Welcome.
It's good to see you this morning.
It's good to be here.
It's good for us to be together.
And it is a blessing to be a part of a praying church.
And it's a blessing to be a part of a church that prays for its pastor.
So thank you.
I'll just say this.
Things are things are improving, which is nice.
But we're going to get right into the book of Matthew today.
We're going to go to Matthew chapter two,
and we're going to bypass the last part of Matthew chapter one.
The last part of Matthew chapter one is really part of the Christmas story.
And so we'll probably come back to it
in about a month and a half or so month, a month and a half or so.
But we're going to get to chapter two right now,
which is not part of the Christmas story, though it's always been included
as a Christmas story.
God does not want to just be found at Christmas.
He wants to be followed every day.
And so we're going to look at this in the historical context of chapter two.
And to set the stage, I want to,
remind you the big idea.
Here's the big idea for chapter two.
Faith grows not in comfort, but in obedience.
That's our faith grows.
Faith grows in those times.
Or obedient, even when it's uncomfortable.
Which is the story of chapter two,
obedience in Uncomfortability.
And so as we go through this, just keep that in mind.
So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go through kind of verse by verse,
and we'll stop along the way and highlight some things from the different verses.
So if you have a Bible and brought one with you.
Get it out. Go to, Matthew chapter two.
If it helps us on page 1060, in my Bible.
But the stuff isn't going to be on the screen except the reference.
So get on your smart device, actually bring a Bible with you and
and go to Matthew chapter two.
I'm just going to start read and then we'll stop along the way.
Matthew chapter two, verse one.
And after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.
So, so this is after the Christmas after he was born
in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king.
Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,
saying, where is he who has been born King of the Jews?
For we saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him.
So after he was born,
these when Herod was the king.
So this this isn't part of the activity thing.
Although most of the nativity sets have these have these three wise men there.
Right?
And there's actually even this song we three kings from Orient are.
I don't know the rest. It's super old.
Nobody really sings it anymore.
But, so we have this idea of this, this kind of activity with these,
with these wise oriental, you know, fellows there
that is so far from the truth, so far from reality.
After he was born, the Bible says,
and it makes a point to say, in the days of Herod the king know this.
This portion of Jesus's story is complex.
It's, it's wrought with political implication.
There is incredible, pain and,
and, and confusion as a part of this, this part of Jesus's life
and Mary and Joseph and and it starts
it starts with the the recognition.
These were the days when Herod the king was ruling.
We need to understand who Herod the king was.
Herod was a tyrant.
He was on the throne.
His he was he had this self-giving and proclaimed title as the king of the Jews.
That's who we called himself.
That's what he made everybody call him the King of the Jews.
He was on the throne, through,
murder.
He killed two of his sons.
At least two of his sons.
Who who could threaten the throne?
He he murdered two his favorite wives.
I know you married.
Let your unfavorable wives live and kill the favorite ones.
But you know who makes sense of this stuff?
And and and he knew how despised
he was by the people of Jerusalem in that area.
So he made this this, this, this regal,
this royal demand that at his death,
all the nobility, Ariel would be arrested, imprisoned, and then, killed.
So at least there would be mourning at his passing
because he knew nobody would warn him.
And so he wanted people to mourn his passing.
And so he said, when I die, arrest all the nobility, imprison them,
and then put him to death. He was. It was horrible. He was demonic.
He was the one that if you know this story,
you know, when these these little two year old baby boys were slaughtered.
He's the one that ordered that.
Interesting.
His son, Herod Antipas would come to the throne after him.
And he was the one who had John the Baptist beheaded.
And so this family is just is just evil.
They're just just demonic.
And when I when you start looking in this stuff, there's almost a little warning.
That's. Pay attention.
There's almost little warning. Like,
if you heard that said that the sins of the fathers passed on to the kids.
You know, there's there's there's there's there's some truth.
Like, we got to be careful.
The standard we set and or the standard we allow or the,
the model we set for our children.
His son was just like him. Just horrible.
And so this is the King Herod.
And at this time, these wise men, the stone.
Verse one, these wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.
