after 400 years of silence, has been born, and THEY are supposed to go find him. Do you believe it? Do you go? Do you show up?

Well, they did. Maybe not all of them jumped up right away, but at least one said in Luke 2:15, / / “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So, three really important things happen:

They / / listen & obey. And because they do, they find Jesus.

/ / They told everyone. Luke 2:17-18 says, / / After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds story were astonished.

/ / They worshipped. Luke 2:20 says, The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.

So, after the first question, and deciding to make room for Jesus, the second question we need to ask ourselves is, / / Do I believe this enough to listen & obey, share my experience, and worship God with my whole heart and life?

/ / 3. Humanity doesn’t always agree

The next person to respond to the birth of Jesus is King Herod. Matthew 2 tells the story of some wise men who thad traveled from the east because they saw a star, and when they start asking about a king of Israel they are brought before King Herod. And they ask him, in Matthew 2:2, / / “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.”

King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and asked, “Where is the Messiah supposed to be born?”

This is a dicey part of the story. The religious leaders tell him that the Messiah is prophesied to be born in Bethlehem, then he meets with the wise men again and asks them questions, enough to sort out when they think Jesus may have been born. He tells them to go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child and then bring him word so that he can go and worship them too.

God warns them in a dream that King Herod is being super shady, and so after they meet Jesus they head back home a different way.

Here’s where things get bad. Herod, eventually realizing that he’s been given the slip by these wise men, having learned from his questioning of them when Jesus was most likely born, orders that every boy two years old and under be killed.

Here’s where this connects to our response to the King.

Jesus wants to be king of your heart. In fact, we have talked about this a lot lately, haven’t we, that the desire of God is for our lives to choose willful self-denial, JUST like Jesus did in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus preached it, if you want to follow him, pick up your cross and deny yourself. He prayed in the garden before he was betrayed and crucified, “Father, if there is any way for this cup to pass from me, but NOT my will [desire], but yours be done.”

/ / Our humanity doesn’t like the supremacy of God. Our humanity will fight it. It wants to win. It doesn’t want to lay down its own leadership for the leadership of Jesus. It doesn’t want us to make Jesus king of our lives.

So, our next question is simply, Will you be like Herod, or, will you / / CHOOSE to relinquish your own desires for the way and path of Jesus Christ?

/ / 4. What did I bring?

The last group we are looking at this morning is these wise men who come from the east.

Who were they? Where are they from exactly? how many are there?

Not sure exactly, and that matters less than what the story actually shows us, which is the heart!

Let’s look at three things we can learn from the wise men:

/ / They followed without knowing where they were going.

The wise men didn’t know the prophecies. Matthew says they came into Jerusalem asking where the King of Jerusalem was.

Of the 27 translations I read of that verse every single one of them says, / / “We saw his star...” and either ...as it rose, ...rising in the east, or simply ...in the east.

I think I just grew up assuming they FOLLOWED the start like some sort of ancient GPS and it led them directly to where Jesus was, but that’s not true. All the cartoons and all the movies kinda get it wrong there. Matthew actually says they show up in Jerusalem, which makes perfect sense because they are looking for the king of the Jews, and Jerusalem was the capital city of what was originally Israel.

Israel isn’t even a nation at htis point, it’s a people under occupation.

And Matthew says it was King Herod that asked the religious leaders where the Messiah was to be born and then he sends the wise men to Bethlehem to ask around. Good thing the shepherds told everyone what happened, because maybe just maybe when the wise men got there, someone remembered that night and said, “Oh ya, i think you’re looking for Mary & Joseph’s boy, but he’s no king...”

/ / They trusted the word of God.

Matthew 2:12 says / / When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod.

These guys were serious. They get a little of their direction from seeing a star. They get a little direction by consulting the historical biblical texts, via Herod through the religious leaders. And they trust their dreams enough to listen. I guess being with Mary & Joseph, and maybe they shared their dreams with them and Joseph was probably like, “ya, definitely listen to that!”

/ / They brought Him gifts.

Matthew 2:11 says, / / They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

They honored this new king, they honored Jesus by giving him gifts.

Right after this, Joseph is warned through another dream to flee and go to Egypt because Herod is about to kill all the children. That gold probably funded their escape!

So, as we wrap up this holiday season, this advent series, our anticipation of the arrival of Jesus, I want to ask the question today, / / what are we bringing him?

Have we brought our worship?

Have we brought our wonder?

Have we brought our faith?

Have we brought our gifts?

How do we choose to honor the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, the Messiah?