Jesus Our King

Christmas cold slumber. Good morning. Fantastic. This morning we are meditating on Christmas. We've been walking through First Samuel. If you're new to us, we typically walk through books of the Bible at a time. But Christmas Sunday is traditionally the Sunday after Christmas. I looked at the way the sermon we're playing out with First Samuel. Typically, once Christmas is over, you just should move on. But the fact that we can meditate upon King Herod and Jesus, the newborn king, right between Saul's rejection and David's ordination, it just seemed timely and helpful. This morning, we're going to connect the dots. There's a lot of connecting the dots. If you recall as a child, or maybe recently, you have a piece of paper and it looks kind of chaotic, right? There's dots and some kind of a letter or a number so that you make a picture out of what looks like chaos to begin with. My daughter, she has a connect the dots extreme. Right? It looks like a big, white piece of paper with chaotic dots all over it, but after you trace those dots, it's a picture. Well, Matthew, over and over again, as we'll hear, and this is just chapter two, from Matthew one to four, he continues to say, so that the word of the Lord would be fulfilled. So that the prophecy would be fulfilled. What Matthew is doing is connecting dots. The Old Testament is full of promises, and as you connect those dots, just like the song we heard there from Genesis 3 to Psalm 2 to Matthew 2, that is connecting dots so we can see a scarlet thread the way God has promised and fulfilled his plan for our salvation. As we do this, I hope it brings us great comfort. God is in control. God is powerful to bring about his plan. His plan is good in its purpose. Some significant themes that we're gonna be looking at and connecting dots for are the idea of the promise of a son, and that that son would be a king. Those are two of the primary ideas that I believe we get from Matthew 2, and we see through our scripture. You go back to Genesis 3.15. Just a few words. After God comes and confronts us in our sin, He promises that yes, the seed of the serpent, the seed of Satan, he'll strike the heel of the seed of the woman, but the seed of the woman will crush his head. He's promising. He's going to bring a victory where we have been defeated. So you're looking for a son. Who is this son going to be who's going to strike the serpent and crush him? You then go to Genesis 12, and God shows up to Abraham and Sarah, who are childless and barren, and he promises, you're going to have a son. You know that son was Isaac? Then Jacob, who's renamed Israel. And then Abraham has 12 great-grandchildren. And in Genesis 49, God promises one of those children, Judah, will be the line of the king. You see, there's progress. There's a continued unraveling, a continuing revealing of who the son would be and what he would do. After the Exodus, Judah is all of a sudden mixed in with Ruth. All right, so the one tribe of Israel, the tribe the king's supposed to come from, is Judah. And then Ruth, a Gentile, is in that line. And if you're an Israelite, you probably think, wow, the line just became unclean. Know what God is doing is showing His line is unbound. His grace is for all people, just like He told Abraham, you will be blessed and you will bless all nations. And 1 Samuel, Saul was chosen by the people because he was handsome. He was tall. He was a king like the nations. And he acted like a king like the nations. He tried to manipulate God. But God chose David because of his heart. God did not choose based upon his appearance. God chose David because that is who God desired to be king. And then David gives us these Psalms. You can look at them later. Psalm 89, Psalm 110. Just rich promises of who this king's going to be. So we have a promise to the first humans, Adam and Eve, to Abraham, to Judah, to David, and we're waiting, we're waiting. Who's this king gonna be? Then we have this long line of, and this king did evil, and this king did evil, and you're kinda wondering, is God able? Why is it taking so long? And then the unimaginable happens. Because Israel is so thick in sin, God takes them out of his promised land. We don't talk about this often. The Babylonian captivity. Israel is yanked out, literally, of their promised land by the Babylonians. This is what we know of Daniel. In 605 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar, he destroys and conquers Jerusalem. He destroys and conquers Israel and yanks them into captivity. So the people cry out. We need help. Who helped Israel? It's pretty astonishing. Look to 2 Chronicles. If you're using a Pew Bible, this is found on page 388. It was not a son of Jesse. It was not a son of Judah. It was not a son of Abraham. It was Cyrus, the king of Persia. Now, I need to just let you know something here. 2 Chronicles is the last book of the Old Testament Jewish Bible. We as Protestants reordered the books. But if you're an Israelite, if you're Jewish, your Bible ends 2 Chronicles. Let's read 2nd Chronicles 36 verse 22. