December 22, 2024 | What's New

Transcript:

  Matthew chapter 2. I want to start with this, this thought. What are some things in your life that were new at some point that totally changed huge sections of your life?

So for example, maybe it was a new job in a completely different field. Maybe you moved. Maybe it was a different field of work. Whatever it was, there was something that you say, this is so new that my, my habits, my patterns, so many things have to change.

Maybe it was a new spouse, and those of you who are married, know there's a whole big difference from your life before you got married to right after you got married. It didn't take a decade to figure out it was different, I'm pretty sure.

Maybe the difference between, maybe you're married and have no kids, and you have a new child. Everything changes. Not really everything. You stop and think, well, not everything, but your patterns of sleep certainly change, or disappear, as the case may be. All of a sudden, you don't get to just do everything you want.

You have to be responsible for this little life. New things can make a huge difference.

So what's new when we get to the beginning of Matthew, and we see Jesus being born? What's new in the story of Christmas?

Or maybe another way to ask that about Matthew would be to say, why are some of these stories in Scripture? You know, Matthew is, he's not a historian. Now, he's writing history, things that happened. But he's not a historian. He's not trying to tell you, here's all the things that happened. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There you go. Here's your history. You have the comprehensive story. That's not really his point.

When we read the Gospels, they're really, they're more like preachers. They're telling you things that happened, yes, but they're telling you those things for a reason. Not just so you have a comprehensive idea. They're telling you these things because he has he has a point. He has a reason that you need to know about, in the beginning of Matthew, you need to know about the virgin birth of Jesus, and The prophecies around his birth, and the wise men. That's that's not so that we can just have a cute nativity scene. Matthew says you need to know about these wise men and Herod, including some parts that maybe we don't I don't like to remember around Christmas, because Herod wasn't a very nice guy.

But Matthew, when he wrote this story of Christmas, because that's what it is, he said, this is what people need to hear. And this morning, I want you to think about what he's telling you that is new, or different. As he goes through this section. So I want to read. We'll read a section and we'll talk a little bit about the sections on either side of it. But we'll read Matthew 2 beginning in verse 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 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. 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. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly, And ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. 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.

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. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him.

Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

God, we pray that you would capture our minds again with the wonder of your love. of who you are and what you have done specifically at Christmas with the wonder that you came and dwelled among us. That you, the creator, took on humanity that you had created. Would you capture our minds with that thought and that wonder this morning? And use it to fill our hearts this Christmas with love and joy, worship and peace. In Jesus name, Amen.

We're gonna look at four things that are new with the Christmas story as Matthew talks about it.

New Wisdom

First thing, there's new wisdom. Our human wisdom is kind of funny, isn't it? That the experts from one generation, you fast forward, sometimes two years, sometimes 50 years, sometimes a hundred years, but very often you can go back and find the experts talking about how the sun rotated around the earth, for example, or medical practices like leaching and bodily humors and all kinds of weird stuff that we think, how could they possibly have thought that?

But that was human wisdom the best they understood it. That was the experts of the day. That wasn't some crazy crackpot in the backwoods somewhere. That was, was the experts. And we could do this, we could talk about genetics. And advances in genetic understanding. We could talk about causes of different sicknesses.

We could talk about scientific ideas. We could talk about relational ideas. We could talk about psychological ideas. Thanks. Freud was really popular, and then he wasn't, and then he was, and then he wasn't, and I'm not sure where we are right now. But if you go back and you see the, the experts in human wisdom, the conclusions often change. They're dated. And yet, somehow, every generation, we always think our generation of experts is the ones that got it all right.

Part of what we do When we come to God's Word, is we're coming to find a new wisdom. A wisdom that's not human, earthly wisdom, that's dated and shallow. But a wisdom that Matthew, over 2, 000 years ago, wrote down. And that Christians have followed for that long, and we could go to the Old Testament and back up several more thousand years. and find that God's people have followed God's wisdom for millennia.

