WEBVTT 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:23.199 We're reading this morning from Matthew chapter two, verses one to twelve. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:36.479 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? 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:40.719 For we saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him. 00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:52.479 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. 00:00:53.119 --> 00:00:57.439 They told him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:05.920 And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judea, are by no in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:10.400 For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:25.519 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. 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:36.000 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. 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:46.319 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. 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:57.920 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. 00:01:58.079 --> 00:01:59.200 And so reads God's word. 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:00.159 All right. 00:02:00.319 --> 00:02:02.000 Well, good morning. 00:02:02.319 --> 00:02:03.519 Welcome to City Church. 00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:08.639 Add my welcome to Peters, Marks, and Nicole's, and everybody else that you've seen up here this morning. 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:11.439 My name is Ben, one of the leaders here. 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:19.360 This morning is our third, I believe, final sermon in the Advent series. 00:02:52.159 --> 00:03:06.240 So if we can have a better understanding of the scale and scope of the curse, well, maybe that helps us to have a better understanding of the scale and scope of God's love expressed in the advent of Jesus. 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:07.759 How far does the curse go? 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:09.120 It goes pretty far. 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:14.639 But then there's the blessings of Jesus going right along, right over the top of it. 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:21.360 So we've been looking into a few of the particular curses that the coming of Jesus impacts and will ultimately undo. 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:25.919 Not to say that these are the only aspects that there are out there of the curse. 00:03:26.479 --> 00:03:28.879 But the first one was at our evening carol service. 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:32.960 Mark talked about the curse of war and oppression. 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:36.080 And the answer to that being the Prince of Peace. 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:48.479 Last week at our family carol service, Peter spoke about the curse of injustice, of inequality, and how Jesus being born to a small family in a small place shows that he's turning the systems of the world upside down. 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.240 And this brings us to our third and final curse. 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:54.080 Third and final for this series, right? 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:56.719 There's more curses out there, I'm sure, that we could talk about. 00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:01.439 But our third and final curse for this series is death. 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:04.240 So Merry Christmas, everybody. 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:17.920 You know, I saw these lights over here and I may I began to walk towards the No, I'm just kidding. 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:23.120 Um I could tell you all about my experiences growing old, uh, but I'll save that. 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:28.000 If you want to talk about what it is to be this old, come and find me after the service. 00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:29.519 But I want to tell you a story. 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:32.480 It was about uh seven years ago. 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:34.879 Uh my uncle passed away. 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:36.959 He was not a particularly old man. 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:39.839 He was 70, he was in decent health, active enough. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.079 No one saw it coming. 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.839 He was there one day, and then he wasn't. 00:04:46.079 --> 00:05:11.920 And I think our family, our little family, my my wife and children, we felt it probably all the more because just a few days before he passed, he and all of his family, a bunch of his family, had been over at our house for a for a Sunday dinner, and we had a had a lovely time together, and you know, all the loudness and and and great food and and good laughs of a family dinner like that, you know, old and new, old, old and young coming together there. 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:17.439 And then later that week we found out he was gone, and it was just like, what is this? 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:18.959 What is the story here? 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:20.800 Didn't make sense to us. 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:24.000 It was hard to believe, and it was hard to accept. 00:05:24.240 --> 00:05:25.279 And that's just for us. 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:30.879 I mean, how much more would it have been so for my aunt, for his wife? 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:31.360 Right? 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:35.040 How much more for his children, grandchildren? 00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:41.279 So grief and mourning stretched out for months and for years. 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:45.839 Now I share that experience not because I think that it's unique. 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:48.720 It's not even unique in my own life, right? 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:50.160 We've all lost people. 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:56.720 But it's we could we could probably go around the room and get dozens of stories of loved ones who've passed on. 00:05:56.879 --> 00:05:59.040 You've tell me about the people that you've lost. 