Speaker 1: Or like this, should at least be number two.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a few things as heartwarming and as Christmassy as seeing Buddy the Elf go thousands of miles to discover his cranky old dad.
Speaker 1: That's on the naughty list and save Christmas spirit.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's number four according to Entertainment Weekly and it's on the internet, so it's definitely number four, is right, number three, number three.
Speaker 1: Number three no-transcript.
Speaker 1: As far as for your life, you're just kind of indifferent about him, just kind of like you know, you know you drive past church building sometimes, like, oh yeah, maybe I should go there sometime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some sometimes you think, oh yeah, like I know, like people that are like they really follow him and they're really into him and that's for them, that's not for me, just indifferent.
Speaker 1: There are even people that say I would claim to be a Christian, I am a follower of Jesus, and it's crazy to me, but they're indifferent, they don't really have a thriving relationship with God.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they come in the church building sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they kind of know some of this stuff but as far as their heart being filled with passion maybe passion for the football game on Sunday afternoon, oh, or maybe passion for their favorite Christmas movie, but passion for Jesus, difference.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's why the third response is the only response that you should have, because this is the response that gives you the joy in life that you want, and I would even say the joy in life that you need.
Speaker 1: In verse number 10 of Matthew, chapter 2, it says this.
Speaker 1: It says when they, the wise men, when they saw the star, they were what's that word?
Speaker 1: They were overwhelmed with joy.
Speaker 1: It's because of how they responded.
Speaker 1: These wise men didn't respond with hostility, they didn't respond with indifference.
Speaker 1: They responded by seeking and worshiping Jesus.
Speaker 1: And sometimes in our world things can be hard right For some of us.
Speaker 1: We think this whole idea of like having joy and Christmas is like a joyful time and you're like, yeah, that might be great, but it's not very joyful for me right now.
Speaker 1: Maybe this year has been a year of loss for you.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's been a year of hardship.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's been a year where you've got the medical diagnosis that you never thought that you would have gotten, where you've got the medical diagnosis that you never thought that you would have gotten.
Speaker 1: This year has been a valley for you, and there's been a lot of hardships that you did not expect.
Speaker 1: In fact, the CDC tells us that in the past 12 months, 42% of adults in the US have had some type of symptom related to anxiety or depression.
Speaker 1: It's real and you're not alone, and this baby Jesus can actually bring joy in the midst of your hardships.
Speaker 1: He can bring peace to our anxious hearts.
Speaker 1: And he can bring joy and peace not because all of a sudden he magically will make all of the hardships disappear and life is great because you're on a beach and everything is beautiful.
Speaker 1: He can bring peace because of his presence.
Speaker 1: He can bring peace because his presence is with us, and when I use the word peace, I want you guys to understand this Biblically peace is this wholeness, this completeness, this internal well-being.
Speaker 1: What I'm going to invite all of us to do this morning is just to have a moment where we experience joy and peace because we choose to seek and worship him.
Speaker 1: So I want to look a little deeper.
Speaker 1: I want to go a little deeper in this story and I want you guys to see this because I think this can be a game changer in our lives.
Speaker 1: This morning we're going to be in Matthew, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: And if you're ready for the word, would you say amen, amen.
Speaker 1: Let's check out this iconic story.
Speaker 1: It says in Matthew 2, verse 1,.
Speaker 1: It says after Jesus was born, in where was he born?
Speaker 1: He was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
Speaker 1: In the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: There's those wise men.
Speaker 1: They arrived.
Speaker 1: They're saying where is he?
Speaker 1: Who's been born King of the Jews?
Speaker 1: For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.
Speaker 1: Now think about the wise men.
Speaker 1: Is there's some myths out there about the wise men?
Speaker 1: In fact, sometimes we'll see really pretty pictures, like we have here.
Speaker 1: It's like baby Jesus.
Speaker 1: It's so peaceful, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Can everybody just say aww, ready, awww, you know, it's like a Christmas card.
Speaker 1: You got the wise men that are right there on the right, like they're at the birth of Jesus.
Speaker 1: But did you know that the wise men weren't actually at the birth of Jesus?
Speaker 1: Later on in the text we see that Mary and Joseph had a house.
Speaker 1: They were in a house.
Speaker 1: They went to go see him at the house.
Speaker 1: It's a myth.