And when we get this section, we always say the wise men, and we like, I don't, I think we don't always have a good idea of who they are. Maybe you do, but if you think these are, these are basically eastern scientific philosopher rulers who were really into astrology. That's what these guys were. And again, astrology is another one of those things where the experts have said one thing and then they say something else and back about middle of the 1900s, astrology was roundly mocked everywhere.

Interestingly, I just looked up some recent polls. There's a recent poll that says 69 percent of millennials in America turn to astrology for comfort and confidence during challenges. I'm shocked that number's that high, actually. But, I probably shouldn't be, because human wisdom just comes and goes. And people used to think the idea that these wise men would come from across the country, that it was probably fairly crazy.

But there's some really interesting historical background to tell you why they might have done this. Many people at the time, you can go back and read histories, they thought that when someone great was born, Or when someone great died, there was often something they saw in the skies that they thought marked that.

Now, we could look at that and say, I don't think it had anything to do with it, but that's the type of thinking that they had at the time. For example, when Julius Caesar died, you can go back and there's a, there was a comet that was visible in the daytime. That's unusual, right? A comet that was visible in the daytime for seven straight days, that, over and over in ancient literature, they talk about this comet and Caesar, and that was about 40 years before the birth of Christ.

See, these guys had it in their mind. It had been talking, that was the buzz, and all the experts was, oh, there was this great sign in the heavens when Caesar died. And so, they also had this story, which he mentions here, scripture had given them this, but it had spread throughout, not just Israel, you can find secular historians in other places where there was this story, this rumor that a great ruler would come from Judea. We know that because in the Roman Empire at about the year 60 when Vespasian comes and conquers people in Judah and then he comes back and he's coming back to say, you should let me rule the Roman Empire. Politics hasn't changed too much. He found a story that he could use to convince people that he, they should support him. Well the story he chose was, hey I just conquered Judah, I'm the great ruler coming out of Judea. He used that because everybody knew about it. Because it was something that could get him political power.

These wise men would have known, there's this rumor that a great king's coming out of Judea. They might not have known where it came from, but they would have known that. And they would have known, in their eyes, it's possible at least for the heavens, the skies, to mark this great ruler's birth. So here they are, we don't know exactly how far away, but they're thinking about all of these things, and they see something, and that drives them to then travel. Pretty good distance for sure. We don't know how far, but a pretty good distance to come and do this account that we just saw. They come and they say to Herod, where is this king of the Jews?

You see their wisdom. Think about their wisdom was good enough. They knew a ruler is going to come. They knew to look for a king. And their wisdom was good enough for them to come some good to come with some good questions. They came to Herod. Hey, Herod, where is this king? We know there's a king. We want to know where. We know he's supposed to be somewhere in here. Human wisdom can give us some of those same things. Our human wisdom is good enough to long for something better, isn't it?

You can talk to people who don't believe in Jesus. But if you talk to them long enough, there is a longing for something better. Maybe they don't say it's for a king. But for someone to make it better, to give us better justice, or love, or peace, or identity, or fulfillment, there's a longing. Human wisdom will get you to that.

Human wisdom might let you ask some of the right questions. Where can we find a way to help people get along with love and peace at Christmas? You don't need God's wisdom to ask that question. You need God's wisdom to answer it.

When Jesus came, they needed a new wisdom. Not just human wisdom that they could have. They needed something that only God was going to reveal to them. And so they come, they ask this question of Herod. And Herod said he's troubled. We'll come back to that in a minute. And all Jerusalem with him. Good reason for that too.

And so he comes, assembles the priests and scribes, and says, Where was this king supposed to be born? And we start to see that God's wisdom isn't like human wisdom, because it, it takes the way we would normally do things, and it flips it upside down. So he says, Well, 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.

Bethlehem's a little Backwoods town. It's not the cultural center. If you were going to say, most likely baby to influence the world, they're not born in Bethlehem. Human wisdom would say, how about Jerusalem? How about Rome? Fast forward to our world. How about DC? How about New York? How about Chicago?