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:01.199 We've all known that hurt. 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:03.439 We've all known that mourning. 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:10.639 And this is all known and understood, that this is how life goes. 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:14.399 And yet it still hurts when it happens. 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:17.040 When we lose someone, it still hurts. 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:25.040 And what this suggests to me, what I might say, is that deep down we know that it's not right. 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:28.560 We know that it's not right for us to lose people along the way. 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:30.480 And this scripture backs that up. 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:33.759 Scripture says that death is part of the curse. 00:06:34.879 --> 00:06:40.480 And if we want to take it one step further, this is a curse that we all live with. 00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:43.600 But it's also a curse that we all live under. 00:06:44.639 --> 00:06:56.160 We we may not face the horrors of war, we may not be oppressed particularly, we may not have we may have more or less levels of injustice and inequality that we live with. 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:01.040 This curse, this curse of death, this is universal. 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:05.360 But remember the song lyric, right? 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:09.120 He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. 00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:15.120 So we've we've just established in a couple of minutes there that this curse is found everywhere. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:19.279 This curse is in every life, in everyone's experience. 00:07:19.680 --> 00:07:25.360 So now let's have a look and see how Jesus coming undoes this curse. 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:31.920 So go ahead and have that passage, the one that Nicole just read, open in front of you there, Matthew 2. 00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:33.680 And we'll start with verse 1. 00:07:33.759 --> 00:07:46.000 And it says, 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? 00:07:46.399 --> 00:07:50.160 And I think this is a fairly familiar story in Scripture. 00:07:50.319 --> 00:07:54.959 You know, the source material for a couple of songs back there, We Three Kings of Orientar. 00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:59.040 And of course, as Peter alluded to, the text doesn't tell us that there were three kings. 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:00.560 Might have been more, might have been less. 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:02.800 There were at least two because it's plural. 00:08:03.519 --> 00:08:05.680 But we just know about three gifts. 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:15.519 You know, and we could we could devote a lot of time and effort going off on tangents and incidental questions this morning, you know, things like, you know, where did these wise men come from? 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:17.759 Where did these where did these magi come from? 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:20.000 Why were they looking for the king of the Jews? 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:22.720 What's the deal with this with this star of Bethlehem? 00:08:22.879 --> 00:08:24.480 Does that mean that astrology is a thing? 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:25.759 No, it's not. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:28.959 But uh, you know, we could answer all of these questions here. 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:33.120 If you want to talk through any of those questions, you can come find me after service. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:35.120 Or better yet, find Mark after service. 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:36.399 That's even better. 00:08:37.440 --> 00:08:42.799 But we're gonna be focusing on the gifts that these three wise men brought. 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:51.039 Before we do that, let's remember that these wise men made the journey to find one born king of the Jews. 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:56.320 So their gifts reflected who and what they expected this king to be. 00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:00.480 Notice they didn't go knocking house to house looking for, you know, do you have the king? 00:09:00.559 --> 00:09:01.039 Do you have the king? 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:02.080 Have you seen this king? 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:03.679 They went straight to the palace. 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:06.080 They went straight to Jerusalem, the capital city. 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:08.480 They spoke to the king himself, right? 00:09:08.720 --> 00:09:13.919 Because surely the king would know that another king was born, and he'd know something about this. 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:33.679 And the people would have expected something like a King David from the Old Testament: an anointed king, God's king, somebody mighty, somebody who would unite the people, someone who would lead them in righteousness, someone who would conquer their enemies before them. 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:39.919 The wise men probably weren't expecting a baby who'd been born in a stable and laid in a manger. 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:46.879 Probably weren't expecting a very ordinary family, very ordinary small city. 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:56.399 They would have been more likely looking for a mighty political leader, someone who would cast off the Roman occupation and make Israel great again. 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:08.799 Even though their idea of who Jesus would be was off in some ways, God seems to have worked in the selection of their gifts to show us something about the advent of Jesus. 00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:15.919 Something of who Jesus is, something of what he came to do and how he would accomplish it. 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:18.320 So let's have a look. 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:23.039 And I promise today's service, today's sermon will be brief, right? 