You tell somebody about Jesus Christ out there on the street, and they might pat you on the head and say, yeah, this is the season. They can quote a few lyrics from some Christmas songs. But do you tell them that Jesus Christ deserves to be their Lord, their ruler, their pastor, their king, and you watch as they become visibly shaken, which is why in this season our world is more than comfortable with Jesus staying in a manger. Just don't get him out of that manger.
That's when the trouble starts. It's important and appropriate for us to celebrate Christmas and remember the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. But with all the trappings that come with this season, we can't forget that Jesus came for a purpose.
He came to save us and to rule over us as the Lord of our heart and life. Welcome to a new week of Bible teaching. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey returns to a lesson he began last Friday. We're looking at some of the implications of the Christmas story. The series is called An Indescribable Gift and today's lesson is The Paradox.
Here's Stephen. Joseph is now being asked to take Mary through the betrothal period and then Mary, an obviously expectant woman, and probably a private ceremony now, that public ceremony where all the village turns out with noisemakers and merriment, that's all scuttled, that's all over with. The very beginnings of their early days are marked with such heartbreak. In fact, they're both going to live with the accusation of immorality for the rest of their lives.
I'm always struck by the fact that when Jesus Christ was 30, involved in his ministry, the Jewish leaders accused him, John 8, 41, of being born as a result of sexual immorality. They throw that in his face, effectively saying, we know what your mother did. And also the implication is you are illegitimate. You probably don't even know who your father is. You're not the Messiah. You're the son of an ungodly woman.
Don't rush forward because we've got to get somehow to that stable scene. For Joseph and for Mary, don't ever forget what the paradox of this narrative means for them. It will create the appearance of a contradiction of who they really are. Mary loves God. She'll burst into song filled with Old Testament scripture and love for God. Joseph loves God. He's known as a man who follows after him.
What does it look like? They could care less about God and his word. Listen, as long as they live, they will never have their reputations back again in the opinion of their world. And I wonder, I cannot help but wonder how many people will listen to me today who are unwilling to follow Jesus Christ because of primarily what it might do to your reputation, what people might think of you. The last thing I'm going to do is follow that stuff.
And that person. In fact, as the church becomes more and more marginalized, as it's viewed as more and more odd and out of step with culture, we are going to see people drop off because we will not ruin our reputation by following Jesus Christ. Here's the message from Joseph and Mary to you and to me. Don't worry about what will happen to your reputation.
Don't worry about what will happen to your business, your future. Just follow Jesus Christ. Let him take care of that. In fact, some of the most wonderful words in this narrative and the biography of this man are found in verse 24 where we're told the very next morning Joseph woke from sleep. He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name Jesus.
Amazing. There are a couple of other people I'll point out here, ungodly people, to whom the incarnation of God in Christ is going to really, really present a contradiction of terms for them and they're not going to settle with it. Luke's gospel account, in fact, if you hold your finger in Matthew and turn over to Luke, Luke chapter 2, he kind of fills in the blanks and he tells us what happens nine months later. Familiar text. In fact, I remember growing up as a boy, dad would gather the four sons in the living room in front of the tree in the presence and he said, now before we do anything, we're going to read Luke chapter 2. And we would say under our breath, hurry.
Don't stop to expound on anything, please, dad. Just read it. In those days, a decree went out from Caesar, Augustus, that all the world should be taxed or registered. The political leader effectively then wants to make sure everybody's registered back at the place of their chief descendant. Of course, David comes from Bethlehem, so Joseph and Mary have to track back to Bethlehem. Bethlehem means house of bread. They're going back there to register.
Caesar wants to make sure everybody's on the roll so that everybody pays their taxes. What's fascinating here is that you consider Bethlehem, this is where they're going to go. In fact, verse 4 tells us that they take off for that area they're more than likely going to travel 60 or 70 miles. This is where David kept his sheep as he was then apprenticed to become king. This is where earlier one of his forefathers by the name of Boaz farmed where he would meet his bride, Ruth. And now God providentially arranges what Joseph and Mary, don't miss this, they would never volunteer to do this.
