1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Okay. Anyone ever built a fort? 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:07,000 No. 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:18,000 Yeah. I'm sure it's probably the majority. I don't want anyone to feel left out. If you haven't built a fort, you know, you're still welcome. It's fine. You'll be okay. 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:26,000 What was your favorite fort? Anyone have a favorite fort they ever built that they want to describe? Adley? 5 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:39,000 A tiny one? Out of couch cushions? One blanket? And some pillows? 6 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:53,000 So you took two couch cushions on the sides. Blanket. As the roof. Pillows on the ground. As the fort. 7 00:00:53,000 --> 00:01:01,000 Anyone else have a favorite fort? I gotta let, yeah Tony, come on. 8 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:08,000 It was 1979. 9 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:33,000 Anyone ever had some land where they had a winter where they built one and it lasted for weeks? Yeah. 10 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:41,000 I was wondering if anybody wanted to build a fort right now. Yeah. So I have this stuff that's called Make-Do. 11 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:48,000 And what you do is you take cardboard and you push a little hole through two pieces of it. 12 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:53,000 And then you take this and you screw it like a screw through and it holds those two pieces of cardboard together. 13 00:01:53,000 --> 00:02:00,000 And it's got like a safe to touch little blade here that kids can use to carve things into shapes and all that jazz. 14 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:08,000 And then this actually can act like if you don't have enough finger leverage, you can put this in here and actually turn it. 15 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:13,000 It acts as a tool. And over here in our baptismal I have cut up a bunch of cardboard. 16 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:20,000 And so if any of the kids want to go over here and maybe one or two adults, if you want to be supervisors and help build a fort, 17 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,000 I would love to see what kind of fort we have built before the end of this service. 18 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:34,000 All right. So I'm going to put this over here and all the kids can join me over here. 19 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:40,000 So there's a ton of cardboard in the baptismal and all those Make-Do stuff. 20 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:49,000 And we'll see what they have created by the end of the service. All right. 21 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:59,000 Now, one of the best fort builders in history just so happens to be in the Bible. 22 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,000 Now, he was not a great person. OK, this is not what I'm saying, obviously. 23 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:10,000 He was great at building things, but he was not a great person. His name was King Herod the Great. 24 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:15,000 So who was King Herod in 40 BCE or BC before Christ? 25 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:21,000 King Herod was appointed to be the king of the Jews in Rome by the Roman Senate. 26 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:28,000 And you might be thinking, well, that sounds like a weird place for the king of the Jews to become king of the Jews in Rome. 27 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:34,000 And you'd be right, because Herod wasn't Israel's choice for king. 28 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000 He was what we'd call a puppet king, a king controlled by another country. 29 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Now, because King Herod wasn't actually from the line of David or from any royal line that had genetic Judaism in their background. 30 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:59,000 But Herod's grandfather had converted to Judaism long ago. 31 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,000 But on the other hand, Herod's own mother was just a princess of an Arabic tribe. 32 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:10,000 So he had a mixed religion family. He had a mixed background family. 33 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 But this gave him a uniqueness, kind of like the Apostle Paul. 34 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:20,000 The Apostle Paul was a Jew and both a Roman citizen. And so it gave him a unique perspective on that region. 35 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:29,000 And so King Herod had a unique ability to rule this area of the earth because of its religious, its social, its political, 36 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:40,000 its economic backgrounds because of how he'd been brought up with both an Hellenistic Roman teaching as well as Judaism religiously. 37 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:48,000 So Herod wasn't Israel's choice. But Rome saw the value of having someone like him at the helm of the entire region. 38 00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:52,000 At the height of his rule, let's put up image number one. 39 00:04:52,000 --> 00:05:00,000 At the height of his rule, this is what his kingdom looked like. 40 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:07,000 Claire, if we can put up image number one. 41 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:12,000 Oh, Robin. Oh. 42 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:23,000 Hit, hit the, you see the image on, see the little X? Hit the X and then click the first image and it should show up there. 43 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,000 Okay, that was X. Now hit the image. There you go. 44 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,000 All right. 45 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 I didn't anticipate Claire abandoning her post to build a fort. 46 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:42,000 So Herod the Great was responsible for everything that's outlined in that black line. 47 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:49,000 And Herod had a way of keeping the peace and keeping Rome from having to step in any further. 48 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:55,000 It was called violence. He was ruthless, absolutely ruthless. 49 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:02,000 Whether that meant banishing his own wife or ordering the death of another one of his wives and her family 50 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,000 or taking the life of his firstborn son once he had grown. 51 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:15,000 Most of us, if we're familiar with King Herod at all, are familiar with him because we're introduced to him near the end of his life. 52 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,000 When? At the birth of Jesus. 53 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 And what's the thing that we see him do? 54 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:23,000 Try to kill Jesus. 55 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:35,000 Actually order a massacre after the news of a newborn king and that kind of violence wasn't out of character for him at all. 56 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:40,000 For all of his power and his position, Herod was paranoid. 