in your Bibles to Matthew chapter two, Matthew chapter two, all right?
And we're going to be still in our battle of belongs, but as you can see,
it's Christmas edition, all right?
So we're going to wrap up our series, and so far, what we've talked about
over the last few weeks.
We've talked about the battle of Jericho, we've talked about the battle of AI,
we talked about Elisha and the invisible army, we talked about the sun standing still,
we talked about Hezekai and Sennacherib, and then last week,
we had the joy of hearing about Eihad, stabbing Eglon, that was fun.
But all of this, what we want to make sure the point is not missed is that what we're
re-emphasizing is the whole name of the series, it's that the battle belongs to the Lord.
And as we wrap up this series, what we want to do is make it Christmas themed,
and we have a treat, okay?
As you might be able to tell, there's a few teenagers missing, they're right there.
I know they can hear me, right?
Can you hear me?
Yeah, okay, Josh said yes, all right, they can hear me, all right?
But they're in there, so get ready for them to randomly appear.
I have an idea, which is a very scary thing for me to say, all right?
But we're going to wrap this up and we're going to talk about this idea of a battle for Christmas
and see once again that the battle belongs to the Lord.
But first, I have a question, all right?
Go ahead and hit me with it, Kevin.
All right, what is your favorite Christmas special?
All right, let me make sure I define this so we all know what we're talking about, okay?
These are the things that I used to watch, all right?
Like the claymation, like super, I don't want to say super old,
that might be offensive, but to me, all right, it was older, all right?
But it was like, then you would watch on cable at night.
I remember it would be like at eight o'clock and there'd be an eight o'clock to eight
thirties Christmas special and then there'd be another one and there'd be like two more
and if I was really good and my mom wasn't mad at me that day because I didn't do anything dumb,
I got to watch like more Christmas specials, it was great.
But my question to you, okay, what is your favorite Christmas special to watch?
Brother Dave, shout out.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, specific, I like it, Miss Laurie.
Charlie Brown Christmas, good.
Miriam, it's one of a kind, good.
All right, Eli, home alone, good, good, all right, Audrey.
What was it?
Holiday Inn, I haven't even heard of that one, is that a hallmark?
Okay, that's good.
What, have I not heard of it?
I'm just uneducated.
Oh man, okay, apparently most of you have watched the Sawers, all right, okay?
I got a few up here, all right, hit me with the first one.
All right, How the Grinch Still Christmas, classic, all right?
I think it's like that's number two, the most watched Christmas special.
I'll let you guess number one in just a second, all right?
The next one for me, I think this is my favorite.
The Little Drummer Boy, I don't know why, but it's why I was watched.
And me and Anna watched it again, not too long ago.
And it was like, it was really sad.
Like, his parents died in like the first five minutes.
It's really sad, but then it gets happier as it goes long.
But I was like crying, watching Little Drummer Boy.
It's like, man, all right, and then next one for me, okay?
Has anyone heard of this?
I feel like I'm the only one.
All right, good, I got two, okay?
I got three, four, okay, good.
So what this story is about is, you know, like the song,
all of the other reindeer, like Rudolph, all of the other reindeer.
But this dog hears the song and he's like, they're talking about me,
all of, and then he becomes a reindeer.
My mom used to read the story and then it was like a Christmas special.
It was great. You should look it up, watch it.
It's really funny. It's heartwarming.
I haven't seen that in like forever, man.
All right, memories.
Anyways, I'm just having nostalgia during a sermon.
All right, and then before we go to the next one, okay?
This is number one Christmas special, okay?
All right, I'm going to count to three and you're going to yell your guess, okay?
Ready? One, two, three.
Merry Christmas!
Right, that was good. That was good.
You see, all right, here it is.
Hit me with it.
Charlie Brown Christmas, number one all the time.
Most watched like consecutive years in a row.
Like it's always number one.
But you know what? We don't watch, you know, like we did this last year.
We had Brother Dave. It was awesome.
He came up here. He had a rocking chair and all the kids came and he read Luke 2.
And like that's a heartwarming story, right?
Now you gather around the fire and you like listen to these great stories.
You watch these heartwarming specials.
And it's like, it's supposed to leave you feeling good, heartwarming, like joyful, like happy, hopeful, right?
The story we don't usually go to is like King Carrot.
Because like, if you think about it, like King Carrot's in the story
and he actually plays a pivotal role in the story.
But it's not like happy.
Like I was reading this like, oh, that really shows the joy of Christmas.
There's this mean guy named Herod.
And we're going to talk about how mean he was, right?
And he wants to kill all the babies and he wants to kill Jesus.
And that's not something like children gather around.
Let me tell you about King Carrot.
Like it doesn't usually work, right?
But I want us to see that there's this battle that's happening during Christmas.
Since the first Christmas.
And there's this beautiful truth within this battle within the story of King Carrot that's even greater.
There's meta-narrative of King Jesus.
What we see is these contrasting characters playing.
We see a battle.
We see, in effect, what Herod is trying to do is cancel Christmas in the sense of that
he wants to kill this Messiah.
And what he does is he, we see this battle in life of there's the worldly with King Carrot,
but then there's the King Jesus, the Godly, and there's this tension.
These competing tensions have existed since the first Christmas, since the first Christmas.
And there's this, even now today, there's still this battle for Christmas of the idea of
there's the secularizing and there's the looking at it as a holy day.
There's always this tension, is my point.
Is that there's this battle that's going on.
And there was then.
Sometimes we just think of the hopeful aspects of Christmas as we should.
But there's also this worldly aspect, this aspect where there's something fighting against Christmas.
And we're specifically fighting against Messiah.
There was this opponent there.
There's this enemy in the Christmas story.
And what I want us to see in our Christmas, specifically in our lives even more so,
is that this Christmas season, this life we've been given, is that we should choose to make this holiday a truly holy day.
And I think we can see this by looking at the story of King Carrot and contrasting it.
Looking at it and comparing him to different characters of the story.