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he made a proclamation throughout all the kingdom and also put in it writing thus says Cyrus king of Persia the Lord the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you, all of his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up. That's a little conflicting and confusing. A king was supposed to come from Judah. A king was supposed to come from Abraham. A king was supposed to come from David to set up the kingdom, to set up a house, to be with God's people. And here it's a Persian who saves God's people. This is the last word of the Lord according to the way they ordered the Bible for 400 years. This is important because as we look at Matthew 2, these Magi from the East are probably Persians. They're probably from the region where Israel was in exile. They probably have heard of the promises. This is why they've been waiting. This could either be God-fearing Gentiles. Maybe they're Jews who have even stayed there and become wise and leaders in Persia. They're of the nations. And what God's doing here is showing his kingdom is beyond just Israel. It's beyond just Judah. It's for all people who would humble themselves and call upon his name. A lot of connecting the dots tonight, today. It's important context because these men who are coming to worship the king, they're from the people, the Persians, of the king who actually set Israel free. And we'll look at the text from a few different angles. First, we're just gonna walk through it. If you're looking for an outline for the text itself, there's worshipers from the east who make a request. Your first point here will be request. The second is they rejoice. And then the last is the king rages. Request, rejoice, rages. And then we're gonna look at the different elements afterwards. The main point this morning, God fulfills his promise to save us with great power. If we look at verse one, Matthew chapter two, if you're in the Pew Bible, this is found on page 807. Please take that home with you if you do not have a Bible. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, okay, Where is significant. Jesus is in Judea, in Bethlehem, the promised city that we've sung about in every song so far this morning. Then we see where, we also see when. In the days of Herod the King. This is Herod the Great. Amazingly powerful, successful, cruel ruler. He built temples. He built palaces. He was appointed by Caesar. He himself is not Jewish, but he was born in Judea. He claimed to be a God-fear. But what we see here, a significant king who's mighty and powerful. Where? Jesus in Bethlehem. When? In the days of one of the greatest rulers that region has ever known. Now notice Matthew draws our attention to the story. Behold, wise men come to make a request. The wise men came from the east to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. And when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born." The thing about this, we need to remember who the Magi are. We did sing in a song that there were three. Some people have hypothesized that there's 12. Some have even said they've given them names and a backstory. The Magi were not kings. You know, if we think about our own government, we have the federal, the president, we have the judicial. They'd be like our Supreme Court justices. They're wise, powerful men who have great authority. They're not kings, but they do not lack authority or respect. There were not just three. There were not 12. We have no idea how many there were, but this would be a huge caravan. It wouldn't be just three guys on some camels bringing some gifts. This would be, there'd be a guard. There'd be servants. They'd be highly protected. This would be as if our own Supreme Court justices traveled to the Middle East and imagined the caravan that would accompany them. This would be intimidating if you're Jerusalem. Hence the reason they're terrified. Persia and Israel, they don't really get along. Persia and Rome, they don't really get along. There's enmity, there's strife. And so imagine, not the king, but the next most powerful group in Persia, they come to Jerusalem, the royal city, and they ask, where's the king so we can worship him? It sounds like possibly a coup. Sounds like possibly they're seeking to overthrow the current king. It sounds like a threat, and that's exactly how Herod takes it. They make the request, where is the king? We saw a star. Now, the Magi, they were probably astronomers. They probably saw this unusual star. This star could be an angel. It could be just a light God created to lead them. We don't know. God can do whatever he wants to do. But a clear, specific light led them to Jerusalem so that they could inquire, where is the king to be born? And everybody is terrified. They're troubled. Verse three. Herod makes the request. Where is the king to be born? He asked the religious authorities, the scribes. They tell him, verse 5, in Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophets, as we heard earlier read in the service, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. So we see here that there's an important declaration. It is written. God has already said. There's not a news report. There's not a Jerusalem Gazette. Hey, let's go look and see who's been born recently. He might be a king. No, let's go back to hundreds of years prior to see what God has said. And he made it very clear because God seeks to lead his people with clarity. Bethlehem. That's David's city. That's where the king will be born. Verse seven, Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go ahead and search diligently for the