New Covenant-New Opportunities

New Year’s Resolutions

Hebrews 10:19-25

1. Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Which of us would not benefit from a closer walk with the Lord?  Which of us would not look back on the year 2010 and rejoice if it becomes a year in which we took more seriously this provision of the New Covenant, that of being able to drawer nearer to God? 

2. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Wouldn’t a New Year’s resolution to work a little harder at living each day in the faith we have on Sundays be exciting? The New Covenant provides the possibility of that if we allow Him who provided that New Covenant to strengthen our lives from within. But remember, a more consistent daily faith flows out of drawing closer to God.

3. Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

We gather together as a church to celebrate the New Covenant provided by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus because it is in coming together that we strengthen one another. We have a loving church in many ways and yet there are those in our community and maybe in your circle of acquaintances that you find hard to love. Let’s make 2010 a year to see our love for one another grow and to see how many more we can draw into our love fellowship

4. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. 

Obviously we are here because we believe in coming together to worship and encourage one another. I guess it would be easy to make a resolution for others to attend but that is hardly realistic but how about a New Year’s resolution to make a determined effort to get at least one other person to attend regularly with us and in that way see this New Covenant blessing extended to others.

5. Let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

One of the great responsibilities as well as privileges of being a Christian is that of encouraging one another. May I suggest that as a New Year’s resolution provided for in the New Covenant be that each of us select someone special in our church to encourage in some way as often as possible in the New Year. If we all found someone special to encourage to grow and held each other accountable what an exciting year of growth this could be.

Christmas and Fear

Undoubtedly one of the most heard word these days is “fear.” Most Americans live with fear. In the Christmas story we are told on 4 separate occasions that when God confronted those who were afraid, He said they should not fear. The reasons they did not need fear are the same reasons God would say to us today, “Don’t fear.” Put them all together:

1. We have a God who hears our prayers. 
2. We have an all-powerful God who works miracles to accomplish His will for us.
3. We have a God who has a perfect plan for us and knows our concerns about that plan. 
4. We have a God who knows when we are uncertain about God’s love for us and His commitment to keep the promise found in Jeremiah 29:11.  

The first “do not be afraid” was spoken to Zechariah. Read Luke 1:13. Note the connection between the prayer of Zechariah and the assurance that he did not need to fear. Fear comes when we feel we are alone or cannot do anything about our situation. Prayer is not a magic wand that automatically or immediately solves all our problems. Zechariah and Elisabeth had been praying for years for a child. God assured them He is a prayer hearing and prayer answering God who is in complete control. They did not have to be afraid or concerned. 

Instead of fear, we have prayer. Prayer reminds us that not only are we not alone but the one who has promised to watch over us is never off duty. Read Psalm 121. We have access to the heavenly throne where there is no uncertainty. Prayer reminds us that our God holds today in His hand and knows all about tomorrow.

We can look ahead to the new year knowing that nothing will come our way that will take our God by surprise. We can be confident that in 2022 His throne room will be open to us 24/7. Via prayer the resources of the God who spoke creation into being and owns the cattle on a thousand hills are available to us.

The second “do not be afraid” was spoken to Mary. Read  Luke 1:30. That call to not be afraid was tied to the promise that God was going to perform a miracle, a miracle that Mary could not understand.  Fear comes when we forget that we serve a miracle working God. 

The angel literally said to Mary, “Don’t be afraid because you have found favor with the all-powerful God who delights in doing for you what you not only cannot do for yourself, but what cannot even imagine being possible.” God would speak to each of us by name and say, “Because you are my child by faith you have found favor with me. I will be sufficient for everything that comes your way in 2022.”

The third “do not be afraid” was spoken to Joseph. Read Matthew 1:20.  God literally said to Joseph, “I know nothing that is happening is what you planned for, but it is incredibly better than your plan because it’s my plan.” I can’t even begin to understand how Joseph must have felt when Mary told him she was expecting a baby. He had to have felt betrayed in the worse way. Then God said to him, “Don’t be afraid, I am in total control. Because you are both committed to me, my plan is better.” 

