SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the City Life Church podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We hope it encourages you.
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to learn more about City Life or our mission, connect with us online at CityLifeSandiego.org.
SPEAKER_01: And while podcasts and Sunday mornings are helpful, they are no substitute for deeper personal relationships in the church.
SPEAKER_02: When we get to Christmas, when we get to Christmas time, a lot of times I'll try to like save time because a lot going on, and I'll I'll re preach a sermon.
SPEAKER_02: And then as I work through it, I'm like, I can't preach this anymore.
SPEAKER_02: I gotta I gotta work through it, and then it's it becomes a totally different sermon.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's amazing how God's word interacts with what's going on in the world so consistently, so perfectly.
SPEAKER_02: So we're looking for Matthew 2.
SPEAKER_02: Um, we have study Bibles available.
SPEAKER_02: If you need a good study Bible, we have them on both sides.
SPEAKER_02: One is covered by a bunch of chairs for some reason, and then on that side we also have study Bibles.
SPEAKER_02: Today's message is about the wise men.
SPEAKER_02: I know that we call them three kings because of the song.
SPEAKER_02: There's there's no truth in that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but they are the wise men, and we're gonna be talking about the wise men and King Herod this morning, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Um King Herod thought he was in charge.
SPEAKER_02: And there's a song about him, it's called the Coventry Carol.
SPEAKER_02: Um, that I really love that song.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of weird and like Adventy, and it says, Herod the King in his raging.
SPEAKER_02: I just gotta sing it.
SPEAKER_03: Herod the King in his raging, charged he hath this day, his man of might in his young own sight, all young children to slay.
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's a song talking about what's happening with King Herod in this moment.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna be in Matthew 2, uh 1 through 12.
SPEAKER_02: Does it uh does anybody have a bound Bible here today?
SPEAKER_02: I'd love to see them.
SPEAKER_02: Let me see.
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: I love to see it.
SPEAKER_02: Love seeing a bound Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I just think it's the most beautiful thing in the world.
SPEAKER_02: Um, when someone sees you reading your bound Bible, they know you're reading the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: When you're reading the Bible on your phone, uh they think you're on Instagram.
SPEAKER_02: Matthew two, here we go.
SPEAKER_02: You with me?
SPEAKER_02: Let's read God's word.
SPEAKER_02: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born, King of the Jews?
SPEAKER_02: For we saw his star at its rising and have come to worship him.
SPEAKER_02: When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
SPEAKER_02: So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.
SPEAKER_02: In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, because this is what was written by the prophet, and you, Bethlehem in the land of Judea, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.
SPEAKER_02: Then Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared.
SPEAKER_02: He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go search carefully for the child.
SPEAKER_02: When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go worship him.
SPEAKER_02: Didn't that sound a bit like the guy like opening the van, like, hey kids, want some candy?
SPEAKER_02: That's what it feels like to me.
SPEAKER_02: If you're such a big fan, why is this a secret, bro?
SPEAKER_02: Um they're wise men, they're on to you.
SPEAKER_02: Um so verse nine.
SPEAKER_02: After hearing the king, they went on their way.
SPEAKER_02: And there it was, the star.
SPEAKER_02: They had seen at its rising.
SPEAKER_02: It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was.
SPEAKER_02: When they saw the star they were overwhelmed with joy.
SPEAKER_02: Entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshipped him.
SPEAKER_02: Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts, gold, frankincense, myrrh, and being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another route.
SPEAKER_02: After they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Get up, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, stay there till I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.
SPEAKER_02: So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, escaped to Egypt.
SPEAKER_02: He stayed there until Herod's death, so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_02: Out of Egypt I called my son.
SPEAKER_02: Then Herod, when he realized he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage.
SPEAKER_02: He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.
SPEAKER_02: This is God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Will you pray with me, friends?
SPEAKER_02: Father, in this season of advent, this season of waiting, this season of hope, we come to you with expectation.
SPEAKER_02: Set things right.
SPEAKER_02: God, when the world lusts for power and violence, we ask for mercy.
SPEAKER_02: When we wake to the news of another mass shooting this morning, this time in Johannesburg, South Africa, we are weary of violence.
SPEAKER_02: Would you please let our weary world rest and rejoice?
SPEAKER_02: We are tired of suffering.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord, whenever we seek to find our fulfillment in sin or anything else in this world, would you remind us that you are the only pure good we can seek?
SPEAKER_02: Teach us to trust you with everything.
SPEAKER_02: We need you to be our God and King this morning.
SPEAKER_02: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you.
SPEAKER_02: We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: The Herods in the Bible are the worst.
SPEAKER_02: But if we're honest, like the humans in the Bible are often the worst, are they not?