Speaker 1: Here's something else that's a myth.
Speaker 1: We always think that the wise men there were three of them because they brought three gifts to Jesus.
Speaker 1: But you know, we actually don't know how many wise men there actually were and in fact, because of the distance that they traveled and the types of guys they were, there was probably a lot more than just three guys.
Speaker 1: There's probably a group of them.
Speaker 1: And this group of wise men, I'm going to tell you, they were like unlikely people to seek after Jesus.
Speaker 1: You would think, okay, people that sought after Jesus.
Speaker 1: Maybe they like knew a lot about the Bible or maybe they were like raised in the temple or the church, like that's why they sought after Jesus.
Speaker 1: Not the wise men, these guys were like astrologers.
Speaker 1: If we saw them today, we'd be like, oh, those are like spiritual people.
Speaker 1: They just like seek after all these different deities and gods.
Speaker 1: That's who these wise men were.
Speaker 1: They also they were pretty rich.
Speaker 1: I mean, they brought Jesus gold.
Speaker 1: They were powerful, they were educated and they were unlikely people to come and worship Jesus and to say he's king of the Jews.
Speaker 1: And they go to this guy, herod, who was the acting king of Israel at the time.
Speaker 1: They say we want to find the king, where is he at?
Speaker 1: And look how Herod responded in verse number three.
Speaker 1: He was not very happy about this.
Speaker 1: It says when the king heard this, when the king heard this, he was deeply disturbed.
Speaker 1: Here's the serve when the king heard this, he was deeply disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.
Speaker 1: You know why all Jerusalem was deeply disturbed with him?
Speaker 1: Because when Herod got mad, heads started rolling.
Speaker 1: Herod was not a very good dude, in fact, in fact, in fact, in fact, in fact.
Speaker 1: History tells us, if you say history, that Herod knew the day he died was going to be a day of celebration for all the people.
Speaker 1: They have a celebration, but yeah, he's gone.
Speaker 1: So what Herod did?
Speaker 1: This guy's crazy?
Speaker 1: He ordered the deaths of multiple notable figures and influential people in society to be executed on the exact same day that he died.
Speaker 1: So his death day would not be a day of celebration but a day of mourning.
Speaker 1: That's this Herod.
Speaker 1: This Herod was not a good dude at all and he was deeply disturbed when he heard about this.
Speaker 1: And when he did, when he heard that Jesus was going to be born, he responded in the same way that some people respond to Jesus today he responded with hostility.
Speaker 1: Some of you might be here today, and that might be you, and I want to say that you're welcome here.
Speaker 1: We're glad you're here, and maybe you're here not out of your own desires.
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody said for Christmas, I want you to come to church with me and you thought I don't have to buy you a present, I can just show up and sit somewhere for an hour and have some cookies.
Speaker 1: I'm in, so you're here.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of you somebody said hey, you want to go out to a Christmas Eve meal, let's have a Christmas Eve meal.
Speaker 1: You loaded up in the car and somehow you ended up in a church parking lot.
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody dragged you here and you're not really into it.
Speaker 1: Maybe life in your experience has been really hard and in your mind you it's God's fault that I've experienced this.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've had a bad church experience and if that's you, I'm sorry and you think bad church experience, anything to do with church, jesus, I'm done with, I want nothing to do with it and you're hostile and your heart is hardened and nobody can change you and I'm not trying to change you either.
Speaker 1: But if you find yourself hostile, I want to ask you a question.
Speaker 1: Could it be that the Jesus you're hostile towards is not the true Jesus at all, that the Jesus you're hostile towards is not the true Jesus at all.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've had a bad church experience.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, that's Jesus.
Speaker 1: No, not really.
Speaker 1: Maybe that hardship's in your life You're like, well, that's Jesus.
Speaker 1: Here's who Jesus is.
Speaker 1: He's the one that came to this earth to seek after you.
Speaker 1: He was born in a manger.
Speaker 1: He lived a perfect life.
Speaker 1: He died a death that you and I deserved, as an innocent man.
Speaker 1: And you can live your life like this, hostile towards him, like this saying I want nothing to do with you, but you know how Jesus' arms are, you know how Jesus' posture is towards you.
Speaker 1: Like this, like come to me, and you can say, jesus, I'm pushing you away, but Jesus says, hey, I'm ready for you to come to me and when you come to me I will receive you just as you are.
