Joy of Every Longing Heart
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship: Psalm 47:1-2
Call to Worship: Psalm 47:1-2
Prayer
Prayer
Adoration: Our great shepherd—protector, redeemer—who sent your Son for our salvation: as your sheep, we praise you
Confession: Yet, we have not treasured You or Your salvation as we ought. We have treasured so many things higher than you, and this disorder in our hearts has caused resentment, fights, quarrels, selfishness in our various relationships. Forgive us, Father; in this, we have sinned against you.
Thanksgiving: Micah 7:18-20 “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.”
Supplication: We praise you for how you daily keep us by your Spirit’s power/how you care for us/speak tenderly to us/correct us/encourage us/how you lovingly lift our eyes to your all-consuming glory // give us opportunities, truth, boldness for gospel witness // HBC: also boldness with the gospel + Spirit’s power to grow in Christ; wisdom and unity with staff transitions; Michael Lawrence as he reintegrates after a sabbatical this summer; spiritual growth and maturity as they intentionally train up preachers and counselors this year // police: justice, not corruption; protect + bless // Iran: believers there equipped w/ truth, wisdom, love, faith, boldness to spread gospel // Arthur + Esther travels // to the word
Family Matters
Family Matters
Wed. dinner—meet + prayer time with Arthur and Esther //
survey: last week to complete //
save the date: SWC dinner 13 Oct //
Want to meet with/host Arthur + Esther? Check w/ Ezra or Carrie for openings in the schedule
Benediction
Benediction
May you know the Lord’s blessing as you serve him with fear and rejoice with trembling; may you be blessed as you take refuge in our Messiah. Amen (from Psalm 2:11-12)
Sermon
Sermon
Main point: Confronted with the Divine Christ, some seek with joy, while others hate with fear and duplicity.
Jesus’ identity: Davidic king/king of God’s kingdom (divine strand carried over from last section + worship terminology), source of true joy, stumbling block
Purpose: To urge everyone to embrace the Christ with humble worship, and thus to chose joy!
Intro
Intro
Recap:
After Jesus was born, some wise men show up in Jerusalem, looking for, “he who was born King of the Jews”
King Herod + the whole city were disturbed by this
Herod went into damage control mode:
— figured out from the OT where the Messiah would be born
— told the Magi, pretending to be a fellow worshiper...
— really wanted to squash the competition for the throne
The magi went on their way, found Jesus in Bethlehem, worshiped him with great joy
God intervened to protect the child, warned them in a dream not to return to Herod
Here again is a very familiar story—and an interesting one!
Exotic travelers from a distant empire
Court intrigue, deception, ancient prophecy, an angelic dream
Coming face-to-face with God, veiled in human nature as a baby
Lingering question in verse 12… what will happen now that Herod has been outfoxed?
So it’s a great story… But why did Matthew chose to include it?
The gospel authors did not simply grab as many historical facts about Jesus as they could and throw them into a scroll… they chose carefully to give as powerful, rich, deep an account as possible, to shed light in human hearts about Jesus.
So, what is he telling us about Jesus’ identity here?
And, how does this story reflect on our own identities?
A. Magi Seek Him
A. Magi Seek Him
We are used to the idea of these Wise Men traveling for a long distance to find + worship Jesus… talk about it every year… actually quite strange:
First: reading the Bible for the first time, just finished OT, starting Matthew, here’s what you don’t expect:
First people recorded to believe (outside immediate family) = Gentiles?
First people recorded worshiping Incarnate God… Gentiles?
Second: not just any Gentiles… but Astrologers—embarrassing, in a sense
Who was eager to find the Messiah + pay him homage?
The Bible nerds? (chief priests + scribes)
Court officials from the East who practiced astrology—a pagan practice!
Why did they come?
Could say: maybe, this was just what they did… travel to a foreign land, pay homage to a king/a merely political action… the word translated ‘worship’ here can mean the worship of God, or just homage payed to a regular king
But, look at what these Magi say when they arrive in Jerusalem (vs. 2)
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.”
Notice: not, “he who has been born to become king,” but, “where is he who was born king”
They did not show up looking for the crown prince of Judea… whoever that might happen to be, but the long-promised King of the Jews who would bring blessing to the nations…
They were looking for the Messiah! …that’s how Herod interpreted their question: vs. 4, he asks the scribes where ‘the Christ’ = Messiah is to be born
Now: think of the boldness of these guys
— walk right into a foreign city and ask, “where’s the baby who is the real king of this place? We’ve come to pay homage to him.”
