All right. Oh, come, let us adore him.
Man, I love that song. It's a beautiful thing when the
church gathers to sing. So good morning.
My name is Alan. It is always a joy and an honor
each and every week to get to sing with you, to get to hear
you sing. And today it's an honor to get
to bring the word of the Lord to you.
So be encouraged this morning. It's Christmas time and we did a
sermon series. It's been several years ago now
called the loveliest place on earth.
So be encouraged this morning. That's where you're at the House
of the Lord. We are here, the loveliest place
on earth, getting to sing to the king of all kings.
We're going to continue our journey this morning in Matthew.
So if you've got your Bibles, which I hope you do, let's go
ahead and you can turn to Matthew chapter 2.
We're also on the third week of Advent, and so we're going to be
seeing the theme this morning of love.
So we think about Advent or the coming of Christ, you know, the
returning. It can be really easy.
Nick mentioned it earlier with this.
It's such a nice warm experience and we sing these great songs
about the birth of the Lord, which all these things are true.
We get to typically experience this this this nice Christmas
story. Anybody watch that movie like 12
times already yet couple nobody. Well, I haven't either.
Oh, she has. All right, we'd go One of my
favorite movies. I haven't seen it yet.
And all these things are true that they fill us with joy.
They fill us with warmth, they fill us with peace.
And that they're things that we can say to one another.
Hallelujah. If you remember back a year or
so ago, we talked about this word Hallelujah where it's just
like, hey, you join me in praising the Lord together.
Christmas is absolutely a time that we get to do that with one
another. There's no doubt about it.
But it's not just sentimental. And that's not the only thing
about Christmas. And so this morning, as we get
through this story here in Matthew chapter 2, we're going
to see that it's it's not just a story that makes us feel good or
not just a story that makes us have warm and warm in this fuzzy
feeling. This is a story that's really
full of danger from the very beginning.
It's a story that's full of suffering.
It's a story that's full of grief.
And it's a story that at times from our earthly perspective is
has a lot of uncertainty in it, very uncertain story as it
unfolds. And if you've been with us in
Sunday school, we've been talking about the Old Testament
and it shows us this tale, very true tale of how the enemy tries
and has tried and has tried and will keep trying to stop the
lineage of Christ. We see that throughout every
time, but yet over and over and over and over and over again, we
see that Almighty God's plan is not thwarted.
It can't be stopped. It's not going to be trampled
on, and we know that it prevails.
Amen. So Matthew starts what we talked
about a few weeks ago in Matthew chapter 1.
He shows us the he records the genealogy and Kyle expounded
upon it greatly. This is not something that we
just skip over. He read all the names perfectly.
He pronounced them all right. I hope you took notes.
I can't even listen to him say I'm right and repeat them
correctly. But the lineage came to pass for
a very specific reason. Like it's it's in here for a
very specific reason. It's it's got a purpose and it
shows that Christ our Savior was born.
Matthew goes on. So it shows the lineage of how
Christ was coming or who he was coming through.
This is to fulfill what Old Testament has said.
And then in verse 25, we see that Christ is born and we can
say Hallelujah together, but it takes as long as one verse, the
very next verse that we see the next enemy emerge.
This has been happening time and time in the Old Testament.
And now the very next verse after Christ is born, the next
enemy, King Herod, comes on the scene.
And before Christ even speaks a word, the world is already set
to stop him yet again. So today we're going to see that
God and his sovereign love will protect and preserve the
Redeemer Christ, and that nothing's going to stop him from
fulfilling his mission. So if you will please stand with
me, we're going to get into the text We're in Matthew chapter 2
verses 13 through 18 says this. Now when they had departed,
behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream
and said, arise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt
and remain there until I tell you.
For Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.
And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and
departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.
This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet
out of Egypt. I called my son.
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise
men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children
in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or
under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the
wise men. Then was fulfilled what was
spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard, and Rama
reaping, weeping and loud lamentation.
Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted,
because they are no more. This is the word of the Lord,
Amen. Let's pray.
Lord, I ask you this morning to speak through Your word.
Use me to clearly speak Your word.
