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Frankincense - The Gift Series
68 Plays2 years ago
Join us as we uncover the symbolism and meaning behind the gift of frankincense, exploring its role in worship and its representation of Jesus as the high priest. Ridley leads us through a thought-provoking discussion on acknowledging sin and the need for a new covenant, highlighting Jesus' relatability and ongoing role as a high priest. As we journey through this sermon, Ridley invites you to reflect on your own response to Jesus and to consider the impact of his intercession for you before God. So, grab your Bible and get ready to engage with this powerful narrative that continues to resonate through the ages.
Timestamps:
00:00 Silence broken, God's role as the hero.
05:13 Correcting misconceptions about Herod, celebrating Jesus' birth.
07:35 Uptight man, wise men seeking king, wealth.
12:00 Supernatural star movements, likely the shekinah glory.
13:40 King Herod gets upset, causing harm to people.
16:52 Multiple Bible translations combined for teaching purposes.
21:45 Wealthy men brought pricey gifts acknowledging Jesus.
23:06 Magi's gift symbolized Jesus as high priest. Sins forgiven by sacrifices from high priest.
26:54 Symbolic act of transferring sins onto goat.
31:51 Betrayed and distant, Jesus knows your pain.
34:09 Son admits mistakes, father loves unconditionally.
36:43 Without Jesus, your plans mean nothing.
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Transcript
Rethinking the Christmas Story
00:00:00
Speaker
So Wednesday night we had the opportunity together as a church family. I know many of you were there to be a part of a presentation called prepare him room teachings from Christy McClellan which was really I enjoyed it a whole lot. How many of you were here Wednesday night.
00:00:15
Speaker
It's awesome. It was a great teaching. I want to kind of continue in that vein of thought because here's what has happened. For many of us, what is a very tried and true and familiar story actually is filled with a lot of mistakes. We have adopted thoughts and patterns and traditions and rituals into our story that really don't line up with the actual Christmas story, what we know to be true versus what we think might have been true.
00:00:43
Speaker
Most of your nativity sets are wrong. So go home and throw them away. No, I'm just kidding. Don't throw them away. But just want you to rethink these things. And now here's why this is important for me. I'm very much a stickler for truth. If you come up to me and say, I literally almost fell over dead, I'm going to look at you and go, really? Literally? Because you don't understand the word literally if that's what you said, because you didn't almost fall over dead.
00:01:08
Speaker
I think truth is incredibly important.
The Risks of Compromising Gospel Truth
00:01:12
Speaker
I know that sounds like a real obvious statement for somebody who's preaching from the Bible, but guys, when we opened up the door for a little bit of compromise and we allowed the world to stick things in that don't belong in our gospel, it begins to lend us down a path or take us down a path that leads to things like false teachings and cults and Joel Osteen, okay? Let's just be honest.
00:01:36
Speaker
That's where we start to run in danger. So I want to make sure that we understand the Christmas
Understanding the True Christmas Story
00:01:41
Speaker
story. We'll be dealing with Luke 2 a lot over the next few weeks in different places. Today we're going to go to Matthew 2, and if you know the story, you know that the story here is more about what we know as the wise men. So let me just kind of give you an example of something that
00:01:58
Speaker
Somebody innocently placed out there this week. It's one of those things where you kind of hear it, and you go, oh, that's sweet. That's so nice. And I'm going, no, no, no, no. That's not true. This drives my wife crazy, by the way. It was a meme that somebody had put out there on Facebook, and it said something along these lines. You flip from the Old Testament to the New Testament. It's just one page in our Bible, but it represents 400 years of silence that was broken by the sound of a baby that first Christmas.
00:02:28
Speaker
Okay, the first part of that is true. 400 years of silence between the end of the Old Testament Malachi, the beginning of the New Testament Matthew, 400 years where Israel did not hear from God on a public level. But it was not broken by the silence of Jesus crying that first Christmas because if you know the story well, you know that the angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah and to Anna and made statements about, hey, this is what's about to happen. Here's where the silence is going to be broken.