Speaker 1: Some people respond with hostility, others respond with indifference, but I gotta say this before we look in the text, it's sometimes surprising the types of people that are just kind of like indifferent about God.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the text, look what it says.
Speaker 1: In verse four.
Speaker 1: It says so he, this is Herod.
Speaker 1: He assembled all the chief priests.
Speaker 1: These were the religious people, the religious leaders of the temple and the scribes of the people these are the people that are writing down scripture and things and asked them where the Messiah would be born.
Speaker 1: Herod asked the religious people he's like they would know, verse five what did they say?
Speaker 1: They say in Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, because this is what was written by the prophet, verse number six they point back to Micah, chapter five, verse two, where it says this you, bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
Speaker 1: The land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
Speaker 1: Because of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people, israel.
Speaker 1: The religious people that knew all about where Jesus was going to be born didn't actually go to seek him and worship him when he was born.
Speaker 1: In other words, these people said we're good, we know about him, but we're not going to seek after him.
Speaker 1: These people, they responded with indifference and this is the number one way again that people in Solano County respond to Jesus.
Speaker 1: These were the people in Matthew 2, that they knew the Bible stories, they knew about the prophets, they knew about the prophets, they knew about all these things, but they didn't have the passion.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they knew it, but they missed the heart of it.
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a silly example, but how many of you in the room, how many of you really really like coffee?
Speaker 1: Do you like coffee?
Speaker 1: We have some coffee lovers, okay, yes, coffee's so good.
Speaker 1: How many of you don't really care for coffee?
Speaker 1: You don't really, oh, come on, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, we have a few people that need prayer.
Speaker 1: We'll be available after this.
Speaker 1: Coffee is great.
Speaker 1: Let's say you have a barista.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been a barista before?
Speaker 1: Barista or current baristas?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's cool Barista.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because baristas.
Speaker 1: And let's say you have a barista and they make a latte.
Speaker 1: Lattes are good Lattes.
Speaker 1: Are I like a vanilla latte or anything with cinnamon, like any type of vanilla cinnamon latte?
Speaker 1: Speaking my, speaking my language, right there, right.
Speaker 1: So you got a latte.
Speaker 1: And let's say you have a barista and they know all about, like, how to make.
Speaker 1: They know how to make them.
Speaker 1: They know the right amount of milk and sugar and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They know how to, how to make the little latte art.
Speaker 1: You guys know the latte art, you know?
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're like me, but every time I get a latte and it's got like the cute little heart or whatever it is on there.
Speaker 1: I always want to like take out my phone and take a picture of the latte art and I'm like I've taken like 57 pictures of these in my life.
Speaker 1: But it's okay, I'm going to take another one here.
Speaker 1: And they know how to make the latte art and maybe they even and they know how to make it they're so good at all this stuff but they never drink the coffee.
Speaker 1: What a travesty that would be, because we all know the purpose of coffee is not just to make it and know all the little parts of it and make the pretty little latte art.
Speaker 1: The purpose is to drink it.
Speaker 1: And could it be that some of us know some things about God and about the Bible but we miss the very heart of it all a thriving relationship with Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1: Could it be that there are people that know about God but they don't truly know God, about God, but they don't truly know God?
Speaker 1: Could it be that we can know the Christian talk and the Christian lingo and the church lingo and the songs and this and that, and the Vacation Bible School and the you name it, but we've missed the beauty of who Jesus is and having a real relationship with him and we're just kind of indifferent.
Speaker 1: We're just kind of like, okay, and the passion isn't really there and the songs that maybe used to touch us.
Speaker 1: Now we're just like, yeah, that's a pretty good song.
Speaker 1: Man worship team did a pretty good job today, messed up with that one little part, but other than that they're pretty good.
Speaker 1: Song man worship team did a pretty good job today, messed up with that one little part, but other than that they're pretty good.
Speaker 1: And we're just kind of like going through the motions, like we know stuff but we just find ourselves indifferent.
Speaker 1: Like the high priest, we have some Bible knowledge.
Speaker 1: Could it be that some of us we're indifferent and we don't have the knowledge and we're just like, yeah, I don't really know much about Jesus, like I'm just kind of here and I see churches.
Speaker 1: Could it be that you might be indifferent just because you don't know Wherever you are in your indifference?