And that's our main point for today.
That every believer can choose to serve King Jesus by evaluating three sets of contrasting characters in the Christmas story.
And that's just a fanciful way to say, we're going to take King Carrot, we're going to compare him to three different characters.
And we're going to see how we don't, spoiler alert, want to be King Carrot.
We want to see even more so, I want us to see the beauty of King Jesus and how we are to bow before him this Christmas.
And we see this, we'll build up the context a little bit.
Because we're in Matthew chapter two, but something happened before then, Matthew chapter one.
And a lot of that was focusing on the genealogy.
And then we have Joseph's dream and he's promised Emmanuel that God will be with us, that there will be a Messiah.
And that Jesus will be born and that Jesus is born and the family stays in Bethlehem.
They don't immediately leave Bethlehem. That's important to the story.
Right now Joseph, Mary and Jesus, the Messiah are in Bethlehem.
They've moved out of the stable and they found a house.
We'll actually see that in the scriptures.
And we pick up the narrative right after Jesus is born in Matthew chapter two.
Alright, so Matthew chapter two looks like a verse one.
It says, Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King,
behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
Alright, okay, here you go, you're up. This is your time to shine.
Alright, wise men, come on, you got it, you got it. Go ahead.
Okay, we got first wise men. Here he is.
Look at him, look at the crowd. Look how beautiful you are. They go. Good.
Alright, oh, they look good. You look good, really.
Alright, okay, wise men, go down to there over there for me.
Okay, alright, you can scoot down there.
Okay, you got your gifts, you got your, what are you holding? What's in there?
Okay, I don't know what that is. Alright, and then King Carod, you can come on out.
There he is. There he is. Yes, sir.
You see it right there, you're good. Can you see?
No.
Okay, alright, there you go. That works. That kind of fits King Carod.
Alright, okay, so we got our two sets of characters so far.
Okay, which ones?
Alright, wise men, good. And then who?
King Carod.
Alright, good, you're with me.
Alright, so we have the wise men, King Carod. Okay?
We don't know a lot. Guys, you can sit down for the moment.
I'm going to keep you up here for a second, but don't worry, I'll have you do stuff.
Alright? Okay?
You have a perfect example of what the wise men look like.
And the wise men, as you can see, we're strange people.
It's you guys, it's you. It's great.
Okay, alright? The wise men, like, what's interesting is we don't know much about these wise men.
There's not much known about them.
And the scriptural word, the Greek word there, is that they're magi.
And what we do know a little bit is that these magi, they specialized in like astrology.
They would study the stars in some sense.
And they would study dreams.
They had kind of like this supernatural, this kind of like mystical vibe about them.
And they're not that working donated, but that's what they were studying.
And they also study the sacred scriptures, not just the Bible, not just scripture,
not just the Torah, but they studied all sorts of different religions.
They sought wisdom in enlightenment, hence, you know, the wise men.
Because they're looking for wisdom.
Like, they were not dummies. They were men of science.
They dabbled in astrology, which we wouldn't agree with, right?
But they did. Dabbled in astronomy.
They were smart people. Act smart.
There you go. That's good.
Just laughs. That's good.
Alright, good. They were men of high renown.
They were highly respected.
And like, when they came into town, it wasn't like this like really quiet thing.
Like, it wasn't just three guys.
First scripture doesn't say it's just three guys, right?
It wasn't like a small thing. Like, they just said,
hey, guys, we should just like hop on this camel
and then we'll like go to Bethlehem and follow the star.
And it was like, they had caravans.
Like, they were like kings. They were like royalty.
And people noticed when they came in.
Like, think of like, if the president came in, like, people would know that.
There'd be a commotion there. Everybody would be preparing for it, right?
And that was what was happening. People knew these wise men were here.
And what the wise men were doing is they were seeking the Messiah.
Look like you're seeking. Go ahead.
What you got?
Good. This is so we can get better from here.
All right, good. All right.
So that's our first point.
The wise men right after here is that the wise men were seeking the Messiah.
And they say this in verse two. We see it.
It says, saying, where is he that is born, king of the Jews?
If we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship him.
And that word saying there is, is, is, is, the tense of it is that it's continual.
They're literally going around asking anyone, hey, like,
where's the baby? Like there's this baby.
We know because we've seen the star. Where is it?
We know the promised one is coming.
And we kind of like, how did they know this?
Well, they, they followed the star first, right?
They saw the star. They were studying the skies.
Like they knew the skies. That was literally their full-time job.
So when they saw this star, they said, that star's, that star's not supposed to be there.
We know the stars. And there's this different star.
And what they also knew is they knew the scriptures.
They knew about prophecy. And there's this, this awesome passage in numbers where,
what they would have known in numbers 2417.
It talks about, I'm glad I hit it up there for me, Kevin, if I have it.
Sorry, sir. I know I'm going out of order, Kevin. You're amazing.
I'm going out of order. All right. I shall see him, but not now.
I shall behold him, but not nigh.
There shall come a star out of Jacob and accept her shall rise out of Israel
and shall smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Seth.
All right. Now that's going all the way back to the Old Testament.
And it's this, this prophecy, it's pointing to a star and this star
that is going to come out of Jacob. It's pointing to something different.
They would have known and looked this and registered, there's a star.
We know about this prophecy and they connected together and they say,
we need to follow this star, this promise of a Messiah.
The wise men sought more wisdom. They sought the King of Kings.
So they go and they chat with Herod. All right. Chat with Herod.
You can't see anything, but go ahead and chat with Herod.
Good. All right. I love it. All right.
So what we got is now Herod sees these wise men and Herod is troubled.
All right. Go ahead. Act troubled, Herod.
He looks pensive. All right. He's troubled. All right.
So he was troubled. We see this in Matthew 2, 3.
When Herod the King got hurt, these things, he was troubled in all Jerusalem with them.
And that word troubled there, that Herod was troubled by the Messiah,
shows that he was fearful. He was anxious. He was restless.