And instead it's like, how about, uh, Hot Springs, Alabama. See, God's wisdom is just not the same way that our wisdom is. And we see, that's true of Bethlehem. It's true, we didn't read this section, but if we went to the end of the chapter, after they flee, after they come back, they come to a city called Nazareth.

You remember, in John, when we meet Nathaniel, he says, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? That's the reputation of the place that God goes to. He takes their wisdom, human wisdom, and says, no, we're going to turn that upside down. It's not because you have the cultural center and all the wise elite people saying this is the way it should be, and the human experts, that's not how that's going to work.

He says, no, the real hope, the real king you long for is going to come from a small town, and then he's going to grow up somewhere that people say nothing good could come from there. But that's God's wisdom.

At Christmas. We see new wisdom that God has given us the answers that we need. So I want to ask you a couple questions. We probably all feel our need for wisdom. Where is Jesus, the wisdom that you've been searching for?

When you think about the situations that you say, I really want wisdom. You won't find that merely by looking at human wisdom. We need new wisdom to have real answers. So where is Jesus the wisdom you've been looking for? Or, where is Jesus the real king that you've been wanting? I really want this world and my life to be full of more justice and love and joy and peace.

That's only happening if Jesus is the king. And you might feel that longing. People around us may feel that longing for those things, but we need the wisdom that only God gives to say, Jesus is the king who gives that. And the only king who gives that.

So we see new wisdom. And Matthew wants you to see that the wisest philosopher leader types, they needed God's wisdom to get all the way to Jesus.

New Trouble

There's also new trouble because as we read, When Herod the king hears this, he's troubled. Now, the Christmas story, despite some of our modern retellings, the Christmas story is not all about Merry Christmas and peace and happiness and light.

Because when Herod finds out what's going on, he's troubled. And why? Why was he troubled? It's really simple. He's king, he likes being king, and Jesus is a problem for that. It's really basically what it is. It is now. Now, Herod then doesn't stop with trouble inside him. He's angry after they don't return.

We didn't read this part of the story either. But after the wise men don't return, Herod says, okay, I know this boy is under two years old and I know he was born in Bethlehem. So he orders the slaughter of boys under two years old in Bethlehem. And you think, yikes, Jed, this is Christmas after all. Like don't, don't talk about that.

But that's part of the Christmas story. It's there for a reason, and this is not shocking for Herod. If you know anything about Herod the Great, he, uh, he was not a good guy. When he came to power, he made sure that the rival dynasty that was in charge before him were all executed. At one point, he executed half of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious supreme court, because they were giving him trouble.

Uh, at one point he decided he didn't trust his wife, so he had her killed. Uh, before he died, he ordered that many powerful rulers in Jerusalem would be rounded up and also executed after his death. That probably was so they wouldn't try to speed up his death. That's probably what he was doing.

Thankfully, at least we don't think historically that they actually did that one. But the rest of them actually happened. Bethlehem was a small town. Probably something like 20 babies. If this, if Herod actually sent, and they were all killed, and you killed every baby in Bethlehem, it would barely be a footnote on how bad Herod was.

I want to put this in perspective here. We're not talking about like, oh, this is a weird story that's got to stay somewhere else. This guy was as evil as they come.

And Herod is troubled in himself because he's king, and he likes being king. And Jesus is a problem for that. And so people around him suffer and the trouble doesn't stop there because if we started in verse 13, Joseph said here's from an angel 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. Can you imagine what Joseph's thinking?

I was trying to think about this if you were Joseph and you say , all right, God, I get it. This is weird. Everybody thinks it's strange. Everybody doesn't get what's going on with, with Mary and I and this virgin birth. Nobody understands all that, but okay. And then you get to the angel says, by the way, you've got to now go be a refugee outside of your country because Herod wants to kill you.