Speaker 1: This is what you need to do you need to move past your indifference into a place of worship, into a place of seeking him.
Speaker 1: Because when you move past your indifference, what's going?
Speaker 1: Worship into a place of seeking him?
Speaker 1: Because when you move past your indifference, what's going to happen is you're going to experience joy.
Speaker 1: Because this is what happened.
Speaker 1: In the rest of the verses and I want you to see it.
Speaker 1: It says in verse number seven.
Speaker 1: It says then Herod secretly summoned the wise men, asked them the exact time the star appeared.
Speaker 1: Herod's trying to get all the deets.
Speaker 1: He wants to know what's going on here.
Speaker 1: He sent them to Bethlehem and said go and search carefully for the child.
Speaker 1: When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship him.
Speaker 1: That's a lie, herod.
Speaker 1: Fact.
Speaker 1: Check that one.
Speaker 1: That ain't true.
Speaker 1: You don't want to worship him, you wanted to take him out.
Speaker 1: Verse 9, after hearing the king, they went on their way, on their way, and there it was the star.
Speaker 1: They had seen that it's rising and it led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child Jesus was.
Speaker 1: And when they saw the star, they were what are those three words?
Speaker 1: They were overwhelmed with joy.
Speaker 1: Overwhelmed with joy.
Speaker 1: They were overwhelmed with joy.
Speaker 1: Wow, we've sought him.
Speaker 1: And now, in verse 11, they entered the house.
Speaker 1: They saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling to their knees.
Speaker 1: What did they do?
Speaker 1: They worshiped him and they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts gold, frankincense and myrrh and they responded by seeking and worshiping Jesus.
Speaker 1: There's what you need to know about seeking and worshiping Jesus.
Speaker 1: Before you will ever seek and worship Jesus, you need to know that he first sought you.
Speaker 1: He first is seeking after you.
Speaker 1: Think about this.
Speaker 1: He came from heaven.
Speaker 1: He came down to this earth and the brokenness and the jacked upness of everything and let me tell you, first century life was a lot harder than it is today.
Speaker 1: They didn't have any Uber Eats in the first century.
Speaker 1: They didn't have grocery stores in the first century.
Speaker 1: They didn't have any Starbucks in the first century.
Speaker 1: It was a rough life and he came down to this earth.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because he was seeking after you.
Speaker 1: This is what Jesus said about himself.
Speaker 1: He said the son of man me, luke 19, is come to seek and to save the lost, those who are outside of a relationship with him.
Speaker 1: He's like I am coming to seek after you, those that are hostile, those who are indifferent, those who are doing their own thing, those who think their money's enough and they're good enough.
Speaker 1: Jesus says I am coming for you.
Speaker 1: My goodness, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And he's patient too.
Speaker 1: He says in 2 Peter 3, peter writes but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but what's that word?
Speaker 1: But all to come to repentance, that's you, that's me, that's you and your baggage, that's you and your trauma, that's you and your anxiety.
Speaker 1: That's you and your trauma.
Speaker 1: That's you and your anxiety, that's you and your indifference.
Speaker 1: He wants you to come to him.
Speaker 1: Some people, sometimes I'll talk to some people and they're like, yeah, bro, like God is for you, like God's not for me, like that's kind of your thing, bro.
Speaker 1: Or you know, like I can't even really find God, like I don't really know how to even like find God.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes those that say can't really find God, he can't be found, can't find him, for the same reason a thief can't find a police officer, because they don't want to.
Speaker 1: You think about this story.
Speaker 1: You think about how God revealed himself to these wise men.
Speaker 1: He used the star, he used nature.
Speaker 1: You realize that God has used nature to show us who he is.
Speaker 1: This is what it says in Romans, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: It says for his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made.
Speaker 1: As a result, people these words are strong.
Speaker 1: People are without excuse.
Speaker 1: I am without excuse, you are without excuse.
Speaker 1: We look at nature and God says hey, I've revealed myself, I revealed myself to you.
Speaker 1: If we seek him, we will find him.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah 29 says you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
Speaker 1: And that's what these wise men did.
Speaker 1: These wise men, they didn't let the danger or the distance or discomfort prevent them from worshiping Jesus.
Speaker 1: These wise men said hey, I just want to come and I just want to worship him.
Speaker 1: And I just want to acknowledge to some of you that, if you make that choice to worship him, it's not easy and it's hard.
