Sermon: Advent 3 – Grant Vissers

Pastors here at the church and it's good to be with you, good

to be together, good together and to worship.

So welcome we have been now for this is our 4th week talking

about Advent and it's Advent only Week 3.

We started a week early and one of the things that we did on

that first Sunday for us on Advent 0.5 was encourage one

another to slow down and to try to embrace some of the practices

that the church has been following and using for

thousands of years now to to really prepare ourselves for

Jesus birth into the world again.

And so Advent, for those of you who who are newer to church,

Advent is this beautiful season of preparation and anticipation

where we wait for Jesus and we prepare ourselves again to hear

this story. And for some of us, it might be

hearing the story for the first time.

And for some of us, it might be hearing the story in a new way

for the first time. Some of us, it might feel like

the 99th time we've heard the story.

And there's still something there for you.

There's still an invitation to wait and to anticipate and to

prepare and to slow down. One of the things that we gave

out on Week 1 was this sheet of different practices that you

could incorporate or attempt to incorporate into your life.

And one of the things that I said was please don't try to

incorporate all of them because that would defeat the purpose of

slowing down. Like it's not A to do list.

So my family, I just wanted to share a little bit of an update

because it's it's great. My family, we did the last one.

We picked that last one. The last practice that we wrote

on that paper was to build, to create, to make an Advent

wreath. And then as we're doing here,

once a week, gather together and light the candle, pray, read

scripture and talk about the story of Jesus's birth.

And so my kids helped and we bought this great little wax kit

and rolled our own candles made of beeswax.

You can do that. That's a thing if you're

curious. But then so we made these

candles and I bundled them like, you know what look really great?

It looks so nice. I'll bundle them all up together

and I'll tie them in nice, nice little bow and we'll put them in

the centre of our table. And so we're like 2 weeks in

from lighting this thing and the whole thing is like melted.

So we're like forget the four candles plus the 5th Christ

candle inside. We're like this mess of candles

ish that all just puddled. And so it's not perfect and it's

not intended to be. It is a good practice to do

together and so it's not too late to encourage you to try to

slow yourselves down between now and Christmas, as hard as that

might sound. There's just a beauty to

embracing that and the messiness of it and the failures of it.

Like me trying to think, pretend or convince myself I can make

candles that will last. But that's that's the

invitation. What I wanna do is pray.

And then we're gonna be shortly into Matthew chapter 2 today and

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

we're continuing the story of Jesus birth.

And today in chapter 2, we see the Magi visit Jesus.

And so that's where we're going to begin.

We're going to read probably about 12 verses starting there.

But let me pray and then we'll jump in together.

You got thanks for your love and thank you for your grace.

Thank you that you are with us and that you invite us into

these spaces and places that you've prepared.

And here, it's here we get to sing and lift, hide the name of

Jesus. We're able to slow ourselves

down and pray. We're able to take some deep

breaths in and experience your presence and know the power of

your spirit in this place. So yeah, I pray that in these

next few minutes as we read from the Scripture, as we challenge

ourselves again with Jesus, your birth, what it means for us,

what it means for this world that you love and have redeemed

and our redeeming winning back to you.

Yet I pray that you would do what you need to and you would

speak to each one of us the words that we need to hear.

Yeah, whether it is for the 99th time or whether it is for the

first time in a brand new way. Yeah, I pray you get ahold of

each one of us. Speak to us now.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. So in our series, in our Advent

series, not the .5. But beyond that in our series

week one we looked at how at just the right moment God chose

to speak into a very specific story.

So week one we looked at how God spoke to Joseph and called

Joseph said do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.

What is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Baby will be born year to name of Jesus and which challenged

ourselves looked at the idea that God wants to speak into our

stories and the God wants to speak into your story like no

matter where you find yourself, no matter what season of life

you find yourself in, God has something to give into that

story and to call you toward in that story.

God wants to speak to you. And Week 2, we looked at how God

then interrupted Joseph's life in the middle of what was for

him a messy story. And we talked about God's desire

to continue to interrupt our own lives.

Your life that God has something for you, desires to speak to

you, call you into something, and then that thing is probably

going to interrupt the ideas that you have for your own life,

the plans that you have for your own life.

We talked about many different kinds of interruptions, ones

that God gives, brings into our lives, ones that He does not.

But where is the invitation to obey and to seek after God in

the midst of those interruptions?

And so you can look at it this way.

Week 1, what we said was listen. Listen.