They had to be made. You don't embark on a 60-mile journey plus expecting your first baby and there's nothing in the Christmas story, by the way, that says they had a donkey. They either walked, they probably were too poor to own one. Maybe they hitched a ride with the others who are traveling back to the house of bread. They may not even know that Micah had prophesied centuries earlier that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. God's got to get them to Bethlehem. Caesar's idea?
No, no, no, no, this is God's idea. The bread of life would be born in the house of bread. I have a fascinating book in my library entitled The Twelve Caesars and I often pull it out to reactivate myself to the world into which Jesus was born and also the early church later. I pulled that book out again because I had never really studied much on Caesar Augustus and so I read that fascinating chapter. By the way, Caesar is simply the word Kaiser or Tsar. It could also be Pharaoh if he were in Egypt. It simply means the supreme ruler and they believed the Caesars, especially along with the Pharaohs, that their lineage tracked back to the gods.
They claimed divine parentage. In fact, just a few years before Jesus is born, this particular Caesar from Luke chapter 2 verse 1, Caesar Augustus mints brand new coinage and on one side he has Julius Caesar, his predecessor, marking him as divine and on the other side of the coin it has his image, Caesar Augustus, and he's captioned as the son of a god. So what you have here is you have Caesar Augustus inheriting the throne of his predecessor. In fact, it's further interesting that Caesar inherited the throne from Julius Caesar and when he did, not long after Julius Caesar died, a comet was observed in the sky for several days, the empire filled with its superstitions, much like our world is today, believed that it was some kind of omen, that it somehow delivered the truth that the soul of Julius Caesar was now received among the immortal gods and Caesar Augustus sort of jumped at that opportunity to further establish his own divine parentage. So he had a star chiseled into a brand new statue of Julius Caesar, his adopted father, and he had it placed in the forum. So here you have God incarnate, little g, incarnate, supposedly, testified by a star in the heavens and now his son is claiming the throne.
Sounds only slightly familiar doesn't it? Satan who well knows the Old Testament prophecies, counterfeits and prepares the world to believe his own false gospel. So with that as a backdrop, imagine the explosive nature of Persian astrologers, Persian king makers arriving in Jerusalem saying that they've come because they've seen a star in the heavens leading them to the birth of the king. In fact, go back to Matthew chapter 2 and he picks up on that encounter and tells us that after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, he's simply a smaller king, a vassal, he belongs to Caesar, he's simply given Herod Galilee in that region to rule. They came to him, behold, Matthew says, 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 in the east and have come to worship him and when Herod the king heard this he was troubled.
A king with a star appearing in the sky. In other words, this newborn is bigger than Herod. In fact, he is tantamount to Caesar. Herod was troubled.
I imagine he was. These wise men, these magi are from Persia which is modern day Iran. They were the faculty members who trained in the academy, the royal university that would train the upper class and the princes who would inherit the throne themselves.
In fact, they taught architecture and science and mathematics. They were also astrologers who had centuries before, some of them had become disciples of their chief wise man, Daniel, who had taught them prophecies that he had with him in that exile, certainly at the Torah and Isaiah. Now centuries later, you have spiritual descendants of Daniel arriving in Jerusalem because they've seen the star. That word astair simply means brilliance. It could be translated shining. This is, I believe, the Shekinah glory. That's how you explain it. Turns on, it turns off, it turns on, it turns off. It hovers just over the house.
We'll see in a minute. They've seen the glory of God and they know the prophecies of the star rising, the shining rising related to the Messiah. So now you have this honorage arriving in Jerusalem from old Persia. Now in the early centuries, the church tradition taught that there were 12 wise men, 12 of them.
In later years, the number was reduced to three, probably because most churches didn't have enough room on stage for 12 wise men during their Christmas play, so they whittled it down to a more manageable number. But you've got this incredible honorage arriving. These are Babylonian king makers. You couldn't ascend the throne without their affirmation. I were here to affirm the king.
We've seen his shining. And Herod was troubled. For one thing, he was Herod the Great.
I love the names of humility they attach to themselves in these days. He'd been appointed by his father, a ruling galley. His father had been appointed by Julius Caesar himself. He was the king of that region. He had adopted the title, the king of the Jews.
By the time he's introduced to us here in Matthew chapter 2, he's 70 years of age. He is a brutal, paranoid man, jealous of his throne. In fact, he'll murder three of his sons before he dies.