— seems like a naive trust… but you can’t fault them for it… maybe they assumed, “If we walk into Zion and ask, where’s the Messiah? We’ve seen a sign in the heavens that he’s been born. We want to honor him.”—result would be joy and celebration at his birth
— or maybe, when you set your heart to find and honor the Messiah… it gives you a simple boldness, no matter what the cost
[Determined to worship]
— learned that the Jewish Messiah was going to be born
— made a long, dangerous, expensive trip… for the opportunity to bow down before him—not in the least disturbed that he turned out to be the son of Jewish peasants—they had come to see the salvation of God, and when they found him, their only response was joy and worship!
B. Herod and Jerusalem Troubled
B. Herod and Jerusalem Troubled
[Herod Troubled]
But in this story—total contrast w/ reaction of King Herod
vs. 3: when he heard, he was troubled
had spent his life building up his own little kingdom through clever politics + violent intrigue
Most fundamentally, to him, Jesus was a threat—the same kind of threat that Jesus is to every human heart:
— our fundamental desire is to be king/queen… God… over our lives
— to determine destines
— to design ourselves/our lives according to feelings
— to control surroundings + people around us for our own comfort, satisfaction, pleasure, honor…
“my friends had better agree with me on this, or I’ll be devastated, and it will be all their fault”
“I’m angry because this didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to”
“I can’t believe they called me out on that… how dare they!”
“I’m living for me… and if other people don’t like that, too bad”
…the things our hearts say in private?
— this is who we are by fallen nature… and so the appearance of God’s king on earth is a fundamental challenge to everything that our hearts hold dear!
It is far, far better to belong to King Jesus:
— You can see the big-hearted joy of the pagan magi at worshiping the Christ (vs. 10-11)
— Compared with sick-hearted fear of Herod
— The agony of serving self vs. the joy of serving Christ…
why so much joy?
why so much joy for the Magi?
C. King Jesus: Davidic and Divine
C. King Jesus: Davidic and Divine
B/c of who Jesus is!
Emphasis here: Son of David/Shepherd King
First, ‘Theology by geography’—
— vs. 1, Jesus was born in Bethlehem
— vs. 5-6, tell us, ‘Messiah would be born in Bethlehem’
— vs. 8 Herod sends wise men to Bethlehem to find him
— Why did Bethlehem matter? B/c originally King David’s home town… thus it was the prophesied + fitting birth place of the true and better David—the Son of David, the Messiah
Second, there is the title ‘King of the Jews’—
— already seen, the Magi came already knowing that they were looking for the Messiah
— but called him, ‘King of the Jews’—probably an outsider’s/non-jewish way of saying ‘Messiah’
— the Messiah was not merely the hope of Israel, but of the whole earth:
he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
Through him, the curse would be replaced with blessing, for all who believe—Jew and Gentile alike
Third, Matt. emphasizes Jesus’ “Son of David” identity with a prophecy:
“ ‘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.’ ”
The scribes + chief priests gave Herod this verse—Mic. 5:2 (+ a little of 4)—to predict where the Messiah would be born
But Matt’s purpose:
— not merely to tell us that the Scribes ratted the Messiah out to Herod
— greater purpose: (1) to tell us: the OT promise of the Messiah’s birth in Bethlehem has been fulfilled—here’s the New and Better David
— (2) to remind us: what did the prophet Micah say about him? That he would shepherd God’s people, Israel.
So then: here is the one that the whole world has been waiting for:
— God’s anointed king, through whom he will restore his people and bring blessing to the nations!
— For the Magi to see the face of Jesus was to see the faithfulness, grace, lovingkindness of God, by which he reaches out to give blessing and salvation, through his Son, even to his enemies
— To see Jesus was to behold the love, power, and wisdom of the eternal God
[The Divine King]
Hard to say how much the Magi understood—word translated ‘worship’ can mean simply bowing before a human king… they knew, before they even met him, that he was God’s messiah… but did they have any clue that he was God incarnate? Hard to say.
So why is it translated ‘worship’ here? B/c those reading Matthew’s gospel—in the very last story, we learned that Jesus is ‘God With Us’ = eternal God, veiled in human flesh
=> worshiped better than they knew?
Story does seem to hint: even if the Magi didn’t know that, they had an inkling of the utter uniqueness and glory of the Child
Picture: as court officials—Persian empire?—they had always bowed to the extremely rich and powerful
Here:
— they are overjoyed to see what? vs. 10—that they’ve found God’s king in the unimportant, impoverished? little town of Bethlehem.