These wise men, we know another word
for them, as the word starts with an M and ends with AGI.
What's what's the word?
Yeah.
Major MAGA y is actually how it's pronounced.
We get
our word magistrate and magician from this word.
So these guys played the role
of little magicians, kind of the black arts and all that stuff.
There were astronomers and astrologers, and they were the ones who had set up,
kings and kingdoms and magistrates.
So they were very powerful people.
They came from the East.
Now, I want you to think of East as Iran and Iraq.
So that's the way up kind of near Babylon.
And they come down, travel down, and they're there for one purpose.
They're there to set up a king, and everybody knows it.
These guys had these huge, big canonical hats like Big Cone
heads with big ear flaps, this royal robes.
They were so ornately grotesque or grotesquely ornate.
Just this huge pomp and circumstance around these guys.
And they come from the East to Jerusalem saying,
where is he who has been born king of the Jews
for he saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him.
Notice their words?
Where's the one where they say,
look at your Bibles. Don't look at me.
Look at Bibles.
Who was born King of the Jews?
This is this is.
This is treasonous for them right now.
They're. They are the kingmakers.
And they've come down from Iran, Iraq.
And they said to King Herod,
who is self proclaimed the king of the Jews.
Their words are profound.
Where's the one who's been born king?
See, Herod was set up as king and self-proclaimed king.
They're saying there's one who was born a king and he's not you.
And so just.
I just want you to feel the tension.
I want you to feel the tension and the conflict that's building right now.
For we saw his
star when it rose and have come to worship him.
How did they know their Iran Iraq area up there?
They're in the in the east.
How did they know that there was the prophecy of a star
that would indicate a king being born?
They're not part of God's people.
They're not part of the prophetic revelation.
They're not part of the prophetic story.
How do they know?
Okay, let me tell you
the way they the reason they knew is,
is, during the Babylonian captivity.
So way a long time in their past.
Assyria in the north
came down into the northern part of Israel,
and and took captive a bunch of people back to Assyria.
Later the Babylonians came down, took over down through Assyria
and down into Israel, and took over the ten northern tribes
and took them into Babylon, into captivity, into Babylon.
During that process, a man named Daniel was one of the ones that was taken
captive.
And Daniel was a man of God, the prophet of God.
That served multiple kingdoms.
And Daniel was the one, while he was in captivity in Babylon,
who prophesied of the coming Messiah, Daniel chapter nine.
And so Daniel in Babylon had all of these prophecies about the one
who would come, the king who would come, the Messiah who would come.
And part of that prophecy was the prophecy
that he would be born in Bethlehem in Judea.
That's how they knew, because God had left
in their possession blueprints of his plans.
He told them, and these guys were the ones wise enough to pay attention.
They were wise enough to keep our eyes open.
They're wise enough to, to notice what was going on.
God's own people who had the prophets, who had the word, were so dull,
nonchalant, and lazy they had no idea what was happening in their midst
because they were
lazy and they were neglectful of his word.
Those who are not God's people are paying attention.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
We have the blueprint of his plan.
It's right here.
All we're called to do is pay attention.
No. What?
His plans are.
Be the ones who seek him.
So they knew his star was coming,
and they've come to worship this star.
What was the star?
Nobody knows what the star was.
There's all kinds of speculation.
When.
When Saturn and Jupiter were kind of in alignment, they kind of formed
this special little, you know, light kind of coalescence in the sky.
Some people think
some people think it was a, it was a like a comment that that can perpetually
fell and burned.
And I don't know how that would happen, but,
nobody knows exactly what it was.
A personally, I think it's what the buyer refers to
as the Shekinah glory of God, his very presence.
It's the same kind of glory that was over the tabernacles of the Tent of Meeting
as it moved through the desert.
40 years that led the people day and night.
It's the kind of glory of God that says, here is my
Messiah, here is the one.
It was God's presence saying, this is where you are to be, where he is.
And so that's what I think this is.
It doesn't really matter.
But that's that's the best.
Like I can understand.
And that makes sense to me.