SPEAKER_02: Like they are weak, they're broken most of the time.
SPEAKER_02: And then we, because we can read their life story like in a paragraph, we can judge them from the cheap seats, can't we?
SPEAKER_02: Like we can look at what they did, but we often have to admit, we have to admit, friends, that we are more like those broken, selfish people in the Bible than we are like Jesus a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I talked with a few people this week that are so close to following Jesus with everything, they're aware of their brokenness, they're aware of their need.
SPEAKER_02: And and someone said to me this week, I'm just afraid that Jesus will ruin my life.
SPEAKER_02: I'm paraphrasing.
SPEAKER_02: But yes, yes, he wants to destroy it.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to destroy it.
SPEAKER_02: And I want to be clear to everyone in the room Jesus wants to obliterate the life that you've chosen for yourself.
SPEAKER_02: And it can be one of two ways.
SPEAKER_02: He can destroy your life like he ended up destroying King Herod.
SPEAKER_02: Or he can destroy your life like he did with the wise men who met Jesus and they were changed forever.
SPEAKER_02: The day I gave my life to Jesus, I died.
SPEAKER_02: I was buried.
SPEAKER_02: And when I and then I was resurrected with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And it has been the greatest roller coaster I could ever have hoped for, with ups and downs and dives and loops.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I feel like I'm upside down.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm still always secure in Jesus, not like you know, some of those rides at Six Flags where you're like, is this thing gonna hold me?
SPEAKER_02: So today I'm gonna give you three truths about the kingdom of God from Matthew 2.
SPEAKER_02: Three truths about the kingdom of God from Matthew 2.
SPEAKER_02: And my first truth is this Jesus can only be our king if we let him take his place on our throne.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus can only be our king if we let him take his place on our throne.
SPEAKER_02: And let me just say this in case nobody, some of you don't know, a throne is something that only a king sits on.
SPEAKER_02: It's a sign of power and authority.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 3, it said, When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
SPEAKER_02: Jerusalem, the seat of power in Israel.
SPEAKER_02: Then when he go to verse eight, it said, He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go search carefully for the child.
SPEAKER_02: When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go worship him, faker.
SPEAKER_02: Then in verse 16, he said, When Herod realized he had been outwitted by the wise men, he flew into a rage.
SPEAKER_02: He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.
SPEAKER_02: See, Herod.
SPEAKER_02: Herod with his forked tongue, like a snake, promised that he too would worship Jesus alongside the wise men.
SPEAKER_02: There are people in the room who have made the same empty promise.
SPEAKER_02: But you've barely allowed Jesus to rule over anything in your life.
SPEAKER_02: But while some of us may be fooled by Herod, God is not so easily stymied.
SPEAKER_02: God looks at the heart and reveals our wicked plans.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wants honest devotion, friends.
SPEAKER_02: It's like Jesus said in Luke 12, 3, he said, Whatever you say in the dark will be heard in the light.
SPEAKER_02: And whatever you whisper in private rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.
SPEAKER_02: Now before we totally beat up on King Herod, I want to be fair and I want to share a couple positives, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Herod did have uh qualities that we've learned from history and archaeology, not from the Bible necessarily.
SPEAKER_02: Um during a difficult season, he once suspended taxes for the people to help them ride out a storm.
SPEAKER_02: Uh also during the famine of 25 BC, it was said that he melted down his own gold to buy corn for his starving subjects.
SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
SPEAKER_02: Great, great, awesome Herod.
SPEAKER_02: That's all I got for the good stuff.
SPEAKER_02: But Herod had one terrible flaw, and it's it had it came to show itself more and more the older Herod got.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was absolutely insecurity.
SPEAKER_02: He wanted absolute devotion.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, um I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about Herod, but maybe, just maybe, we have some things in common with Herod.
SPEAKER_02: Herod wanted to be challenged by nobody, even his family.
SPEAKER_02: Tell me you don't get that sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: He was wildly insecure and he was constantly making everything about him.
SPEAKER_02: Tell me that that doesn't happen to you sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Now listen to what William Barclay, though, says about Herod.
SPEAKER_02: He says, he was almost insanely suspicious.
SPEAKER_02: He had always been suspicious, and the older he became, the more suspicious he grew.
SPEAKER_02: If he expect suspected anyone as a rival to his power, that person was promptly eliminated.
SPEAKER_02: He murdered his wife Miriam and her mother Alexandra, his eldest son Antipater, and two other sons.
SPEAKER_02: Alexander and Aristobulus were all assassinated by him.
SPEAKER_02: So clearly he's secure, right?
SPEAKER_02: See, Herod was a power-protecting old cuss, and he didn't suffer anyone.