child. And when you go, when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. Okay, that sounds good. It's important. Herod's asking at what time. We'll get to that in a moment. But so far, we've just had this huge caravan. They're coming from the east. The nations are coming to worship the newborn king. The king here and all of Israel, they're terrified, and God's word has directed them. Bethlehem. Next step in the story. The worshipers, they've requested, now the worshipers from the east, they're gonna rejoice. Verse nine. After listening to the king, they went on their way, and behold, that's supposed to draw your attention here, the star that they had seen when it rose, when it rose, went before them until it came to the rest of the place where the child was. Now that's interesting. It's important that God's word directed them, God didn't need them to go to Jerusalem. God didn't need them to bring this conflict to Herod. God could have just kept sending them with the star to see the boy, but God has kind of created this strife intentionally. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going to the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They worshipped him. There's one clear thing in God's word is that only God is to be worshipped. These Easterners, they understand here. They see Jesus. They understand he's unique. There's something special. Not only is it prophesied, but the story has shown them there's something unique and special about this child, and he's worshiped. If we were to fast forward to Matthew, after the resurrection, how do the disciples approach Jesus finally? They worshiped him. Jesus is worthy of worship. He was fully a man, but he's God has become man. He's actually the creator who takes upon himself creation. The shepherds came to worship, the angels declared he's worthy of worship. Now these Easterners come to worship. A lot of folks talk about the gold frankincense and myrrh. Maybe this refers to different offices, gold for a king, frankincense for the priest, myrrh for his death and burial. Maybe what we clearly see is Mary and Joseph just got rich. They just got rich. This is more money than a carpenter could ever wish for in a lifetime. Why is that important? This might be the money that funded Jesus's entire ministry from the East. Magi from the East bless him with all these expensive gifts so that his ministry is now fully funded. Verse 12, and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country to find another way. And when they departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said, Rise, 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 a child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was fulfilled, the Lord had spoken, by the prophet out of Egypt I called my son. We've seen the wise men who wanna worship, request, they've rejoiced, and now we see the king rage. 13 and 15, let's just think about this for a second. If you're a foreigner in Egypt, how are you gonna afford that? The gifts. God is providing for His people the entire time. Goldfragrances and myrrh, they might have a deeper meaning, but God is, at the most basic level, providing for where they're going to go next, and for the ministry of Jesus. And in these dreams, He's making it clear. Wise men, do not go back to Herod. Joseph, get out of town. And look at verse 15. We have another dot we need to connect. Out of Egypt, I called my son. That's from Exodus 4.22. God is clearly referring to Israel with that original passage, but now God is saying the true son, Jesus Christ, he's being called out of Egypt, and we're gonna come back to that. Just put a pin in that for a moment. Let's look at the king raging. 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." Remember that question, verse 7? He secretly wants to know from the wise men, when did you see the storm? When was the child born? Because I need to make sure I wipe out anyone who might be a threat to my kingdom. So he kills every male baby boy. Every baby boy. Does that sound familiar? Remember Pharaoh, the beginning of Exodus? Israel was growing so big as the firstborn son of God. Pharaoh made an order to kill every baby boy? We see here another quote. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah weeping in the loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. That's referring to Jeremiah 31 13. He's quoting there. Another fulfillment. That Jeremiah 31 passage is referring back to the Exodus when the baby boys were originally murdered. Then we see in verse 23 of Jeremiah 31, once more shall they use these words in the land of Judah and its cities when I restore their fortunes. The Lord bless you, O habitation of righteousness, O holy hill. In Jeremiah 31, God says this is going to happen again. In Matthew 2, God says it's happening now. The children of Rachel, the children of Judah, they're being murdered. It's happening again as a sign that the one true child, the Savior, He has come to bring about a new covenant. Verse 19, but when Herod died, Herod the Great, Behold, another step, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth. so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled that he would be called a Nazarene. Another fulfillment. This one's tricky. Notice the others are clear quotations of exact verses. Matthew just gave a very clear similar