Hope Is Born | Part 2

for this little series is on one of those Christmas cards. In fact, I have a Christmas card with me right here. Allow me to read from Luke part of this Christmas story. It says in Luke chapter two verse ten and eleven, and if you don't have a bible with you, the verses will be on the screen or on your rockpoint.io app.

Here we go. Luke two verse 10 says, but the angel said to them, do not be afraid. I bring you good news. Everybody say good news. Good news. That will cause great joy. Everybody say great joy. Great joy. For all people. So everybody say, everyone. Everyone. I bring you good news that will cause great joy and it's for

everybody. Next verse, verse 11 says, today in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah. He is Christ the lord. Our big idea for this conversation is that joy comes when we seek a king, not a kingdom and if you're at all familiar with the Christmas story, maybe you aren't,

so it's my pleasure to introduce it to you today. The Christmas story has a number of characters and if you're familiar with it, just start thinking about this. We have we have we have Joseph, the guy who's betrothed

to Mary, the mother of Jesus. If you were here last week, Bill was talking about when is this good news of this verse actually bad news in the beginning because it doesn't make sense and it could make you look kind of strange like Mary being conceived by the Holy Spirit of God. Woah, Joseph now has a pregnant

wife or gonna wife person he's marrying and that was taboo in the culture and so it was a struggle for them. You have Joseph in the story, you have Mary in the Christmas story, we have angels in the Christmas story, right? Shepherds, we even have, if you read later in Luke two, there's a couple kind of obscure people

in this whole account. One of them is this guy named Simeon and Simeon is an elderly gentleman who is who's at the temple when they bring Jesus in when he's about seven or eight days old to fulfill the Old Testament law regarding a

newborn child and a boy and he is there and scripture says, he is filled with the spirit of god and he speaks when Jesus comes and he prophesies and it's literally god told Simeon that he would live to see the coming of the Messiah. So, he he literally goes up and says, here he is god. May I now die?

Read it later. It's it's what he does. There's this other person named Anna who the Bible calls a prophetess and she's also elderly.

She's a widow and she basically camps out at the at the temple praying and fasting and then when Jesus comes to the temple at that time, she notices and she has a lot of great things to say. All of these different characters in the Christmas story and they each have their own unique response

to the announcement of the birth of Christ. There's also some more people but they're not in Luke chapter two. They're back in the first book of the New Testament in Matthew and let me read that to you and we're going to introduce you to some of these folks. So, if you have a Bible, go back to Matthew chapter two.

Here's what it says. Verse one, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem

in Judea during the time of King Herod, everyone say, King Herod. King Herod. And then says Magi, everybody say Magi. So during the time of King Herod, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked where is the one who's been born King of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

We'll get back to that star thing in a few minutes. Verse three, when King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. We have these magi from the East and we have this king named Herod. Let me give you a little bit of a a bio on these folks

because we're going talk about them for just a moment and then we're going talk about us and how this whole thing relates to you and I on Monday morning. So we have the Magi. They're literally, historians tell us, wise men from Babylon, from the East, modern day Iraq. They come from Babylon and they're astrologers.

Give that some thought for a moment. Astrologers from Babylon are led to Bethlehem via a star. That's just strange. These astrologers are actually really wise folks and what they do is they're they're kind of consultants in a way. They consult with kings and heads of state and give them wisdom.

That's what they do and then, we have King Herod who is actually the present day king of the Jews. So one might see why he's a little disturbed when someone comes and says, where is this newborn king of the Jews? He's also a ruthless, horrible leader. Josephus the historian tells us that he was so ruthless and insecure,

he literally had three of his sons executed, fearing that they were conspiring to take his throne. He's a bloodthirsty, ruthless human being. Hearing of this news from these guys from Babylon,

where's this king of the Jews? He calls in the chief priests and teachers of their sacred scriptures, the Old Testament, and he says, Where is this gonna happen? Has this been prophesied? Excuse me. And they say, Yes, it has. He's gonna be born. The Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem.

They reference Micah five verse two in the Old Testament. So then, here's what happens next. Stay in Matthew and go down to verse seven. It says, then Herod called the Magi secretly. Now, beware of secret meetings in life. They rarely go well, right? They've been part of that kind of a deal.