He just can't stand the thought of them reigning in his place. He is the king of the Jews. Now a bunch of Persians show up asking for the king of the Jews and declaring that this newly born king actually had a star sign from heaven implying that he was related to the gods.
And he wasn't just related, he was the anointed one, the Messiah, Christ. And Herod was troubled. That word means agitated.
You could translate that visibly shaken, trembling. Someone dares to take my throne and even indirectly challenge Caesar with divine lineage? In fact, notice in the text that Herod was agitated, but look at that.
So was all of Jerusalem. They're not too excited about this idea either. He's going to mess up our lives. He is more than likely going to challenge our systems. He might interrupt our calendars. I find the same three reactions to the news of Jesus Christ's birth are the same reactions of our world today.
It has not changed. The first reaction is anger. Anger. Bristling with agitation. And of course it will lead to murder.
Ladies and gentlemen, to your world and to mine, it is filled to this day with Harrods and Caesars. Nobody has the right to challenge their sovereignty. No one has the right to determine their truth. No one has the right to dictate to them their opinions. No one has the right to demand their allegiance. They are not about to let anybody else be king. You tell somebody about Jesus Christ out there on the street and they might pat you on the head and say, yeah, this is the season.
They can quote a few lyrics from some Christmas songs. But do you tell them that Jesus Christ deserves to be their Lord, their ruler, their master, their king, and you watch as they become visibly shaken? Which is why in this season our world is more than comfortable with Jesus staying in a manger. Just don't get him out of that manger.
That's when the trouble starts. And if you're going to get him out of the manger, take him as quickly as you can to the cross and then impale him there and leave him. He's a safer deity either in a manger or on the cross. Don't interrupt my life.
Don't demand my surrender. Don't declare that I'm sinful and in need of the Savior. You keep him in the manger or you keep him on a cross. Don't have him ascending back to the Father. Don't have him taking a seat upon the throne of the universe. Don't have him surrounded by an angelic host created to do nothing but sing of his holy glory. No, no, no. Let's keep him in the manger.
We'll mention his name a few times and maybe sing a few carols at our Christmas Eve party, but he's going to be out of place at the New Year's Eve party. Anger, agitation, irritation. The second reaction is apathy or indifference. I mean, Herod convenes the spiritual leaders of Israel. This is a fascinating scene.
I wish we had a little more information on it, but he gathers them. Look at verse 4, Matthew chapter 2. And assembling all the chief priests, these are the religious leaders now, the scribes of the people, he inquired of them, he asked them where the Christ, the Messiah, was to be born. And they told him in Bethlehem. They had Micah 5, 2 memorized in Bethlehem. Did you notice they did not say, we have no idea where this baby is supposed to be born. We don't know what those Persian cases are talking about.
They were in the sun way too long on their way here. Now, they don't say that, do they? They knew the prophecy of scripture, but they will choose to overlook, ignore indifferently the birth of the Savior. 33 years later, they're going to stand, those that are still alive before Pilate as Jesus Christ is about to be condemned, and they're going to voice their refusal of Christ as their king, and they're going to shout, we have no king but Caesar.
We will choose our king. Thirdly, and wonderfully, there were those who responded not in anger or apathy, they responded in adoration. They traveled hundreds of miles, would have taken them months to travel the distance in the first century. They would have been preparing for weeks after seeing the Shekinah glory. You need to know that when they arrived in Bethlehem, they did not show up at a stable.
I know that ruins the whole picture. They didn't stand next to the shepherds or kneel down there. Look at Matthew chapter 2 verse 11, and they came into the what? The house, and saw the child with Mary his mother. They saw the child, not braefos, the Greek word typically for infant or baby, but pideon. It's a Greek word referring to toddler or a teachable child.
By the time the Magi had arrived, Jesus is anywhere from one to two years of age, further proven by Herod's decree that he sends his killers to Bethlehem, and he says, kill every boy two years of age and under. They came into a house. My wife has all of these Christmas settings of the stable and the shepherds and true to form. My dear wife follows my exposition, and she has wise men over there in the corner somewhere. They haven't quite made it, so they're a distance away. People wonder, why is that?