00:02:57
Speaker
And to me, if you take that out of the story, you're taking away some very critical parts of the story because God was setting the table for some really incredible announcements to two other young people, Joseph and Mary. So way before Jesus ever cried, God was starting to do something. Now here's the point of all this.
God's Plan Through the Christmas Story
00:03:16
Speaker
At the end of this today, here's two things I want you to take away. Number one, God is the hero of the Bible.
00:03:26
Speaker
all the way from Genesis to Revelation, the book is about him. Another example of how we have allowed modern culture to twist things just enough to make them wrong, we buy into the idea that the Bible's about us.
00:03:41
Speaker
that God is doing this for us and that He wants to make sure that we know He loves us, which is in part true, but the Bible's about God, it's about His Son, it's about bringing Him glory. And if you twist it just enough to say it's about us, then suddenly we quit thinking about the holiness of God and think about, okay, what's in this for me?
00:04:02
Speaker
And that's where the danger lies. The second thing I want you to hear beyond just that this is a book that's first and foremost and always about God is this. As you hear this story unfold today, you're going to notice a God who literally from the very beginning of time was up to something with a plan for humanity.
00:04:22
Speaker
And he worked out all these details that come together in this really beautiful story we call Christmas. The first Noel. My wife asked me this morning, what does Noel mean? It's literally Latin which turned to French which turned to the first Noel for us. It means Christmas, anything related to Christmas.
The Wise Men and Cultural Misconceptions
00:04:40
Speaker
That beautiful story should be a reminder to you as you leave here today that God who works out the details is working on your behalf.
00:04:50
Speaker
Whatever you're going through, whatever situation you're feeling, whatever challenges you're up against or trials you face, if God can work out details over thousands of years to bring them together in a little town called Bethlehem, surely He can handle what you want to give to Him today. And I want you to trust that and know that today by the time this story is over. So we're going to look at Matthew chapter 2. We're going to talk a little bit about the story of these guys. We're going to correct a few thinkings along the way.
00:05:17
Speaker
And then hopefully when we land this plane, you'll come out of here with the better, greater appreciation of just how big and powerful our God is.
King Herod's Rule and Paranoia
00:05:25
Speaker
Beginning in Matthew 2, verse 1, it says, After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod, wise men from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star at its rising, and have come to worship him.
00:05:43
Speaker
I want to stop there and say a couple things to you just along the lines of this idea. Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod. Who is Herod? Well, Herod is a guy who actually was not Jewish. He was the product of a father who was Edomite and a mother who was Jewish, so he was a mixed race of person. Edomites trace all the way back to a guy by the name of Esau in the Bible. Esau was not the line that Jesus
00:06:13
Speaker
honored and chose this line of people. It was his brother Jacob. Okay, so Esau goes all the way down to Edomites. Edomite gives us the father of King Herod. The reason that Herod is in place is because a guy by the name of Julius Caesar, you all remember from his class, your history classes, the Romans were in charge of Israel as well as the entire Mideast. And so he puts a guy into authority named King Herod thinking, well, he's half Jew, so maybe that will appease the people. Didn't work. Okay.
00:06:43
Speaker
Now Herod was like most authorities in that day and age in that he would do anything he could to protect his reign. He was not going to allow any kind of threat to come along. It was very commonplace in that day and time for kings or whoever was in charge, whatever their title might be, to eliminate any threats. I mean, just instantly put them to death without question.
00:07:06
Speaker
Herod was recognized in history as being one of the most vicious even to the point where he put to death his wife and some of his sons because he was afraid and intimidated by them and The reason he was so intimidated is because he knew that he was not supposed to be king of Israel the king of Israel came from the line of David and since he was not part of the line of David He knew that he was on thin ice being named the king of Israel
00:07:32
Speaker
So King Herod is there. He plays a role in this. He's a very uptight guy, always looking over his shoulder, always concerned about what's going to happen next.