Allow us to see your love and your never ending mercy towards
us. Help us to trust you in complete
obedience as we see demonstrated here by Joseph and Mary.
God, we submit to your word today.
Again, lead and guide and teach us in the name of Jesus, Amen.
I mean, you may be seated. Thank you.
All right, so again, when we think of Advent, we like to
think of that warm feeling, and that's good.
But today's Scripture is going to remind us that immediately
love comes into a violent world. Jesus doesn't come in to a world
that's simply sitting in a field with this Manger and there's
these nice animals around. It comes into a very dangerous
place that is set to destroy him.
The Scripture says immediately so in an earthly sense this is a
great phrase from Kyle and I stole it.
Thank you and a greatly hit in an earthly sense before Christ
was our Redeemer. He was a refugee.
He's fleeing from his very birth from the first few years of his
birth we see that in the midst of darkness God's light shines
his preserving love and this is the love that's active.
This is a love that's sovereign. This is a love that's
unstoppable and this leads us to the main point of today's
message. So if you've got your little
handouts, bulletins that I just learned about a few months ago,
and I love them, we've been doing them for years and they're
great, Here's the main theme of it.
God's sovereign love preserves the Redeemer through suffering
so that his saving purposes can never be destroyed.
Repeat that God's sovereign love preserves the Redeemer through
suffering so that his saving purposes can never be destroyed.
I got 2 points that we're going to get into.
The first one, God protects his Son in the midst of hostility.
This is verses 13 through 15 that we're going to focus on
that. I'm trying to give some time to
write. I'll, I'll write really slow.
And so I'm like writing it down. All right.
So love is more than just a feeling.
It's more than just a noun. Any kids in here?
Me and my kids were talking about this the other day because
I don't know what a noun and a verb is.
Apparently they're learning it in school.
So kids, what's a noun? Sherry answered.
Thank you, Sherry, person, place or thing.
All right, what's a verb? Ellie goes.
I don't know. That's how I felt when you were
asking me about that the other day.
So verb because have some action, right?
Love is a verb here. So love is not just this thing
that we'd simply just have a feeling.
Love it acts, love protects, love guides.
And we're going to see here that love provides.
So remember last week we saw the wise men and they've traveled a
great distance to see Jesus. And by the time they get there,
I mean, this could have taken them, you know, up to about two
years or so. By the time they get to Jesus,
he's not just in a field anymore.
They're in a house that says that when they enter in the
house, so they enter in a house where Mary, Joseph and Jesus are
staying, they go in and they fall down immediately and they
worship King Jesus. Now, before they leave, there's
kind of a remember context. So Herod had had sent them and
said, go find the child and come back and tell me.
So they find the child, they follow the star.
And when they go into the house, they fall down to worship.
And before they leave in a dream, they're warned about
Herod not to go back. And so they go back to their
country, but they go back a different way, right?
So, so they bypass, they bypass Herod's plot here.
He wanted to find out exactly where, where Jesus is.
So they get back another way. So let's reread verses 13
through 15 together. Says Now when they departed
again, this is the wise men. After the wise men had departed,
behold, an Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream,
and said, Arise, take the child and his mother, and flee to
Egypt, and there remain until I tell you, for Herod is about to
search for the child to destroy him.
And he rose of Joseph rose, and he took the child and his mother
by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the
death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the
Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt.
I called my son. So before we get just too far
into this, there's, there's something that I, I, I want to
address because I, I think it's fun.
I've got the ESV here and right above verse 13, it says the
flight to Egypt. So this is often called
something similar. Mary and Joseph when they when
they take Jesus, the flight to Egypt.
So I want to tell you, Matthew's the only place that records
this. Luke doesn't record this.
And if you just get interested in rabbit holes like I do
sometimes and you start searching for it, you might find
all kinds of stories on the flight to Egypt.
There's actually some not really debate, but there's some critics
that would say because Luke doesn't mention this, that that
this didn't even happen. And then you've got the whole
other side of some church tradition that puts so much
weight on this flight to Egypt. There's all kinds of stories out
there. So what we're going to focus on
today is just what the Bible says.