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.320 Because nobody wants to sit around all afternoon here on Christmas Eve, right? 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.000 So let's get right to it here. 00:10:28.159 --> 00:10:30.639 The first gift is gold, right? 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.120 And gold points to who Jesus is. 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:34.320 He is the king. 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:37.120 And not just any king, right? 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:40.639 This is not just any two-bit tinpot dictator. 00:10:40.799 --> 00:10:42.399 This is God's king. 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:47.600 This is the one ordained and predicted, long foretold. 00:10:48.399 --> 00:10:50.159 And King Herod seems to get this. 00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:56.320 You take a look at verse 3 in our passage, it says, When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. 00:10:56.559 --> 00:11:02.799 A king of this magnitude would have been a threat to him, a threat to his power, a threat to his legacy. 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:06.720 Herod was all about the legacy and the power and the dynasty. 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:11.919 Gold in those days, like it is in our days, was a precious commodity. 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:20.799 It had to be mined and smelted and refined and lots of processes that the geologists would know better, but I don't see Lizzie, so we won't ask. 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:23.519 But this is something that's very valuable. 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:28.960 You would lay this gold before the mightiest, before the most esteemed. 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:34.399 You wouldn't expect to bring it around to a small and unremarkable city like Bethlehem. 00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:40.559 You wouldn't hand it off to a family that would, you know, use it to buy nappies and formula down in the Tesco. 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:43.600 Gold shows that this is no ordinary baby. 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:45.759 Gold is for a king. 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.320 So question number one that we're answering with gifts here is who is this child who's born? 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:52.000 Well, this child is the king. 00:11:53.679 --> 00:11:54.799 Second gift. 00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:58.240 Second gift is frankincense. 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.440 And this points to what Jesus would do. 00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:02.240 Right? 00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:06.639 Jesus was was there to bring the people back to God. 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:14.480 And this is an idea that's that's reflected from temple worship, Old Testament temple worship. 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:29.440 It's possible that the wise men had read Leviticus chapter 2, where it was prescribed that grain offerings in the temple be mixed with oil and frankincense and offered as a pleasing aroma before the Lord. 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:37.120 Maybe they'd read Psalm 141 where it says, Let my prayer be counted as incense before you. 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:48.240 The idea of frankincense comes preloaded with the idea of worship, with the idea of fellowship with God, even the idea of reconciliation with God. 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:56.639 If we think about what temple worship was all about, it kind of culminates in this idea of an atoning sacrifice. 00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:06.399 The temple was where sinful people like you and me would have gone to have their sins dealt with, to restore that relationship with God. 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:10.960 And that's what Jesus, this king, came to do. 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:20.559 We can see something of this in the New Testament, in the book of 1 Timothy, where Jesus is called the one mediator between God and man. 00:13:21.360 --> 00:13:32.159 We can see it in John's Gospel, where Jesus intercedes for the disciples, where he stands between his people and God the Father, and he advocates for them. 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:36.960 Jesus came to open that door of fellowship with the Father. 00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:41.759 Greater fellowship and greater access than the temple could ever offer. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:46.159 So that's what this second gift points to what Jesus came to do. 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.200 He came to bring the people to God. 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:59.759 Third gift, however, and we saw something of it in the song there, shows us something of how Jesus would accomplish this. 00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:00.159 Right? 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:02.399 We've got a king, he's gonna bring the people to God. 00:14:02.480 --> 00:14:03.440 Now what's he gonna do? 00:14:03.519 --> 00:14:06.159 Or maybe better question is what's it gonna cost him? 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:15.039 Now the third gift is myrrh, and I want you to be careful because I'm not speaking in a Northern Irish accent and talking about the thing that you look at to see what you look like. 00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:16.879 I'm not talking about a mirror, right? 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:17.679 Myrrh. 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:25.519 But to dig deep for a bad pun here, the myrrh here has two faces. 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:31.440 On one hand, myrrh was an expensive perfume. 00:14:31.919 --> 00:14:32.240 Okay. 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:40.399 You can see references to it in the Old Testament suggesting abundance, celebration, extravagance. 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:47.759 So, in that respect, it wouldn't have seemed out of place with these other two gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh, happy days. 