57 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:43,000 The older he got, the more paranoid he became. 58 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:50,000 And powerful people that are paranoid tend to do whatever they can to protect what they have. 59 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:56,000 So let's open up our Bibles to Matthew chapter 2 so we can meet Herod properly. 60 00:06:56,000 --> 00:07:00,000 And then I want to show you three of the fortresses that Herod built. 61 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:05,000 We're going to be in Matthew chapter 2. If you don't have a Bible, we have Bibles out in the lobby. 62 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:08,000 Or you can download one from any of the digital app stores. 63 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:16,000 It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Matthew is the first book in what's called the New Testament or the Second Testament. 64 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:21,000 Matthew 2. We have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention. 65 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:26,000 And you can do that any number of ways. If you'd like to stand with me, you are welcome to do that. 66 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:31,000 This is Matthew chapter 2 starting in verse 1. 67 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:38,000 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 68 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,000 Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? 69 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:45,000 We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. 70 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:49,000 When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. 71 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:51,000 Let's jump to verse 7. 72 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,000 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 73 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,000 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child. 74 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:04,000 As soon as you find him, report to me so that I too may go and worship him. 75 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:06,000 Verse 12. 76 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:11,000 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. 77 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:16,000 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said. 78 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:19,000 Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. 79 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:23,000 Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. 80 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,000 Verse 16. 81 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:32,000 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem 82 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:39,000 in his vicinity who were two years and older and under in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 83 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,000 And then verse 19. 84 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:49,000 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the child and his mother 85 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:55,000 and go to the land of Israel. For those who were trying to take the child's life are dead. 86 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:57,000 Let us pray. 87 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,000 Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the scriptures. 88 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:04,000 And I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it would stick, 89 00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:08,000 that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would become stronger, 90 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:12,000 that we would become more like your son Jesus. Amen. 91 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,000 Alright, you can have a seat. Thanks so much everybody. 92 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:21,000 Alright, so when we meet Herod, it's the same time that the Magi meet Herod, alright? 93 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:28,000 The Magi have come to Jerusalem looking for this new king and then Herod hears about it and invites them to this place. 94 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:34,000 The next image? Invites them to the palace in Jerusalem. 95 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:43,000 Robin, would you mind pressing the, who's in there now? Claire, do you mind, there you go. 96 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:47,000 We're playing musical chairs, it's all good. 97 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:50,000 So when they meet Him, they meet Him in this place, alright? 98 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:58,000 It's a walled palace that is in Jerusalem, but this isn't one of the places that I'm going to talk about in depth 99 00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:05,000 because honestly, when you see the other places I'm going to show you, you'll see that this lacks creativity. 100 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:14,000 The first fortress I want to show you is this one, this next one, it's called Mount Masada. 101 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:24,000 That is a fortress and multiple palaces that are built on top of a mount, a mountain, a mesa, 102 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:29,000 and in the far background there, that is the Dead Sea. 103 00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:37,000 To give you scale of how high up it is and how far you can see, I had to cut off the image, but it's the same on the right side. 104 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:44,000 There's a cliff over here to the right, but there's a huge chasm between this and the next closest thing. 105 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:48,000 Mount Masada actually means in Hebrew, mountain fortress. 106 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:55,000 That is very literally what that is. It is a fortress on top of a mountain. 107 00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:00,000 That fortress had begun being built in the second century before Christ, 108 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:06,000 and while there are traditions that say who started building it, no one really agrees about how trustworthy those traditions are, 109 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:13,000 so it's best for us not to pontificate about who started, but we know who finished it, we know who took charge of it, 110 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:22,000 and that was Herod the Great around the year 40, the same year that he began ruling that region. 111 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:26,000 Mount Masada was claimed by King Herod. 112 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,000 He wasted little time expanding its usefulness. 