When Herod the king heard this,
he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him,
and assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
Verse five
they told him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophet, and you,
O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah.
For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people.
Israel is quoting Micah five two
and so
Herod gathers all of his own priests, the, the, the Hebrews around,
and the Jews, and says, look, you scribes, you're supposed to know this stuff.
Where's this one going to be born?
And so they go back to you, look at the Old Testament scriptures
and look at Micah five two
and they say, this is what it says in Bethlehem, the land of Judah.
From you will come a ruler of the shepherd, my people.
So it's like, okay, now we know,
now we know.
And so in verse seven,
then Herod, some of the wise men, these magi,
secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared
and sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child.
And when you have found him, bring me word that I may to come and worship him.
What a snake!
It a snake.
He just. He's horrible. He's horrible.
You don't want to worship him?
Wants to what?
Let's kill him.
He's threatened.
And so there's. He's greatly trouble.
Because he's threatened.
He's threatened by the presence of Jesus.
Verse nine, 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.
And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
And going into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother,
and they fell down and worshiped him.
Then opening their treasures,
they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Let me stop right there.
When?
When these wisemen saw the star,
the Bible says they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.
There were two extreme reactions to the presence of Jesus.
The reaction
of the man who was threatened by Jesus
was great.
Troubled means distress and anxiety.
The reaction of those who came to worship Jesus was great joy.
And the same thing is going to happen to in your lives
if we come to Christ, if we come to His Word,
if we come to his presence with the expectation of worship,
with the expectation of honoring it, there will be great joy.
But if we come to, to to this time,
to his word, to opportunities to worship with.
With feelings of.
Being troubled by him or what he might ask.
What he might require
was not sure on the front end how we would respond if we heard from him.
Anyway.
We'll be greatly troubled.
And so it
really is important the attitude with which we approach His Word.
We approach times like this together.
It's really important.
If you come to times like this,
with, with, with the leading attitude being, I'm
going to worship, I'm going to listen, I'm going to sacrifice.
I'm telling you, you'll be filled with great exceeding joy.
But if you approach times like this one, I don't know if I believe this stuff.
Anyway, I'll
I mean, I'm willing to go this far for you, but I don't.
They're just going to be sometimes troubling inside you.
It's just.
And so I just I want you to just be aware of the attitude,
the which we come together with, at which we approach his word.
And going into the house, you saw the child
with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.
And opening their treasures, they offered him golden things that summer.
I want you to know something. Look. Look at what?
Look at what this says in verse 11.
Going into the house, they saw what
child?
Finish it out.
Okay. Yeah.
The child with Mary
who comes first.
Jesus. Why?
Because it's his story, not hers.
Jesus comes first
to destroy, not hers.
It's his story, not yours.
It's his story, not mine.
Jesus comes first.
You're going to see this over and over and over in this chapter.
And most time we just read stuff
and we don't stop to like, this stuff isn't here by accident.
And the words aren't in order by accident.
God has, through the Holy Spirit, has penned this through human hands,
but it's inspired by him and he's talking to us.
Pay attention. Raising it.
He comes first.
The child with his mother, child with his mother, child
with his mother, child with his mother.
His story not hers. His story, not mine.
His story, not yours.
This why I titled this the series Your Kingdom now.
Kingdom now. Why?
Because it's about his kingdom.
When the disciples asked
Jesus to teach them to pray, one of the things he taught
them was your kingdom come, your will be done.
And so we have to understand this, that it's his story first.
He's first see, a lot of us
and I understand we come to God because we need him to fix something
that's great.
But we have to understand
that the invitation isn't
to ask him to fix stuff.
The command is to submit and follow.
It's not this gentle invitation.
Just invite me in. I'll help you out.
It's a command to submit and to follow.
And when we submit and follow, then God starts working things together.
Because it's
his story,
not my story.
Y'all understand this.
He comes first.
His kingdom comes first.
His will comes first.
His desires come first.
His agenda comes first.
But what if is not my agenda or my desire?
What like, doesn't that matter?
Well, it might, but it just matters.
Secondarily, it's not.
That doesn't matter, but it doesn't come first.