And then we got to ask ourselves, why was Herod so upset by this?
Like these wise men come, right? They're asking Herod. Go ahead and ask again.
All right. Now you're troubled.
Yeah. I love it. That's probably what a troubled person would do.
Talk a lie. All right. But he's troubled because Herod's saying,
No, no, no. You're saying the king of the Jews is here. I'm the king of the Jews.
I don't know what they're talking about. Like I'm the king of the Jews.
I don't know who this Messiah is, but he's saying, no one's replacing me.
You got to understand the background of Herod.
Herod, I'm going to make you sound really bad right now. Okay.
All right. You ready? You got this. All right.
But he was called Herod the Great. He wasn't great at all.
First, he was, he wasn't fully Jewish, right? But he was still king,
which the Jews looked down upon. He was indominion.
And what's the, I don't know what that meant, but I had to look it up.
But what it means is he was at a synod of Esau, not of Jacob.
So he wasn't fully Jewish. And Matthew's emphasizing there,
this Herod had attention with the Jewish people. All right.
Then also Herod, not being a great guy, he married like nine different times.
And he always had this characteristic of just being super powerful
and always wanting power and always lusting after it.
He was also a very, very paranoid and jealous and prideful man.
He held so tightly to the throne, hold really tightly to the throne.
Good. All right. Good. All right.
So he held really tightly to the throne and like any rumor, any threat,
even an assumption of like threatening, he said, no, I'm going to kill you.
Like his wife, it was rumored that his wife was plotting against him.
He said, I'm not looking into it. Kill her.
And then he did it to his mother-in-law.
He did it to his brother-in-law. Then he did it to his sons.
He heard this plot. He's like, my sons are plotting against me.
Kill them. Like, I don't want them here.
Like he was not afraid to kill people.
And why? It's because he was so scared they were going to take his throne.
And now Herod in his life at this time of the Messiah, he's old.
And he's like, he thinks he has everything set up with his kingdom.
He knows he's going to die, but he's like, but I am the king.
And I'm basking in my glory.
Basking your glory.
Are you blinking? That's good. All right. You can't see.
He's like, I am basking. All right.
Well, we have Herod here. He's just a wicked man.
I think I have a picture up there for me, Kevin. Let's see.
All right. So that's Herod.
And that's how he wanted himself, he perceived.
But then I saw this other picture of like a Sunday school lesson
of how they looked at Herod. And he's just like, like, that's Herod.
All right. Like he doesn't look great. Right.
And he wasn't like this guy is wicked.
Yeah. All right.
But he was a wicked guy.
And he, and all what is interesting in the text is it says all of Jerusalem
was troubled as well.
And why are there troubles?
It's like, man, if there's this new person like the kings,
I'm going to start acting crazy. And he's done this already.
He's going to do it again.
And what the king does, what King Kara does is he gathers his chief priest
and his scribes and he asks them a question.
All right. Chief priest and scribes, you're up.
They're whispering the free now.
All right. Here they come. All right. All right. Okay. We got it.
We got our chief priests and scribes. Okay.
Look really like smart.
That's good. All right. Good.
Looking smart. You're looking smart. Don't worry. All right. Good.
All right. So they all come together and Herod looks at them.
All right. Herod, go and stand up for me. All right.
So Herod looks at them. All right.
Demand to know where the Messiah is born. Go ahead. Be demanding.
You got to be more demanding. Be mean. You're mean. You're evil. Be mean.
There you go. That was more mean. All right.
Be in fear. He's mean. That's good. Okay. Good.
That was shocking. All right. But we'll take it. All right. Good. All right. Good.
So Herod's looking at them and he's saying, hey, okay,
you chief priests and scribes, like these were the smart people.
These are the religious people.
He's demanding, tell me where the Messiah is going to be born.
And what they do, these chief priests and scribes, because you're smart, right?
Right. Okay. Good. All right.
In verse five, it says that they refer back to a prophecy.
Look at me at verse six. All right. This is important.
These chief priests and these scribes, they say,
they refer back to this prophecy in verse six and says,
And thou beth with him, and the land of Judah are not the least among the princes of Judah,
for thou doth he shall come a governor that shall rule my people Israel.
And what that is perfectly referring back to you is, I want to show you,
it's Micah five two, Micah five two.
It says, but thou beth with him, Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,
yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is to be ruler in Israel,
who's going forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
And what they're saying is, hey, there's this prophecy.
You ask, he's asking, where's the Messiah?
They say, oh, we know that answer because we know scripture, Micah five two.
He's in, where, where's he at? Where's he being born? Jesus.
All right. Say with ompf.
Yeah, that was good. Good. All right.
So he's being born in Bethlehem, right?
And they're looking back to this prophecy here.
And then what he does, I'm getting myself talking too fast.
All right. What Herod does, he says, hey, okay, there's this prophecy.
Like, I know what's going on now. Hey, wise men, wise men, come here. Come here. Come here.
All right. They go up to Herod.
And what the wise men do is they're told by Herod, hey, all right, what I want you to do.
Okay. He calls him back privately. He says, okay, verse seven, how long has this star been shining?
Like, there's this star in the sky.
Like, Herod's looking at the wise men. How long has this been going on?
All right. And they answer and he's wondering, like, how long has my competition been here?
So he says, okay, verse eight, here's what I want you to do. Okay.
Wise men, I want you to go to Bethlehem and find this Messiah for me.
All right, wise men, Bethlehem's right there. Okay. It's a long journey. All right.
You're going to go off somewhere till we do. All right. Go to Bethlehem. Go ahead. Right there.
Yeah, you got it. You got it. There you go. There's some wise men. Let me tell you. All right.
Okay. Go ahead. They got it. All right. Okay. Give our wise men a round of applause.
We'll let them sit down. All right. Y'all can be seated. You're good for a minute. All right.
Okay. So what we got, let's set it up because I know I'm going fast. All right.
What we have is that the wise men go to Bethlehem and Herod sends them there.
And it makes me ask this question. Why didn't Herod go?