113 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:36,000 In the year 37, so within that next three years, he had started adding irrigation, 114 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:48,000 so that water was able to be, actually would flow to that mountain and fill 12 giant cisterns that you could fit cars inside of. 115 00:11:48,000 --> 00:11:53,000 A cistern is basically a giant tank that's been carved into the side of that mountain, 116 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:57,000 and they were so large that you could fit cars inside of them. 117 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:02,000 So large that years later when there was another war, families went to those, 118 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:09,000 climbed down part of the side of that wall and climbed into those cisterns so that they wouldn't be found. 119 00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:13,000 Maybe you're saying how did they get the water up there? 120 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:17,000 Well it looks up, right? I actually pointed out how high it is, right? 121 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:25,000 But it's not up, up, because that's the Dead Sea over there, guys, and the Dead Sea is what? 122 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:31,000 It's the lowest point on earth, and so what they were able to do is they were able to find in the mountains 123 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:37,000 to the other regions, they were able to find springs and natural water, fresh water, 124 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:43,000 that they could actually build an aqueduct that would flow to part of that mountain 125 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:47,000 that was still using gravity to make it go downhill. 126 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:55,000 The Romans and the Jews of this era were absolutely brilliant in the way that they were actually able to use 127 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:59,000 their engineering to make these things work. 128 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:03,000 In the year 25 BC, Herod added a second palace to the summit. 129 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:09,000 If you look at that far left side of it, you see those three tiers? 130 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:17,000 That's a palace. All three tiers, all the way down to the bottom left, and then the next one and the next one, 131 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,000 and it's partially carved out on the inside. 132 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:25,000 You would start at the top and you would actually go down through the stone 133 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:28,000 to be able to go to other parts of this palace. 134 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:33,000 Y'all, this was 2,050 years ago. 135 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,000 It's absolutely amazing. 136 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:40,000 And then after that, Herod actually added storehouses on top of this mountain 137 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:49,000 that could hold enough food for 10,000 people for 10 years. 138 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,000 Now, they could use gravity to get water to where they wanted it to, 139 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:58,000 but imagine carrying stones up the side of that mountain, 140 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:05,000 that mountain that is a quarter of a mile tall from base to top, straight up, a quarter of a mile. 141 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:10,000 When we went to Israel a few years back, we went to Mount Masada, 142 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:14,000 and there is a path that you can walk that's about a mile, a quarter mile and a half. 143 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:16,000 It would take 40 minutes to walk. 144 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,000 They would not let us walk it because it was so hot they were worried 145 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:23,000 that us fragile Americans would faint halfway through. 146 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:27,000 And so we had to take the Sky Tram that's on the other side of this, 147 00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:33,000 which still took like 20 minutes to Sky Tram up to the top of this mountain. 148 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:37,000 And then at the top, as if it wasn't secure enough, 149 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:44,000 at the top of this, the entire thing was surrounded by a 13-foot high wall. 150 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:49,000 This fortress was so secure that after Herod's death, the Jewish forces, 151 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,000 they claimed it because he was the king of the Jews. 152 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:53,000 They came in and they claimed it. 153 00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:01,000 And later, Rome, it would take Rome two years with constant onslaught to win it back. 154 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,000 Two years. 155 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,000 Think about if you lived in your house right now and you said, 156 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:08,000 I can't leave this house for two years. 157 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:17,000 They had enough food, water, everything that they could survive up there with nothing else. 158 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:22,000 The second fortress I want to show you is called the Herodium. 159 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:26,000 Masada was high up, completely inaccessible, 160 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:30,000 but this compound was closer to Jerusalem, okay? 161 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:34,000 So he didn't have a spare mountain that he could build something on. 162 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,000 So what he did was he went the other direction. 163 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:42,000 He built a fortress and then he built the hill around it. 164 00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,000 That is very literally a fortress, basically a castle, 165 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:51,000 that is built and then they mounted up all of the dirt around it 166 00:15:51,000 --> 00:16:00,000 to make it less likely for anyone to be able to easily approach them without being caught. 167 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:05,000 It's basically an above-ground bunker with a skylight, I guess. 168 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:09,000 But it wasn't boring, you know calling it a bunker makes it sound boring, 169 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,000 but the Herodium had seven levels. 170 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:15,000 Seven levels, seven different stories, 171 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000 and every level had amenity upon amenity on it, 172 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,000 every amenity that you could have wanted 2,000 years ago. 173 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:27,000 This had bathhouses, pools with mosaics and frescas, 174 00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:31,000 a Roman theater inside of it had banquet halls. 175 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:36,000 Because it wasn't on a mountain miles and miles away right next to the Dead Sea, 176 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:38,000 he could have fresh food anytime that he wanted. 177 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:42,000 He could have entertainment from anyone anytime that he wanted. 