00:07:40
Speaker
Verse 2 says, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? These wise men come along. So who
The Mystery of the Wise Men's Journey
00:07:46
Speaker
are the wise men? Well, first of all, we don't know whether or not there were 3 or 30 or however many. We do know most likely it was not just 3 guys on camels as most of us got pictures and videos and things like that that we've seen. Why? Because 3 guys as wealthy as these guys were would never have traveled alone in that day and age.
00:08:07
Speaker
most likely they would have had an entire entourage of people traveling with them. Think Aladdin. If you've ever seen Aladdin where they come in with all of the elephants and donkeys and all that kind of stuff, they would have come in there and they would have done what any other ambassador from another place would have done. He would have instantly gone to the palace of the king to do two things. Number one, to announce their arrival and number two, to say, hey, we're here in peace. That's all. And so they would have brought gifts even for King Herod, most likely.
00:08:37
Speaker
Now you can imagine in a town of Jerusalem, even though Jerusalem was a fairly good sized city at that point, an entourage that big arriving in town would do what?
The Star of Bethlehem Theories
00:08:46
Speaker
It would draw attention, right? So instantly King Herod's a little alarmed because this entire entourage of guys has shown up. A lot of your translations use the phrase wise men. More appropriately, the word is magi. The reason most people don't like to use the word magi is because magi is where we get the word magician.
00:09:07
Speaker
And these guys were not magicians in the current sense. They were not David Copperfield. They didn't do tricks. They were rather guys who just recognized the times. They were wise. They helped devise their rulers. They were astronomers. They paid attention to the stars. Astronomy and astrology back then were actually very similar in the way they were practiced. Astrology was not about predicting the future as much as it was a study of the stars and the heavens and things of that nature.
00:09:35
Speaker
What's really really cool is that you can trace this all the way back to at least Daniel chapter 2. If you go back to Daniel chapter 2, if you remember the story of Daniel, Daniel is in captivity along with the rest of Israel under the authority of the Babylonian king. He has this horrible nightmare one night and he calls in, Daniel 2 will tell you, the wise men, the magicians, the satraps, the Chaldeans, all these guys are brought in. All of these guys are simply advisors to the king.
00:10:04
Speaker
And they are brought in for the purpose of interpreting the dream for the King of Babylon. Of course, they can't do that. They can't interpret those dreams. And Daniel is brought in because he is recognized as an interpreter of dreams. Daniel comes in. He interprets the dream, which instantly earns him the credibility and respect of all those guys who we just mentioned. In fact,
00:10:26
Speaker
If it had not been for Daniel, most of those guys probably would have been put to death in that story. If you remember, he speaks up on behalf of them and says, don't put them to death. They couldn't do what I've been fixing to do because I'm trusting in God to do it. So all these guys paying respect to Daniel, saying thanks for saving our lives. Most likely, scholars believe that at that point, Daniel, as well as his friends, began to teach them some of the prophecies of their people so that hundreds of years later,
00:10:55
Speaker
When a star arises over Bethlehem, there are wise men in the east who understand the story and the prophecies of Israel's history. Make sense? So again, we don't know how many there were. We know there was a large entourage, a bunch of wise guys. They show up and they come into the king. One other thing, it says, for we saw his star at its rising. This first no L, that song is incorrect,
00:11:22
Speaker
because it says we saw in the east a star. They didn't see the star in the east. They came from the east, which means they saw it where? In the west. Good, you know your geography. Very good. So they saw it in the west, which caused them to follow it. They recognized this new star. Now there's a lot of ideas about what that star was. Probably you've heard people talk about the idea that maybe it was a bright planet that caused them to recognize it or that it might have been stars aligning or things of that nature.
00:11:52
Speaker
I personally am coming around to a new thing that a lot of scholars are talking about and it's this idea that it really was not a natural phenomenon at all. It was rather the supernatural. Why? Well, because it talks about the fact that the star moves and then in the stories we're going to see in just a second, the star disappears for a time and then reappears and that it stops over stable. And I don't know about you, but I've never seen stars that stop and start.