The child and his mother.
The child and you.
The child and me.
You got it.
That's.
What verse was.
I don't even know.
Well, thank you for paying attention.
Oh, and they presented with gifts of, of, fell down worship.
Okay. Yeah.
And they fell down and worshiped him.
Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold
and frankincense and myrrh.
I want you to notice
something that they came to worship him, and a part of their worship was what
giving you.
We cannot biblically,
rightfully, we cannot worship without sacrificing.
We cannot worship without giving
the two a go hand in hand.
And giving is an act of worship.
And so they offered him gold. Why?
Gold valuable is valuable.
Why else?
Because he's a king.
Remember what they said?
They came to Earth.
They said, where's the one? What?
Born king?
What do you give a king?
You don't give him copper and silver, right?
You give them gold.
And so it's this.
What they're saying is this is the one.
And we're going to not just by our giving.
That is the king.
And we're not going to give the king what's left over of what I got.
If he's the king, I'm gonna give him the best and the first or what I got.
Right? Yeah.
And not only that, but God in his providence
is setting them up for what they don't know is coming.
They're going to eventually have to flee to Egypt.
And the gold that they're given, God is preparing them
for the call that he's placed upon them, that they're not even aware of yet.
He so good, so gold.
And then frankincense.
Frankincense was a was a resin,
an aromatic that was used in worship to indicate divinity.
And so what they're saying is this little baby
that well, he's not really a baby now. He's maybe two years old.
This little toddler is is he is
he's the king and he's divine.
And then they give him myrrh. Why?
Why is more important?
When Jesus was buried,
he was wrapped in about 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes.
It was a burial.
Part of the burial process.
Now think for a moment.
Mary and Joseph.
They've been told they have their chosen ones
to raise the Messiah of God.
And these.
These kingmakers show up with their big
old pointy hats and they're, you know, all their arraignment
as kingmakers and say, we're here to worship your child.
Here's gold.
He's a king, here's frankincense,
he's divine, and here's here's myrrh.
He's going to die.
I mean, as a
parent, how do you process this?
Like, let's not take the humanity out of this story.
You got to be thinking, Mary and Joseph are in in such wonderment
and such amazement and but yet with such confusion,
like God, you chose us to do this.
That's amazing.
And finally, the Messiah is here and he gets to be raised at our hands.
Can you imagine the
the the pressure that that Mary Joseph are under to do a good job?
You know, it's like, holy moly.
And then to have
the realization that, okay, wait,
I don't want to think about that was a part
right?
And being worn
in a dream not to return to here, they departed to their own country.
By another way, I want you to underline that.
That by another way. And here's why.
Because when we have these types
of transformative interactions with Jesus, we don't leave
the same way we came.
We don't leave the same way we came.
We leave a different way, a different way of living a different way
a believe in a different way of trusting, a different way of sacrificing,
a different way of faith
and friends, this is what it is to be a disciple.
This is exactly what it is to be a disciple.
A disciple takes their next step.
And here's the steps. This is really easy to understand.
Like what my next step in discipleship is the first thing.
And becoming a disciple is you belong.
You just decide to belong to the family of God by placing your faith in Jesus,
accepting what Jesus did on the cross to forgive your sin
so that there's a possibility of being made right with God.
Is that too bright for you?
Somebody really?
I don't know how you know awake you would be your in and check out
it would be so he made it really bright to keep you awake.
So the first idea is belonging.
And then once you decide to belong you attach yourself to, to to
to to the kingdom of God.
You start to become someone you're not.
You got there's got to be a change inside.
There's got to be this existential transformation.
I'm not who I was, I belong and then I become.
And it's a continual becoming.
I'm never completely
made new.
Like it.
Like there's still parts of me that, that, that, that, that God is
regenerating in me.
And it leads to this aspect of giving.
Because when I belong to the kingdom of God and the community of God
through the church, and I'm becoming I'm becoming a new person
just like it did for the wise men, it results in giving.
There's my life I give. There's my time
I give, there's my resources I give, there's my energy I give.
You cannot separate giving
from becoming as someone who belongs.