We want to go through what the Bible says.
And, and I mentioned that just because I like to go down some
rabbit holes and I feel like I would be doing an injustice to
not let you be aware of that. There are there.
Well, I want to show a picture, Josh, you have that picture.
So there, there's all kinds of that's kind of dark.
This is from Rembrandt. So in church tradition, the this
this flight to Egypt, What we know about it is really just
from extra biblical books at all.
But I want you to get some emotion of it.
When they flee, Joseph is got a toddler baby and they're told to
leave and travel about 90 miles or so to Egypt and they end up
going even farther than that. And so when you can, I would
pull this picture up just a really pretty it shows kind of
the danger. You can kind of see the very top
of there. It shows a picture of like
Bethlehem with some of the lights on it.
They're down by a river. They've got a fire.
You can see little baby Jesus kind of warming by the fire and,
and Joseph and Mary, you're just sitting there.
But I show that because there's so many renderings of this and I
want you to see kind of the danger that goes in this.
They are fleeing for their lives and the only place that we get
some of these these these traditions, if you will, from a
book called Pseudo Matthew. It's one of the main ones.
Pseudo just means fake or false. It is by no means a biblical
account. We're going to get into a little
bit later with with Herod, how we know some historical things
and some of these historical things are great.
But today we're just going to focus mainly on just what the
Scripture says about it. But I feel like I'll be doing
you injustice not to at least mention that there are lots of
stories out there that are not from our biblical text of what
happened on this flight to Egypt.
We just simply don't know. So I wanted to at least bring
that out. John 2125 says if all of the
things that Jesus done were recorded in detail, I suppose
the world itself could not contain all of the books that
were written. So we don't know all of the
things that Joseph and Mary did when they flee, but we know that
they go at least 90 miles and then they go down into Egypt and
they're there for a few years as refugees.
Essentially, they're fleeing. Joseph is is is waiting on more
instruction from the Lord. That makes sense.
I don't want to confuse everybody with that, but I
wanted to at least bring it up. It's interesting.
It's interesting to me. OK, so again, I say all of that.
We don't believe. We don't believe the Bible
because the world gives us evidence to believe the Bible.
We believe the Bible because it's true.
And so what's cool is that when you look into evidence, so it's
always going to prove that the Bible's true, happens time and
time again. So historical things I just
think are really cool. So we believe the Bible because
it's the Word of God. So what we see in this scripture
is immediate obedience from Joseph after the Lord appears to
him. They just have a really cool
experience with having the birth of Christ, and everything should
be made great. This is the Messiah, and now
they're fleeing for their lives. They've got a toddler, as I
mentioned, they're going about 90 miles, probably much farther.
Joseph's not told how long they'll be there.
Joseph's not told exactly from what we see in Scripture, where
to go, exactly how to get there. He's not told what they're going
to be doing while they're there, but he knows that it's not
permanent and he knows that this is not the end because God has
told him, wait until I tell you to come back.
Joseph's going to have to be on guard knowing that whenever the
signals given, they're going to have to make the journey back.
This is life threatening for me. They're they're not just moving.
They're not just going on a different chapter.
They're fleeing from their lives from a king that wants to
destroy Jesus. So Joseph by faith takes Mary
and Jesus and they depart by night headed to Egypt, just like
we've seen with so many other Old Testament patriarchs, by
faith, Joseph hears from the Lord and acts and praise the
Lord for it. So as Christians, at least for
me, that sentence kind of kicked me right in the teeth.
Yeah, right. Right in the teeth.
A lot of times I like to try to figure things out for myself and
I like to try to be logical with things and make them make sense.
But when God speaks, we're to move and Joseph does that.
Few weeks ago, I had the privilege to to preach on Sunday
night. And one of the things that we
discussed was that this simple trusting in the Lord, that
that's not always that simple, but we talked about trusting in
the Lord. And we, we saw that in Matthew
chapter 6, Jesus addresses this and Christ tells us what to seek
and, and it's the Kingdom of God.
He says seek the Kingdom of God. And he's telling us this in a
response to worry and in a response to anxiety and a
response to fear, in a response with our own controlling.