Thanks a lot, God. Like, I mean, isn't that how you'd feel? Like, why is my life all turned upside down? I'm uprooted from home with a new baby. Like this baby has brought some trouble for Joseph. He really has. And Joseph wasn't king of an empire like Herod, but he might have thought he was king of his own life.

And since he was king, he thought of his own life. And since he liked to be king, this baby was causing some problems for him. Because when Jesus comes into the world, He doesn't just come with new wisdom and peace and joy. There's trouble for those who want to be king instead of Jesus.

So how about you? None of us likes to hear the Christmas story and go, Wait, am I Herod? And probably not to the same extent, thankfully. But when God takes on flesh and dwells on earth, there is a challenge to every human heart that says, I'm going to be king of my own life. Because now, it's not just me and my little human life, it's, wait, there's a God.

And I have to answer to him. And I can't pretend to not know because he came.

So sometimes we might be like we could imagine Joseph would have been, and have internal turmoil. God actually became flesh, so he gets to tell me what I get to do. He gets to actually tell me what's right and wrong. And that's not my job to determine that. We might feel some turmoil there. We might feel complaint.

God, I tried to follow you, but you just have brought more and more and more trouble. Can't you see Joseph saying that? I was okay with this virgin birth stuff, but now I've got to flee to Egypt? Can't you hear inside Joseph this idea of, you know, I don't have to rule everything in my life, but I've got to be king over at least a little bit of it.

That's where we are often, isn't it? And we get this challenge, there's trouble, there's turmoil. Maybe it's not as innocent as Joseph sounds.

When you think you get to rule over your life, and God does something through His Son that says, No, actually, you don't get to rule over my life. Often what happens, we lash out at other people, don't we? I'm not happy that I don't get to control my life, so I'm going to have passive aggressive insults toward the people around me.

That doesn't sound as bad as slaughtering babies, because it's not as bad. But it's the same impulse that says, I'm king and I like it, and if you're going to cause trouble, I might just hurt some other people in the process.

So one of the things we have to ask ourselves. When Jesus came, there was new trouble that came with him. Am I happy to see him as the king? Or do I really like my throne? Where do those troubles come from?

New Worship

There's new wisdom. There's new troubles. There's new worship. Because at the beginning, the wise man said, here's what we're coming to do. We saw a star when it rose and we have come to worship Him. They come to bow down to say, this is the treasure we've been looking for. Can you imagine as they get closer to the place where they were and we could have all the conversations of how long after the birth was it and where exactly were there and we don't know all of those details. We could take guesses. , but whatever it is, Matthew doesn't give us all those details. What he does is say in, in verse 10, when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. So if you will take whatever curious questions about exact details of what it looked like for a minute, push those aside and imagine the excitement here.

They've come from across the known world really. and they didn't fly. They took a long journey to say there's something at the end of this journey worth coming to see, and we're going to come see it. And they come walking, and they see the star stop so that they knew this is the place. Can you imagine the excitement?

Take, take a child who's looking forward to Christmas Day. Now it's time to open the presents, but magnify that by a whole lot. That's the excitement and the joy as they come, and they walk around. And they see a humble family. These guys know what palaces look like. They walk around and they don't see a palace.

They walk around and they don't see some great, mighty warrior. They see little teenage Joseph. They don't see some court lady dressed in finery and pearls. They see little Mary. And they don't see a prince with a crown. They see a baby who looked like every other baby.

Now they could have come around the corner and thought, I don't know about this, did we make a mistake?

Wouldn't we be tempted to think that? Like, are we sure this is where it stopped? Maybe it was just taking a break. Maybe it's the palace down the street somewhere. They could have. If they only saw what they saw with their eyes, it would be easy to do that. But instead, they come around the corner, they see this humble family, they saw the child with Mary's mother, and they fall down and worship these philosopher kings, who we still call the wise men today.