One of the characteristics of life is that disappointments will come. They may be disappointments with ourselves, with those close to us, with society in general or whatever. Whenever that happens to us, we tend to worry, largely because there is often little or nothing we can do about it. But in that disappointment and concern, if you are seeking to live for God, He comes to us and says, “It’s OK, I’m in control. You don’t have to fear or be afraid. I’ve always had a perfect plan for you. Nothing takes me by surprise. I can take even your mistakes, if you give them back to me in repentance, and turn them around.”

The final “Do not be afraid” in the Christmas story was spoken to the shepherds in the fields. Read Luke 2:10. An angel delivered a message from God that said, “I love you and am bringing you good news of my care and provision for you.”

The “Do not be afraid” delivered to the shepherds is a powerful and important message for us as we look to 2022. To understand their fear and God’s message of love, we need to see their fear that God had come to judge them.

Remember the way shepherds lived and what they had been told all their lives. Keep in mind that sheep are among the most dependent animals God created. Left alone they will not survive long. Sheep desperately need a shepherd, and they need him 24/7. Because of the work involved, the rich hired others to care for their sheep. 

Because they were required to be with the sheep 24/7/365, they were never able to attend religious services, either in a synagogue or in the temple in Jerusalem. Being absent from expected or required worship meant they were viewed as irreligious.  It was easy for the rabbis to use them as examples of what one should not be. Self-fulfilling prophecy being what it is, encouraged them to think of themselves as worthless sinners awaiting the judgment God was going to bring. 

Then we have the birth of the Savior and God sent a whole host of His angels to announce that birth. The shepherds knew that angels came from God and one of the tasks of angels was to judge sin on behalf of God. All their lives they had been told, repeatedly by everyone, that they were no good sinners. Suddenly a host of angels, appeared to them. Simple conclusion, the judgment everyone said they deserved, had come.  

What a message those shepherds heard. The God who could easily have judged them for their failures, announced instead “Do not fear.” Yes, God is awesome and will judge Satan and sinners and they need to fear Him because of that. The rest of the story, however, is that He is also the God who loves us so much that He sent His Son to a manger and in time to a Cross so His Son could bear our guilt and thus our death sentence.

Satan will often whisper in your ear that God does not love you and wants to judge you. The two most common times that Satan will tell us that God does not love us and is going to judge us is after we have sinned and when God has chosen not to answer a prayer when we wanted Him to or in the way we wanted Him to answer.

We all sin often. Almost as soon as we become aware of our sin, Satan will whisper, “Blew it again. God is running out of patience with you.” When Satan suggests that, we need to immediately do 2 things. First, we need to confess it knowing that God is faithful and just to forgive confessed sin. Then we need to hear God say again, “Fear not, I bring you good news. A Savior came to pay for your sins.” That is not a license to go on sinning or to minimize the ugliness of sin, but it encourages us to live in the joy of our salvation. 

The second time Satan will seek to discourage us and try to get us to think we are all alone is when we go to God in prayer, and it appears that He is ignoring us because He doesn’t respond as quickly or in the way we want. When Satan tries to discourage us with the lie that God does not care enough about us, the answer is to declare that God loves me so much He sent His Son. We are to declare that God will withhold no good thing from us. Read Jeremiah 29:11. We can enter 2022 knowing that our God will hear our prayers, when necessary and best will work miracles for us, has a much better plan for us in 2022 than we could ever imagine and loves us so much that He desires to give us an unbelievable future, no matter what Satan says.