And he tells us that God will provide for us just like he
provides for the birds. He knows we need these things so
to trust him, to seek Him, and we ought to do the same.
This is something that we just should do.
We're actually commanded to do these things as believers.
We're commanded to seek the Kingdom of God in obedience.
So Jasper mentioned a minute ago, we're a church here that we
focus, we firmly believe on focusing on families and living
as God has made the family to live.
And we see that played out here in verse 14, verse 14, it says,
and he rose again. Joseph rose after being being
told this and he took the child and his mother by night and he
departed. He didn't, he didn't argue with
the Lord. He got up and he did it.
And so Joseph leads his family, though he doesn't have the
answers. He rises and he takes them to
safety again by way of danger. He takes them to safety by way
of danger and they go with them. So, so this kick me in the teeth
and and this kind of specifically for men.
Men, we are to lead our families even in the midst of danger.
We are to love our wives. We are to lead them in a way
that honors Christ. So again, specifically for men
here, our wants and our desires come second to that which help
us love her. That's something that our money
can't do. It's something that your home
can't do. It's something that your job
can't do, your stuff can't do. God has designed marriage this
way. He has designed it that husbands
are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave
himself up for her. That's Ephesians 525.
Joseph does this. We see a clear picture of this
here in verse 14. But obedience takes practice.
We also talked about that a few weeks ago.
Even peace takes practice. These are things that we have to
practice. We can begin today by doing our
best to obey the Lord and all things.
Real simple thing that we can start obeying Him is simply by
getting in His Word daily, reading His Word, moving on.
We also see the hostility of the world to Christ played out here
in Herod in these first few verses.
Now here's a really bad guy. We're going to get to a little
bit more of the historical context of Herod in a second.
But when he first hears about Christ, what we saw last week,
once he's born, Herod wants him dead immediately.
Herod is a king, and he's used to getting his way, and he wants
to get his way. And when he thinks there might
be another king that might be greater, that people might like
more, he wants the child destroyed and killed
immediately. So when they don't return, we're
going to see in the next few verses that here it's going to
lose it. He's going to lose it when he
realizes that he's tricked. But verse 15, it kind of jumps
ahead of of the timeline just a little bit.
And it just tells us that that he's dead, that he dies.
And but then the next verse is very important.
We see that as this wickedness unfolds and here it dies,
Matthew continues to show his audience and us the importance
of why these events are happening.
So the events themselves are bad.
But the, the, the behind and the why that they're happening is
what Matthew's really getting to.
So he doesn't record all of the stuff of, of them fleeing to
Egypt and what they're doing. But what he's doing, he tells us
they go and then he tells us why they had to go.
And this is actually to fulfill prophecy.
And he quotes that the last part of Hosea 11 chapter or Hosea
Chapter 11 verse one, the whole verse says when Israel was a
child, I loved him. And then he quotes this part and
out of Egypt I called my son and he had said this was to fulfill
what the Lord has spoken by the prophet.
So Matthew is is he wants you to be persuaded and he wants his
audience to be persuaded that Christ is the one to come.
This baby that was born is the Redeemer.
He is the one that we can rely on.
Amen. Matthew clearly tells us of this
event, fleeing to Egypt and returning home.
It all happens to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the
prophets. So nothing in the Bible is
written in there. Nothing is just kind of written
as filler. There are things that I'll say
that might be filler. There are things that that other
books might have that that the main stories here and then they
just tell you a bunch of fluff so they can get to the the meat
of it. The Bible's not like that.
These are are written so that we may believe.
John tells us that as well. So God's Providence, he keeps
Christ, which is the Redeemer. He keeps him safe even through
these trials. And Matthew's trying to help us
understand that it's not just a little hardship.
This would have been very tough. But I want you to know that
God's Providence will also keep you in Christ.
Maybe through danger, you may not be safe in it, but he will
keep you. He will hold you fast through
these trials of life. There's this idea in some
Christian circles of this prosperity that that we are
called to have health and wealth and favor and all good things
that everything will just work out great for us.
And, and church, I've got to say that's a that's a blatant lie
and an attack on the God of the Bible.
