Expectations of a Coming King

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. I am not Drew. I am Daniel... Oh, there it goes. What's going on? All right. My name is Daniel Oster, and I'm a deacon here at South Burleson Baptist Church. And coincidentally, my sister, who's two years younger than I am, is speaking at her church this morning, which I thought was a great opportunity for me to say to my parents, hey, whoever you like the most. That's who's you should go here speak this morning. So I guess my parents are running late. I did say 1030. This morning we're going to be in the second half of the first chapter of Mackey. That's a weird way of saying that but we are going to be looking today at the passage where Joseph and Mary are told that they're going to have a baby. We're going to be looking at the context of this situation in those days. And then we're going to focus on the fact that Jesus was greater than any of the Jewish expectations, that this coming King that

they've been waiting for for generations far exceeded anything that they could have imagined. And we're going to spend some time and talk about how we know that even just in the few verses that we'll be in today. But then we're going to look at how what our expectations of Jesus is in our life today and see if those might not be short-sighted as well. So Dylan talking about expectations, if you're like me, when somebody builds something up to be like the best thing ever, this is going to be massive, I tend to lower my expectations because those never seem to really meet my expectations. I usually come away disappointed. We see this all the time, and one thing that it reminded me of is Y2K. Does anybody remember Y2K? First of all, it points out that we had cool text abbreviation before cell phones were even out. Y2K stood for the year of 2000. And during the year of 1999, leading up to it, there was this panic that when our computers

and our infrastructure was only programmed to have the year 19 in it. So when it was going to the next century, it would be 2020. You know, they thought the banks would fail. They thought planes might even fall out of the sky. So I had people pulling money out of banks. I was reading stories. There's a lot of cool, they were saying that as kids talking about their parents at the time and what they did, and one mother actually in suburban bought a dairy cow so that she could have milk for her family after the world collapsed. So as everybody, you know, as the Prince's party like 1999 song faded away and we were watching the ball drop to 2000 on the edge of our seats thinking what is going to happen, what is Y2K going to bring, it was a dud. Nothing happened. Nothing significant happened. It was all just for not. Everybody was prepared. And we have this Old Testament pointing to a coming King, a Messiah that the Jews had

been promised and been waiting for. And they're on the edge of their seats waiting for this King to come. And unlike Y2K, they get something that's even far greater than what they could have ever have expected. So we see all this build up to something that was life changing, that was going to happen to the entire world. And here it was in the form of Jesus on Christmas. And that's kind of the season that we celebrate. Now we're gonna read some very familiar scripture this morning. And I think it's just good to stop down and say, even though you've heard this before, God's word never gets stale, right? Even preparing for this, I was thinking, how can I reach down deep and dust off a theological nugget and show y'all and y'all and be like, ah, I've never heard that before, right? That's not what God's word speaks to us differently every time we read it. And so let us dive into Matthew,

we're gonna be in chapter one verse, we're gonna start with just verse 18, and it says, this is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. So last week, Drew kind of, we walked through the first 17 verses of Matthew, which talked about the human genealogy of Christ. And now we shift and we're looking at the divine genealogy of Christ. And Matthew's gospel starts with Mary who was pledged to be married. And in those days it was customary engagement. Today's is a lot different than engagement then. This was a covenant that can only be broken by divorce. And so it was a serious thing. The women typically were 13, 14 years old, younger, and the men were a few years older as this is happening. And it was normally a one year engagement

before they consummated it. And so during this time, that's when Mary finds out that she's gonna be pregnant. And we won't have to spend a lot of time, but obviously this was gonna look weird to outsiders, that there's this fiance who's pregnant that has never slept with Joseph, right? And so you can imagine all the outside in. But really what I think we can't miss here is really in those last verses where it says, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit was placing the unborn Jesus in her womb, and that is like incredibly significant. And we keep reading it as we read through the next verses. It says it again to Joseph. It says, reading in verses 19 and 20, it says, "'Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, "'he did not want to expose her to the public disgrace. "'He had in mind to divorce her quietly, But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as her wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. So Joseph's aware of this pregnancy, and he says he's trying to be faithful to the law, which means he had two choices. He could divorce her in public, or he could do it in private. And actually, this is laid out in Old Testament Numbers 5. talks about how that's done in private, which is just you hand them a certificate and there has to be two witnesses. So that's why he was planning on doing with Mary. But the angel addresses Joseph as the son of David. And the reason that's important is it's pointing back to the genealogy that we just talked about, 17 verses 4, this prophecy that this coming kingdom's Messiah was going to be from the line of David. And the angel tells him to take Mary as your wife, to not divorce her, because she's conceived