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me so that I too may go and worship him. You think he's telling the truth? Is Herod a good guy or a bad guy? He's

lying through his teeth. So go down to verse nine. Matthew two:nine says, After they had heard the king, this is the Magi, they went on their way, and the star that they had seen when it rose went ahead of them. Here's the star again, until it stopped over the place where the child was.

When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. Now, obviously, they had come a long way all the way from the the East in Babylon all the way to Bethlehem and Jerusalem and that area and they've gotta be like, man, the star's back. This is so awesome! And they finally arrive at their destination. Okay? And then it says

says verse 11, And coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Now, when scripture says they bowed down and worshiped him, there's a little bit of almost a debate. Did they actually, when they bowed, did they worship him as god, deity,

or were they simply just giving honor to a dignitary? That's what some folks would say is they were just kind of bowing as an expression of giving homage to a head of state or a dignitary. Either way, they take a knee and they bow to the Christ child. Let's keep going with this. Which is really funny.

If you just give us some thought for a moment. The very first people who ever physically bow to Jesus the Christ are Babylonian astrologers. Chew on that in your little theology for a moment.

It's interesting. I find it interesting. That's just for me. Okay, I'll get back to you guys. Here we go. So then they go on and says, Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, myrrh and having been worn in a dream, now they go back they they don't go back to Herod.

They return to their country by another route. Herod finds out he's ticked. God speaks Joseph in a dream and says, hey, someone's coming to kill the child. Get out of here. Go to Egypt and wait and then god gives these astrologers from Babylon speaks to them in a dream.

They each have two unique responses. These magi, these pagan fortune cookie people, they literally like horoscopes and stuff like Pisces, Sagittarius, all that kind of stuff, right? Who's a Pisce? Anyway. They, when they hear the announcement of Christ and they come face to face with him, they bow. Herod, on the other hand,

he didn't have to travel the great distance like the Magi. He hears of the announcement of the birth of Christ and he's disturbed. And then he tries to destroy him. Sadly, you'll read a few verses down that Herod says, You know what? Go into Bethlehem and kill every boy who's two years old and younger. Ruthless human being.

There's no consolation in this, but it might be good to know that Bethlehem at that time was only about a community of about 1,000 people. A really small community, much like Queen Creek about eighteen months ago.

So one would assume there was hopefully not a lot of boys two and under. So when we come, they come to Jesus, it's not like you see on this Christmas, you can't see this, but on this Christmas card, it's like a little manger and stuff and so when these Magi arrive,

it's very unlikely this is not the scene. Jesus could be one, eighteen months old, or even two years old by the time that they arrive. But the Magi, when they see him, they bow. Herod's disturbed and he wants to destroy him because he's threatened.

So what's this? How does this relate to you and I? Because these are historical figures,

but how does this get personal for us? Well, about the ways that they respond. And I think the ways that they each respond tend to reflect our human condition. Maybe you're the kind of person that if you're a follower of Jesus, the first time you heard the message of Christ,

you were like, oh really? Like, god loves me? Like, as you say and he forgives my sin and Jesus is the son of god who who was born and hung on the cross and was raised from the dead and I just need to give my life to him and all the and you were like, your first response was, man, I'm bowing the knee. God, I am all yours.

Maybe that was your journey, your story, if you're a Christ follower. I wasn't like that. I was the more disturbed one. When I first heard the message of Jesus, it rattled my cage. It was disturbing to me. My friend Todd, who later on ultimately led me to Christ, the first time I'd ever,

in somewhat of a clear fashion, heard the message of Jesus, the Gospel came through him. As God has done in my journey over the years is he's used music to get my attention, amongst other things. And it was back in the day when music was actually really good. And that's what old people say if you're younger at all.

Back in the day, like when Michael Jackson was in his prime, when Bon Jovi was on the charts, when the Beastie Boys were on the scene. I mean, you gotta fight for the right. Right? There you go.

That's back in that day. Now some of you are trying to be all like holy church people right now. You're like, oh, didn't listen to any of that stuff. I listen. That's the problem being raised a Christian. You don't get to experience all the good stuff in life sometimes.