— vs. 11—what do they do when they enter the house and see God’s king… sitting in the lap of his dirt-poor teenage mother? They fell on their faces and gave him homage—the same physical act they’d probably done many times to typical human kings… but here, so very different.
[Source of Joy? Stumbling block?]
Here they beheld, at least, the divine wisdom of God--
For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
— the foolishness of God to have his Messiah born in the ‘dishonor’ of poverty vs. honor of a palace: far outshines all the wisdom and honor of men:
=> God does not need your skill/money/intelligence/influence/honor...
=> His power is perfected in our weakness
— the weakness of God to make his move to provide salvation to the world through the womb of an unknown virgin—a weakness far stronger than the strength all the armies of Cesar/US/Russia/China
=> Are you strong? Smart? Healthy? Rich?—all fine gifts from God...
=> But this story strips away all human pride
=> What happens when your pride is stripped away?
=> What happens when you set off on a long quest to find the world’s greatest king—God’s king—and at the end you find him not sitting in a palace made by human hands, but on the lap of unimportant little Mary?
Apparently, your heart is flooded with joy. I suspect it has something to do with this: when all human glory is removed, there’s nothing left to see except the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
And so: Jesus was not only the Son of David: he was/is the eternal source of joy for every heart that truly longs for redemption from God.
B’. Herod’s Hateful Plot
B’. Herod’s Hateful Plot
with that in mind/contrast of kings— [read w/ emphasis on king]
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? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;
=> King Herod vs. King Jesus
[Like Saul]
Herod ~ Saul…
— God anointed a new king over his kingdom
— Rather than submit to God/give place to David…
— Clung to his position/control => disgraced/deranged
— But it was God had chosen David as King… Saul knew this, yet
— Both evil and irrational…
Herod doing the exact same thing! …look at his thought process:
— What does he do when the Magi ask about the Messiah? (vs. 3)
— He goes and asks the Bible nerds where the Messiah will be born
— He believes the prophecies! He actually thinks—on some level—God has given…
— He believes that this child is from God… yet he tries to stamp the child out!!!!
— Not just high-handed rebellion against God… not just cruel injustice against the innocent… fundamentally irrational!
[as we saw] on some fundamental level = all sin like that…
— History books: Herod’s last years, descended into paranoid fear + violence
Contrast King Jesus:
Leaves the glory of heaven—as saw last Sunday—to save his people from their sins and restore their communion with God
The title here— (vs. 2) “King of the Jews”— appears one other place—the passion + crucifixion
God saying: “This is my king”--
=> Not a man of power who slaughters the innocent to keep his power (Herod…)
=> But a man who gives up his power, and is slaughtered, to save the guilty
=> Compare him to whatever world leader today you’d like… no comparison!
=> A king who displays glory by giving it up // as we shall see, who kills sin and death by being being killed, and all that to give life to his enemies!
[Jerusalem troubled?!]
More disturbing than Herod: vs. 3— “all Jerusalem” was also troubled!
Where was the joy of Zion at the arrival of her king? = hinting at something troubling about the state of God’s people that we’ll see later…
Chief priests + scribes =
— Herod asks, they answer… what did they think he was going to do?
— Doesn’t seem there was any desire on their part to find the Messiah…
— And these were the spiritual shepherds of God’s people!
— Again, a contrast (hint): finally, the people have received a good shepherd… if they will follow him by faith
A’. The Joy of the Magi
A’. The Joy of the Magi
But also in contrast to the people of Jerusalem + their leaders are the Magi:
Why did they have joy, when Herod and Jerusalem had only disinterest/angst/trouble?
Because they were not about protecting their own little kingdoms, comforts, rights… they had a single minded-purpose of taking refuge in the Messiah!
And so they experienced the great joy of worship
The great joy of inclusion into God’s people/God’s grace (accepted, not rejected)
May remember => last Sunday, Mary = a symbol of Zion/people of God
Wise men walked into the house, vs. 11, saw “the child with Mary his mother” => that’s when they worshiped and presented their gifts...
Now listen to the promise God made to Lady Zion ( = symbol for the people of God)...
Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you. A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord.
Seems that Matthew was alluding to this verse
Seems Mary = again a type of Zion = people of God
These pagan astrologers came to the people of God to worship God’s king, and they were not rejected
They had come...
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
They were not worthy, any more than we are worthy…
But they were accepted at the feet of God incarnate, ultimately b/c he would one day die for them—give his blood for a word of forgiveness and eternal blessing
And so he became their eternal joy.