Our heart for you is to listen the guard as he speaks.

We too, we said obey. Our heart is for you to learn

and to trust and to begin to obey God as he interrupts your

life or into the interruptions of your life.

What is it that God has for you? And one of the things that I

really hope each of us walked away with from both of those

weeks. Is this a sense or beginning to

wonder at what might change in your life if you finally said

yes to God? What would God do if you finally

gave up on some of the things that He is calling you to

surrender, some of the things that you've been holding on to?

How might your story need to change so that you can continue

to say yes to God and continue to choose to obey and to move in

His direction? How might it actually change if

and as you do? What is God interrupting?

What needs to be interrupted in your life?

And what is God calling you to do with the interruption or in

the midst of the interruption? Today what I want to look at is

what happens when God enters your story and you do begin to

listen and obey God into the things that He's challenging you

with right in the middle of your story.

What would it begin to look like if you chose to obey, if you

chose to say yes, if you chose to step in and lean into the

things that God is offering and calling you to do?

I don't know about you, but here's the thing about about my

own life, about my own brain. I don't love the middle of any

story, right? I I don't love like, it's like,

let's get to the end. Let's figure out how it's going

to be like, don't make me wait and sit in this unresolved kind

of wondering and waiting and tension of life.

And is this, how is this gonna play out?

Like, let's get to the end of the story.

And I don't know if you've ever done this and I've talked about

this before, but you're reading a book and you're like, this is

too intense. I'm just going to flip to the

end and make sure, OK, everything turns out great.

OK, I can go back and I can exist in the tension, right?

Or if you're watching a TV show, if you're going through like

series and you keep jumping to the next one because you're just

like, OK, I can't sit here. They've left me.

Now I have to hit that like play next button, right?

Like, are you still anyways? You just have to continue

watching because you also maybe you can identify with struggling

to sit in the middle of it. I want to know what the outcome

is. Like, I want to know what the

goal is, What's the outcome? Let's get to that finish line.

Let's at least know that it's there.

Can we skip skip a few steps and get there even faster?

Hey, fantastic. But that's not the pace of life

with Jesus, is it? That's not the pace that Jesus

lived his life, and it's not the pace that He invites any of us

into as we live out our lives. See, I think God is calling you.

Each of you is calling me to take a step of obedience, and

that's gonna look different for each of you, but it's a step of

obedience in the middle of whatever it is that you're going

through. It's not like I would like it to

be a big jump to the end. It's like God, I will obey if

you can just tell me what the final step is.

What God is calling you to do is take a step, a little step of

obedience in the middle of wherever He has you right now,

before you know the outcome. Because I'm convinced that when

you begin to listen and when you begin to obey, God isn't as

concerned. I don't think about changing

your immediate situation or circumstance, but what is going

to begin to happen is that throughout all of your little

steps of obedience and trust, God is going to begin to change

you. You will change and we got

changes. You.

The direction of your entire life can and does change along

with it, and so I want to read. This is the story of the Magi

after Jesus, it says, was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the

time of King Herod. Magi from the East came to

Jerusalem and asked where is the one who has been born King of

the Jews? We saw his star when it rose,

and we have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he

was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

When he had called together all the peoples, chief priests and

teachers of the Law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be

born in Bethlehem, in Judea. They replied, For this is what

it was written. But you, Bethlehem, in the land

of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, For

out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them

the exact time the star had appeared.

He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully

for the Child. As soon as you find him, report

to me, so that I too may go and worship Him.

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the

star they had seen when it rose, went ahead of them until it

stopped over the place where the child was.

When this when they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary,

and they bowed down and worshipped him.

Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of

gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a

dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country

by another route. So there are many things that

begin to happen as you choose to trust and to listen and to obey

God in the middle of your story. And all I wanna do today is

suggest three things. I I think we see in this story

at least three things that begin to happen when God enters your

story and when we begin to obey. And I'm not going to make you

wait till the end to work out which three there are.

I'm going to give it to, I'm going to get you right from the

very beginning. All right, So these are the

three things that I believe this story shows us as the Magi

arrive and as they encounter and meet Jesus.

Number one, you will experience change.

Something in your life is going to need to change.

You will experience there will be opposition.

So #1 you're gonna experience change #2 there will be

opposition. This is why I wanted to give you

all three at the very beginning. Because third, I do believe you

will find joy. I didn't want to leave you

hanging with, hey, there's gonna be change and there's gonna be

opposition and make you think and wonder.