SPEAKER_02: It was said that King Herod knew that no one liked him.
SPEAKER_02: Like he knew nobody liked him.
SPEAKER_02: So when he was dying, what he had his guys do is he had them round up a bunch of his enemies.
SPEAKER_02: And now, once again, this is extra biblical, okay?
SPEAKER_02: So this is a story that has been told throughout the ages.
SPEAKER_02: So forgive me if it's not true.
SPEAKER_02: I just know what the story says.
SPEAKER_02: But Herod was said to have uh about a dozen of his uh his uh subjects imprisoned so that when he died, they would execute these men, and people would cry when he died.
SPEAKER_02: That's the story about Herod.
SPEAKER_02: He was so he knew everybody hated him that he would have people killed so someone might cry when he died.
SPEAKER_02: Herod used his power to destroy anyone who would stand up to him.
SPEAKER_02: Um, even if it meant slaughtering his family, his friends, or an infant king he had heard about.
SPEAKER_02: Even if it meant slaughtering the Jewish king, King Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Now there's a difference between Herod, who had no intention of following Jesus, and those of you who are trying your best and you get it wrong sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: You gotta hear me on this.
SPEAKER_02: People join our church and they find people who are still battling drug addiction, sex addiction, alcoholism.
SPEAKER_02: Some of y'all still struggle to not constantly curse, and then there will be people who will call you a hypocrite.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just like, they're not hypocrites if they openly admit they're struggling and still trying to get it right.
SPEAKER_02: There was a difference, friends.
SPEAKER_02: But because of our God and his Holy Spirit, you are not who you were, friends.
SPEAKER_02: You are not who you will be because of our God, our Holy Spirit, that we get to be with us, our good and gracious counselor.
SPEAKER_02: See, this place here is a hospital.
SPEAKER_02: This is a recovering Herod hospital, full of people who often forget that only God was meant to sit on the throne.
SPEAKER_02: We're beat up, we have been sinful, we are weak, but in our weakness, God is strong.
SPEAKER_02: And I truly believe God's Holy Spirit can deliver you from so many sins and things that so easily entangle you on this journey.
SPEAKER_02: You just have to trust Him with them.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wants honest, honest devotion.
SPEAKER_02: It's God's upside-down kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: The powerful and the weak alike will all one day bend their knee to King Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Herod, in all his splendor, he's no match for the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wants to sit in the place of power in your life, and he is going to destroy everything if you let him sit there, friends.
SPEAKER_02: When you give him leadership over your life, he is going to put things you love to death.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the devil, he offers you kingdoms.
SPEAKER_02: The devil offers you power and money and glory for you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus offers you freedom and life when you sit under his kingship.
SPEAKER_02: The devil offers you a throne where you decide what you want to do.
SPEAKER_02: Now, what you don't know is he still is trying to control you.
SPEAKER_02: You can be in charge, you can be the ruler, you can have all the poison you want to drink.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus offers you a kingdom where you can live in the harmony of the greater kingdom.
SPEAKER_02: See, he doesn't want a little bit of you as a subject, though.
SPEAKER_02: He wants all of you as a subject.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't want you to keep kicking him out of his chair.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus doesn't take turns, he wants all of it.
SPEAKER_02: Once he sits on the throne, he's not getting down for anyone, and he won't suffer pretend faith, friends.
SPEAKER_02: Now Jesus says in Matthew 7 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Guys, there is a day of judgment when all the posers, all the Herods, will be made known.
SPEAKER_02: Those powerful who claimed Christ in word, but only sought to further their reputations, their careers, their bank accounts.
SPEAKER_02: If that is you, it's not too late for you.
SPEAKER_02: Apologize to God, repent, give him your life, give him the seat you were keeping warm for him.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wants honest devotion.
SPEAKER_02: Upon arrival in heaven, we may be kind of surprised at who we see there.
SPEAKER_02: It'll be full of prostitutes, addicts, gangbangers.
SPEAKER_02: They're celebrating Jesus in his kingdom, dressed in white like the great saints of old.
SPEAKER_02: Heaven will be full of screw-ups like us who seek to follow God but mess up all the dang time.
SPEAKER_02: And some of those kings and powerful men who pretended they ain't gonna be there.
SPEAKER_02: Now, lately in our country, in our city, and in California leadership, I've seen some serious, awful leadership.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things I learned is when I make you mad, uh I don't tend to get emails, you just disappear.
SPEAKER_02: So uh I'll miss some of you.
SPEAKER_02: It's very hard for me to read this text without reading into it what's going on in our world and in our country.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to hear first that I said in our country, our city, and in California leadership.
SPEAKER_02: But friends, I've seen a president who insists on making himself king.