00:12:21
Speaker
I tend to believe it was a supernatural phenomenon in the sense that it might have been the literal Shekinah glory of God that got their attention and drew them in to make them part of the story. Which means that God Himself moved the light where He needed to and oh by the way I'm going to turn it off for a little while while you guys are in Jerusalem and when you get ready to move again I'll turn it back on so you can see where you need to show up.
00:12:44
Speaker
The Shekinah glory of God was recognized as being the presence of God in the tabernacle in the wilderness as well as in the temple in Jerusalem. It was literally the visible presence of God. If you go all the way back to the story of Moses, when he first entered the tabernacle as it was built in the wilderness, it would say that the Shekinah glory of God was shining, and because of Moses' presence in that Shekinah glory, his face would be changed to a radiance where the people couldn't even look on his face.
00:13:13
Speaker
Whatever you want to believe about that, not really that important, but the star did not rise in the east, it rose in the west, and they saw it, and they followed it, which is where we are in the story. So let's keep reading.
Herod's Alarm and Biblical Prophecies
00:13:27
Speaker
Verse 3, it says, when King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, as you can imagine. And all of Jerusalem with him. When I was a kid, and I used to read that, I always wondered, why in the world would they be disturbed? They're the people that he's coming for. Why wouldn't they be excited?
00:13:43
Speaker
The reason they were disturbed, as you can imagine, is King Herod gets upset. Who pays for it? The people of Jerusalem. He gets antsy. What does he start doing? He starts cutting people's heads off and throwing people into prison and eliminating anybody who might be his opponent. It would be kind of like in a modern-day sense where maybe some authority figure might
00:14:05
Speaker
take an opponent into a court case and charge him illegally for things that he really didn't do and drag out that court case so that the election would never happen the way it should have. Not that that would ever happen in modern day democracies, but you kind of get the picture of what's going on here, right? By the way, our government's corrupt is all get out, just in case you need to know that.
00:14:27
Speaker
And I'm talking about both sides of it, so I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat here, you just get the picture. So the reason I say that is not just to make fun of that whole situation, but to help you understand, this is not a new phenomenon. People have been scared of their authority places since the beginning of time, and they'll do whatever they can to protect it. Why? Because men are evil. And so God even used the evil suspicions of a guy like Herod to unwrap this story. Verse 4.
00:14:55
Speaker
He assembled all of the chief priests and scribes of the people. The chief priests and scribes are two important groups in Jewish history. The chief priests obviously are the religious figures, the religious leaders of that time. The scribes are like the lawyers of that day and age. So he brings these people in. He says, I want to know where the Messiah will be born. Here's what I want you to hear.
00:15:17
Speaker
These guys instantly recognize the story or instantly able to recall the prophecy of where Jesus would be born and how it would happen. But not one of them ever bow their knee to God. They knew exactly what was going on. They knew the prophecy better than anybody and yet not one of them redirected their life just to go five miles down the road to Bethlehem and see what was going on.
00:15:41
Speaker
The reason I challenge you on that is because you need to understand something. You can have all the mental knowledge in the world, but till you bow your knee, Jesus is not your Lord. Until you redirect your life, until you change your pattern of your life, until you say, I'm going to set aside my desires and goals, you can't call God your God. These guys profess to be followers of the one true God, but they didn't even acknowledge his own prophecies to them. Verse five.
00:16:07
Speaker
In Bethlehem of Judea, they told him, because this is what was written by the prophet. And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel." Something you need to recognize, and this happens throughout the New Testament, New Testament writers and telling stories will quote parts of the Old Testament. But many times when you go to check those,
00:16:34
Speaker
you'll recognize that they are not verbatim. They're not word for word, the prophecy that they're talking about. If you go back, this is a prophecy out of Micah chapter 5 verse 2, and you'll recognize it. It's similar. It says the same thing, but it's not a direct word for word quote. So don't find that as suspicious. It's very much like your pastor. I grew up on the King James Version of the Bible for most of my early days.