178 00:16:42,000 --> 00:16:47,000 Anything that he could have imagined he could have in this fortress. 179 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:54,000 In Arabic, Herodium actually means the mountain of little paradise. 180 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:56,000 It's the only place that Herod built. 181 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:00,000 He built Caesarea Maritima, he built the Masada, 182 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:03,000 he rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. 183 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:07,000 It's the only place that he built that's named after him, 184 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:11,000 because it was for him. 185 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:15,000 So much of building things back there was about politics. 186 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:20,000 I named this after someone else to honor them, to get good graces. 187 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,000 This was all about him. 188 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,000 If Herod wanted to lock himself somewhere and feel safe, 189 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:33,000 like no one and nothing could touch him, he would go to Mount Masada. 190 00:17:33,000 --> 00:17:38,000 But the Herodium was the place that Herod could go if he wanted to feel safe 191 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:44,000 and opulent, like he was actually a king. 192 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:48,000 So now we've seen Mount Masada, we've seen the Herodium, 193 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,000 which leads me to the third fortress, which coincidentally all of us 194 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:59,000 probably have a fortress just like this. 195 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:09,000 In the passage that we read today, Herod was the first person that we know of 196 00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:17,000 other than the Magi that had the chance to open their hearts to Jesus. 197 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,000 But Herod was used to building walls. 198 00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:26,000 Herod was used to defending things that were his, that were his reign, 199 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:28,000 that were under his rule. 200 00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:35,000 He was used to hiding on mountains and inside of hilled fortresses. 201 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:42,000 And I'm not sure that we are really that much different. 202 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,000 Don't we elevate ourselves? 203 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:52,000 Don't we make ourselves out to be better than other people? 204 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:56,000 Especially the people that we don't like or at least the people that we think 205 00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,000 don't like us. 206 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:05,000 Don't we bury ourselves under artificial pleasures? 207 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,000 Under the things that we think we can mount up as a hill around us 208 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:16,000 that will protect us and make us feel safe? 209 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,000 Reminds me of what King David wrote. 210 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:22,000 He said, the Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer. 211 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:28,000 My God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, 212 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:30,000 my stronghold. 213 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:34,000 Or later the psalmist wrote, God is our refuge and strength, 214 00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:37,000 an ever present help in time of trouble. 215 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:40,000 Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way 216 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,000 and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 217 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:49,000 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. 218 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:57,000 When our hearts are right, we know that our safest place is in the Lord. 219 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:03,000 When our hearts feel off-center, I don't think it's a question of if we corner 220 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:10,000 ourselves off in fortresses of our own design, it's more a question of what kind, 221 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:15,000 the Masada type or the Herodium type. 222 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,000 Do we hide away when nobody could possibly touch us? 223 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,000 We are so far above we can see for miles. 224 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:25,000 We know that we are above and better. 225 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:28,000 And that we know that no matter how hard someone tries, 226 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:35,000 that we have years of resources built up, that this is impenetrable. 227 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:43,000 Or are we like the Herodium where we have taken every pleasure we can possibly think of, 228 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:46,000 we have buried ourselves with them. 229 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:51,000 I will eat and I will drink and be merry for tomorrow I die. 230 00:20:51,000 --> 00:21:03,000 And I don't need anyone or anything else except for what I have created for myself. 231 00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:08,000 Proverbs says, above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. 232 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:13,000 And so I think there is even in Christianity this sense where we look back to the writer of the Proverbs 233 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:18,000 and go well didn't the writer of the Proverbs tell me to guard my heart? 234 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,000 Yeah, yeah. 235 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:27,000 But Jesus taught us to love each other as he has loved us. 236 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:33,000 And this is what I know about Jesus. 237 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:36,000 That he made himself vulnerable. 238 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,000 That he made himself flesh and blood. 239 00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:53,000 Paul actually writes that not thinking himself to be right, to be equal with God, he lowered himself to be made man. 240 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,000 To have a heart that was flesh and blood. 241 00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:03,000 To have skin that could be hurt, to have emotions that could be moved. 242 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:09,000 And he had a heart just like that. 243 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:15,000 Guys, he was Jesus but his heart wasn't gilded with gold flake. 