SPEAKER_02: And because he has power now, he can pardon anyone he wants for any reason he wants.
SPEAKER_02: He's getting more and more power through the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_02: You want to see if he's like Herod, he has removed Juneteenth, Juneteenth, and Martin Luther King Day as free entry into our state parks, and he has made his birthday free entry into our state parks.
SPEAKER_02: This is insecure Herod behavior.
SPEAKER_02: But we all know what is gonna happen, don't we?
SPEAKER_02: No matter how badly he wants significance, no matter how much he wants to be remembered, his kingdom will end.
SPEAKER_02: He will have to answer to God for every decision just like we will.
SPEAKER_02: And without Jesus, we will.
SPEAKER_02: And even more so, one day, someone else will come into power and remove his birthday from the celebration.
SPEAKER_02: And someone else, like say, like a Gavinusum, who's on the other side, will try to do the same dang thing.
SPEAKER_02: And guess what?
SPEAKER_02: His kingdom will fade too.
SPEAKER_02: It's only God's kingdom that endures.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus won't share his seat with anyone.
SPEAKER_02: Revelation 11, 15 says, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
SPEAKER_02: He will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: Not Republicans, not Democrats, not communists, not anarchists, certainly not me or you, because we need to just get out of Jesus' seat because he doesn't share.
SPEAKER_02: And we're gonna put our hope in a kingdom that quickly expires like sour milk.
SPEAKER_02: Let it not be.
SPEAKER_02: Let us put our hope in his kingdom that lasts forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: Now Herod refused to admit what we Christians understand.
SPEAKER_02: We are weak without Jesus, and that's not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_02: That's bad news to some people, but it is good news to us.
SPEAKER_02: God specializes in your weakness, in using your weakness for his kingdom, and that's where we get our second kingdom truth.
SPEAKER_02: Our second one is this God glorifies himself in the weak and the small.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 6 and you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel.
SPEAKER_02: We call that the consolation of Israel.
SPEAKER_02: If you sing, if you see all these Advent songs, we're like, Jesus, Israel, all this stuff, it's because in that time Israel had been stuck for 400 years waiting for God to free them.
SPEAKER_02: And so we call them the consolation of Israel as they waited and waited and waited.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus showed himself.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was born in a modest place, though.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the house of bread.
SPEAKER_02: Which is offensive to those of us who can't eat gluten, but you know it's all right.
SPEAKER_02: House of bread, for those of you who have been reading your Bible for a while, you might think this is cool, you might think it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02: And there's no coincidences with our God, is there?
SPEAKER_02: If you know your Bible, you know that in John 6, Jesus said, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
SPEAKER_02: Once again, not a coincidence that years later, Jesus sat down with his disciples, his apprentices, his padwans, his students, men who had all been rejected by other rabbis, and he showed them the bread, and he broke it, and he said, This is my body broken for you.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus from the house of bread.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus from poor, small, dusty Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_02: Guys, that's not even El Cahome, okay?
SPEAKER_02: That's not Rainbow, that's not Barrago Springs, that's not Valley.
SPEAKER_02: Center.
SPEAKER_02: Bethlehem, while small though and underrated, it was small, um, but not as lowly as it might seem.
SPEAKER_02: Like, like, because it was a tiny village that birthed kings.
SPEAKER_02: King David, who you might have seen, the star of David being the Jewish symbol.
SPEAKER_02: King David came from Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_02: He was not just a great king, he was considered the greatest king.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it was a humble town that gives us king of kings, though, and the lord of lords.
SPEAKER_02: Bethlehem gave us Jesus, but it's not Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: It's small and it's humble.
SPEAKER_02: Now Anna Case Winter, she says this.
SPEAKER_02: She says there is a sharp contrast in this chapter between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_02: Jerusalem is the place the wise men expect to find this auspicious event occurring, the birth of the king of the Jews.
SPEAKER_02: Jerusalem, after all, is the center of power politically and religiously.
SPEAKER_02: Bethlehem, by contrast, is a seemingly inconsequential place inhabited by people at the margins, peasants like Mary and Joseph.
SPEAKER_02: See, if most of us were writing the story, I don't think we would write it with Bethlehem, would we?
SPEAKER_02: We would say New York City, man, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philly for some of you guys, I know.
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't he wasn't supposed to be born in El Centro or Baker or Corona.
SPEAKER_02: That's not where a king should be born.
SPEAKER_02: God should have chosen Tokyo or like Mexico City or Paris.
SPEAKER_02: Instead, though, it says in Corinthians 1, 1 Corinthians 1, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
SPEAKER_02: And God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
SPEAKER_02: Now later on, Jesus would live in a place called Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: Nazareth was where the hillbillies lived, man.