Like, is the third one gonna be bad too?

All right, there's there is going to be your will experience

change. There will be opposition along

the way, but you will. Here's the promise.

I believe you will find joy. So after Jesus.

We worked through this story. After Jesus was born in

Bethlehem, Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from

the East came to Jerusalem and asked where is the one who has

been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and

have come to worship him. We don't know a lot about these

magi. They've kind of taken on a life

of their own over the years. They tend to be portrayed as

kings or wise men. If you see pictures of them

painting works of art, different things.

Wise men who came, kings who came for starters, throughout

Christian history, right? They've they've morphed.

They're, they've got magi and then we have wise men and then

we have kings. Also, probably if I were to ask

some of you, and I'm not going to do that, but we each each

probably pretty quickly say there were three of them, right?

Because there was a hymn written in the 1800s, We 3 Kings, 1857.

We 3 Kings. It was written by a man named

John Henry Hopkins Junior. We sing the Carol, right?

We 3 kings. And so we say they're three.

Probably more than three. The magi they're they're

interesting characters. So their title, Magi We is the

word we use to get magician magic.

They weren't magicians in the sense of like, deception.

They were priests, but they weren't Jewish priests.

They were likely Persian and they weren't, like I said, they

weren't magicians like we think of magicians.

They were astrologers who studied the stars in the skies

and made determinations based on what they saw.

So these magi who came maybe 3 probably more likely came from

one of two places. Persia.

Some say Persia, modern day Iran, and some say from Babylon,

close to what would be Baghdad now in Iraq.

And So what we see over and over in the Scriptures is that they

come from the east, and that term usually means Babylon.

So here's these magi, maybe 3, probably more priests from

another nation who travel about 12 to 1600 kilometres to see

Jesus. This is like A2 probably 3 to 4

month trip by caravan along the known trade routes at that time

that these Magi would have had to go through in order to arrive

and to meet Jesus. So again, like we said, we've

got some number of Magi, Persian astrologers who traveled 1200 to

1600 kilometres to find a baby who was born who wasn't even

there. King, but aching.

And they do it because they follow a * says we saw his star.

We saw his star when it rose. And we have come.

Not only have they come to see him, says they have come to

worship him. Was it curiosity?

Spiritual hunger. Did they expect to find Jesus or

were they expecting to find someone else?

Were they there to honour the new King or just get into his

good graces? Like, we don't know a whole lot

about who these people were. What we do know is that Matthew

is shocking his Jewish and then Christian readers with the fact

that they were outsiders, outsiders who had come and who

recognized Jesus as the true king.

And in order to do that, in order to recognize Jesus as the

true king, they had to get up from where they were, and they

had to travel three to four months along trade routes, 12 to

1600 kilometres to be in Jerusalem and then Bethlehem to

meet Jesus. And when they do, they recognize

Him as the true King. They get up and they go.

They respond to what God is doing in the world.

They respond to what they were seeing.

They respond to the thing that God had come to do, and in doing

so, in getting up and in going, in embracing the journey to see

Jesus, what they end up finding is the true King of the world.

Not just the King of the Jews, not just the baby who was born,

but one who is the King of kings.

So for these maji, there's sacrifice and there's surrender

involved in this journey. And for us and for you, there is

sacrifice and there is surrender involved in the journey of

listening to what God is doing in your life and in the world

around you. One of the first things that you

do that you are called into and called to embrace, one of the

first things that happens when you respond to God is change.

Your life won't be the same. There will be something for you

to do and it may be costly, but there is something that God is

calling you to embrace, a journey that you are being

called to go on, a place for you to go.

You cannot follow Jesus and stay where you are.

This is why I love the words of the hymn that we sang.

Come to Bethlehem and see him whose birth the angels saying,

come to Bethlehem. This is the journey of

Christmas. This is the journey of Advent

that you are invited on to come and see.

Come and see him whose birth the angels sing, but not only come

and see. Come adore on bended knee,

Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

It's not just about coming and witnessing the thing.

It's not just about knowing it. It's not just about even seeing

it happen in front of you. We're reminded to come adore

him. The magi arrive and they worship

Jesus and and that's the him. Listen, on bended knee, what do

you bend the knee toward? Where do you?

To whom do you do you bend the knee?

Christ, the Lord, the newborn King.

And so I wonder this Advent, I wonder into this Christmas

season as we move through it, and I wonder into the new year,

what is it that God is calling you to walk toward?