If that offended you just email me at billrockpoint dot

Let me do a little test just for fun so we can prove something here. I'm gonna count to three and I'm gonna say one, three, go and I want you to shout out. You gotta participate though, okay? Or else I'll look silly. I'm gonna say one, two, three, go and you're gonna shout out your favorite artist

from back in the day. Now, you're back in the day might have been three years ago. You're back in the day might have been ten years ago and for folks like Randy, it might have been back in the eight track days. So anyway,

whatever it was, one, two, three, go. Shout out your favorite artist from back in the day. Ready? One, two, three, go. Yes. See, you're just as much of a heathen as the rest of us. Well, back in the day, one of the many bands I really enjoyed

was this kind of obscure band, definitely not mainstream, but it was a band called Stryper.

In all their glory. Now, I didn't realize at the time when I would stick the CD in. I'm a CD guy, Randy, not an eight track or, you know, cassette guy. But I'd stick the CD into the CD player in the car, crank it up, and I loved Stryper. I knew every lyric to every song,

and I didn't even know that they were what would is called a Christian band. I didn't know that wasn't even verbiage that I would understand. You can see on their their album covers is Isaiah 50 three:five, it's by his stripes I am healed, referring to the lashes Christ takes on the cross

or you know before he's put on the cross. And and so I'm I'm I'm listening to this music and my friend, Todd, who had recently become a Jesus follower. He says, hey, man. Do you realize what you're listening to? I'm like, yeah, dude. It's striper. It's awesome. He's like, no, the lyrics. I'm like, what?

And so we literally sit down in his the kitchen of his house and we pull out the the sleeve of the CD and he starts going over these lyrics. I mean, literally, Stryper's songs consist statements like Jesus, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and all this stuff. And I am not exaggerating when I say, it never

registered with me what that was about. I didn't even comprehend it. I just loved the shredding guitar and the hairspray and the yellow and black and the whole deal. And he started reading through those lyrics, and I was disturbed. I really was. I mean, again, not exaggerating, for three days I was beside myself, distracted

and disturbed with this whole Jesus thing. Because I started this I was fixated on the question, what if this is true? Like what this is real? And if it's real, if it's true, what does that mean for me? Like, what do I do with this? I was really disturbed. Because the reality is when someone accurately communicates

with us who Jesus is, there's a clash of kingdoms. Now you and I don't often use the word kingdom, that's not our kind of language or our culture. But here's what I mean by that. When we hear about Jesus and who he is, the clash is like within us. Like I'm the rebel.

I'm not the guy who like, oh God loves me, that's so beautiful, I'm all yours God. I'm just not that and if you are, good for you. That's better probably but

I'm more of like, what? No. Because the clash for me is like, I'm the one who's large and in charge of my life. Not anyone else. You know, the rebel that comes out at me even to this day when I read scripture and God's like, Do this. I'm like

There's a clash of kingdoms. I want to be the one who's large and in charge. I want to be the big cheese in my life. I want to make my own decisions, set my own course and shape my own future. But what's interesting about Jesus is it says that he's the king. And when you and I choose to follow him, we step into his kingdom.

It's now our life is now being played out in his sandbox, Not yours and not mine. Let me read something to you, the New Testament in Colossians which really communicates this to us. In verse 13 of Colossians one, it says, for he, referring to god,

has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves. In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. If you're lacking any hope in your heart, knowing that God has forgiven all of your sin when you come to Christ will give you some hope and give you some joy.

The reality is though, is that it's a kingdom transfer. It's literally, not, God doesn't force us into his kingdom. He just invites us in. And when we choose to step in, we're literally stepping off the throne of our own life and putting Him in His rightful place, or seeing Him where He already exists, in His rightful place.

And we simply just kind of bow our life to Christ.

Any let me say it this way.

Any attempt to describe who Jesus is without ultimately saying that he's a king is incomplete because he is the king. He's the king of all creation. He's not only the king of the Jews, he's the king of the world. He's the Christ. And that disturbs some of us, myself included. When I was first

coming face to face with this announcement of who Jesus is, I was like, oh man, this is different for me. But I'm now in His kingdom. How many of you would say, if you're a follower of Jesus, you'd say, yes, Scott, I get all that kingdom stuff. I mean, that's a big deal.