by the Holy Spirit. So we see that again. So just to be clear, Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. And also, this is not where Jesus came into creation, and that's important. And we're gonna read more about that in the next verses that emphasize this. So let's keep moving in the 321 through 23. It says, she will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name of Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. So the angel says, you're gonna name this baby Jesus. Not first name baby, last name Jesus, just first name Jesus. And Jesus means Yahweh saves Yahweh is salvation. And one thing I didn't know until late is Jesus was a very common name for that time. Like almost like what Daniel is in this

church. We've got a lot of Daniels in this church. You know growing up I thought Jesus was like this unique name that really identified Jesus with who he was but there was a lot of Jesus's in that time. That's why a lot of times scripture or when they talk about Jesus they'll say Jesus of Nazareth. So that alone doesn't really describe who he is but as we keep reading I think the significant part here the angel is saying look your king is here who you've been waiting for Jesus and his earth will be his earthly name but what's even more significant is that Matthew connects the prophecy in Isaiah 714 that says Jesus will also be Emmanuel. So the virgin birth and the fulfillment prophecy are prominent in this passage, but I want to really focus on the significance of Immanuel, what that means. So why is Immanuel important? The Scripture tells us what it means, it means God with us. So when applied to

this baby Jesus, what is that? Why is that important? Well, we declare that Jesus is God with us, what is the significance there? And really and truly this implication is one of the most significant tenets of the Christian faith. Without it, really everything else falls apart and that's why it's so important. So let's just quickly look at three facets of Emmanuel, which the three facets are Jesus is God, Jesus is human, and Jesus is with us. Okay, those three things. So Jesus is God. Let's take that first. This in itself is kind of a shock and awe. It there's really not a good illustration but I mean if the president of the United States decided hey you know what I'm going to go live among the homeless people and I'm going to take care of them and I'm going to love on them I'm gonna have relationships with a few of them a lot of us would say it must be like an election year or something right like it would just it

would not make sense. So if that's if that sounds silly to us just in context Think what it means when it says the infinite and holy God is gonna voluntarily step off of his throne and live among sinners. Okay, that kind of loses a little, sometimes we hear it so much, and that's really significant. Jesus is asked who he is, John 10:30 says, I and the father are one. When the Pharisees are asking him in John 8:53, He says, before Abraham was born, I am. This very statement, this declaration that Jesus is God. This claim that Jesus made is what turned the Pharisees against him, right? And it's still one of the most divisive things. Most people, some people, are okay with making Jesus a good prophet, a good teacher, a good historian. But when you start trying to say He is a God, that's where they say, no, I can't buy into that. And that's why it's so important to what we believe.

And though it's one of the hardest things to understand, maybe for us to get our mind around, it also can be one of the easiest because it answers a lot of the other questions for us in our Christian faith. It answers questions like, how could someone be perfect without sin? Well, He was God. He is God. How can you say that Jesus' life is sufficient for all sins of the world? Because he is God. Why should we only follow the teachings of Jesus and no one else? Because he alone, he is God. Those are important aspects. So the entirety of the holiness of God is found in Jesus, and even as an unborn baby in Mary's womb. So he is God, Jesus is God, Jesus was also human. So in addition to believing that Jesus was fully God, we believe he was fully human. So when you say, God was 100%, I mean Jesus was 100% God, and he was 100% human, that math causes our brains to kind of short circuit just a little bit, right?