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:57.440 But the other side of it is that in the ancient world, myrrh was used for embalming, for preparing a dead body. 00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:59.600 We can actually see this in scripture. 00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:04.159 We can look to John's gospel, you know, following Jesus' crucifixion. 00:15:04.639 --> 00:15:11.519 It says that Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy man, claimed the body of Jesus and said, Let's lay him out in my family's tomb here. 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:25.440 And then another fellow called Nicodemus, who Jesus had met earlier in the story there, he comes up and he shows up with linen strips and aloes and myrrh. 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:26.399 Right? 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:32.639 So he is there to prepare all this stuff so that they could lay out Jesus' body with this myrrh. 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:36.960 So you can see, like I say, two ideas here with the myrrh. 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:43.600 It's not like, you know, the wise men turned up and had gifts of gold, frankincense, and a coffin. 00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:52.080 But as we look at it with the hindsight that we have in scripture here, we can see that that's what it was actually pointing to. 00:15:53.519 --> 00:15:58.720 So, what does this tell us about how Jesus, this king, brings the people to God? 00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:01.679 Well, he does this by his own death. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.159 By taking on the just penalty, we all deserve this was the plan. 00:16:06.799 --> 00:16:10.399 This was the design before the world even began. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:18.000 This was the way, to quote my favorite Christmas carol, that we can have God and sinners reconciled. 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:21.120 It seems almost paradoxical, right? 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:26.080 We have the first curse that we talked about, which was war is undone by the Prince of Peace, right? 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:27.759 War and peace, they're opposites. 00:16:29.120 --> 00:16:35.600 We have the second, the second curse that was discussed there, this idea of injustice and inequality. 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:41.519 This is handled by a God who knows and sees and acts for justice. 00:16:42.159 --> 00:16:44.720 Justice, injustice, again, opposites. 00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:51.519 But death, that's to be undone, that's to be reversed with a death. 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:56.879 By his stripes, we're healed, by his death we get life. 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:05.039 By taking on the punishment that we all deserve, Jesus gets for us the life, the blessing, and the reward that he himself deserves. 00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:06.880 And that's the gospel. 00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:08.960 That's the good news, friends. 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:12.000 That is what it's all about. 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:19.440 Yes, Jesus came to be a king and he came to conquer, but not in a political or military sense. 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:26.799 He came to defeat sin and to destroy what the apostle Paul calls the last enemy, death. 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:35.200 Yes, Jesus came like frankincense to bring to mind all of the temple ritual, but not to not to make more ritual. 00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:40.240 He came so that we would have something better, greater access, greater fellowship. 00:17:41.599 --> 00:17:51.039 And yeah, he came with the idea of death and burial, but also with the idea of resurrection and new life, the gift of God. 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:59.039 So I want to make one more connection for us here, one more thing for us to think about as we close here. 00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:03.440 This death of Jesus that brings us life. 00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:07.920 That's not only talking about death in a physical sense. 00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:20.960 Yeah, we as Christians hold to the hope we have that one day, when this life is over and these bodies are no more, that we will be raised to new life, be given new resurrection bodies in eternity. 00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:25.359 And that is certainly a hope that we cling to, especially when you get to be as old as I am. 00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:29.200 But Jesus' death also speaks into our spiritual death. 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:38.400 We can see in the second chapter of Ephesians in the New Testament there, it says that apart from Jesus, all of us were dead, right? 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:40.799 Dead in our sins and transgressions. 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:44.079 It says that we were all carrying out the agenda of the devil. 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.839 It says that we were all of us deserving of God's wrath. 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:53.599 This was our identity, this was who we were in a spiritual sense, spiritually dead. 00:18:54.160 --> 00:19:01.839 But it goes on and says that God, being rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ. 00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:12.640 So we have life not just as something that we look ahead to far down the line in an eternal sense, but we have life in the here and now. 00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:27.359 And in both of those cases, in both the present and future sense of our new life in Christ, this is something that was given to us because of the life that Jesus willingly gave up for us. 00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:30.720 Not for anything we've done, not for anything that we are. 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:35.680 This is plain and simple grace that we celebrate at Christmas. 00:19:36.559 --> 00:19:38.160 So that's our curse, friends. 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:39.839 It goes far and wide. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:41.599 It touches all of us. 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:46.799 Jesus came to make his blessings flow as far as that curse is found.