The kingdom.
And it results in going
like we go then into the world and make disciples,
which is what we're going to hear about the end of this book.
We go then to those who don't know Jesus
and invite them to the Christ to belong to the family.
We've got to become someone new and invest their lives in giving and then go,
can't you understand that?
And this is exactly what the disciples did.
And this is a great way for us to understand what's my next
step as a disciple?
Have I really belonged?
Do I really belong to the family of God?
By placing my faith in Jesus and confessing him as my Savior?
Am I becoming someone new?
Am I same old person? I used to be a physical person.
You used to be.
You got to consider how you really belong to the family of God,
and there has to resort to some level
of giving continually,
because it's an honor of this King who was divine,
who died for us, and it result in us going to.
Those around us who don't know him yet do understand the process.
And so this is a great way to understand what your next step
and this is where we see will get past that slide.
So you don't have to look at that right anymore.
Like verses 13 and following.
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, you know what? Let me just say this.
I just noticed this in verse 13 when it says it every time.
What God, an angel, appeared to Joseph in in kind of the
this narrative, it all we do always appeared to Joseph in a dream.
Everybody else the angel appeared to was in person.
I don't know if you ever notice that.
You go back and read yourself.
But the angel appeared to Mary. Not in a dream.
Just appear to Mary. Same thing.
You know, all all through this whole the birth of John the Baptist
and his parents, and Mary the angel appears to them with Joseph.
The angel appears in a dream.
You know, I, I don't either.
It's just something I noticed. So,
and, said, arise, take the.
What?
I'll finish it.
Yeah.
See? You see that? That.
Take the child. His mother.
There is. Why?
Because it's his story, not her story.
It's his story.
Not my story or not your story, child.
His mother. It's his story.
And flee to Egypt to remain there until I tell you.
For here it is about to search for the child to destroy him.
And he rose and took the child.
Let's say this child is mother.
You see that? Yeah. Why?
Because his story. Not her story, right?
His story now. My story history, not your story.
Take your this mother by night
and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod,
which was to fulfill what the Lord spoken by the prophet out of Egypt.
I called my son.
Take the child, his mother.
Flee to Egypt.
I remain there until I tell you.
I want you to understand something
that God guides those who are willing to move.
If you're willing to be obedient, if you're willing to be, to move.
When God says move, God will guide you every single step of the way.
But I tell him, I used to tell my boys this all the time when they're growing up.
I said, look, God can't even steer a parked car
if you're not willing to move.
God isn't going to give you any direction.
And for some people, you sit the thing.
Well, you know, I don't even know what God wants for my life anyway.
And I doubt if I do it.
If you told me, well, guess what? He ain't going to tell you.
I mean, he's not going to give you direction if you
if he knows you're not going to follow it.
Like, he'll guide you
and he always guides those who are willing to move.
But there has to be this act of submission
on the front end.
God, I want to know what you want for my life
because I want to follow you.
If we come to God, say, God,
tell me what you want from my life, and I'll decide
if I want to follow or not, because I'm like a man and I'm making sense.
This is important.
Faith moves before it understands.
Every time Joseph obeyed, direction came.
And faith will move before it understands
anything about why or where or how.
But think about Mary and Joseph.
They don't know what's going on. Like
we we're doing everything God asked us to do.
We get to raise the Messiah.
Everything should be up into the right.
Right?
I mean, you gotta think,
I'm sure at some level, like, what could go wrong?
We got God in a board
that were raising what could ever go wrong.
Let me ask you, what has gone right
since Jesus showed up?
Go to Egypt.
Remain there because Herod is going to try to kill
this little boy.
And stay there
as long as you have to.
So God sends him to Egypt.
They have no idea how long they'll be there.
They don't understand what's going on.
And God takes them
and he hides them down in a distant land.
Here's what I want you to understand.
Sometimes God hired you to protect you.
Even if his protection feels like exile.
Mary and Joseph
ended up being in Egypt for probably three and a half, two, maybe four years.
So look at what's happened.
We're going to raise this little baby.
We're going to raise this the one who is the Messiah.