But it's the truth of what the scriptures are saying. And so what it means is at the same time that Jesus was the creator of the universe and our holy God, he also assumed a complete human nature and all of its limitations. And so by doing so, Jesus experienced human things that we experienced. He experienced hunger, sickness, thirst, temptation, all these are found in scripture, but even things that maybe you can just assume because we're human. I mean to think that Jesus had gas pains is weird, right? I mean I mean, that's weird. But you think about him taking on all that humanity had. Jesus stubbed his toe, probably. Like that, those are things you don't really equate, but he embraced all that humanity had to offer. And the reason being Hebrews laid out, and I think Wes read some of this earlier, it says in Hebrews 2, 14 and 16, since the children have flesh and blood,

he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death, he might break the power of him holds the power of death. That is the devil. So we all like superhero movies and one of the oldest superheroes is Superman. And Superman, you know, he was this, you know, powerful person who had this, who also had to pretend to be human by being Clark Kent. And he was a reporter and he ate with humans and he, you know, worked and but when it came time for something to happen he would turn into Superman, he was Superman, so he would reveal himself and go do Superman duties. And so we may look at Jesus and go, wow, he's a lot like Superman, but the glaring difference is the fact that Superman was an alien. And if you had, if you had tried to drive nails through Superman's hands, they wouldn't go through, right? Because he wasn't human. But our God, our Jesus was fully human.

And so, so this means that our salvation is as dependent on God's humanity as it is His divinity. The fact that the emphasis on Jesus' humanity should equate that also that He is our perfect God. So Hebrews 2:17 says, therefore He had to be made like His brother in every way so that He might become a merciful and high priest. And so we see Jesus is full of God, we see him as fully human, and then we get to Emmanuel, which is God with us. And when you put the Messiah was going to be both fully human, fully God, and now you're saying that he's going to be with us. Think about what the Jewish people were thinking at this time. Think about instances where they were experiencing God up close in previous Old Testament. Things like on Mount Sinai, right, where in Exodus 19-16 it says, On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, a cloud covered the mountain,

and very loud horn sounded. All the people among their tents shook with fear." Okay, what about when our covenant, which represented God, they opened the lid and it killed 50,000 men. Or do you remember how God spoke to Job in chapter 38? It was in a whirlwind, right? Or when he he wrestled with Jacob and he just touched his hip and it went out of socket. Like none of these, like God getting close was a scary encounter and for us to for us to say that Jesus, this baby being born of Mary is going to be Emmanuel, is going to be God who's walking beside us and when he touches people he's healing them he's not striking them dead was something that was far beyond what they have ever expected. And so the idea that God with us was literal, that people could approach him and talk to him, and no priest or sacrifices were needed, and that they would be looking at the Yahweh. This was something that was

very hard for them to comprehend. It's overtly clear that the expectations of the coming King far exceeded what they were expecting. Jesus, and we see that when Jesus started declaring himself as God and actually started forgiving people of their sins, which only God could do. That's when they were aggressively plotting to kill him. So what they'd been waiting for for generations, what they'd been setting on their seats, on the edge of the seats waiting for, was there and they missed it. They missed the fact that their great King, the King that they had been waiting for, to come in the form of Jesus and he was there and they missed it. And today, today our expectations of who Christ in our lives can be lacking. We can miss it. You know, as believers we can declare that Jesus saves our sins and that he died for us on the cross and he rose on the grave.

However, if we just stop at that truth, we miss a lot of what Jesus has to offer. We can miss the good works he has planned for us in every aspect of our life. When I was 21-ish, my dad taught a small church, I preached at a small church, and I took a small group down to our first ever youth camp. A lot of times, some of the kids had never been to a beach. We went to Panama City to go to a life way camp. We purposely went there early so we could get time at the beach. We let out, everybody's super excited. We look out in the ocean, like 100 yards out, there's this sandbar and people are playing and we're like, let's go. So we start swimming. A few minutes in, we notice that those people are kind of frantically swimming in and that we essentially were caught in like this massive riptide that was pulling us out to the ocean. Now this is my very first youth camp and probably the first 10 minutes we've been

there. And I've already got the kids in a riptide. So if you're thinking about my youth duties here, hopefully that disqualifies me. But here we are frantically now turning back to swim against this current that's pulling us out. And so we're swimming in and the most athletic boy that plays football starts yelling, I can't swim. My legs are cramping. I can't swim. So I go over, I try to pull him in and you know, when people are drowning and panicking, a lot of times they try to get on top of you. So he's literally feeling like he's drowning me. And I'm just looking at him, I'm like, we have to figure this out. As we just see like the shore is getting further and further away. I begin to pray and you know, I don't know what it was, it was Angel or a man, but somebody had swam up to us and says, I'm gonna help you, I can help you guys get in. So we're swimming in,