But how many of would say with by raising your hand, you would honestly say, but I have learned that His way is the better way. My kingdom just doesn't, you know yeah, it is the better way. That's why as followers of Jesus, one of the foundational statements that he says for our lives we find in Matthew six verse 33.

Let me read it to you. Check it out on the screen. Jesus says, but seek first, everybody say first. First. Your own kingdom. Just testing you. Thank you for the four of you that were listening. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness

and all these things will be given to you as well. What are all these things? Well, if you read that context, it's really simply food, clothing, and shelter. The basic needs for life. Seek first. So it's kind of the caveat to our big idea of joy comes from seeking a king, not a kingdom. The caveat is not our kingdom,

but it's his kingdom. It's the king and his kingdom that we seek. Jesus says, put it first, seek first the kingdom. And here's if you're not a if you're not a Christian, let me bring you in onto some things that we as Christians do that's kind of weird.

I don't know. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but I like to pick on us. We tend to as Christians put people in buckets or segment people or silo people. Here's what I mean. We'll say, Randy, I'm gonna use you as an example. Do I have your permission?

Of course. Randy's one of your pastors here so that he doesn't have a choice. He's just gotta go along with it. Sir, what's your name? David. May I use you as an example? And again, if I offend you by saying anything, you got my email, right? Bill at Rock Point. So, okay, David, you said David?

David Randy. Okay. David, I'm gonna say like as Christians, we're gonna say, David's a believer. What we mean by that is David believes in Jesus. He has given his life to Jesus,

invited Christ in. He believes in god, believes in Jesus, believes in his resurrection, believes in eternal life, all that stuff. You're a believer, David. Let's give David a hand because rah rah. Randy,

on the other hand, pastor Randy is a seeker and what we would say as a seeker is that Randy is a guy who's maybe spiritually curious. He's open to spiritual conversations but he's undecided and he's kind of open to everything. You know, he's visiting the vortex in Sedona. He's doing all that kind of stuff as well, right?

He's just a seeker. He's open and then we might we might even categorize someone else and say, they're not even a seeker. They're just an unbeliever blah blah blah. Let's stick with the believer and the seeker. That's what we tend to do. We tend to categorize people as in as in two of those camps that exist.

I want to suggest that we're inaccurate in some ways. And here's what I mean. I believe that David as believer is also called to be a seeker. Jesus said it, seek first the kingdom. So David as a believer, he is seeking out the kingdom of God, God's rule, God's reign in every area of his life. David is saying,

God, I want your rule, your reign. I want the kingdom of God to be realized in every facet of my life. So while I'm on this planet, before I step into eternity, I am seeking that out in my life. David's not only a believer, he's a seeker.

Maybe even stronger in his seeking than Randy. Let's give Randy a hand, the way, or else he's gonna feel bad if we don't give him a due applause. Jesus said seek first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek the ways of the kingdom, the teachings of Christ, the teachings of scripture,

and god by your power in my life, may they be manifest or realized in the areas of my life and our lives. If you're here and you're married, anybody here that's married ever have any conflict in your marriage? Four of us. Let's close this party down right now. You and I, we're going go out for orange juice.

Shelly and I have been married for a while and we still have conflicts. Much less than we used to because we know each other pretty well but when we're in those conflicts, I know immediately regardless if she's right, I'm wrong, I'm right, she's whatever. I know that in that conflict,

there's a kingdom principle that I'm probably not applying. I'm not loving her as Christ loved the church. I'm not respecting her. She's not respecting me or we're not looking at something through the lens of mutuality.

So I realized, man, there's a kingdom principle, the kingdom of god. How how can I just have the posture to say, god, I'm out of step with the kingdom? May I be more like the Magi? Let me just bow to the king right now and say, God, I seek your kingdom to be realized in my marriage in this moment of conflict.

How many you guys are parents of teenagers? Anyone? So do we simply feed them 4,000 calories a day and put them back in the closet? Or do we actually say, God, help me to be someone who points them towards your calling in their life? How do I do this? God, I'm seeking your kingdom to be realized through my parenting.