Why didn't the chief priests and scribes go?
And for Herod, I thought about it. I think the best answer is that there's some fearful cowardice there.
I was reading a quote that tyrants like Herod are cowards at heart.
They fear most. And they fear the people who are more powerful than them, who have more force greater than them.
The thing that tyrants fear the most, the thing that Herod feared the most is a force that was greater than them.
He's saying, like, there's this Messiah and I want to kill him, but I ain't no hero. I ain't no brave person.
I'm going to send these wise men over there and see what they will find out.
But then it still has this question of, okay, well, why didn't they go? Why didn't you go?
Why didn't they go? Because think about this. Like, really put ourselves in this position.
If I looked at you and truly said, all right, hey, the Messiah, the true Messiah, he's returned, right?
I know it goes against a lot of things, but the Messiah's return, he's at Finley High School.
You know what we should do? If the Messiah is truly here, if Jesus is here, you know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to stop preaching. I'm going to get in my car and drive to Finley High School.
I'm going to go see the Messiah. They are literally six miles away from Bethlehem and they don't go.
And we have to ask this question, why? Why don't they go?
Now, they might have been scared that Harry would have killed them. That's fair.
But why didn't they actually get up? They've been waiting for this Messiah forever.
And I think the best answer is there's this indifference there.
We see this throughout the whole New Testament. The most religious are the most indifferent,
the most passive, the most hypocritical. Yeah, they knew it all.
But you know what they're thinking? Is if we go there and that Messiah comes, he's going to start changing things.
I don't want him changing things. I have things the way I want them to be.
And he doesn't, they don't want that. And to prove that, we look at the whole rest of Jesus' interactions.
You know why they hated Jesus? He's trying to change things up and they're saying,
no, stop this, Jesus, stop this Messiah. You're changing things.
And this, this, this, I think it's interesting just how it's really easy to be indifferent.
And sometimes in this Christmas season, like, we stop seeking Christmas more so we stop seeking the Messiah as the wise men did.
And we start seeing as the same old, same old, and we become indifferent.
I was thinking the other day, I was like, I've heard a lot of Christmas messages just in my lifetime and even this Christmas season.
And like, I don't know if you've ever done this, okay? Maybe I'm the only bad person, or person thing that's not bad person.
But like, when I hear another Christmas message, I'm like, all right, I've heard Luke 2 a lot.
Like, we're doing another Luke 2 for Christmas. Whoo, yes, do it again. Now we're talking about the shepherds.
Like, that's how I think. And is that wrong? No. What is wrong is that I'm making it the same old.
I'm being indifferent and I'm no longer being amazed by the Messiah.
I'm now just indifferent. I've heard it a ton. And I'm just like, oh, this is a nice happy thing.
Like, I'll hear the Christmas message one more time. But I don't let it affect my life.
Every time I hear the Christmas message, I should leave more amazed than I was last time.
Like, last Christmas was me and I was like, I had some sense of amazement.
Now this Christmas, I should have even more amazement. And next year, I should have even more amazement
because we're face to face again with how amazing the Messiah is.
And that Jesus came down in a manger for us to then live a life perfectly and then die on the cross for us.
That should amaze me. And I should not be indifferent by that.
So now we have the wise men, verse 9 through 10. They agree and they follow the star.
And they go to the child. They follow that star. They rejoice. They didn't stop seeking.
And we see in verse 11, what they do is, we'll look at it together. Verse 11, it says,
And when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary's mother.
Remember, it says house, they're not in a stable anymore. This isn't on Christmas day.
They saw the young child with Mary's mother and fell down and worshiped him.
And when they had opened their treasures, they presented to him gifts, gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
And the wise men weren't there for the birth. It was like an 80-mile journey.
Like it took some time. But when they got there, they arrived and they bowed down and gave gifts and worshiped.
I love that. These wise men, like they're men of renown.
They said, man, our wisdom is nothing compared to the wisdom of that baby, that king, the Messiah.
And they sought the king. And Herod, and boy, Herod was jealous. Jealous?
Jealous? Look really jealous. It's like, no, yes, I am in fact jealous.
Right? Is that Herod is so mad about this.
And he, he's, they actually, in verse 12, were not to go back to Herod because Herod has this whole plot.
Like he is looking to kill the Messiah.
And it kind of sees these two different approaches.
We have the wise men who humbled themselves and sought king Jesus and Herod who did not humble himself and wanted to kill king Jesus.
Herod was jealous and he was so insecure. I like resonate with, with Herod.
What I've been learning, this is personal. He didn't ask for this, but I'll tell you anyways, is that I've been learning that I'm a really jealous person.
Like really jealous. And how I know that is like, I'm always comparing myself to other people.
Like, and that's what Herod's doing right now. He's comparing himself and he's like, this Messiah is better than me.
He knows it. The whole world knows it.
But I do this as well. I compare myself with others. I compare my relationships, how I, how my relationship should be different, how I don't have a relationship, and that's not fair.
I, how, how my friendships, my jobs, my looks, my popularity, my family even, and I just start comparing different things.
And I get jealous that they have what I don't have and I deserve what they have. And I get upset about it.
And, and me personally, what, what I really get upset is anytime something new is introduced to my life, anytime something I feel, feel threatened.
Because like, I don't like change because I like having control. And when change happens and I don't have control anymore, and that's exactly where Herod's at.
He's saying, thanks, stop changing because I can't control it anymore. And I want to kill it so that I can control.
And I find myself there more than I like. And then I have actions that are fueled by my jealousy and they're foolish.
But the wise men, they weren't threatened by the Messiah, but humbled themselves.
And sometimes we're just too busy like thanking and getting into our head and stressing and, and holding tight these different things.
What I need to do is seek Jesus and focus on Him.
So first we got the wise men and King Herod and then our scribes.
Alright scribes, I'm going to let you be free, okay? Okay, you're going to go be indifferently over there. Go be indifferent.