he's helping me get him in and my legs are just burning. We get to the shore. I remember just being like face down, like we made it. I never saw that guy again. I don't I don't I couldn't even point him out and I know I don't know who he was and I really owe my life to him. I mean I would maybe I could have swam in but I was not gonna leave this teenager out there by himself who couldn't swim right so but but what's interesting is that guy did not ever purposely want a relationship with me. He didn't really care about how I was going to grow up and how I was going to had any input in on how my marriage was going to look like. He had no interest in my kids, you know, and he had no interest in really having any relationship with me at all. And the reason I say that is because I feel like we as Christians can sometimes treat Christ similarly and it's totally

different. Christ, like that guy, has saved our lives by dying on the cross for our sins, for taking the penalty for us. This Jesus, this Emmanuel, this God with us. And the fact that he's done that, the fact that he saved us, and we get to spend, when you commit your life to that, you spend eternity in heaven with him is great. But we, like the Jews, miss what he has for us planned right now, right now. And so a few ways to maybe identify this, a few aspects of our life where we have to be careful on it. And I'm thinking about, I'm trying to think about what our expectations are of Jesus in different aspects of our lives right now. Okay? So parents are usually low hanging fruits, so I'll go to them first. You think about what you want for your kids. If you don't have kids, it's your grandkids, niece's nephews, okay? What are your hopes and your dreams for those kids?

What are you hoping to see? A lot of times it gravitates to just this idea of them succeeding in life, right? Maybe it's to be liked by a lot of people, maybe it's to have good grades so they can get into college, be good in sports so they can maybe play high school or college ball, get a good paying job, a big 401k so they can take care of me when I'm old and need taken care of. And it's not that these things are bad, but what would it look like if instead of your hopes for your kids and Jesus Christ working their life was more than succeeding in life, but it was to be captivated by Jesus? Think about how your actions would change, your wants for those kids, your kids, growing up in their spiritual walk daily. Being used by God in mighty ways as they get older, even if it meant a missionary halfway across the world, which scares, if you're a parent, that scares you to death.

But if your perspective is that you want Christ just prominent in their life, you want to be captivated by Jesus and Jesus had them to do that, that is exciting. Okay? What about burying a believer, praying for their future spouse now? Leading other people to think that your kids, your grandkids, your niece's nephew are gonna lead other people to relationship with the Lord, or gonna be used to God. Those are like great ambitions. Have contagious faith that spills over into every relationship they have. Those are great expectations to pray and strive for. And the things that would change, the things that would change for that would be you would start praying for your kids specifically for their daily walk every day. You would teach your kids how to have a quiet time. You would memorize script from the verses together. You read and pray outside of just right before dinner.

You're gonna be vulnerable with your kids. You're gonna apologize to your kids. These are things to have them be captivated by Jesus. So students, do we have students in here that go to school? Okay, all right, if you've been zoning out for 20 minutes, I'll catch you up. We'll talk about expectations of Christ in your life, okay? And so I'm thinking, talking to you specifically, I've got a couple of them, Think about what your hopes are for Jesus Christ in your life. And I think a lot of times it can be just to survive.

To get through school, unscathed, with the least amount of damage possible, to stay out of trouble, to make good grades, to stay out of the crosshairs of everything kind of going on around you, to keep your parents happy enough and keep them off of your back, right? Let me say though, to the students directly, I want you to hear this, I think you guys have it harder than we ever had it. I mean, it's tough. I get this idea of surviving, I have two of them.

I mean, things like cyberbullying, things like gender is now an opinion, the ease of pornography within a couple clicks, I mean, you guys have it tough. So, before I get emotional, because I have kids, think about what it would mean to, instead of having this idea of surviving, because Jesus is more than that, what would it be if you had the idea of what it looked like, how Jesus could use you to impact others?

What if you expected Jesus to use you in mighty ways in someone else's life? What if you begin to pray for the people you're in contact with at school? Like, constantly pray for them. constantly ask them how they're doing. Look for opportunities to even just share what Jesus has done in your life. What if you asked a friend to start reading the Bible with you or even coming to church with you? See how the perspective changes from this idea of surviving, which I get to this idea of Jesus using you to impact others. Lastly, church, don't get away from this either. This is a really good question to ask. You know, what are your hopes and dreams of Jesus working through this church? When I say this church, I mean everybody in this room. What are your hopes and dreams for the work that Christ is going to do through us? A lot of times we can have a limited view of just wanting to just accommodate all people.