It's amazing. These philosopher kings, they bow before this baby. And then they give gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh, and we could talk about symbolism, and there is symbolism wrapped up in it, but here's the biggest point, they're all valuable. So they come and they say, Gold, frankincense, and myrrh were spices that represented different things, but they were expensive. They were hard to get. And they come and say, This baby is worth more than these. We're giving this to you.

These men who, who wouldn't bow to other people because they were rulers, they bowed to this child. There's new worship. This is new worship. when Jesus is born. And it doesn't look the way it did in all the palaces and courts, because it comes from new wisdom.

Of course, they aren't the only ones who claim to want to worship. Do you notice in verse 8, this language when Herod tells them what to go do? He says, Go search diligently, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. Now, maybe they knew that that was not really what Herod wanted. We can hear the deception and sarcasm that could have been there. But his language is, I'm gonna come worship. Well, here's the thing. When you see Jesus, that God took on flesh, for some people, real, true, new worship. Some people might claim it, but they really want to stay sitting on their own throne. So how do you know the difference between real worship and false worship or real worship and claimed worship?

Herod's worship is self focused. He wants to keep his own self rule. He wants to run his life and he wants to keep his treasure. So it's worship. I'll come worship. But he had no intention of really worshiping.

The wise men, They say, we're following wherever God puts us. We're not going to say, I know what's best. Here's that star. We're following it. And it goes to a humble place, humble house. Great. I will come in the humble house and I will bow before this baby. They aren't really ruling their own life. They're following what God has said and they don't keep their treasure.

They say this belongs to him.

Herod had no intention of getting off of his throne. He had every intention of protecting his throne. Even though he might say, I'm gonna go worship him. At Christmas, we're confronted with the fact that we long for something, we long for a king. We're confronted with the question of, are you really going to bow before this king and worship him? Or are you really going to keep your own self rule? Are you really going to say, all the things I hold dear, that are treasures to me, they really belong to him, or are you going to say, these are mine?

At Christmas, We have the opportunity to be captivated by the fact that God took on flesh and dwelled among us, and that baby deserves our worship. He's not only that baby, but if you walked into that room and you saw this little humble child,

right then he deserved the worship of every being who ever exists.

New Peace

At Christmas we're called to new worship. We're also called, offered I should say, new peace. If you look back at chapter 1, an angel came to Joseph, said in verse 20, Joseph son of David do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.

You shall call him Jesus. Yahweh is salvation or Yahweh saves. That's what they're going to call him. Like that's who he is. He's going to save his people from their sins.

Now the idea that God comes Sometimes I think we hear christmas so much we forget this The idea that God would come and dwell on this earth if you didn't know the rest of the story.

That's not good news That's terrifying Because I know what my life is. And I know the times I fall way short of perfection. And the God who came and took on flesh is a holy, perfect, infinite God.

So the story of Christmas, if all you know is God's coming, that's not good news. That's terrifying.

But knowing the rest of the story. He came to save His people from their sins. See, human wisdom, sometimes we think, here's our problems. The solution is I need to know more, have better teaching, or I need to be inspired more, or we need like better policies, maybe government, or church, or family, either way.

So basically, human wisdom will tell you, you need education, inspiration, and supervision.

That won't solve the problems. We've tried it for thousands of years. And people have thought they got it all figured out. There was, uh, H. G. Wells in 1937. He thought humanity had gotten it all figured out. He wrote, Our race will achieve more than our wildest imaginations. We will have unity and peace more splendid than any palace or garden that you can imagine.

In 1937.

It only took a couple years before he realized that was wrong. Six years later, he wrote, I'm paraphrasing and shortening slightly. He wrote, humans are played out.

That's literally what he said. Humans are played out. He thought, we've got it figured out. We have, World War I happened, yes, yes, but we've got education and we, we're inspired by the right people now and we're going to have the right supervision and we're going to create unity and peace better than anything you can imagine. And he forgot this little thing called sin that exists. And six years later he goes, forget it.