Alright? Okay, Herod, I still got you buddy. You're with me. Alright? Okay.
So now we got our next one. Yeah, give him a round of applause. There we go. Alright.
I'm excited for this next one. Alright, this will be fun. Alright. Okay, Joseph and Mary, you're up.
Bring Jesus with you. Alright? Okay, got it. Oh, there's Joseph and there's Mary.
And they're dating in real life. It's so cute. That's so good. Alright, go ahead guys. You can stand right over there.
Okay, don't be near Herod. He wants to kill you. So don't go near him. Alright? There you go. Alright.
So we got Joseph, Mary, and then Jesus. Alright, you guys can be seated. You're good. Alright?
So what we see is now that we had first contrasting wise men and Herod. Now we have, okay, Joseph and Herod.
And we see this in verses 13 through 14.
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying,
Arise and take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt and be there until I bring the word.
For Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
And when he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed into Egypt.
Alright, so let's walk through what's happening.
First we see in verse 13 that an angel comes and says, hey, go to Egypt, Joseph.
Alright, you're about to go to Egypt. You're ready. Alright, go to Egypt.
And what I love that Joseph does is Joseph follows God's plan.
I think about all that Joseph's gone through.
Like, already he's been told that his wife has a kid or assumed to be wife has a kid.
Now he's like, it is the Messiah.
And now he's kind of like dealing with the thoughts of that.
Now he's in Bethlehem and he's just kind of getting things settled.
He's been given these gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
And now he has gold in front of him.
He's like, I never thought I would have gold. He's just a normal guy.
And then now he's being told, alright, I want you to get up everything, leave Bethlehem and go to Egypt.
And that would be really hard.
Like, think of you, a lot of you are pretty firmly rooted here.
And Joseph wasn't pretty firmly rooted in Bethlehem,
but like just being told to get up everything and move, we struggle with that.
Like, I would.
But what happens is that Joseph gets this giant vision and he goes to Egypt.
Alright, okay, you have to quietly try to make it to Egypt without Herod looking at you.
It's going to be easy because he's got a hat over his eyes, so you should be fine.
Alright, okay, ready? Go ahead, go to Egypt for me.
Flee, look at them flee, look at them go.
Did you make it? Are you alive? Is Jesus alive? It's good, okay?
She's like quiet, Miles, alright? Baby's sleeping, that was good.
Alright, so what we have here is that Joseph obeyed and he goes to Egypt.
We see this in verse 14, that he did it.
It said, and when he arose, he got up and did it.
Look at verse 15 with me.
And there was until the death of Herod that might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, out of Egypt, I have called my son.
There's something even more spectacular going on here.
Alright, suspense, I'll let these couple Joseph and Mary sit down.
Alright, give them a round of applause, you do great.
Alright, but as we look at verse 15, what happens is a whole prophecy is being fulfilled here.
Is that they go to Egypt and that wasn't just a coincidence, it says in verse 15, this is fulfilling prophecy.
So our question is, anytime we see that in the New Testament, we should be thinking, this is hermeneutics, this is Bible study.
What prophecy is being fulfilled?
And what we see is it's Hosea 11, chapter 11 verse 1.
Let's look at it together.
Hosea 11 verse 1, when Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.
He was that same terminology, that out of Egypt.
It's saying that, hey, this is a prophecy that the Messiah will be taken to Egypt.
Right? Out of Israel, out of, when Israel was a child, I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.
Saying, I've called my son to go to Egypt.
A prophecy has been fulfilled.
Alright, okay, you look a little bored by the prophecy, so let me make this really clear.
That was like a long time ago and then they said, hey, something's going to happen.
And then, what's crazy is it did.
We hear prophecy all the time and we're like, that's cool.
I'm glad that worked out that way.
That's a cool coincidence, man.
What this is saying is that this infallible word is actually true.
Not actually, it is true. It's so true.
We see this, that the Old Testament is pointing to the New Testament and it's fulfilling it's saying,
hey, it's just not a coincidence that this Messiah has lived.
This Messiah is here and he's for you and all of scripture's pointed to it and it's happening right before our eyes.
Alright, prophecy's exciting.
Okay, next thing, okay, what we see is that God takes care of Joseph and he obeys.
I like thinking through Joseph like, Joseph could have thought one way of like, man, I gotta go to Egypt now?
Or he could be thinking, my God's taking care of me.
I've been given dreams.
There's a virgin birth.
The shepherds appeared.
The wise men appeared.
God's provided.
Why would I not follow his plan?
And Joseph obeys because God's way is better.
And we hear that and that's really good.
And we think, yeah, we should follow God's plan.
What's amazing me is that God's given a plan for me a lot of times.
He's told me to get out of certain situations.
He said, here's what I want you to do, Miles.
I want you to talk to this person.
I want you to be a blessing to this person.
I want you to fight against this and take precautions to move away from it.
I want you to make things right with this person.
Miles, I want you, this is my plan for you.
How do I know because he's told me in his word, this is what I want you to do.
This is how I want you to obey.
And I don't do it.
I make excuses.
I don't do what Joseph did.
And I say, Lord, that's a good plan and all.
I like the idea.
I don't want to do it.
I don't want to do that.
Lord, I'm not going to do it.
And then I just obey.
What we see here is Joseph didn't have that attitude.
He said, my God's taking care of me.
His plan's always been good.
Why would I not trust him?
Just imagine if Joseph didn't obey.
Now, we know that wouldn't happen in the greater scheme of it.
Like God has a providential plan through all of this.
But Joseph obeyed.
Now, Herod, he's the complete opposite of this.
Herod is angered by God's plan.
All right.
We got you in trouble.
Look really mad, angry.
Grab your sword.
Stab something in the air.
Grab something.
Look upset.
He just looks very pensive.
I love it.
All right.
For Herod's been up here forever.
All right.
You got it, Herod.
You're doing great.
I'm going to plan for you at the end, though.
Get ready.
All right.
I know that sounds scary.
Don't worry.
Let's see if he makes it.