God's hand is all over this,
but all of a sudden,
King Herod is out to kill us.
We have to leave our home.
We have to leave our family.
We leave everything familiar.
We have to leave everything that we have in this world behind.
Go to a foreign land.
We don't know anybody.
We don't know what we're going to do.
There, and we're just going to be there
in exile for who knows how long.
What would you be thinking at this point if this were you?
Like, you don't know the rest of the story, what would you be thinking?
Why? Why?
I don't know, I don't want to.
Yeah.
What else?
How? How?
I mean, what would we be thinking here?
I how many of us would think God.
I don't know if I can trust you.
I don't know if you know what's going on.
I don't know if you're still involved.
Maybe we misread this whole thing.
Maybe this has all been wrong.
How many of us.
Oh, at least there's four in this service.
Or only two in the first service.
Well, you you for the for the five of us.
We're the only honest ones here. The rest of you, a bunch of liars.
I mean, what does it take us right now
to start doubting God's hand in his love and his provision and all that stuff?
What to take now?
A bad day.
Oh, we get so thrown
off the course so easily.
And you got these two.
Can you imagine what they're going through?
They're just in exile.
God, have you forgotten about us?
Like, the.
Are the forces of evil greater than what you like it with?
It makes no sense.
Look, sometimes God hired you to protect you.
Even when that protection feels like you've been exiled
and are all alone.
When God hides you, he's not punishing you.
He's preserving you.
Listen, don't curse your Egypt place.
It may be the place of your protection.
Some.
Some of you may feel like you're in exile.
Some of you single people might feel.
Have you been exiled to the land of singleness?
I don't know where my spouse is.
I don't know if they're ever even out there.
Maybe God has exiled me to singleness and celibacy for the rest of my life.
You might feel that way,
or it could be that God is protecting you
some from really bad decisions.
Do you understand?
Some of you might be thinking, you know what?
God has exiled me to this job I can't stand.
And and there's no you, no relief in sight.
And I.
God may just be protecting you
from some really bad direction.
I, I was just this this Friday,
right before, kick off of our varsity football game.
I was talking to one of our coaches, and we were just talking about,
you know, life out here in the ranchos and, and and,
how blessed we are to be out here in this community.
And and he was mentioning how,
you know
God, but he didn't say anything about God.
He was just mentioned how things in the past weren't working out,
and now they really worked out.
And I think his words are,
the, the stars just align and all the cards fell into place.
And, you know, that was I think that was his words.
And I looked at him, I just laughed, I said, Manny, funny.
I said, I talk about that in my world as God's providence because of his grace.
Oh, no. Yeah, no, I get all that.
No that's fine. Yeah. No I agree, I agree. Yeah.
That's that's that, that's it. Right.
I know what you're saying.
I mean yeah.
And so we, I got to have a little talk there before
kick kickoff about God's providence and his grace and
and that sometimes when God exiles us, he's protecting us because.
Because he has something better planned.
And so, please, my friends, if you feel like you're
in exile in Egypt
and things are not going like you'd hoped right now,
it may be God is saying, look, I'm protecting you.
Don't curser Egypt.
It's my protection.
And so there they sit for maybe four years
for 60.
And then Herod,
when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious.
And he sent and he killed all the male children in Bethlehem.
And in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time
that had been ascertained from the wise men.
Then was fulfilled what was spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah.
A voice was heard in Rama, weeping and loud lamentation.
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refused to be comforted because they are no more.
One of the saddest passages of scripture.
There's no historical record of this account.
There's nothing in the extra biblical record, historical record
that this ever happened.
All we have is a biblical account of that.
But that doesn't cause me any consternation or doubt whatsoever
for a couple reasons.
One is this
and light of all of Herod's atrocities against humanity,
against his own family, against his own children,
the death of a few kids wouldn't merit no in his life.
I'm not saying it's not horrific and tragic.
Please don't misunderstand. I'm saying.
I'm saying in light of everything else
he's done against his own family, his own children,
there wouldn't be record of his atrocity
against other people's kids.
Secondly.