We don't see that. We may want to see that sounds
great, but it's a lie, so don't fall for it.
We see this from Jesus from the very, very moment He is born.
He is in peril. Do not, do not fall for it.
You're not promised those things.
You're promised much greater things than that.
Don't hold of these things that can slip away.
You're not even promised tomorrow, and neither am I.
Again, going back to Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says that we
can't even do the simple task of adding one hour to our lives.
He calls that simple and that is impossible for us.
James chapter 1 tells us to count it all joy when you meet
trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of
your faith produces steadfastness, and we are to let
steadfastness have its full effect, that we may be perfect
and complete, blacking in nothing.
Trials will come. Christ will hold you fast.
We are to trust the Lord at all times, for we know that he who
began the good work will see it to completion in Christ Jesus.
Blame him .2. God judges his enemies and
comforts his people. This is verses 16 through 18.
Let's read that again together. Then Herod, when he saw that he
had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent
and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that
region who were two years old or younger or under, according to
the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.
Then was then was fulfilled what was spoken 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.
So Herod realizes that he's been tricked.
He's not happy about it. We already know that.
But now we're going to get to see just a horrific evil take
place. Remember I mentioned earlier,
part of the reason I mentioned some of these extra biblical
accounts in these historical accounts is because we know not
just from this, we know from history, Herod was a bad guy.
And that kind of helps us put into place, it helps me.
And so I hope it helps you. If I can visualize and see where
these things are happening at in the Bible so that they, they,
they become real to me. If I can visualize and if I can
see it, it helps me understand it.
So King Herod is a real guy. And he's also known in history
as Herod the Great. He actually done some really
great things. He's a master builder and he
helped start the restoration project on the Temple Mount for
Jerusalem, for the the temple in Jerusalem.
He he's also a stone cold murderer.
So he's helped restore temple things in Jerusalem.
He's rebuilt cities or started to like Jericho.
Remember, Jericho is much different city by this time, but
same place from Old Testament Antiochnicopoulos, Athens.
Think of what you might think of when you hear of old school
Athens. He would have been a part of
helping to build all of that. Caesar and some kids you might
have learned in history, Caesar and the sky, Mark Antony, all
that. So Herod is involved with them
like that. These are all real things that
happen if that helps put a place mark in your brain for it.
He also murdered his wife and several of his children and his
relatives and done this time and time again when he didn't get
his way. He was known for issuing mass
murders when he didn't get his way just to make a point.
This is a bad guy. And so when his rage and
jealousy of there being another king starts taking over, we see
just kind of the unfathomable, the unthinkable.
He knows that based on that, the time frame that the wise men
came around the age that he thinks Jesus is.
So he sends an order to kill all male children under the age of 2
in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding regions.
He figured, you know, not sure exactly where they were.
They tricked me. So I'm just going to do it for
everybody. That'll that'll do it, which is
awful. He does this to ensure his
victory, that that's what he's thinking.
I'm going to ensure. I'm going to make sure that the
king, that the seed, he doesn't know that part, but that the
seed is destroyed. That's what I'm going to do.
God has this plan, but I'm going to take it out.
Doesn't work. Most scholars would agree,
though, that Bethlehem is, it was a pretty small place at that
time. So I don't know how many, what
number of kids you've got in your brain, but it was probably
not in the thousands. Probably more like 30.
Could be more. As a small village.
Oh, little town of Bethlehem, you know, we sing that song.
This is a small town. But nonetheless, one death is
too many, right? This is an evil.
This is an evil, evil man. He planned on stopping nothing,
nothing until Jesus was dead. But even evil, even the worst of
all evil, cannot derail God's plan of redemption.
Can't do it and it won't do it. In this tragedy, we see God's
hand at work. Verse 17 reads.
This was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah.
So it's important to know as we read things like this, God is
not just reacting to King Herod. God's not sitting there going,
Oh no, what are we going to do now?
King Herod's trying to take him out.
What's an escape plan? God has known this.
God knows this full well. What's happening?
Again, his plan will not be changed.
This is actually being done for a purpose.