You got it.
Okay.
Herod's got it.
He escaped.
All right.
Give Herod a round of applause.
He's amazing.
All right.
What we see that Herod is, though, is that he's angered by God's plan.
He didn't know much of it, but what he knew, he hated the plan.
And he's mad because these wise men tricked him.
We see this in verse 16.
Let's look at it together.
It says, then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, tricked of the wise
men, was exceeding Roth.
He's mad.
And he sent forth and he said, all right.
These wise men, they can trick me.
All right.
Here's what I'm going to do.
He slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and all the coasters of, from tears old and
under, according to the time, which he had diligently inquired of the rising man.
He becomes the butcher of Bethlehem, they call him.
All right.
Someone's called him.
His command was to kill all the male children two years and younger.
Now, this is bad, right?
But probably in Bethlehem, about a town that size, there was probably only a statistic
say about maybe 10 to 30 babies at that time.
It wasn't a big town.
It's not even a big town today.
About 2,000.
But 10 to 30 babies killed ruthlessly is too much.
Like, imagine how gruesome this is.
Like, this is why we don't say it over a nice little warm fire, it's drinking hot cocoa.
It's, that's awful.
This man's jealousy and then anger because of his jealousy, he says, now I'm going to
take action on it.
I want you to kill all the babies.
Walk in to their houses.
Don't mind the mom that's screaming.
Push aside the dad and kill the baby.
And it's like, wow.
And it was just second nature to him.
Like, he's done this plenty of times, different people at different times.
And that's what sin does, man.
Like, they have that jealousy.
That was like the cause of it.
Then he got anger.
That's how he started showing out and that anger manifested itself in this murder.
And what I noticed while studying Herod is just like throughout Herod's whole life
is that he didn't like anything to do with anything, holy, moral, definitely not anything
to do with God.
And you just see like how Satan is using Herod actively at work to try to thwart this plan,
to try to deceive others, to try to destroy.
Whether it be the wise man, whether it be the baby, whether it be Messiah, whether it be Joseph and Mary.
Man, Satan hates God's plan.
You know why? Because it's the best thing for us.
And he wants everything possible before you think, no, do it this way.
There's never been once when I've been in God's plan and been disappointed.
But still, I question and say, well, what if this time is different?
You're asking me to do this thing now, God.
But Satan's telling me to go this way.
Maybe I'll go that way.
It's like, no, God's way is always good.
But Satan tries to get us to doubt.
And man, sometimes I get mad because I get angered like Herod because I'm mad that God's plan
is not what I thought I was going to be doing or where I would be.
And I'm upset because Herod is angered by God's plan here.
And I get mad because God's telling me not to go there, not to do this, not to be with that person.
And I'm thinking of any excuse not to do the thing God wants.
Man, looking at Joseph, it shows that obedience to God is the best place to be.
And Joseph is a model of respectful obedience.
So what we have here are contrasting characters.
We have Joseph, he obeyed, he understood God knew best, but Herod raged and thought he knew best.
Now, oh, this is when it gets good, all right?
This is, I'm excited for this part.
Now we see our final two contrasting characters, best part of the story, the happy part of the story,
is we have King Jesus and King Carried.
There's something to be noted here.
That's capitalized, and that's not.
We have a true king, and in King Carried, it's King Jesus.
And what we see this is, we actually see a beautiful truth in something that Scripture shows as sad,
but thinking through it, it actually is beautiful.
We see this in verses 17 through 18.
It says to finish out this narrative,
then it was fulfilled, that which was spoken by Jeremy, the prophet, saying,
in Ramah there was a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great morning, Rachel weeping for her children,
and would not be comforted because they are not.
That's not a verse you want to put above your dining room table.
It's not like an exciting, like, oh, wow, that's positive, the children are mourning.
That's not exciting, but what is amazing is looking at this verse, actually understanding it,
we see such hope, we see Jesus, the hope.
All right, water break.
All right, we're good, okay?
So we see in verse 17, it's saying, hey, yet again, another prophecy is fulfilled.
And remember what we've learned from last time is when we hear prophecy, we get excited.
All right, look excited.
That was good, that was good, that's what I'm talking about.
All right, good.
So verse 18, we got to understand this, we have to understand the historical background, okay?
What it's saying is this referring all the way back to Genesis first,
and it's going to Rachel, which was Jacob's wife, the favored one.
Rachel's wife dies, or sorry, Jacob's wife, Rachel, dies at childbirth, giving birth to Benjamin.
And there's this mourning that's happening.
Rachel's mourning that, she's happy Benjamin's here, but she's mourning because she's dying.
All right, now Jeremiah is quoting that.
So we have Genesis here, okay, with Rachel and her, she's dying, but Benjamin's being born.
Okay, then we have Benjamin, okay?
Now Jeremiah quotes back to that to make a point, okay?
We have a lot of referring back to things here.
We have Genesis, then Jeremiah refers back to that story, and here's what he says.
We see this in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 15, go ahead and throw it out there.
Oh, thank you, Kevin, you're amazing.
All right, it says, Thus saith the Lord, a voice was heard in Rama,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeping for her children, fused to be comforted for her children because they were not.
Very similar to what we just read.
Now the next verse is, Help us.
Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping,
then eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded.
Sayeth the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.
There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.
Okay, now if you're reading that, probably like, cool, that's cool.
What? What does that mean?
Like, how is that applicable? Here's what's awesome.
It's that Jeremiah references back to Rachel's weeping.
And he says, Man, we're weeping again.
Rachel was weeping, the children were weeping, the children of Israel,
they were upset because Rachel died.
But Jeremiah says, Once again, we're weeping because in Jeremiah's time, they were in exile.
They're about to be in exile.
The empires were about to come in and take Israel captive.
And that place Rama there, it was a place in the Benjamin tribe.
And what it's saying is that once again, man, Benjamin's evolved again,
and now we're weeping and we're mourning because now these exiles are being conquered
and people are coming in and taking the people out of their homes and placing them in captivity.