Herod and the Christmas Story

In a little book by Richard Wilke entitled Christmas: The Good, Bad & the Ugly we read, “Across the centuries, Herod the king has become a symbol of evil. We may rather want to forget that he is part of the Christmas story. But let’s keep Herod in Christmas to remind us how desperately we need a Savior in this evil world.” (p. 10, 11) I agree 100%. I don’t like Herod any more than anyone and he seems so out of place in the Christmas story, but he is what Christmas is all about. He is a reminder to us of what is the true reason for the season. Absolutely nothing makes sense about Christmas if we forget that Jesus came expressly to save sinners and Herod, perhaps more than any of the other characters in the Christmas story, exemplifies that need. The shepherds and wise men needed a Savior just as much as Herod, but Herod magnifies the reality of that need.

The Christmas story centers around those special individuals who loved God and were anxiously awaiting the coming of the promised Messiah. The story includes a virgin willing to have a baby in spite of the shame that being pregnant out of wedlock would bring and boldly declaring that it should be done unto her as God said. Joseph discovered the woman to whom he was engaged was pregnant. He normally would have broken off the marriage plans and subjected her to community discipline. But God sent him a message and he determined to follow through on the marriage even though he knew this would impact his reputation in the community. 

The Christmas story is about shepherds in their fields keeping watch over their sheep at night. They represent the outcasts of society. They were the down and out and were despised almost as much as Gentiles since they had to attend to the sheep and could not worship like “good” Jews did. But God loves those whom the world ignores or even despises, and God sent angels to announce the birth of Jesus to them.  They then went and worshipped this child. What would the Christmas scene be like without the shepherds kneeling at the manger?

Then we have the wise men. We really have no idea when they actually arrived and can be fairly certain it was not at the manger. None-the-less none of us really wants a manger scene without them. They are always there. They came, they brought interesting gifts and they too worshipped Jesus.

That is what Christmas is all about for most of us. When we think of Christmas, we think of those who were obedient and came to the manger to worship the newborn child. That is the way it is supposed to be and the way we want it to be at Christmas.

Then Herod enters the story. and we really wish he did not. But it is in the story. and it is a vital part of it. In fact, it may be one of the central truths of the story. It should help us put the whole account into the perspective that God wants us to have at Christmas.

Perhaps it would be good to give a little background on Herod since the more we know about him the uglier he becomes. That makes him a more significant picture of what Christmas is all about.

Herod was born in what we know today as the Sinai desert. Technically he was a descendant of Abraham, but he was so through Esau and therefore an Edomite, or as they had come to be known by the time of the New Testament an Idumaean. The Edomites had always been a problem to the Jewish people. About 100 years before Jesus was born the Jewish people conquered them and forced them to become Jews, although they generally did not practice Judaism seriously. 

The story of Herod’s rise to power and his ability to remain in power is the sort of thing soap operas are made of. His father, also named Herod, was the first of the family to rule in Israel. When Herod #1 was poisoned. our Herod was named as his successor. He married the daughter of the High Priest and that initially helped to solidify his power. Later he married a slew of other wives all designed to ensure him greater power. Herod appointed his first wife’s brother to an important position but later arranged to have him killed. Then Herod’s sister told him this wife was sleeping with an uncle so, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Herod had that wife put to death.

It went from bad to worse and in time to ugly. Herod, while being paranoid, was determined to be sure he had absolute control over everything. Any important individual who might challenge him was put to death. He instituted several heavy taxes that enabled him to send significant contributions to Rome which kept him in good with them, but that made him even more unpopular with the Jews. Any rebellion was quashed.

Perhaps to appease the Jews but more likely to build himself up, he re-built the temple making it a magnificent place of worship. It was that temple that Jesus worshipped in when He lived among us. Then to appease the Romans Herod had a golden eagle built that he put in front of the temple. That of course offended the Jews. A group tore down the eagle and Herod had some young men seized and dragged to the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” near Jericho and burned alive there. 