SPEAKER_02: Like Nazareth was where if they if you were from Nazareth, they knew you were from Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you had an accent.
SPEAKER_02: So you know it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02: If you think about it, there's so many things we don't think about with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Like, based on what we know about Jesus' time, he was probably missing teeth.
SPEAKER_02: Based on what we know about where Jesus grew up, he probably had an accent that you might look down upon.
SPEAKER_02: So can you imagine?
SPEAKER_02: Like Lola this morning, she read the most beautiful text from John 3.
SPEAKER_02: Can you imagine, though, a dude with missing teeth and a strong accent saying that to you?
SPEAKER_02: Maybe the type of person you might look down upon is the greatest.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm I was thinking maybe I'll do that.
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not gonna do that accent.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: Um now listen.
SPEAKER_02: Listen to what happened in John 1.
SPEAKER_02: Uh in John 1 45, Philip found Nathaniel, and he told him, Hey man, we have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and so did the prophets.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: And then Nathaniel goes, What?
SPEAKER_02: Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
SPEAKER_02: And Philip said, Come see.
SPEAKER_02: Come see.
SPEAKER_02: And guys, I know that some of you in the room have heard people say awful things about your home country.
SPEAKER_02: I hope you don't believe the awful things they say about you or your people.
SPEAKER_02: But if you do, remember where Jesus came from.
SPEAKER_02: Born in a tiny stable in Bethlehem and raised in Hillbilly, Nazareth.
SPEAKER_02: Nazareth, can anything good come from Nazareth?
SPEAKER_02: Yes, the Savior of the world.
SPEAKER_02: God was using Eastern magicians following astrology to bring good news.
SPEAKER_02: And if you think that's weird, you should hear about the scores of people coming to Christ right now in oppressive Muslim countries.
SPEAKER_02: God is using dreams to save them.
SPEAKER_02: God used a Muslim man to help protect Jewish victims at the Bondi Beach massacre last weekend.
SPEAKER_02: His name is Ahmed El Ahmed.
SPEAKER_02: What do you think of when you hear that name?
SPEAKER_02: But God used him.
SPEAKER_02: God often used those who are far from him like he saved me.
SPEAKER_02: I was so far away from Jesus, and I was dead set on making fun of Christians for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, that was someone that God found and God used.
SPEAKER_02: I don't believe the Eastern wise men went home without being proud, proud, profoundly affected by what they saw in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: It said they worshiped him, they were changed.
SPEAKER_02: Do you feel self-sufficient in this room?
SPEAKER_02: Do you work for everything you have?
SPEAKER_02: You are all powerful.
SPEAKER_02: You are sitting on your throne.
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02: Are you uh just as good as anyone else?
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02: That is a Harrod mindset.
SPEAKER_02: It is a Harrid mindset, and it will drag you to hell if you think you're good enough.
SPEAKER_02: Christ's followers are sinners who confess their sin, confess their need for a savior.
SPEAKER_02: We're not great people who embrace a Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We are weak people who embrace God because God uses the weak for his glory.
SPEAKER_02: We are saved because we are dependent on God.
SPEAKER_02: We are saved by Christ because we recognize our need for a savior.
SPEAKER_02: We are saved because God is good and we ain't.
SPEAKER_02: Can anything good come from Mount Hope?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Port au Prince, Quadabuquet, El Cahon, San Yesijo?
SPEAKER_02: I picked on El Cajon.
SPEAKER_02: Sorry guys, I said it twice.
SPEAKER_02: Rosarito, Porto Nuevo?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Can anything good come from an ex-gangster in the room?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Can God use someone with a broken, frail, fragile body?
SPEAKER_02: You better believe it.
SPEAKER_02: Can God use an undocumented immigrant?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Can God use someone who stutters?
SPEAKER_02: You know it.
SPEAKER_02: Can anything good come from you in your suffering and your brokenness?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: God has fantastic plans to use your suffering and your brokenness if you would just let him.
SPEAKER_02: Get out of his seat though and watch him work.
SPEAKER_02: God looks beyond appearances.
SPEAKER_02: God loves using the lowest person on the totem pole.
SPEAKER_02: And he can show you how great he is when he works because of your lowness.
SPEAKER_02: That's why God chooses murderers in the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: God chooses adulterers, the weakest, the smallest.
SPEAKER_02: And it's why I think he chose Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_02: It's why he uses us.
SPEAKER_02: God uses the outsider, the powerless, and the weak to display his glory.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus just wants honest devotion.
SPEAKER_02: Now, the sooner you recognize you need God, the better you will do.
SPEAKER_02: And this is where things get crazy.