And what they were placing them in is a place in Benjamin, Rama,
which is also called in modern day Bethlehem.
So what's happening here is saying this place of Bethlehem has always been this place of weeping.
When it was this Rachel's time period, there was weeping.
And then in the exile with Jeremiah, there was weeping.
And now in Bethlehem, once again, this scripture is saying,
man, there's weeping because all these babies have died and Israel's crying out and pain and sadness.
And like, that's not good. That's not happy.
But what I love that Jeremiah says with this prophecy, stay with me, is he makes it hopeful.
He says, refrain thy voice from weeping.
I know you're weeping, verse 15, but refrain thyself from weeping.
And that eyes from tears, because something's going to happen.
The Lord's coming back. You shall come back again from the land of enemy.
You're not going to stay in captivity.
There is hope in thine hands, sayeth the Lord, and thy children shall come again to their own border.
What does that mean? What this means there's beautiful truth in a horrible circumstance,
because all these babies were killed in Bethlehem.
And it was at that time thought of as a place of burial because they're burying all their babies.
But how we think of it today is that's not what we're focused on.
We're not focused on it being a place of burial, but a birthplace because Jesus the Messiah was born.
And what he's done is he delivers us from that captivity.
He delivers us from that weeping.
He delivers us and restores us and gives us hope in thine end.
This is a prophecy point to something even better, saying, Jesus has come during the weeping to give something better.
To give, as Luke 2.14 says, a time of peace on earth.
And my point is, is that Herod, no matter what he tried to do, no matter how much mourning he tried to create,
he couldn't stop the Messiah.
And here's our point, is that King Jesus lives.
And Herod couldn't stop it, Satan couldn't stop it.
King Jesus lives and desires to bring life abundantly.
John 10.10 says this, right?
Says it beautifully what Jesus has come to do.
The thief, Herod, more so the kings of these world, these awful people,
and even more specifically, saying what he's come to do is try to steal, to kill, to destroy.
But I've come that they might have life.
Jesus says they've come to destroy, Herod's destroying.
He just killed a whole bunch of babies.
But what's happening here is that I've come to bring you life.
I've come to bring you life, and not just just life, but have it more abundantly.
It says this huge act of evil and death by Herod is not bigger than the life that Christ brings.
King Jesus lives and gives hope.
You know what happened to Herod?
Look at verse 19A for me, the first part of it.
Just want to rewound a little part.
But when Herod was dead, that's it.
Herod died.
Herod's gone.
He's out of the story.
And Herod died.
All right, Herod, you got one last thing.
Okay, make it good.
You're going to die.
All right, die for me.
All right, slump in your seat a little bit more.
There you go.
He's like, dude, I can take a nap right now.
He just gave me permission to take a nap.
All right, that's good.
All right, good.
Oh, now he's on the ground.
All right, he's dead.
All right, let's see how long he stays like that.
Good job, Herod.
But my point is, is that Herod never won.
Like in life, like, you know how Herod died?
This is gross.
Like, don't look into it because it's gross.
And I want to tell you all that, but he got like gangrene, and then like, he started dying
and excruciating pain, and they looked at his brain afterwards, and they're like, oh,
he's been eaten by maggots.
Like his brain was eaten by maggots.
That's why it's probably a little cuckoo.
Like, and he faced some punishments on this earth.
Like, he suffered.
And this isn't the funny part at all.
And then he's suffering now in hell.
He's died.
And this is not a happy thing.
That man had no hope, even though the hope was right in front of him.
Yet he missed it.
Jesus was right there, six miles away, and he missed it.
And man, this story is covered in the sins of Herod, his jealousy, his deceit, his anger,
his pride.
And you know, I was reading this, and I was like, I do those things.
Now, I haven't killed a whole bunch of babies.
Praise the Lord.
But I've been jealous.
I've lied.
I've gotten angry.
I've been prideful.
I think I've done all four of those things, maybe even today.
And I find myself acting a lot like Herod.
But then what I remember is King Jesus who lives so that I don't have to die like Herod did.
I don't have to have hopelessness like Herod did.
There's this beautiful verse in Revelation that points to how Jesus, King Jesus, lives.
Revelation chapter one, verse five.
It says, I'll go ahead and throw it up there for me, Kevin, if I have it.
See, do I have it up there?
No, all right, turn with me and your bobbins.
I want you to see us.
Revelation chapter one, verse five.
All right, I don't want you to miss it.
All right, Revelation chapter one, verse five.
And it says, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten
of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us, and washed
us from our sins, in his own blood.
What this is saying is Jesus Christ, who was a faithful witness, he was perfect.
He was the first begotten of the dead.
He was the one who raised from the dead, the first begotten son who rose again, and now
is the prince of kings of this earth.
That God, the God, the one who reigns the king Jesus, he loves us.
That king who lives, the one king who lives and will not die, loved us, and washed us
from our sins, in his own blood.
Jesus loves us, and that love sets us free.
And we can believe in that, and then follow him as he says, follow me.
And what I love about the story is like even in the doom and gloom, the worst part of this,
the Christmas narrative is beautiful.
The worst part is this, king carried.
This is an awful example, but it makes this beautiful contrast of showing who our true king is.
And Gabriel promised this, that this king is going to reign forever.
I serve a risen king who rules perfectly and eternally.
You know this battle for Christmas, to wrap us up.
Herod, I don't know if you got this or not, he lost.
He's a loser, he lost.
But Jesus won.
Let's make it even more specific.
Is that sin, Satan, the gates of hell they lost.
Godliness, Jesus, his love, his sacrifice, the perfect prince of peace, he won.
Our savior won.
And we should rejoice.
Our savior is alive and beat sin, beat the grave, beat death, won.
And this Christmas, man, like, I don't know if you're in a battle.
Quickly, I remember the worst Christmas I ever had.
It was, I think it was senior year of college.
And it was, we had like this long break because of COVID.