The list of his activities that offended the Jews and pleased the Romans goes on and on. He built a seaport to encourage Roman trade and named it after Caesar. He built an amphitheater to encourage Roman games that offended Jews. His life was characterized by insecurity, fear, brutality, and defiance of the Jewish people. The older he got the more paranoid he became. As he approached his death, he ordered the arrest of hundreds of leading men from every community and gave the order that they were all to be put to death the moment word was received of his death. His reason? He believed that then Israel would be in tears at his death, even if those tears where not for him. His sister repealed that order when he died.

It is against that background that Wilke says, “Across the centuries, Herod the king has become a symbol of evil. We may rather want to forget that he is part of the Christmas story. But let’s keep Herod in Christmas to remind us how desperately we need a Savior in this evil world.”

When we think of the ugliness of Herod, we think of others in history who probably rivaled him in pure evil. Herod ranks with the Hitlers and Osama bin Ladens of the world. The truth, however, is that Herod represents not only those associated with the gross evil, but he represents all of mankind for God declared that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God also declared that when we have committed one sin we are as guilty as Herod or Hitler. It is difficult for us to imagine that the sin problem is either/or, we either have it all or we have none of it.  Jesus makes all the difference there.

The whole problem goes back to the garden when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and sin entered the world. The rest of the Old Testament proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that mankind lives in sin. If the Old Testament proves anything it is that if man is ever going to get beyond the sin issue something radical had to happen. And something radically different happened that day when God became a man. It was because of the sin that allowed a Herod to be as evil as he was that Jesus came. His very name means Savior and that is the reason He came. 

Herod belongs in our Christmas story if for no other reason than to remind us that Christmas, in the final analysis, is not about good people but about bad people, which we all are. Christmas is all about God becoming one of us so He could take our ugly sins upon Himself and pay the penalty for them. Keep Herod in Christmas if only to remind us that without Jesus all of us are really sinners just like Herod, and that because of that Jesus came to be our Savior.

The Wise Men • Matthew 2:1-12

What would the Christmas story be without the presence of the Wise Men and retelling of how they followed a star and worshipped the one they believed was born a king? Then they gave Him incredible gifts. No one in Israel would have considered it a remote possibility that these men, who were for sure Gentiles, would be invited to participate in the birth of a Jewish Messiah. But Jesus came for all men because all of us as sinners desperately need a Savior.  God made it very clear from the beginning that the Messiah had come to bless all men.  

The Wise Men are an interesting part of the Christmas story in part because we know so little about them.

1. They are identified as magi from the east. The word “magi” is the one from which we get our English word “magician.” It had a broader meaning in ancient times. 
2. The expensive gifts they brought, as well as the distance they traveled, tell us they were financially well off. 
3. We know that they had an idea a king would be born, and his birth would be foretold in the stars. 

That is all we really know about them. 

1. We have no idea how many there actually were. We say three because of the three gifts. In the 4^th century people began giving them names. (Casper, Melchior, Baltezar) 
2. There is a tradition that they were baptized by Thomas the disciple and when they died their bodies were preserved in Constantinople. Centuries later, supposedly their bones were moved to Cologne, Germany. For a price you can still see those bones. (Want to buy a bridge?)
3. We assume they were from Persia or Babylon because many in that area were deep into astronomy and astrology. They believed the stars had messages in them. Some speculate they were aware of Daniel’s writings since Daniel lived in what we call Persia today and was associated with those considered the wise men of that community. There is, however, no evidence of that.
4. We don’t even know when the star appeared in relationship to the birth of Jesus. Matthew tells us they came to the house where Jesus was, not to the manger. Herod ordered the slaughter of male children under 2 causing some to wonder if the star might have appeared at least a year earlier although the trip was certainly much shorter than a year even with preparation.

The Wise Men stepped out in faith and followed a star they believed God had given them, even when they really did not know where it was leading or what they would find in the end. If we learn nothing else from those Wise Men, it should be that we must be willing to follow wherever God leads. God is not likely to lead us in as dramatic a way as He did the Wise Men. He has promised, however, that if we are willing, He will lead us so that the decisions we make and the path we follow are in keeping with His perfect desire for us. Following God does not always make sense but, as the Wise Men of old knew, when He leads, we should follow with enthusiasm.