SPEAKER_02: And that's our third point.
SPEAKER_02: Life with Jesus is the adventure you've been waiting for.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not always what you expect, is it?
SPEAKER_02: We got a lot of people in the room that have walked with Jesus for a long time, and it's an adventure.
SPEAKER_02: You might not call it that.
SPEAKER_02: But it is an adventure, and God has been doing something great in your life, even as you've suffered.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 9 says, After hearing the king, they went on their way, and there it was.
SPEAKER_02: The star they had seen at its rising.
SPEAKER_02: It led them until they came and stopped above the place where the child was.
SPEAKER_02: When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.
SPEAKER_02: Entering the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and falling to their knees they worshipped him.
SPEAKER_02: Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
SPEAKER_02: And being warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by another route.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you guys know what gold frankincense is and myrrh are.
SPEAKER_02: I think you know what gold is.
SPEAKER_02: Frankincense is something that a priest would use.
SPEAKER_02: A great gift for someone who was going to give up everything and would be anointed at his death.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, once they met Jesus, once they saw him, once they bowed and they worshiped him, nothing would stay the same.
SPEAKER_02: They couldn't go back to life as normal, could they?
SPEAKER_02: Things changed.
SPEAKER_02: They met God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: You can't stay the same after seeing that.
SPEAKER_02: If Magi came to Jesus as these soothsayers, um, if you were with us in the summer, actually, you remember these astrologers who they are.
SPEAKER_02: They were influenced and saved by the protection of the prophet Daniel.
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty cool, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like, where did they get this idea of a Savior coming from Israel?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I theorize, and I think others do as well, that it was through the prophet Daniel that they heard about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The same Daniel who was pointing towards a coming king who would not only rescue the Jewish people but the whole world.
SPEAKER_02: See, generations later, these astrologers followed a star to find the Jewish Messiah.
SPEAKER_02: They met Jesus and his family, and they returned home new men.
SPEAKER_02: They didn't bow to power, they bowed to God.
SPEAKER_02: They would not bow to King Herod because Jesus doesn't share his seat.
SPEAKER_02: I bet when the Magi found Jesus, they left as believers.
SPEAKER_02: They might have gone home to insults, to persecution, and at the end of their journey, a new one had started, though.
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus grabs you, when Jesus sits on the throne of your life, he changes everything.
SPEAKER_02: Now there's a great story that I love.
SPEAKER_02: It's a true story in the Bible in Matthew.
SPEAKER_02: Matthew tells us about a time he saw Jesus change a life and the people around him.
SPEAKER_02: It's in chapter five of Matthew.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to paraphrase a little bit that Jesus and his students arrived at the other side of a lake, Genesaret.
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus climbed up out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, where do Jewish people hang out?
SPEAKER_02: Not among bodies.
SPEAKER_02: It makes you unclean.
SPEAKER_02: This man lived in the burial caves, and he could not be restrained, even with chains.
SPEAKER_02: Whenever he was put into chains and shackles, he snapped the chains from his wrist and he smashed the shackles.
SPEAKER_02: No one was strong enough to subdue him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if if if that were today, we would just call it PCP, right?
SPEAKER_02: But no, no, no, there was something else going on.
SPEAKER_02: Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.
SPEAKER_02: When Jesus was some distance away, ran to meet him and bowed low before Jesus, and with a shriek he screamed, Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?
SPEAKER_02: In the name of God I beg you, don't torture me.
SPEAKER_02: For Jesus had already said to the spirit, Come out of the man, you evil spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Then Jesus demanded, What is your name?
SPEAKER_02: And he replied, My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.
SPEAKER_02: Now, guys, I just gotta say, we make entire movies about these powerful demons that seem like in charge.
SPEAKER_02: That seem all powerful.
SPEAKER_02: I've seen the commercials.
SPEAKER_02: For some reason, if you're watching like Bluey or any like cartoon for kids under four, the most terrifying commercials come on, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like during Padre Baseball, we see these terrifying commercials every October and November for some reason.
SPEAKER_02: Those demons in those movies are so powerful and they cannot be stopped.
SPEAKER_02: They are terrifying.
SPEAKER_02: Let me just tell you, that is fiction.
SPEAKER_02: That is fiction.
SPEAKER_02: It is fiction.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you feel that way about your sins and your desires too.
SPEAKER_02: You just feel like you can't get over the hump on that.
SPEAKER_02: But look at what happens next when Jesus confronts him.
SPEAKER_02: These all powerful demons.
SPEAKER_02: Then the evil spirits begged him again and again and again, not to send them to some distant place, but to a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.
SPEAKER_02: Send us into those pigs, let us enter them.