I want
I just want to put it in in historical terms
as far as numbers, probably we're talking 12 to 15 little boys.
Okay.
So it wasn't a it wasn't a big,
you know, there wasn't a big area and the survivability rate
was really low anyway.
And so we're talking about very few not that it's not horrific and so on,
I'm saying but I'm saying it wasn't this,
you know.
But I also want you to remember this,
the fact that
the murder of 15
children wasn't of note should not be surprised,
because every day, 2800 babies are killed in America.
And that gets no press whatsoever.
A million babies a year.
And so, you know, how dare we be self-righteous
and decry that
the evil of one
and not the evil of the other?
I mean, think about Mary and Joseph.
They had to trust God's sovereignty and providence the moment Jesus arrived.
Imagine their questions.
Why is this so hard?
Why is this so dangerous?
I thought if we were part of God's plan,
everything would be all right and nothing's right
here. Better.
Ever been there?
Yeah,
yeah.
I mean, think about what has gone right in their life
since Jesus showed up.
Jesus.
Yeah.
That nothing.
I don't remember that.
Because you and I will go through tough stuff.
We'll go through times where we think, God, where are you now?
You're supposed to be here.
You're supposed to take care of things.
Well, it's going to cause you to doubt.
It's going to cause you to fear.
It's going to cause you to run away.
Don't.
Whose story is this?
It's his story
to be a part of his story.
But when
Herod died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him, in a dream to Joseph.
See, there it is again in Egypt, saying, rise, take what
child? Child's mother.
There it is.
Don't miss it, and go to the land of Israel.
For those who sought that child's life are dead.
Yeah. Finally,
they been in Egypt for maybe four years.
And finally the angel shows up in a dream.
If I were Joseph, I'd be sleeping all day long. Like, where's the dream?
Where's the dream? Where's the dream?
Finally, after four years, the angel shows up again.
Her dream says, hey, they everybody want to kill this little boy there.
They're gone. They're dead. Gone. Back home.
I bet Joseph, like Mary, packed the bags.
Baby, we all just excited.
And he rose and did what?
Took the child?
Yeah, it took Johnny's mother. Why?
Because it's his story.
Not her sister, not mine. His or not yours. Right.
And went to the land of Israel.
Everything's back in order now, right?
Everything's good.
But dadgum, it.
When he heard that Achilleus was reigning
over Judah in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.
And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee.
Well, just when it's getting better, it gets worse.
Like we get to go home.
And now Herod's son is on the throne, is going to do what dad was trying to do.
But I want you to understand the implications.
Look at how the how the street, when you heard that Achilleus was reigning
over Judah, Judea, in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.
And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee.
It doesn't say he was afraid, so he went somewhere else.
The implication is
he was afraid, and he was still obedient until God said, go somewhere else.
We got to understand this, that when we follow and things are going well
and we want to bail and do something else, don't stay faithful
until God says do something different.
Even if it's scary, even it's confusing.
Even if you don't understand, even as perilous.
You stay obedient and stay faithful until God says, now do something different.
You understand?
Okay.
And when he did,
And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken
by the prophet might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
So they go to Nazareth,
they start in Bethlehem, Judea went down to Egypt,
and now they go back down to Nazareth.
Listen, some of God's greatest
work is often begins in the least likely places.
Little dirty Nazareth, little dirty village.
Nobody.
Nazareth was a great place to be from.
And not to be in.
But some of God's greatest works happens in those places
where you'd rather not be in.
I want you understand what God was doing.
He sent.
I'm going to exile you, and it's going to feel like you're forgotten about.
You're not. I'm protecting you.
And I'm going to send you to the Nazareth place,
the lonely place, the forgotten place.
I am in both of those.
And both of those are part of my plan,
because it's my story.
Most here's here's the problem
with a lot of Christians, a lot of church, a lot of pastors.
Most reject the small because they want the to be magnified
by the acknowledgment of the large.
Don't chase the large,
don't chase the crowds.
Don't chase the opinions.
Live in the small places.
Live in the exile places.
Because that's where God is and that's where he has you.