We know that these men followed that star because they felt compelled to go and worship the one we know was born in a manger not a palace as one might expect for a future king. Worshipping Him appears to have been their only reason for making the trip. They simply believed that this one born in Israel was worthy of their worship. There is no hint that they made the trip for any personal gain. They did not make any requests of Him. They merely worshipped Him. Herod also sought Him out but for the wrong reason. Whenever we think of the Wise Men, we need to ask ourselves what we want in Jesus. Do we worship Him because we want Him to bless us or do we worship Him because He is truly worthy of worship? Can we talk to Him in prayer and not make a single request or is our talking to Him focused on what we want Him to do for us? The Wise Men remind us that He is worthy of just simple worship.

In addition to worship, they gave gifts to Him and again there is no hint that they expected anything in return. They gave to honor one they believed was worthy of their gifts. One can only wonder how much more they would have been inclined to give if they had known the rest of the story. What if they had known that this baby born in a manger came to dwell among us so that He could offer us the one thing no amount of money could secure, our redemption.

It is interesting that Matthew recorded exactly what they gave, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It is easy to see them giving Him gold since that was the gift to kings but the other two are a bit strange. Myrrh was a spice used in embalming. We can only imagine that somehow God led them to give those gifts, undoubtedly without them having any idea of their larger significance. It is just like our Lord to take our gifts and use them in unique ways in the lives of others. Matthew recorded specifically what they brought as a way of showing how God uses our gifts to illustrate His love and provision.

Gold was appropriate for a king, so it is easy to see why they chose that. It is interesting that this one born in a barn would be given gold. Jesus seemingly never had the proverbial 2 coins to rub together even though He owned the cattle on a thousand hills and the universe belonged to Him. Did Joseph and Mary use the money to live off when they fled to Egypt?

“Frankincense” was derived by cutting a slit in the bark of an Arabian tree and getting the yellow sap out, much as one gets maple sap out of a tree to make maple syrup. That sap from those trees in Arabia had a special fragrance to it and when it was hardened it was used as incense in worship. Frankincense represents worship. More than any other person born in all of history Jesus is truly worthy of our worship. Read Philippians 2:10, 11.

“Myrrh” likewise came from trees in Arabia. It is brown and became the perfume that was used to anoint dead bodies as part of the burial process.  Matthew undoubtedly saw in the gift of Myrrh a picture of the reason Jesus had come to dwell with us. He came to die for us upon the Cross. 

In Matthew 2:12 we read that having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod they returned by another route. Matthew probably intended to set the stage for what follows but no pastor can resist the temptation to point out that whenever we visit Jesus, we should go out via a different route than we came in. Just being in the presence of Jesus should change so much of how we live that it can literally be called a different route. When we come to Jesus properly, we are made aware of sin in our lives.

1. Sometimes there are sins of commission. We must abandon them.
2. Sometimes there are sins of omission; we are not doing something we should be doing. We must act properly.
3. Sometimes we need an attitude adjustment. We need to experience more fully His peace, trust Him more completely, or love Him more deeply. Sometimes we need a new attitude toward others.

Spiritual growth is becoming more like our Savior. Any time we come into His presence we should learn something that helps us to grow. In coming into His presence, we should discover something that draws us closer to Him. When we go away, we go via a different route than the one we came to Him.

In the final analysis Christmas is not about giving or getting gifts to each other but those things the Wise Men demonstrated for us. 

1. Trusting God to lead them as they followed the star to the one that they knew was to be a King. 
2. Worshiping Him and giving Him gifts because He was worthy of their worship
3. Going away from time with Him via a different route. 

In the year ahead may we be encouraged to worship Jesus, give Him the gifts He deserves, and be changed in the ways He wants to change us so we can become like Him.