And I mean that looks like providing fun things for our kids to do. church that's attractive to young families. Have an energetic pastor that has a trendy haircut and a cool tattoo on his arm. People caring for their people, other people's needs, you know, like a real popular vibrant Wednesday night that students are coming to from all over Burleson and they get read the Bible. All those things are awesome and great. But I think that the Lord even has more plan for our church and that looks like investing in others. So you think about how our motivations change as a church when we're trying to invest in others for the future of the kingdom versus just accommodating other people. You know rarely when you hear people are unsatisfied or dissatisfied with a church it's never really like I don't feel like y'all are spending enough time discipling people or investing in people. It usually has to do something

with us. So what would a church look like if we said hey we're glad you're here on a Sunday morning but eventually their expectations of a good church only depends on what happens in this hour. That is shortchanging the Christian life because there's so much more to be in communion with each other to be in groups where you can share your sin struggles and read the Bible together and be vulnerable is something we try to do through life groups here. And so you think about our church's vision, which essentially is to plant four churches in 20 years or seven or three years into this almost up to seven to seven years. That is ambitious, right? But I'm a skeptic. So I'm just like, you know, Drew can tell you, I've kind of just said four churches. I mean, we've gone through that. But what it shows, what I think it shows is we have big expectations of what Christ

is going to do through us. The four churches thing has nothing to do with our abilities. It really doesn't. It has to do with us finding the importance of investing in other people so that they can have deep relationships with the Lord. And the people who don't know the Lord can know Jesus like we do. And my family's been impacted by someone investing in them. Well, my parents were early 20s. They left church and I was a small kid. This United Methodist pastor would come around, visit four or five times a month trying to get my parents back into church. And finally it worked. They got back into church and they started participating and rededicated their life. And I'm sure that's really kind of the goal of what that pastor had, but what he didn't see and probably has no idea what has happened since then is that by his obedience and investing in somebody else's life, that family, my family, my parents, my dad ended up pastoring a church

in Texas. He changed how he raised his kids in a Christian home, gave us Christian values. We saw a good Christian marriage. And then now my sister and I can pass that on to our kids. So you see how the expectations of just visiting that person trying to get them to church, you see how Christ totally blew that out of the water and still is doing that? Those are the type of things that I want us as a church, as a people of God to just come to expect those big things to happen, to raise our bar onto what we really want Christ doing through us. And so the fact that Jesus was fully God and fully human and is in his Emmanuel is with us, far exceeds anything the Jews or us can ever imagine. Jesus Christ does more than just save us. He invites us into relationship, into work right now. So as a follower of a Christ, as a member of a church, as a student, as a parent, married

single, ask Jesus to help you identify areas where you may just be shortchanging him. Ask him if your prayer requests, if your wants and desires align with his and these different aspects of your life. And if you're someone who has heard this before and maybe even kind of believe it to be true, but you've never really committed your life to Christ, your expectations of Christianity maybe that it's just kind of a set rules that this the do's and don'ts. I would just encourage you to just continue reading God's Word. Take Matthew. We're already one chapter in. Just continue reading about the life of Jesus and just be praying about what your expectations are and what a relationship with Christ would look like. So as we close, Drew is going to be down here when we sing our next song.

And if you have interest in being a member or want to be prayed for, you can come up and do that. And, but I just want to encourage us as we go into worship in this next last song, because it's, it's kind of, it gives us really time to reflect and to worship the God who sits on his throne. And so allow those words to either wash over you or be a song to your heart to sing out and to worship Him. So let me go ahead and close us in prayer. Lord, you're great and good and mighty and true.

You're loving and merciful. And Lord, I just as we read a familiar story of the birth of Christ and what that looks like, Lord, just help this not to be just redundant in our lives, just let it wash freely over us. The impact of God stepping off of his throne for us, pursuing us. You were chasing us even when we despised you, hated you. You came down, you accomplished all of the energy, conquered, you left death.