ILL. THE DANGERS OF CHRISTMAS
Dr. Mateen Elass grew up in Saudia Arabia. In his youth he associated Christmas with reindeer, stars, colorful lights, sleigh bells, parties, and decorated trees. He remembers being told that the deeper meaning of Christmas was love and good will shown by giving and receiving of special gifts on December 25th.
Dr. Elass says his experiences have convinced him that Christmas is a dangerous time.
One danger is the possibility of missing the real meaning in the midst of the tinsel and presents.
He says Christmas proclaims God’s love, and reminds us that God was not satisfied to speak
His word from a distance, but became a man and lived among us. Jesus was "God with skin
on, the perfect means of revealing all we can comprehend about the mind and heart of God."
The other danger lies in rediscovering Jesus as the focus for the holiday season. He says, "For
then, life can never be the same. To celebrate the Incarnation is to say ’yes’ to God’s plan to
raise us to life in Christ - it is to say ’goodbye’ to our old comfortable lives enjoyable sins, and
private agendas, and lay ourselves on God’s operating table."
I. Response of Herod
v.3 -- "disturbed" or troubled
-you cannot have Jesus in your life AND remain the same.
Why troubled? He felt THREATENED -- wise men were looking for a king -- Herod: "But I’M king!"
ILL. The New Age (Adapted from Thomas G. Long, Something Is About To Happen)
Every year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is displayed, beneath the great Christmas tree, a beautiful eighteenth century Neapolitan nativity scene. In many ways it is a very familiar scene. The usual characters are all there: shepherds roused from sleep by the voices of angels; the exotic wisemen from the East seeking, as Auden once put it, "how to be human now"; Joseph; Mary; the babe -- all are there, each figure an artistic marvel of wood, clay, and paint. There is, however, something surprising about this scene, something unexpected here, easily missed by the causal observer. What is strange here is that the stable, and the shepherds, and the cradle are set, not in the expected small town of Bethlehem, but among the ruins of mighty Roman columns. The fragile manger is surrounded by broken and decaying columns. The artists knew the meaning of this event: The gospel, the birth of God’s new age, was also the death of the old world.
"Herods know in their souls what we perhaps have passed over too lightly: God’s presence in the world means finally the end of their own power. They seek not to preserve the birth of God’s new age, but to crush it. For Herod,the gospel is news too bad to be endured, for Mary, Joseph, and all the other characters it is news too good to miss."
The essence of sin: Thinking of yourself as king
-autonomous, powerful, call the shots, make the rules, live to please self, others exist to serve you
Note: Herod was a "believer"
However, "saving faith" means to look away from self and to look to Jesus
Faith is relying on and resting in Christ to be and to do what we cannot do in our own resources. -- Tim Keller
II. Response of the religious leaders
"disturbed" rather than excited
-these are men who knew their Bibles -- memorized, taught it to others ... yet missed Jesus
ILL. MISSING THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTMAS
In December 1903, after many attempts, the Wright brothers were successful in getting their "flying machine" off the ground. Thrilled, they telegraphed this message to their sister Katherine: "We have actually flown 120 feet. Will be home for Christmas." Katherine hurried to the editor of the local newspaper and showed him the message. He glanced at it and said, "How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas." He totally missed the big news--man had flown!
Can it be! -- read the Bible and MISS JESUS/THE GOSPEL?!
You? -- read it but all you find are rules, laws, stories; doesn’t break you, move you, lead you to the cross?
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Religious leaders knew all about the Messiah, but when he finally arrived, they didn’t feel compelled to seek him out
Herod had a problem with Jesus being a king, the religious leaders had a problem with Jesus being a savior
-Herod didn’t WANT Jesus, the religious didn’t NEED Him
-religious people are so hard to convince, because they are so convinced of their own worthiness
III. Response of the Magi/Wise Men
These men saw something extraordinary in a star that millions paid no heed to
-Some: "It’s just a star." -- cp to how people respond to the gospel: "It’s just a story" "Jesus was just a man"
Note: These men are foreigners! -- not part of the covenant community
-knew enough of the gospel to understand that the promise made to Abraham went beyond the Jews
Foreshadows the GREAT COMMISSION
Philippians 2 14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe 16as you hold out the word of life
-if you are a Christian, your calling in life is to guide people to Jesus, like the star guided the Wise Men
Lesson: Jesus and the Gospel is for ALL!
-all nations, from all walks of life, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslems, atheists, pagans
-No one is out of the reach of God’s grace
ILL. TRANSFORMATION/POWER OF THE GOSPEL
In Putney, Kentucky, a community of largely conservative Christians, Michael
Braithwaite was a novelty. Braithwaite owned a sex shop that sold leather goods and porn
paraphernalia, but he now sells Bibles after he underwent a religious conversion. `"Morally, I
couldn’t sell it any longer," he said. Neighbors have embraced the change, helping Braithwaite
restock his 5-year-old store with Christian merchandise and buying groceries for his family until
his new business begins to turn a profit.
He dropped the old name, "Love World," and now calls his store "Mike’s Place." He
covered the formerly bright red walls with a fresh coat of white paint. Braithwaite, with tears
gathering in his eyes, said God persuaded him to close the shop, burn $10,000 worth of sex
toys and open the bookstore. A pile of ashes in his parking lot is all that remains of his former
inventory.
"I stopped and got 10 gallons of diesel fuel, and we packed load after load of stuff out
of there," said Frank Howard, a Church of God pastor. "We were hauling it out by the
wheelbarrow." Some of his customers have been shocked to walk into the building to find a
shelf of Bibles where unmentionables used to be displayed.
"When the Lord gets a hold of you, you make some changes," said Braithwaite, who
still faces misdemeanor obscenity charges, brought at the behest of Concerned Citizens of
Putney. Now that the shop has closed, the group’s lawyer said he hopes the case can be
resolved, perhaps with a small fine.
Braithwaite underwent his conversion last month during a prayer meeting and was
baptized a few days later. "This shows that the Lord loves and wants to save everybody," said
Evangelist Shaun Aslinger, "even the man who runs the adult novelty store."
Braithwaite’s transformation reminds me that no one is beyond God’s reach_not a
porn dealer, and not me.
v.10 - Their reaction: "overjoyed" cp. RAY BOURQUE when he finally won the Stanley Cup after 22 years
-- in finding Jesus, they found everything that their hearts were longing for:peace, forgiveness, hope., purpose
-this is the "normal" Christian experience -- "good news of great joy"
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v11. "they bowed down and worshipped him"
Lesson: There is no joy in God without worship of God. -- worship is the way in which joy expresses itself
What is worship? Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven. A.W. Tozer
-it’s not simply to know about God but to be drawn; feel him; experience him; thoughts up him lift you up and carry you away
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Q: Have you found Jesus?
My fear: Some of you have only come as far as Jerusalem, but you’ve never followed the star to Bethlehem
Read your Bible but don’t find Jesus; go to church but don’t worship ILL. NICE PALACE NO KING
Does the news of Christmas threaten or thrill you? Leave you the same or effect you to the very core of your being?
Jesus: "Come to ME"