It was actually foretold about 600 years prior to that.
And so Matthew, again, he wants you to believe these things.
He's saying that this happened so that the Scripture could be
fulfilled, so that what Jeremiah prophesied is actually coming
true. Jeremiah 3115 is almost word for
word what we see there in Matthew chapter 218.
Jeremiah, this is being used as a way to show great grief from
the exile. Yes.
And if you've been in Sunday school, remember the exile.
So Israel, the Israelites are God's chosen people.
God has brought them up and he has called them a holy people, a
set apart people, people that are to live differently.
And then when the exile happens, essentially the nation of
Israel, the northern and southern kingdoms are now
disbanded. They've been taken over.
And it looks like all is lost, like it looks, it looks hopeless
from just an earthly standpoint, right?
We're kind of tracking. So with Jesus being born too,
and now he's immediately having to be exiled, He's having to
leave, He's fleeing for their life.
It can be easy for us to see that it is hopeless, but this is
not hopeless. There's good news.
And Matthew is, is, is showing us this fulfills Scripture and
he's showing us how these things relate.
And Rachel, he mentions Rachel here, Rachel weeping for her
children. If you remember, she was the
mother of Joseph. So we're going way back in the
Old Testament here that Joseph played a huge role in leading
the people out of Egypt. Her weeping is is a picture
again that that looks like all hope is lost.
God's chosen people, the ones that were called to be to be
different. It seems as if God's promise has
failed if you take it just there.
But praise the Lord, the Scripture doesn't stop in those
things. They show us how God's plan
continues to move. Matthew helps us see that this
is fulfilled in Christ. Even though there is deep grief,
there is hope. Jeremiah 3117, just a few verses
after that actually state this. It says there is hope for your
future, declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to
their own country. This is all fulfilled in Christ.
God's word and promises have not failed.
Paul addresses this in Romans. He's like, does this mean that
that the the word of God has failed because these things
happen to the Israelites? He says by no means, by no
means. Matthew goes to great lengths
and I, and I hope I'm trying to do that as well to show you that
these things are true and that you can believe and trust in
them. Prophecies fulfilled.
The scriptures are being fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
Not only do they not fail, but they prevail every single time.
God is active and his people, us can rest assured and be
comforted in them. His enemies can rest assured
that they will experience His wrath.
These are two truths. So I've got some things maybe to
ask yourself. Ask yourself, do I trust God?
As I read through these things like like Joseph just getting up
and fling again, it kind of kicks me in the teeth.
So I pray that you believe these things, but also pray that you
trust in the Lord in these things, that they're true and
that you can trust and obey them.
Obey the things that God has spoken to us to do as
Christians. We're not just to simply read
this and go. I think that's true.
We're to live it out as the church.
We are to look different and be set apart from the world.
We are to be different. Read a book with Colin Jasper
and Steven James I think years ago and it just talked about
moving to the right, which is weird because I'm going to the
left for me, but I think this is to the right for y'all.
Moving to the right, it really just meaning as as believers,
our lives should look different and and the world should see us
growing closer to Christ as we move along.
There may be valleys, but we are to seek him.
We are to seek his Kingdom above all things.
Our lives should look like this. If they don't, that's the
question, do I trust God? Do you obey God?
We're in the Christmas season. There's a lot of naughty or
nice, right? We hear these things obeying God
is not just about being good. That's that's the wrong that's
the wrong part of the question. It's not about going well and
have I been have I been good enough this year?
Have I have I not been good enough this year?
Maybe I just need to do better next year.
Obedience is seeking his Kingdom first.
So we're to seek the Kingdom of God practical ways for that.
Our prayer every day, pray to the Lord to ask for help.
Ask him to help your unbelief. The scriptures say that getting
in your word daily, reading his word, remembering him.
We, we, we, we take the Lord's Supper each and every week and
we remember what the Lord has done.
We remember who he says he is. We do that with the Saints, with
you all consistently. These are these are practical
ways for you to seek the Kingdom of God in your life.
We can believe that only he will keep and preserve you.
There is none else. So believers, I ask you to take
hold of that truth. If you've been expecting things
maybe to turn around, maybe it's been a tough time in your life.