And you'll not be left there.
But you might be there.
Just be obedient there.
The point is this serve God
faithfully where you are for asking, for you want to be.
Serve God faithfully
where you are before asking for where you want to be.
Does it make sense?
God's going to take some of you in here.
Have some of you in in Egypt right now
you feel like you're in exile.
You feel like you're all on, like you're forgotten about.
You're not
alone.
You're not forgotten about.
You just may be there for your protection.
Your exile
place might be your protection place.
And won't be that way forever.
You'll be delivered.
Some of you might be in the Nazareth place.
That place? It's just.
It's the place you never thought you'd be there.
Where you had.
Never where you'd hope to be.
But as part of God's plan,
you won't be there forever.
No matter where you are.
Be faithful where you are.
You're obedient where you are before asking to be somewhere else.
Does it make sense?
Let's pray.
Father.
Thank you.
Thank thank you, thank you
that you have invited us to be a part of your story.
Oh. Father.
Forgive us. Forgive me for when I.
When I arrogantly thought it was my story.
When I wanted you to bend,
bend reality.
Bend your hand to my story.
Rather than me bending to your story.
Thank you, father, that when you take us
to the Egypt places that their places of protection,
I pray you to help us remember that and not revolt against it.
Thank you that when you take us
to the Nazareth places,
that is, places of preparation.
Father, I pray that wherever it is
that you take us to Egypt's places, the Nazareth places, the Bethlehem places,
that should
help us be obedient in those places.
It help.
Help us remember it's your story and not our story.
Father, I pray encouragement over this church.
I pray encouragement over these people.
I feel like
like some of us have been in these places for
for a long time, have and have wondered and questioned and
and sometimes doubted your plan and your hand and your goodness.
And rather than just submitting and trusting.
And so, father, I pray for the hearts here
that that are growing weary,
the hearts and
and lives it just feel like they're just wasting a little bit.
Each day.
I pray for a renewed strength and renewed energy
and renewed trust and faith
that our faith would grow by our obedience
and that we'd
obey even if we don't understand.
Thank you for your protection.
Thank you for your preparation.
You were a good God and it is our honor and our privilege
to belong to you and to become followers of you,
to give ourselves and our resources, and to go
and make sure those in our lives understand who you are as well.
You're a good God.
We love you.
And your name I pray, Amen. Amen.
Hey, listen, this week I want you to read chapter two
and then chapter three, chapter three.
We're going to get into John the Baptizer, and,
and his role in the in, in Jesus coming to his public ministry.
And then we'll get into the temptation of Jesus.
It starts picking up some steam here.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
So read those to get ready.
But also do this next Sunday
three service eight, nine, 30 and 11
okay, so here's what here's what's going to happen.
You all you come to the 1030 service.
Right.
And so right, I mean, you know, you're here right?
And so it's a natural
just to kind of push that back half hour to the 11,
you understand that?
And so I told the first service we there wasn't people standing at the back.
They got to choose.
Now they're in the they're going to be in the middle.
So they got to choose and clock or 11.
So so if all I'm saying is
it's going to be more natural for you to choose the 11, which is great.
That's great.
I know it feels late, but listen, you got to choose Egypt or Nazareth.
That's just you got to choose one of them.
And so you want to make a huge leap and go to Egypt.
That's 8:00.
You want to push back a little bit to Nazareth? 11.
That's great, but choose well, listen,
all the comfortable people are going to stay at the 931.
They're a little bit more fragile, you know, they they can't
they can't handle much movement or change in this world.
So we'll we'll let them do that and they'll be okay.
They'll grow a little bit and move to.
But but you're going to choose okay.
Now way big change Egypt or little change Nazareth.
But you you understand that okay.
It'd be great if you let us know a little bit
so we could help trying to get stuff ready.
But either way, you do that and invite some people with you
this next week to whatever. And here's another great thing.
Come to service and then serve a service.
Sit and serve or serve and sit in
stand will help get you plugged in if you want that, I love you.
I'm proud of you.
Thank you for going through God's Word together.
It's fun dealing.
You know, muchacho, and and.