00:16:59
Speaker
When I got to high school, I found out about the NIV translation, which I fell in love with all the way through college up until about 10 years ago, and then I was introduced to the Christian Standard Bible, which I read and teach from. So when I stand up here and I quote a verse to you from memory, it's usually the NIV King James CSB all combined together into one. You'll recognize there'll be like a ye in the middle of all this new modern language. It's because I'm bringing it all together and trying to summarize it for you. That's what's going on here.
00:17:27
Speaker
So if you flip over to Micah 5 too, you'll see this prophecy, but it won't be word for word the way that they quoted it here. So Herod secretly summoned the wise men and asked them the exact time the star appeared. You can see Herod's already beginning to scheme. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report back to me so that I too can go and worship him, which is a complete lie. That's never an intent. He wanted to eliminate the problem.
00:17:55
Speaker
After hearing the king, they went on their way, and there it was, the star they had seen at its rising. It led them until it came, and it stopped above the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy. Entering the house, they saw the child would marry his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts. Notice it says, where they entered him, where? The house.
00:18:23
Speaker
Scholars believe that most likely Jesus by the time this happens in the story was about 18 months to two years old. So when you look at your nativity set, if you have wise men at the same time as shepherds, incorrect. They weren't there at the same time. The shepherd were immediately called to Jesus that night because the angels announced his birth and said, go and see what's happening there in Bethlehem. When the star appeared over the place where Jesus was born,
00:18:49
Speaker
Wise men in the East had to begin a journey of hundreds of miles, which would have taken them a long time. Not to mention the fact that you don't just get up and take a journey back in that day. You had to prepare, you had to plan, you had to get supplies and resources together.
00:19:02
Speaker
So most likely it was about 18 months to two years. In this time, between the time that Jesus was born, and if you weren't here Wednesday night, it'd be great for you to go back and look at this teaching, most of the houses of that day and age, especially houses of people who were very poor, Jesus was born to a poor family, he was from the lineage of a fairly poor family, most of the houses that day and age kept the animals inside the house. So when we talk about he was born in a manger, there was no barn out back,
00:19:30
Speaker
There was no cave out back. Most of the houses that day and age were built over caves so the animals could stay in the cave. Why? Because all the predators were outside at night. And if you were poor, that donkey meant everything to your family. That goat provided a lot for your family. You had to do everything you could to protect it. So Jesus was most likely born inside of a house of one of his descendants. You know, it talks about there was no room for them in the inn. There was no inn.
00:19:58
Speaker
They didn't have Motel 6s back then. There was no hotel in the sense that we see it. The town of Bethlehem was probably only about 200 people, and most of them would have been cousins, aunts, and uncles to Joseph and Mary. That's why they had to go back there for the census. So they arrived there. One of their relatives says, hey, we got no place for you anywhere else, but you can come stay in what in that time would have been called the guest room, which is also a word that could be translated into an inn.
00:20:27
Speaker
That's where we get the confusion. So Jesus is born there. In between that point and the time of the arrival of the Magi, lots of things had to happen religiously. Mary had to go and get her purification rights from having a child. Jesus had to go in and have his stuff done as a young baby for all the rituals, the religious rituals for them. So all that took place before the wise men ever show up to recognize Jesus and worship him in the story, okay?
00:20:57
Speaker
And it says they opened their treasures and they presented him with gifts gold frankincense and myrrh What kind of gifts are these?
Symbolism of the Wise Men's Gifts
00:21:08
Speaker
You know when I had kids we got passies onesies and burp towels those kinds of things So what kind of gifts are these that they are bringing to Jesus?
00:21:16
Speaker
We're going to talk a little bit about this over the next few weeks. We'll talk about myrrh and gold later. But I want to talk about frankincense today because there is actually true spiritual foreshadowing of who Jesus was going to be presented by these gifts. This week I took time to consult with my doTERRA essential oil people regarding frankincense. You got to go right to the source, right?