Speaker 1: It could be for multiple reasons.
Speaker 1: To seek and to worship him is difficult to do, but if you'll choose to do that and not let the danger or the distance or the discomfort, what's going to happen is it's going to produce overwhelming joy, like it did in verse number 10 of this text.
Speaker 1: Now there's three ways I'm going to wrap up, wrap end with this of how you can respond by seeking and worshiping him.
Speaker 1: The first way is you can respond by trusting him, seeking to trust him for your salvation, by realizing that you need Jesus, by realizing that he lived a perfect life and if you turn from your sin and put your faith and trust in him, he will accept you just as you are.
Speaker 1: And today you need to do that.
Speaker 1: Some of us have done that, and what we need to do is we need to seek him by choosing to worship, even in your current hard season, christmas 2024, that's not how you planned it to be.
Speaker 1: When January 1st 2024 happened, you didn't think you'd be experiencing what you're experiencing now or what you have experienced.
Speaker 1: And what you need to do is you need to choose to seek him in the hard times.
Speaker 1: You need to choose to seek him when it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: You need to choose to seek him when it's difficult, because you can experience the joy and the peace of his presence despite the presence of your circumstances.
Speaker 1: You need to seek him by worshiping him.
Speaker 1: And then I want to invite some of us.
Speaker 1: Number three is to seek him by choosing to put him first in 2025.
Speaker 1: You know, it's crazy that we're about a week or so away from a brand new year.
Speaker 1: Man, new year, wow.
Speaker 1: It's crazy to think that we are about to start 2025.
Speaker 1: And for some of you, 2025 is the year that you're going to grow spiritually more than any other year in your life.
Speaker 1: 2025 is the year that you're going to take steps of growth in your faith in ways that you have never taken steps of growth in your faith before that.
Speaker 1: 2025 can be the year that you decide that you are going to seek after God, because God will be found if you will seek after him.
Speaker 1: 2025 is going to be the year that can set a new trajectory for your entire life.
Speaker 1: But you have to respond by saying I want to seek him in 2025.
Speaker 1: Listen, guys, we can't do 2024 over again.
Speaker 1: We can't do that.
Speaker 1: Some of us wish that we could.
Speaker 1: We can't, but we can have a fresh start, and something that we're going to do in 2025, just because we just want to walk with you, guys, in this is in 2025, we're going to start a spiritual growth campaign called Growing Deeper, and what this is going to be.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a 40-day spiritual growth campaign.
Speaker 1: It's going to be a combination of messages up here.
Speaker 1: You're going to get your own personal journals.
Speaker 1: We'll also be doing things in our groups, and so we're going to do.
Speaker 1: We're going to take 40 days and walk through this together.
Speaker 1: Over the 40 days, we're going to read the Gospels Matthew, mark, luke and John and there's going to be some things just for us to come alongside you and say, hey, let's just grow spiritually together.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to be a part of it, you can scan that QR code or you can write on the green card.
Speaker 1: We had people at both services earlier.
Speaker 1: Write on the green card I want to be a part of.
Speaker 1: I'll show you the green card.
Speaker 1: I want to be a part of Growing Deeper, and all you got to do is write Growing Deeper your name and your email address, and we'll give you some more information about this over the next couple of weeks or so, about this campaign.
Speaker 1: But this is what we want you to do.
Speaker 1: We want to invite you to respond by seeking and worshiping Jesus, and if you will seek and worship him, you can experience joy because of his presence.
Speaker 1: Let's all bow our heads and close our eyes.
Speaker 1: I just want to pray for you for just a moment and as our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, and as our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed.
Speaker 1: Would you take some time right there at your seat and maybe just reflect on your own heart.
Speaker 1: In your own heart, do you find yourself, maybe hostile?
Speaker 1: Maybe, if you're honest and, by the way, there's no better place to be honest than in a church service, it's just us Maybe, if you're honest, you find yourself a little indifferent.
Speaker 1: Things have happened, life has gotten busy, I get it, and maybe what you need to do is you need to turn and anew and afresh say I want to seek and worship him.
Speaker 1: I know it's quiet in here right now and I actually think that's a really good thing.
Speaker 1: Some time for us maybe just to sit in the quietness of this and pray and seek the Lord.
Speaker 1: So take your time.