We all go through things. Things are tough.
If you've been expecting things to turn around just so life can
get better, a challenge that you're missing the point of it.
Your life is not your own, and if you're a believer, we are to
recognize that there is no better.
There's no better life apart from Christ.
Doesn't matter if things started to turn around or not.
We serve Christ. So all of us are to lead in the
ways of Christ. We're to stand firm on His
promises that He will see us through.
We're also to stand firm on His promises that what He sees you
through will probably not. Be easy ground, most likely, but
he will see you through that there's an enemy waiting to
attack. But we serve the God of Angel
armies in whom there is no injustice to be found.
And so rest assured in that this morning, take hold of it.
Take it to your workplace. Take it to your family
gatherings, take it to your neighbors.
Remember that this is an action verb, this love.
This is something that that we can see if no one knows who you
serve, it begs you to ask the question to yourself, who do I
serve? Because it's it should be
obvious when it's Christ to serve Christ, he's trustworthy.
Although sorrow is real, it's not final.
And we can stand firm on that. And then finally this morning,
if you're an unbeliever here, or maybe, maybe maybe you're
someone that does believe these things and you say, you know
what? I believe this is real, but
you've yet to put your complete faith in it.
Maybe you're pondering, maybe you've got questions.
That's that's OK. We want to help you through
these questions. So I implore you to trust and
follow Jesus. I implore you to ask some of
these questions. Continue to read.
Matthew is a great book that shows us how the Lord fulfills
his word. He shows us this is what the Old
Testament said. Here is what Christ does.
This fulfills that. Therefore, trust Christ.
So read it and be persuaded, be persuaded that Jesus is the
Messiah. He is who he said he is.
He is the Redeemer. He's the one that we celebrate
the birth of this time of year because we believe these things
wholeheartedly. He is the Holy One of God, and
through Him and Him alone can your sins be forgiven.
We'll later see in the book of His death, burial, and
resurrection, and that only through Him can we have eternal
life to spend with God. So Christmas time isn't just
about spending time with our loved ones.
It's about the story of the preserved Redeemer guarded by
God's sovereign love so that He would one day give His life for
you. So if you're pondering on those
things, know that you're even worse than you think you are and
you need a Savior. You don't need to do better.
You don't need to make the nice list.
You need to be made new. Your heart is stone and you need
a new heart. And that is only offered in
Christ. Nothing stops him in the Old
Testament. Nothing thwart Scott's plan.
Herod doesn't do it here. It won't happen in the future.
Christ will prevail, so rest in his care that God's sovereign
love preserves the Redeemer through suffering so that his
saving purposes can never be destroyed.
It will preserve you. If you've got questions, I ask
that you ask me, you can ask Kyle, James, Steve, Jasper, turn
to anybody that's a member here. We want you to believe these
things because we think they matter greatly.
Most important thing, let's pray and then we'll take a moment to
reflect. God, I pray for your love to
abound. I thank you for your word.
And I pray that you help us see all of your promises that have
been fulfilled, that help us see hold your, your truth and your
mercy. We need you, Lord, we need a
Redeemer, and I'm grateful that you have given us your word to
show us that. Help us to stand firm and
believe that you will preserve us in your love until the end.
I continue to remind us in daily of your goodness.
So we're going to take just a moment and just reflect.
To the Lord. Father, we are grateful this
morning, grateful for your word. I'm grateful, as Alan has shown
us, that you provide and your provision and you preserve us.
You lead us. And God, we're so grateful for
again, this the story of Jesus, his birth and his life.
And we see you at work through it all.
We got to pray that you help us to take what we've heard this
morning and to meditate on it and apply it to our lives.
To be obedient as Joseph was, to trust in you and have faith in
the midst of trials, in the midst of dangers, that we put
our trust and hope in you alone. When we celebrate the life of
Jesus, the birth, and of course, the mission that he came to
accomplish, we're so thankful. Or that you saw fit to send him
to say this. And so it's with full faith and
trust in Christ alone we worship you today.
We ask all this in Jesus name, Amen.