00:21:41
Speaker
The truth is that Frankincense today is not much different than Frankincense back then. It was a very, very pricey gift. So it's obvious that these guys were wealthy guys to be bringing these kind of gifts to a baby. But they were meant to acknowledge some special stuff and who Jesus was. Frankincense had medicinal purposes. It was used for a lot of healing. It was used as a calming thing for people. But more specifically, it was used in worship at the temple.
00:22:11
Speaker
And it was used that way for two different reasons. If you remember, beginning with the tabernacle in the wilderness and then eventually in the temple in Jerusalem, there was the outer court. And then there was the inner court, which had a place that was known as the Holy of Holies, which was the place that only the high priest himself could enter into. And frankincense was used in the Holy of Holies for two reasons. Number one, to cover the smell.
00:22:38
Speaker
As you can imagine, sacrifices going on all day long, every day, the smell of dead animals and blood was probably pungent, just really, really awful. So it helped to cover the smell, but more importantly, as they would go in to offer the sacrifice one day a year on the day of atonement, they would light that incense, and it would go up to heaven as smoke, and it was symbolic of the prayers of God's people going up, appealing to God for mercy.
00:23:07
Speaker
The gift of frankincense brought by the Magi to Jesus was symbolic of the fact that Jesus himself would become our high priest. And in becoming our high priest, he was going to serve two very, very important functions for us. And that's what I want to spend the rest of our time talking about here very quickly this morning. The priest, one of his most important jobs was to make sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.
00:23:35
Speaker
Ever since the beginning of time, since the time that Adam and Eve made the choice to sin and disobey God, there's been two forces at work in the world. The forces of evil and the forces of good are the holiness of God, if you will. And those two forces have been going at it since literally that day. Trying to claim authority over the lives of human beings, God trying to restore relationship while Satan doing everything he can to destroy that relationship.
00:24:05
Speaker
Most people this day and age, just like back then as well, but most people this day and age don't like to talk about the idea of sin.
00:24:13
Speaker
This is an area where we choose to compromise a whole lot because nobody likes to be told that they're broken. Nobody likes to be told that they have failed or made mistakes or that they're not in alignment with God. We all like the idea of being in alignment with God, but we don't want to acknowledge our sin because that forces us to recognize that we're just not able to get to God on our own. So the first thing I would encourage you is that we have to understand the reality of our sin and what it's done to us.
00:24:40
Speaker
You see, the problem is when we try to explain away or excuse our sin, we diminish the importance of the holiness of God. Now, what does it mean to say that God is holy? Well, the word holy literally means that He is transcendently separate from everything. That there is a huge chasm between the holiness of God and us. That there's nothing about us that even borderlines the authority
00:25:09
Speaker
the power, the glory, the purity of God Himself. Until we understand what it means that God is holy, though, we'll never realize the cost of what sin has done to us. God is flawless. He's pure. He's without fault. And holiness isn't just one of His attributes. It actually describes all of the other attributes He has. His power is holy. His grace is holy. His mercy is holy.
00:25:39
Speaker
Our God is holy, and the challenge for us is we're not. We're not. Scripture says that all of us have sinned, that every single one of us have broken our intimacy with God. And this is why God hates sin, because God desires to have relationship with us. He wants to be in relationship with us, but because of our sin, He can't. Sin is everything that God is not. It's the very opposite of His holiness.
00:26:09
Speaker
The high priest once a year would make a sacrifice as he would make that sacrifice on Yom Kippur the day of atonement. The idea was that that sacrifice would temporarily pay for our sins. The priest would light that frankincense and again the smoke would rise to heaven and the priest would take the animal's blood and he would pour that blood on the altar on the place that was known as the mercy seat. This would symbolize the death of an innocent thing in place of all of the guilty ones as payment for our sins.
00:26:40
Speaker
The high priest would also take something known as the scapegoat. Many of you have heard that phrase, and it's used appropriately as a reference to this kind of thing. What the priest would do is he would take that goat, that perfect goat that they had picked out, he would lay his hands on the goat, he would symbolically transfer the sins of the people onto that goat by laying hands on him and praying on him, and then somebody would be given the task of taking that goat out into the wilderness and releasing.