In my business. I'm in business for profit, but how can I also be in business for good, for the good of humankind, for the kingdom of god, and for the glory of god? You see how we're seeking the kingdom. So, believers are seekers and joy comes as the result of seeking our King and His Kingdom. And here's the beautiful

little thing to this, is that instead of building our kingdom, seeking a king, seeking his kingdom, we're actually building a legacy. And that's what you and I get to pass on to those behind us. Here's the beautiful thing about seeking the King and seeking the Kingdom. God's not hiding. He's not hiding from us.

When He invites you and I to seek Him, he's not this twisted father who maybe, you know, four year old Randy and I'm his father. Randy, we're gonna play hide and seek and

you're gonna count to 20. Sorry, count to six because that's not how far you can go, father you can go right now and I'm gonna hide and what am I gonna do as the father? Am I gonna run out back behind the barn and get behind the tractor and cover myself up with straw

so that Randy's one, two, three, four, five, six. Ready or not, here I come. Dad, where are you? I can't find you. I'm gonna be horrible, isn't it? No, dad's gonna go right, almost right behind Randy. Here I come. There you are. How you found me. That's literally our heavenly father. He's not playing hide and seek.

He's playing seek and find. Amen. Let me read something to you. In the this this scripture represents the whole narrative of the Bible. Just you and I holding a Bible in whatever form in our hand is God's attempt to reveal himself to us. God walked in the garden with Adam and Eve revealing himself to them.

God showed himself to Moses revealing himself to him in the nation of Israel. God spoke to Abraham. God spoke to the prophets. In these last days, Hebrews says, god is revealing himself to us through Jesus. God is revealing, not concealing himself. Here's what scripture says in Jeremiah

2nine thirteen and fourteen. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord. Do you hear the confidence in that tone? God says to us, he's saying specifically to the Jews at that time but it also applies to us, as all of scripture, you'll see this, God's saying, I will

be found by you. How can God be so confident in this? Here's why I think, and I could be wrong. I think God's so confident when he says, If you seek me with all your heart, you're gonna find me, because I'm the very one who put the desire in your heart to seek me. It's an act of grace that we have the hunger to pursue him.

And if he's put that in us, he's gonna let us find him. So here's my question, and we're going to pray, and then we're going to worship for just a moment. How is God trying to get your attention right now? Where in life is He revealing Himself to you? Is it through the conversation of a friend, like my friend Todd?

You know what's kind of ironic about that conversation, those striper lyrics conversation? It it was was probably a year or two later that some of you heard that story. I'm not telling the whole thing right now. We rode in a pickup truck from Michigan to Culver City, California to LA, and he shared his faith with me a

bit

more interesting. Herod was greatly disturbed. Scott was greatly disturbed. More The Magi traveled a long distance before they came to Christ. I traveled 2,450 miles in the cab of a pickup truck, locked in, trapped, nowhere to go, and heard about Jesus.

Is it a conversation someone's having with you that God's getting your attention through that conversation? Maybe it's a struggle that you're in right now, where you're at the end of the rope and you're like, okay, god. Okay. I I I'm

I'm getting off the throne of my own effort and I'm gonna come to you in this struggle. Thanks for getting my attention. Is god getting your attention through other things? Maybe like think of the think of the think of the astrologers from Babylon. A star. That's radical.

I did some research on this whole star thing in the bible. The only thing I found was the old testament. Numbers twenty four seventeen says a star will come out of Jacob. And it was prophetic about the Messiah. But other than that, like historians say, some people say, well, maybe it was actually a comet.

Maybe there was a a nova or supernova going on. But the text seems to say that it was very specific because the star guided them two times. If god can use a star, let me say it this way, if the one who hung the stars can use a star and get the attention of a pagan, Babylonian, astrologer, and bring them to Jesus, he certainly

can get our attention and bring us to Christ. Maybe he's Yeah. Maybe he's getting your attention through a simple Christmas card stuck on your refrigerator. That reads what we read earlier. Let me read it again. The angel said, don't be afraid. I bring you good news.

Everybody say good news. Good news. That will cause what? Everybody say great joy. Great joy. For me. You're all people. Let's stand together and let's pray. Let's worship for just a moment. Father god, we thank you. You're not playing hide and seek, God, you're revealing yourself constantly

in many many ways. God, help us to see you as we seek you. May the kingdom of god be realized in every area of our life. Jesus, we do confess and proclaim you are the king to whom we bow and it's in your name that we pray. Amen.