That's happened over and over and over and over and over in history that people have thought education, inspiration, and supervision would solve our problems. And it never would because we didn't need that. We needed, not that we never need some of those things, but we needed someone who will save his people from their sins.

That's the problem. We all want to think the solution is within us as humans. Get the right teaching and the right inspiration. We solve it. No, the solution is from outside of us. And at Christmas, there is the offer of new peace. Not the peace that says humans figure it all out and solve this. But the peace that says the Savior came to save His people from their sins.

Only Jesus, God taking on flesh, can give us these answers. The solution that doesn't come from inside of us, but comes from outside of us. Only Jesus can do that, because He's the one who would save His people. Isaiah 53 talks about that. Who says, He was pierced and crushed for our sins. The only way Jesus could be pierced and crushed for our sins is because He had a body to be pierced and crushed. He took on Himself humanity. Christmas is the start of that.

Isaiah says His punishment brought us peace.

New peace that's offered because He took on flesh and was a baby, and lived among us, and then died to save us from sins. Not to be a good teacher, although Jesus is a good teacher. Not to be a good inspiration, although He's very inspiring. Not just to supervise us and make sure we know the right stuff, because He does that.

But it doesn't solve our problem unless He's also primarily the Savior who will save us from our sins. The one who would be pierced and crushed, whose punishment would bring us peace. It says his wounds bring us the healing that our souls and our world desperately needs. That's what we have at Christmas.

That night, really, we could say back up from when Jesus was born to when Jesus was conceived, because that's when he actually took on himself humanity.

When Jesus took on Himself humanity, He came to save His people from their sins, to take you from the torment of a guilty conscience, which we all have if we stop and think about it long enough, to give you the kind of peace that can overcome a guilty conscience. To save His people from their sins, to give you the kind of peace that can save you from the shame of a guilty soul.

He came to save us from the collateral damage of when I say, I want to be king. He came to save His people from all of these things, and to bring healing to our world.

Conclusion

At Christmas, that's what we remember, and we could add other things to this, but at least these things. Jesus came and demonstrated new wisdom that was upside down from what we would think.

Jesus came and there was new trouble because people who thought that they could be king all of a sudden realized actually there's something else going on here. We had new worship because we don't worship ourselves and we don't worship anything inside of us as humanity, but we bow before God who took on flesh.

And he offers new peace because it's a real solution. All of these things, wisdom, yes, trouble, worship, peace, those are new at Christmas because of Jesus.

Because of what chapter 1 and verse 23 says, Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. That's what's new. The biggest thing that was new, the root thing that was new, is now God is not only distant out there, but He took on Himself, humanity, and dwelled among us.

God with us is new. And that makes a much bigger difference than your new job, or your new spouse, or your new baby. Those things make huge differences. But, the bigger difference Is when God came and lived on earth. When He took on humanity to save His people from their sins. When He, Emmanuel, we say this word all the time, but when God was truly with us.

And because God is with us, that's exactly why those other things are new. Because God is with us, we see new wisdom. Because God is with us, we, we feel certain troubles. That may sound weird to us. How does God being with us give us troubles? Well, Jesus talks about, don't think that I came to bring peace, but to bring a sword.

There's challenges that come with Jesus. If Jesus is just a good teacher to give you more education, you can take the things you like, you can leave them, you can do whatever. But if Jesus is God who became flesh, you owe him every bit of your allegiance. You don't get to be king anymore. It does bring trouble, but not ultimate trouble.

It brings a challenge to our kingdom, but it brings with it worship and ultimately peace. Because God was with us.

This Christmas, I hope that you will enjoy again the wonder of the fact that God God took on himself the form of humanity in that baby.

Not in the great palaces, in the manger. Not in the big cultural center, in the backwoods town. I hope that you will enjoy that wonder this Christmas, that God was with us.

I invite you to take a moment. Just thank God for what he did at Christmas. Ask him to work this in your heart, and then, in a minute, we'll sing together.