00:27:07
Speaker
And this, again, would be symbolic of the fact that the sins were being taken away from the people and that they were removed on a yearly basis. This was, as you imagine, a highly anticipated day in the life of every Jew because this was such a huge, huge deal for them. But it's important for us because we have to understand that because God is completely just, he has to punish sin. In our world today, we love to talk about the idea that God is love, right?
00:27:35
Speaker
Everybody talks about that. Even people who have trouble believing in God want to believe that God loves them. Something out there loves them. This creator loves them. And that is absolutely true, but God is not just love. He is also just. And because he's just, because he's holy, he has to punish sin. People like to talk about God being unfair. That's unfair. Know what's unfair is that God doesn't punish sin the way it needs to be. And because God is just and also love, he has to do both.
00:28:06
Speaker
And so what happened under that old covenant is the high priest would offer that sacrifice. And the book of Hebrews talks about this. We're going to look at this passage just a minute. He would offer these sacrifices over and over again every single day and then once a year for the whole nation he would offer it. The idea being that temporarily the sins of mankind would be removed. But there had to be something
Jesus's Eternal Role as High Priest
00:28:27
Speaker
better. And thankfully you and I don't live under that old covenant. We live under the new covenant.
00:28:33
Speaker
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 10 says this by this we will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ read those last four words for me once for all time once for all time you see when Jesus died on the cross what he did is he paid for the sins that you have committed two thousand years ago
00:28:57
Speaker
He covered every single sin that you will commit, have committed, have thought about committing. Every single one of those things were brought under the blood of Jesus Christ. And because of that, you and I have the ability to be made holy. Not because of what we do, but because of what he has already done.
00:29:18
Speaker
Again, the priest of that day and age under the old covenant, they would stand before the Lord and stand before the altar and offer sacrifices all day, every day, day after day, year after year. But Jesus Christ came along and did for us one time forever what we could not have done for ourselves. Which also means this is really important. Our high priest knows the trials that we face.
00:29:45
Speaker
Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14 and 15 says, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, and yet is without sin. You see, Jesus understands our trials.
00:30:11
Speaker
He faced all the same trials that you have. There's nothing you've experienced that Jesus hasn't in some way felt it or experienced it. Whatever you're going through today, Jesus understands. Your anxiety, your fears, Jesus understands. Crazy people in your family, Jesus understands. Jesus was conceived out of wedlock. And not only was he conceived out of wedlock, he was conceived in a town smaller than Chapel Hill.
00:30:41
Speaker
And you know, news travels around Chapel Hill fast. You can imagine what happened in Bethlehem when this young lady shows up and people start doing the math going, wait a minute, they haven't been married long enough for her to have a child. So Jesus was the target of rumors. He lived in poverty. Most likely, Jesus was poorer than any one of you in this room. He understood financial challenges.
00:31:10
Speaker
He was ridiculed. He was criticized. He was tempted by the devil at his weakest moments, and yet he never once chose to sin. He experienced the death of a close friend when he watched Lazarus pass away the difference between Jesus and us as he gets to bring his friends back to life. But he felt that pain. The Bible says in that verse right after the story of Jesus's death, he says, Jesus wept.
00:31:36
Speaker
Jesus also experienced the loss of family. You will remember John the Baptist who foretold his coming was his cousin. John the Baptist had his head removed as part of his punishment for preaching about Jesus. Jesus was accused falsely. He was betrayed by his very best friends. Worst of all, he felt what it's like to feel distance from his father, God. You remember on the cross it says that Jesus cried out in agony, my God, where are you?
00:32:07
Speaker
So if you've ever felt like you couldn't feel the presence of God, Jesus knows what that feels like. He understands that. Whatever you feel, he's felt. Whatever you've hurt, he has hurt the same way. He's not sitting up in heaven and just looking down going, well, it stinks to be you. So sorry you're going through that. No. He's experienced every single pain, every single hurt. He's felt what it's like to be alone. He's felt what it's like to be abandoned.