So I was kind of sad, okay, because I just started dating my wife, Anna,
and she had to go back to Tanzania during that time.
So she went to Tanzania, she was halfway across the globe, I didn't get to see her.
So I was already kind of like bummed out by that.
Then I got home, and then I got news that this job, this, this,
children's pastor job I was working to do, it just kind of fell through.
And like I've been preparing, preparing like my whole college career to go to this job.
And it fell through.
So now I'm bummed because I can't see my girlfriend.
The job I've always wanted is gone.
And then I got news when I got there, like, my mom's in the hospital.
What do you mean my mom's in the hospital?
And like that's, that's no small thing.
Like she was like, I don't know if she was, I don't know, I don't want to make it wrong,
but she was, it wasn't going well.
We'll put it that way.
And I was scared.
And I was like, okay, Lord, what are you doing?
And then on top of that, I had my sister who, who has severe autism.
She's one of the most amazing people on this earth, but now I'm taking care of her.
I just got back from college.
I don't know what I'm doing now.
I'm taking care of her.
And now it's Christmas morning and I'm waking up and I'm like, my mom's not there.
I do have my family that we're going to go to later, but now I got to be in charge of Christmas morning with my sister
and trying to make it something awesome and wonderful.
But we're both thinking about our mom is in the hospital and I'm thinking back to like my, my, my girlfriend's not there.
And I, oh, she's like wanting to be there because I'm, I'm needing the support.
I'm like, man, I wish she was here.
And then I'm, I'm sad that my mom's about like, could be dying.
I don't know what's happened, but she's not here with us.
And I'm trying to take videos on Christmas morning of us unwrapping the gifts.
And I just feel like really alone.
And I remember I was bummed out because now like my whole future is gone.
And now I'm putting the what ifs of like, what if we break up and what if my mom dies and what if I lose this job?
And what if I never get a job and what if I don't go into ministry?
And it's just like, I was battling this Christmas.
And I felt like I was left with nothing and I was mad.
I was mad.
I was like, haired and I was saying, God, that's unfair.
It's Christmas.
You got to be nice to me.
It's Christmas.
What was amazing is that I realized, man, it hit me.
It hit me like halfway way too long.
It didn't be way too long because I'm prideful, stubborn.
But I realized like, man, Miles Christmas is not about your happiness.
It's not about your possessions.
It's not even necessarily about your family, although that's a part of it.
It's not about me anything.
It's not about me.
It's about the Messiah and that he came to earth to die for me and rise again.
And he's the true hope of the world.
And that gives me joy.
That gives me joy every day because joy to the world to save your reigns.
And that's why I can face every single day, every single challenge, every single sin.
Everything I'm going to face, I can because of my savior who came to this earth for me.
And that gives me joy.
And that's why we have to be careful not to make Christmas revolve around us because then we miss it.
Like the best thing for us this Christmas is not to be me and not to be just about my family,
although you should spend time with your family,
but do that as you worship the Lord and say, wow, my Messiah who reigns came from me.
I have joy no matter what's happening because to be honest with you, this Christmas you might be struggling.
You might have family problems, friend problems.
You might be missing someone this Christmas or they're gone or they're just not here this Christmas.
And you're hurting.
Well, I want to tell you that there's still joy for you because it comes not in your circumstances.
It comes in your risen savior, your King who reigns.
So my question to you, drop this up.
It's how I respond to the Messiah.
Is it going to be with hostility like Herod did and Herod hated Jesus just like the world hates Jesus.
They want to reject him. They want to remove him.
And maybe you're putting your guard up this Christmas because you don't hate Jesus, but you're just mad at God.
You're mad at what he's done and mad at these circumstances he's put you in.
And you're harboring pain and as we saw with Herod, that pain will destroy you.
But he's come to give life.
Maybe this Christmas you're like the scribes and you're just indifferent.
You know, but you don't care.
Sure, Jesus is a great guy.
I was like, I got that.
But has it changed your life?
Like Jesus is more than a great guy.
Jesus is the savior, the King who reigns and that should change your life.
But sometimes we put that off and become indifferent because the sin I got is too good.
Man, it's just too much work to like think about Jesus and serve him.
It's just not my personality.
I'm not one of those like religious types.
I just kind of come and then leave.
Just too hard.
I mean, some of us are still stuck in our ways for Christmas.
Like we just done the same thing over and over again.
Like when are we going to put Jesus at the center of our Christmas?
And that's not me pointing fingers like you guys all need to do this.
It's like when is Miles going to think about Jesus during Christmas?
When am I going to make him the center?
Because Christ is the Messiah.
And the greatest detriment in the world is when we hear that and we don't get joy in our hearts.
I should have joy every time I hear that Christ is the Messiah.
Like that should make me go, yeah, he is, amen.
Yeah, he's the Messiah.
He takes care of us.
So our response, my encouragement to you and teens, we literally just talked about it.
And it's cool because it's just Bob points to it.
Is your response should be worship?
What did the wise men do?
The wise men, there was wise men over there bowed before the babe.
What did Joseph do?
He was obedient.
He obeyed.
That's worship.
He's saying, God, you're so amazing.
I'm going to worship you by obeying because they understood our God, our King who lives, he's worthy of our worship.
I mean, if you believe that Jesus is a son of God, the promised Messiah, the King of kings, the Savior who came to this earth.
Like first, like he came to this earth.
I would not have done that.
I would have stayed in heaven, but he came down, down across, he rose again.
And the third day and he sent it and he's coming again.
I believe that then I should worship.
This Christmas is about God.
All days are.
So the question is, will you worship this Christmas?
We say that I know a battle I have.
I know battle is coming Christmas or otherwise, but the battle I know belongs to him.
And my allegiance is to King Jesus and he is the one I serve.
Let that be something that punctures your heart.
You worship him and you sing as joy of the world says, joy to the world, the Savior rings, that men, their songs employ.
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy.
Repeat the sounding joy.
Repeat, repeat sounding joy.
May that be our hearts this Christmas.
Let's bow our heads.