declaration so that the prophet's word might be fulfilled that Jesus, the Messiah, the promised one, the new king, he would be called a Nazarene. Where does it say that? There's no quotation. There is no direct quotation anywhere in the Old Testament that somehow the Messiah was going to come from Nazareth. But I think if we think about what Nazareth stands for, we see what Matthew is saying. If you read Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9 or 11, they all capture a theme, and that is, the king you're all waiting for, he's going to come and he's not going to have any appearance that you would desire him. He's going to come lowly. He's going to appear to be a nobody. He's going to end up living in nowhere. Remember when Philip heard of Jesus of Nazareth in John 1? What does he say? Does anything good come from there? See, being a Nazarene has a connection. It's a nowhere place. It's a humble place. Nothing significant is supposed to come from there. And this is important because what God does does not appear to be the way we would do it. He didn't come to the royal city. He didn't come with the trappings of glory. No, he came in humility. even humility to the point of death, even to the humility of the point of death on the cross. And Nazarene, it's derogatory. It's name calling. Nothing good comes out of Nazareth. That's exactly the kind of place God's salvation shows up. That's the story. Now a few reflections. The first thing I want us to see is that God is in control. This is comforting today. Because as we meditate upon Psalm 2, the nation's rage. It feels like chaos constantly. And yet we know from God's Word that He actually kind of laughs at it. In a sense of, it's no threat. He's God. He is in complete control. Jesus came to his own. The Israelites, they rejected him. They despised him. They murdered him. God sent the nations, these men from the east, to worship him. He's revealing. He fulfills his word. He's revealing how his kingdom is going to be built. God could have sent these magi without Herod ever knowing. He could have kept going with dreams, with stars, with angels. But he wanted to create that conflict. He wanted to make clear who the true king is. He wanted to confront Herod for how evil he is. He's toying with him. Here's something that's very important for us. Herod is in God's hand. That doesn't mean every decision Herod makes is God condoned or God ordained. In no way did God desire Herod to kill the baby boys. But in no way does Herod do anything that God is not sovereign over. One of the great lessons from Genesis, what we intend for evil, God uses for good. God's plan is perfect. He's made promises. He's fulfilled them. Now, you might be asking, why don't I get dreams like this? Right? Why not, when I'm lost regularly at night, why don't I get a star? It's probably because my child is not the savior of the world. God is acting in a very specific way at a very specific time, because here we see, at the right time, God sent His Son to be born of the Virgin Mary, to be born of the law, so that we all could become sons. That doesn't mean God has stopped speaking, though. God gives us His Word. God gives His Holy Spirit. God allows us to see who we are if we look at His Word and want to look truly. to repent, to be changed. As we think about who Jesus is, after looking at He's in control, I want to think about these places, because the three places that Matthew tracks here tell us a lot about Jesus. Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth. And then we'll look at Jeremiah 31. But we see the three places God is taking people to places that are significant for us to understand the identity of Jesus. First, Bethlehem. This is David's rural city, his birthplace, the promised birthplace of the king. Now, Jesus has come of the right lineage. That's what the birthplace is, why it's so significant. God promised to Abraham, to Isaac, to Israel, to Judah, to Jesse, to David. We're waiting for that son, and what we see here being born in Bethlehem is that he is the true son of David. Eventually here in 1 Samuel, Lord willing, we'll get to 2 Samuel, and 2 Samuel 7 is significant. David says to God, I'd like to build you a house. And God says, no, your hands are too bloody. But I'll build you a house. I'll build you a dynasty. And your son will reign forever. Solomon looked promising. When asked to make one request, he asked for wisdom. That looked promising. But Solomon did not obey the voice of the Lord. He took on concubines and wives and connected himself to the nations and to other gods and led Israel in rebellion. So you're wondering all along, who is this son going to be? And now here, The son of God has taken on flesh and has entered into the line of David. He's the king. He's the one, according to Psalm 16, David's psalm, that did not get left in Sheol. He rose again. God's in control. God sent him to Bethlehem to make it clear to us he is the true king. We don't really like authority. I'm not going to project my problems on y'all. I don't really like authority. Unless I've got it. Right? Death to all tyrants. We like to overthrow authority. It's because we rarely see good authority. We rarely see good authority. Jesus has come with all authority, with all power, to use it for our good. He doesn't abuse. He invites. Come to me. I'll care for