Because she is a theologian who's doing it the right way, and I appreciate that. They come into the house, a house he built perhaps, Joseph, or one they rented. Can you imagine? Here's the little toddler who's just learned to walk, and these men crowd the doorway and into the home, and they fall on their faces, Matthew tells us, and worshiped him, gave him gifts. Those gifts would be used to fund their escape into Egypt until Herod dies.
If I can wrap it up, I would say it this way. The birth of Jesus Christ created scandal that would never die, and the true Gospel is as scandalous today as it was then. The birth of Jesus Christ created suffering that would never get easy. For Joseph, for Mary, all of his disciples would be martyred. The church around the world today is suffering greatly because of their faith. To this day, those who worship him often suffer, but they still surrender to him their lives, their fortunes, their reputation.
The birth of Christ created scandal, the birth of Christ created suffering, the birth of Christ created or revealed sincerity in genuine worship that continues to this very day as we acknowledge him as Lord and Savior. Perhaps you're reminded of this narrative. Maybe it's new to you, but you're thinking, well, I'm one of those wise men. I'm like one of them. I'm not like Herod or Caesar or the Jewish people or the leaders. I'm one of the magi.
I'm one of them. Oh? What are you going to do with him on December 26th? What are you going to do with him on January 1st? Will you surrender to his mastery and his right to rule over your heart and life or does that make you bristle with agitation? Does that remind you all over again of why you're not among those who worship him?
Maybe for you, you would honestly admit, and I would appreciate that, and maybe you're thinking, I'll probably not even think about him after Christmas. Jesus Christ from that day to this will not force you to surrender to him or to suffer for him or to worship him, but he does invite you and he invites you today not just to come to his cradle in adoration, not just to come to his cross in confession and admission of sin, but he also invites you to a coming kingdom. He will be back personally, physically, because he is the son of David. He is the son of God. If you're a believer, maybe what God has done through our study is remind you and just reaffirm to you and refresh your memory with the truths that he is worthy of your adoration.
He is deserving of your surrender in mind. It is our joy to come to this season because we understand what that Christmas narrative means. It is our joy because we know the cross is ahead and he will endure with joy that which is set before him because he knows what it will mean. It will effectively win his bride. We anticipate also, don't we, when we meet the coming kingdom.
In fact, we're looking forward to that moment when Jesus will come in the air and with a lot of noisemakers call the bride to return with him to the Father's house and then, not long after, return with him in great splendor as he establishes his kingdom on earth. With that, we conclude this lesson and this current series entitled, An Indescribable Gift. Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. We've taken this series and turned it into an e-book that you can download and read this Christmas season. During the entire month of December, this e-book is free. If you visit our website wisdomonline.org, there's a link right on the homepage that will take you to this offer. Once again, that's wisdomonline.org.
If you need the printed booklet from this series or if you want this series on a set of CDs, you can contact us about that. We can give you information about those resources, but please take advantage of this special offer and download your free e-book of An Indescribable Gift today. If you have a comment, a question, or would like more information, our email address is info at wisdomonline.org. We have a special place on our website where Stephen answers Bible questions that have come in from listeners like you. Maybe as you're reading the Bible, you've come across a passage that's confusing, or maybe there's a doctrine or theological teaching that you need clarified. Stephen would like to help you.
In fact, you might enjoy going online and looking at what other people have asked and reading those answers. It might be that someone had the same question you have, but anytime you have a question regarding the Bible or the Christian faith, send that question to info at wisdomonline.org. Once Stephen has answered it, we'll add it to the collection. Of course, you can also use that email address if you have a question or comment about our ministry as well. If you haven't already, I encourage you to install our app to your phone so that you can quickly and easily access all of our Bible-based resources. That app contains the audio and the transcript of each of these daily messages. We also make available the archive of Stephen's Bible Teaching Ministry with full-length sermons arranged by Book of the Bible. It's free to install and use and is a great companion for your personal Bible study. Tomorrow, Stephen begins another Christmas series, so join us for that here on Wisdom for the Heart. C-C-O-L-E-S-H-I-S-T-I-S C-C-O-L-E-S-T-I-S-T-I-S
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-07-07 14:50:39 / 2023-07-07 15:00:01 / 9