SPEAKER_02: So Jesus gave him permission.
SPEAKER_02: The evil spirits came out of the man, entered the pigs, and an entire herd of about two thousand pigs plunged down the deep hillside into the lake and drowned.
SPEAKER_02: The herdsmen fled to a nearby town, surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran.
SPEAKER_02: People rushed out to see what happened.
SPEAKER_02: A crowd gathered around Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: They saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.
SPEAKER_02: He was sitting there.
SPEAKER_02: Sitting there, fully clothed and perfectly sane.
SPEAKER_02: And they were afraid.
SPEAKER_02: What are they afraid of?
SPEAKER_02: Are they afraid of demons?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Then those who had seen what happened told the others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.
SPEAKER_02: As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged him to go with him.
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus said, Nah.
SPEAKER_02: Go home to your family and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.
SPEAKER_02: This man met Jesus and he was changed.
SPEAKER_02: The people of the community were scared and they sent Jesus away.
SPEAKER_02: They still wanted to sit on their own thrones.
SPEAKER_02: They wanted to have some predictability with what they were doing.
SPEAKER_02: They didn't want God to change things in their neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02: They didn't want him to sit on the throne that they were keeping warm.
SPEAKER_02: He was going to mess with their pocketbook.
SPEAKER_02: Pigs cost money, man.
SPEAKER_02: Did anyone get a ham for Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_02: Or excuse me, a ham for Christmas?
SPEAKER_02: Expensive.
SPEAKER_02: No, thank you.
SPEAKER_02: They said, Go, leave us.
SPEAKER_02: But the man who had been stuffed full with thousands of powerful demons was delivered by the word of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And all he could do was follow Jesus and his word at that moment.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Go, go home, tell your people, don't hide from anyone.
SPEAKER_02: And he took his assignment.
SPEAKER_02: He took his assignment from the king.
SPEAKER_02: Tell them what God has done for you.
SPEAKER_02: So he did.
SPEAKER_02: And perhaps today, for some of you, is your deliverance day.
SPEAKER_02: Embrace the new journey in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Go home, change, go home with joy, be baptized.
SPEAKER_02: Tell the world what God has done for you.
SPEAKER_02: See, Jesus wants honest devotion, though.
SPEAKER_02: None of this fake in the funk with him.
SPEAKER_02: Trusting Jesus with everything is going to be the greatest adventure, but it's going to turn your world upside down.
SPEAKER_02: That PCP addict was changed.
SPEAKER_02: The demoniac was changed.
SPEAKER_02: The wise men were changed.
SPEAKER_02: They met God Himself.
SPEAKER_02: Tony Evans says, Whereas Herod was deeply distressed over the news of a new king, the wise men were overwhelmed with joy to see him.
SPEAKER_02: See the difference.
SPEAKER_02: True worship can't be contained.
SPEAKER_02: These men had traveled an incredible distance for perhaps as long as two years to worship the king.
SPEAKER_02: But they knew he was worth the journey.
SPEAKER_02: How much are you willing to be inconvenienced to worship the king of kings?
SPEAKER_02: How badly do you want him?
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Evans.
SPEAKER_02: That's a good word.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, God desires to make something better out of you and for you.
SPEAKER_02: He takes his enemies and he makes them family.
SPEAKER_02: And that is the beauty of the gospel, that God, in his great love, would see his enemies and do something about it.
SPEAKER_02: That he would send his son to this earth to live a perfect life and deal with the same things we deal with on the daily, and he would die for our sins, not his.
SPEAKER_02: But then he showed that he was bigger than that when he rose again.
SPEAKER_02: He came back to life showing he was bigger than death, bigger than sin, bigger than any silly demon or even the devil.
SPEAKER_02: But friends, while he will sit on the throne, we still have to decide if we're gonna follow him.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, these mystics, these magicians, they were doing the best they could with the information they had.
SPEAKER_02: But like them, we once were a long way off from Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: We once were a long way off from Jesus, but as Ephesians 2 says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And he doesn't just save you, he uses you.
SPEAKER_02: Because God uses the outsider and the powerless and the weak to display his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Hear the words of Anne Voskamp.
SPEAKER_02: At the foot of the cradle of Christ, like the foot of the cross of Christ, there are no big people, no powerful people, no proud people.
SPEAKER_02: We are all children who straggle to the manger with nothing.
SPEAKER_02: We are all just raggedy manger stragglers.
SPEAKER_02: Fathers who lay down all their work, mammas who lay down all their weariness, children who lay down all their wants.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, no matter what our past, no matter where we come from, we look forward to something even greater than we could ask or imagine.
SPEAKER_02: We worship a good God who would descend from the heights.