00:32:38
Speaker
There's a second role that the high priest prayed, excuse me, the high priest did for his people and Jesus did the same for us, says the priest prayed prayers on behalf of the people to God. Did you know right now that's Jesus's biggest responsibility. He is interceding for us in front of his father. He is standing before the father saying, hey, that one belongs to me. And here's what he's really trying to say to you. You ever had one of those moments where you're praying and you're going, I really don't know what to pray?
00:33:07
Speaker
I really don't know how to pray right now in this moment. It's okay because Jesus is going, I got you. I got you. Hold on just a second. I got you. And he stands before the Father and he intercedes for us. You ever had one of those moments when you were going to have to have a tough conversation with somebody you weren't looking forward to and you were very scared? And a friend of yours came up to you and said, hey, don't worry about it. I'll go with you. Art, you stay here. I'll take care of that conversation for you.
00:33:34
Speaker
It changes how you feel, it changes your courage in that moment to know that there's somebody who's interceding on your behalf. This is exactly what Jesus does for us before God the Father.
Reflecting on a Genuine Relationship with Jesus
00:33:46
Speaker
Hebrews chapter four verse 16 says, therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with what? Boldness. So that we may receive mercy and find grace to find help in times of need. So my encouragement to you,
00:34:03
Speaker
I don't care where you are, don't care what you're going through, don't care what you think Jesus doesn't know, He knows and He still receives you. Reminds me of my son. My son when he was little. You know, daddies, we know everything, right?
00:34:20
Speaker
And I could watch him as he worked his way around the kitchen, trying to find the courage to come into the den and go, dad, I broke your dish or dad, I did this or, you know, my favorite was the day he decided to throw a baseball against the side of the garage and broke out the window. And I thought, son, where's your brain right now? But in that moment, he said, dad, I need to tell you, I broke the window. But you know why he came to me? He came to me not because
00:34:48
Speaker
He knew that I would know. He came to me because he knew that I would receive him regardless. That what happened wouldn't change my love for him. That what happened would not change his status with me as him being my son. And guys, that's what God feels towards you. He desires this relationship with you, this intimacy with you that can only be fixed by you acknowledging your sin and coming to him.
00:35:18
Speaker
So that's how I want to end this service today. I want to give you a chance just to do something. I'm going to ask the band to go ahead and come up. We're going to close with the songs we always do, but for the first verse or so of the song, I just want to invite you to sit still, to bow your head, and to come to God, to have a conversation with Him. You know, the story that I just told, there's basically three responses that we see to the person of Jesus Christ. The first one was Herod's.
00:35:45
Speaker
Herod was scared to death of God to the point that he wanted to put Jesus to death. He wanted nothing to do with him. He was afraid and intimidated by him. He was going to do whatever it took to eliminate him. And then there were the scribes and the Pharisees. They thought, well, maybe if we just ignore him, he'll go away. Maybe if we ignore him, the story will just disappear into the night and we'll maintain our position of authority.
00:36:13
Speaker
And then, of course, there's the story of the Magi and their response, who not only came to worship Jesus, but literally rearranged their lives to do it. So let me just reaffirm something I said to you earlier in this message. You may know everything in the world about the story, but until you know the hero of the story, nothing about your life is going to be different.
00:36:39
Speaker
You may think you've got it all figured out, you may think you've got it all in the right place, you've got everything lined out, your dreams, your plans, your goals, but until you rearrange your life and bow your knee to the Jesus of this story, your life will be no different. You'll have eternity, no doubt about it, but it's not where you think it's gonna be. Because until you bow your knee to the savior of the universe, till you give your life to him in its entirety, all you got is head knowledge.
00:37:11
Speaker
And a lot of smart men have gone to hell. A lot of smart women have tasted death without Jesus. So as the band begins to play, as they start to sing, I invite you just to sit and think a little bit. Ponder your situation. Consider your response to Jesus. If you need to come to this altar and pray, feel free to do so. And then at the appropriate time, they'll get you to join and stand with us as we sing.