you. Come to me. I'll comfort you. Come to me. I'll give you new life. Come to me. I'll forgive you. He's the king who has that authority. We have to trust Him. I recognize, it's not always easy. But if you look at who He is and how He was promised and what He's done, He's good. If you think about His authority, it not only gives us that call to come to Him, it calls us to go out. Matthew 28 ends with Him being the King. He says, all authority has been given to me, now therefore you go. His authority calls us to be His disciples, and His authority sends us out to make disciples. By His authority, we become disciples to deny ourselves, carry the cross, follow Him. By His authority, we go make disciples. He is the King born in Bethlehem. The second place we see is Egypt. Verse 15 of Matthew 2, out of Egypt I called my son. I didn't want to go into this in a lot of detail at the time because, quite frankly, this was a little more complicated. A few more dots to connect. In Exodus 4, 22, God says, I called my son out of Egypt. Sonship is a theme foreshadowed. In Exodus 1, God said, Israel's my firstborn son. I'm going to save them. God promised a son in Genesis 3. God promises a son in Genesis 12. The seed of the line of Eve and the line of Abraham, it's significant. He has set his affections on a people. He has revealed himself to be connected to these people like they're his own son. So what does it mean that Jesus came and fulfilled? Israel was called to be God's son, and they failed. To be a son means you're a chip off the old block. We use that phrase, right? We usually use it to say like, wow, your child acts just like you. But really, a son should act like his father. When Jesus came as a son, how did he make known he was a son? I say what I hear my father say. I do what I see my father do. Israel was supposed to be a son of God, and that they were supposed to go and do what God said, and do what God does, and proclaim what God says to the nations to be aligned. And they could not stop worshiping other gods. They couldn't stop and listen to obey. And because they failed, God sent His own Son, the true Son, who is like Him in every way, born of a virgin, born of the law, to become like us, yet without sin, so He could adopt us as sons. So He'd give us new hearts as sons. He, Jesus Christ, shares His forever loving Sonship relationship with God the Father with us, and then sends His Spirit to cry out of a father. When we see this Sonship, we see Israel failed, Jesus succeeds, now we're called into a Sonship. Now we're gonna intermingle some themes. We're gonna put two themes over one another, and if it's complicated, talk to me afterwards. How did Israel finally get delivered from Egypt. What had to happen? All the firstborn sons of Egypt had to die. At one level we could see God was vindicating Pharaoh killing his sons. Really we see here a beautiful picture of the gospel. Israel's sons were saved because they slaughtered a lamb and they put the blood of the doorpost God's judgment went over all the houses of Israel that by faith obeyed God, at least for this moment. This is how God's true Son saves us from God's judgment, saves us to be sons. He dies for our sins as the once-for-all sacrifice. The judgment of God, this doesn't pass over because the blood is over our heads. No, the blood washes us. His blood buys us. He's redeemed us. There's some truths that we should gather from God calling us, God calling His Son out of Egypt, and us being called to His Son, which means we're called out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son. One, we're never hopeless. We're never hopeless. It can feel hopeless. It can, and it oftentimes does. But it's never truly hopeless because Christ is always for us. Secondly, we're never alone. It can feel like we're alone. It can feel like we're isolated. We even like to isolate ourselves when we're hopeless. But we're never alone because if we are in Christ, Christ is always with us. Third, you're never hopeless. You're never alone. You're never enslaved. It can feel this way, with temptation, with sin, but Christ, he entangles us. He frees us. The fourth truth that we need to gather from Christ being the son who comes out of Egypt to give us sonship is, we're always dependent. Doesn't always feel that way, does it? We're always dependent. And even though we deny God, even though we pretend to be self-sufficient, Christ keeps us anyway. The third place, Nazareth. He will be called a Nazarene. Philip says, can anything good come out of Nazareth? The son of glory, the exact imprint of God, he descended lower than the angels. He took upon the likeness and the full nature of man. God made us in his image so that Jesus could become us, take on our flesh. Remember, God created this world good. We ruined it. We had a glorious position in the garden. We lost it. And it would be just like God. It is just like His plan that He would go to the lowest place to save us. His light shines brightest in the darkness. He goes and meets us in the lowest way? He has no appearance? He has no glory? He's humbled? Why? He meets us in our lowest place so that He can call us up to His glorious place. Being a Nazarene captures that humble position, that humble posture that He took on, so that He can identify with us. He can sympathize with us. He can call us out of our