SPEAKER_02: We worship a good God who brought his light to the dark world.
SPEAKER_02: We worship his sal uh we who brought his salvation to his enemies and made them family.
SPEAKER_02: And this morning, our hopes are personified in a child born in filth, in an incon insignificant village, visited by pagan magicians and scorned by men of power.
SPEAKER_02: Look at the wise men.
SPEAKER_02: Astrologers, soothsayers, interpreting dreams.
SPEAKER_02: They were magicians, magi.
SPEAKER_02: Man, uh if you've seen Aladdin, they were Jafar, man.
SPEAKER_02: But it didn't matter where they came from, it mattered where they were going.
SPEAKER_02: And it mattered that they were going closer and closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And it it doesn't matter if they started as evil wizards or warlocks or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02: What mattered is that God accepts all of us in our sinful states and provides a better way forward.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what he did for the Magi.
SPEAKER_02: Because God uses the outsider, the powerless, and the weak to display his glory.
SPEAKER_02: Do you have a past?
SPEAKER_02: Me too.
SPEAKER_02: But God didn't stop the magicians from coming to Jesus, did he?
SPEAKER_02: He actually made a way and he protected them on their way home.
SPEAKER_02: And he can make a way for you too, but you have to relinquish your seat.
SPEAKER_02: Because God uses the outsider, the powerless, and the weak to display his glory.
SPEAKER_02: So, City Life Church, and guess God made himself low so you would be lifted up to him.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wants honest devotion.
SPEAKER_02: Trust Jesus with everything because it is the greatest adventure and it will turn your world upside down.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: Father, I love seeing the weakness of people in the Bible because I see the weakness in me.
SPEAKER_02: God, I love seeing the weakness of people in the Bible because I hear of the weakness and brokenness and sinfulness of the people in the room who think there's no way that you would make room for them again.
SPEAKER_02: I know that we've tried to steal your seat, and I know that uh we'll leave this room and try to steal your seat again.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, as we seek you, we find a kindness, a compassion, and a forgiveness that is unexplainable.
SPEAKER_02: So in this moment, in the silent of our hearts, we bring to you our sins.
SPEAKER_02: I just tell you, I think today might need to be the day for somebody.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know who you are, but I know that there's probably someone in the room that needs to just kneel down at the foot of the cross, kneel down at the manger, kneel down to Jesus and say, God, I want the seat, but I'm gonna give it up to you because I know you know better.
SPEAKER_02: I've done so many wrong things, but I ask that you would forgive me.
SPEAKER_02: I confess my sins, I repent of them, and I want to follow you as Lord of my whole life.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord, if there's someone in this room that feels that way, that needs to say that out loud to someone, God, please don't let them leave this room without confessing and starting their journey, their adventure with you.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we thank you that as far as the east is from the west, so our sin is from your sight when you forgive us.
SPEAKER_02: Father, we thank you that when you look upon us, you see the righteousness, righteousness of your Son Jesus, and pronounce us good somehow.
SPEAKER_02: Well we love you.
SPEAKER_02: We don't always understand it.
SPEAKER_02: We know who we are, we know what we've done, but we know that you're bigger.
SPEAKER_02: We love you and pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's give a hand clap of praise for that.
SPEAKER_01: Good work.
SPEAKER_01: We've now reached the point in our service where we're going to take communion.
SPEAKER_01: So communion practically is where we'll take a piece of bread, we'll dip it in the cup, and we'll eat of it.
SPEAKER_01: We have uh gluten-free elements, uh, pre-packaged elements over here if you uh prefer those.
SPEAKER_01: We take communion because uh Jesus uh told us to.
SPEAKER_01: On the night that Jesus was uh betrayed, um, he sat with his disciples for a final meal.
SPEAKER_01: And he took a piece of bread and he broke of it.
SPEAKER_01: He broke it and he said, This is my body which will be broken for you on your behalf.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way he took a glass of wine, and he said, This is my blood that'll be poured out for the forgiveness of your sins.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, Every time that we take a uh we we eat the bread and we drink the cup, we proclaim, remember his death, the cost that he paid for for our forgiveness on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And so, as believers, this is significant because we we want to remember, we want to recall what Jesus did for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so, if you are a believer, if you've given your life to the Lord, the table is open.
SPEAKER_01: If you have not, uh I encourage you to uh to get prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll have a Pastor Dell um over here to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'll probably be over there too.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and give your life to the Lord, and we encourage you to take um take communion afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: So, with that, the table is open.
SPEAKER_00: Also, during this next song, we're going to be taking the offering.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the offering is something that we do out of joy and thankfulness for all that the Lord has given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Please do not feel any pressure to give, but if you would like to work.