244 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,000 It was just like ours. 245 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,000 It could be hurt. 246 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,000 It could be wounded. 247 00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:29,000 And to think that Jesus wasn't tempted in his humanness to either elevate himself to the top of Masada 248 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:34,000 or to bury himself inside of a herodium would be foolish. 249 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:40,000 Because he was. 250 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,000 He did pray on mountains. 251 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:48,000 He did go up on top of mountains to pray but he always came back down. 252 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:56,000 Until he was lifted up on a cross. 253 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:00,000 Someone might say, well, where is Jesus now? 254 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,000 Did he go back to heaven? Didn't he actually elevate? Didn't he ascend? 255 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,000 Isn't that like a fortress? And we could say, well, maybe. 256 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:15,000 But I think that if we believe the scriptures in any way that is real, 257 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:20,000 I believe that he's actually right here, that he's actually right there. 258 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:24,000 He's actually right here. 259 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:34,000 And how foolish is it for a king to choose the most vulnerable of places to be their fortress? 260 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:39,000 Think about yourself. Think about how flawed you are. 261 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,000 Think about how vulnerable you are. 262 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,000 Maybe how sensitive of a person you are. 263 00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:56,000 Think about, and the idea that Jesus wants to make his home inside of that heart. 264 00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:03,000 I think that there are times in our lives when we want others to comfort us, 265 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:13,000 but very literally we know that the only one that can comfort us in that moment is Jesus. 266 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,000 There's an artist named Lewis Capaldi. 267 00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,000 I mentioned him to Cindy and I just talked to him about someone earlier. 268 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:25,000 And I've heard his song many, many, many, many, many times. 269 00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:30,000 He's someone that has Tourette's syndrome, and so he's had to take breaks, 270 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:35,000 long breaks from touring because of what Tourette's does to his body. 271 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:39,000 And it's interesting, once he came out with that and once he made it public 272 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:44,000 and he has done interviews about it, that you listen to the words of one of his songs 273 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:49,000 and you think, wow, that takes on new meaning now. 274 00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,000 This probably was the most popular song. 275 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,000 Right now you can look it up on YouTube and you can find a video of him having a moment 276 00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:01,000 where his Tourette's is getting the best of him, and yet the crowd takes over and just sings for him. 277 00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:08,000 The words say, now the day bleeds into nightfall, and you're not here to get me through it all. 278 00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000 I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug. 279 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:20,000 I was getting kind of used to being someone you loved. 280 00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:26,000 I was talking to Andy before the service that I try to be a pastor that is legitimately vulnerable, 281 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:33,000 that I'm not just putting on an act to try to make you think that I am this or that you are that. 282 00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:42,000 The truth is that there are times I don't want to be vulnerable because it hurts. 283 00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:48,000 Because, I was telling Andy, Scott Becker and his family, they've moved to California for great reasons, 284 00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:54,000 but I'm going to miss them for a long time. 285 00:25:54,000 --> 00:26:00,000 And it makes me go, okay, who do I talk to about this now? 286 00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:11,000 And the temptation for pastors is to climb up Mount Masada or to bury ourselves in Herodium. 287 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000 And to never let our hearts be that vulnerable. 288 00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:25,000 What I know of Jesus is that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, 289 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000 and that the Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. 290 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:36,000 So my encouragement for us today is that if you are finding yourself in a fortress right now, 291 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,000 I want to encourage you to find yourself a way out. 292 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:45,000 Find yourself a way out. 293 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:53,000 Because there are friends and people that want to stand with you. 294 00:26:53,000 --> 00:27:03,000 And maybe the enemies that we are guarding ourselves from aren't imminently attacking. 295 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:07,000 Maybe there's less to protect ourselves from than we think. 296 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:16,000 Maybe there is more life and joy and enjoyment by letting ourselves be just a little bit more vulnerable 297 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:24,000 than what we have been led to believe by the fortress builders of this world. Amen? 298 00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,000 Let's pray. 299 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:37,000 Father, I thank you for the example of your Son Jesus, the vulnerability that He had. 300 00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,000 I pray that your spirit, your spirit of comfort, 301 00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:48,000 comfort our hearts, would help us learn how to climb down or climb up and out 302 00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:55,000 of the fortresses that we have built for ourselves. 303 00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:01,000 Put us in line and in the way of the people that will stand with us. 304 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,000 And when we lose friendship or relationship or things change, 305 00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:11,000 I pray that you help us see the next relationship that you have for us. 306 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:35,000 As we always look to you as our salvation, our refuge, our rock. Amen. Amen?