lowliness and bring us up to his glory. This is an important truth. Christ identifies with where we are in loneliness and in sin and rebellion by dying for us on the cross so that we can identify with Him in the purchasing of our lives with His blood and the ascension to the right hand of the Father so that every blessing now is ours. He comes to meet us at our lowest. We really want God to be with us when we're doing something right. We want God to walk with us and see us when we've got everything together. God blesses us when we have everything together. That's the only way we have anything together. But the good news of Him being in Nazarene, He's come to identify with us at our lowest. One other prophecy, Jeremiah 31. This is where God has said the babies will be murdered once more. Rachel will weep one more time. And Jeremiah 31 is a grand declaration where Jeremiah keeps saying, behold, the days are coming. Behold, the days are coming. One of the things he makes clear, each one will face judgment for his own iniquity. When we think about Herod and our stomachs turning for the murder of the babies, God will bring vengeance on sin. We also have to see Jeremiah 31 is where we know that promise of a new covenant where God says he will forgive our iniquity. The final fulfillment of that weeping Rachel is Jesus being born, and the beginning of the new covenant is Jesus being born. God says, I will make a new covenant with you. It's not like the covenant I made with Moses after I delivered you from Egypt. It's a different kind of covenant. Very similar. I will be your God. You'll be my people. But instead of writing the laws on the tablets, while His people are worshiping a golden calf, God says, I'm going to write the law in your heart. I'm going to give you new birth. I'm going to change you from the inside out. I'm going to bring about regeneration, because Christ is going to come give His life for you, then the Holy Spirit's going to come, and He's going to give you regeneration. A new life, a new birth. Jesus Christ appeared not to die as an infant at the hands of an evil king. He came to die on the cross under the wrath of a good God. He came to die under the hand and the wrath of a good God. because it's the only way we could be forgiven. He dies in our place for our sin so that there is no condemnation, there is no separation. This morning there is a clear choice. You can approach Jesus like Herod and be terrified because he is a threat to your kingdom. The one we pretend to have. Where everything is under control and when I get to heaven I'll get to boast of all the things I've done. Or we can come like the Magi. With reverence. That leads to great joy. Herod hates God. He murders children with the hope that he would actually murder this promised king. It reveals the heart that hates God. Sinners will eventually nail Jesus to the cross in hatred. They'll mock Him. I wonder what we think we're doing when we complain, when we're discontent. We're a little bit like Herod. We should seek to approach Him with reverence, with trust, with great rejoicing because all he has done." Finally, if you're not a Christian this morning, I'm so thankful you're here with us. I want to challenge you with something. Two things, actually. First, if you're rejecting Jesus, read Matthew 1 to 4. and try to contemplate how it is that 10 different times Matthew's going to say, thus it fulfills the prophecy. I believe that's one of the greatest witnesses of the story of Jesus Christ, that he didn't just poof, show up. God promised through different prophets at different times one clear message that all comes to fruition in only one person, Jesus Christ. It's illogical. conundrum you have in rejecting such clear promises that come about in such a clear fulfillment. That's logical. I hope you're challenged and would think about that, but your problem really isn't a logical one. It's that I think if you're honest with yourself, you know there's a sin inside of you that you just can't control. There's a sin of anger, lust, coveting, a restlessness. It is not the way it's supposed to be because you were designed to be with God, to be loved by God, to love God, to find your rest in Him alone. Logic isn't your problem. Sin is. And Jesus Christ and his death for you as a sinner and his resurrection to give you new life, to give you the Holy Spirit that gives you wisdom is your only hope. We all have a sin problem. We all try to find some extra solution, but I'm here today to tell you the only real solution to our internal sin problem is the God who came down from above to die for us and rise again. Believe in Him. Believe in Him. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have not left us alone. As we see these promises lining up throughout your history, as we see how even evil kings and foreign kings, they're fulfilling your plan. We're in awe. Lord, help us to rejoice that Christ was born to die for us as sinners. Help us, Lord, to rejoice that we are no longer alone in this world of chaos, but your word brings light. Christ meets us where we're at. Lord, those who are hurting, those who are grieving, those who need comfort, Lord, I pray that you would bring them comfort today. They're not alone. Help us, Lord, to praise you and worship you as you deserve. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.