What is it that God is calling you to move toward, right?

Is it to move toward forgiveness, to forgive, or to

ask to be forgiven? Is it to pick up the phone and

reach out and choose to trust? Is it to walk toward healing?

Is it to move toward healing, to finally deal with the thing that

you've been putting off? To finally address it, To

finally own it, To finally admit to it, to finally wrestle it out

and deal with the thing. Is it a move toward community,

like joining a group or volunteering or asking for help

rather than hiding? Is it a move toward generosity?

Trusting God to give even when things feel tight.

To bless somebody who can't repay you?

What is God calling you to move toward?

What might that 12 to 1600 kilometre journey look like for

you this Christmas season? And with it, what comfort might

God be calling you to leave? Because as we go, we leave

comfort behind, even just in the sense that we leave what we know

behind. I'm not gonna surmise, I don't

know what where these magi were living and what their life was

like when they left, but it wouldn't have been comfortable

along the way. We know that for a long trip

would have embraced discomfort in order to be with Jesus.

And So what is it that you are too or that God is causing you

or calling you to leave behind as a control, trusting God with

something that you have tried to manage on your own?

Is it self protection? The masks that we put on or the

guard, the Shields, the defences that we put up because we just.

I've trusted once too many times and been hurt once too many

times. Trusting that opening up to God

and even to others is for your health and wholeness and

healing. Is that to leave behind the

comfort that is convenient or even self-image, what you think

of yourself and what you want others to think of you?

Is it leaving behind even the comfort of being stuck, or

staying stuck because so often we don't want to move toward

healing? Because dysfunction is familiar,

and at least it's predictable and it doesn't ask anything of

me. I know it.

What is God calling you to leave behind as you go?

Here's what we see in the Magi Believing in something doesn't

mean thinking differently about the thing.

It means moving toward it, and it means allowing it to change

you and actually changed the way you live.

And our obedience to Jesus isn't just believing something to be

true, it means moving toward Him.

And whenever you move toward Jesus, he's gonna lead you out

of something that is comfortable for the sake of something that

is better with the magic I find is so much more than they could

have imagined or expected because they don't just find

king of the Jews, they find king of the world and they find the

true King of kings and Lord of Lords.

Frederick Beecher, he says this. He's got a great line about

faith. He said faith is stepping out

into the unknown, with nothing to guide us but a hand just

beyond our grasp. God is calling you toward

something. There needs to be change in your

life. There will be change number one.

Number two, there will be opposition.

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed.

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them

the exact time the star had appeared.

He sent them to Bethlehem and said go and search carefully for

the child. As soon as you find him, report

to me so that I too may go and worship him.

Spoiler alert, that's not what he wants to do.

When the magi arrive in Jerusalem, they don't

immediately find Jesus. Jesus is in Bethlehem, but they

arrive in in Jerusalem and instead they find a ruthless and

insecure leader. They find King Herod, who's

paranoid that someone would be challenging his kingship.

In fact, Herod was so insecure in who he was and so paranoid

that somebody would overthrow him and take over his position

as king. He had two of his sons executed

because he thought they were plotting against him.

Again, spoiler alert, They weren't.

At least as far as we know. But that's how he lived his

life. Fearful, paranoid that somebody

would find out, would overthrow. He would lose who he is here.

It is disturbed because the coming of another king, even the

coming of a Messiah, would mean the end of his kingship, the end

of his time as king. And I think in so many ways,

Herod represents the worst of human inclination toward change,

and more broadly, toward what God is doing in the world.

Because Herod represents all of fear and control and

manipulation and threat that you and I can also experience.

When we feel like somebody's after us or when we're a little

bit concerned with somebody's after us, they might not be

right. When we feel threatened, what

are the things that we default to become afraid?

We can try to control, we can try to manipulate.

We can try to figure everything out so that it works out just

the way we want. I think, you know, recognize

some of these patterns in yourself.

Harold sees this baby's birth as a threat and he's terrified of

what it might mean for him. And so he does what so many of

us try to do when we are also fearful and insecure.

He tries to control and manipulate the magi.

And so he says go and search for him.

Like, go and find him for me, Go search so they're sent.

Go and search carefully for the child and then report back to me

so that I can also worship him. When God gets ahold of your life

and when you begin to do the things that God is calling you

to do. When your life actually does

begin to change, you will also face opposition and criticism

for doing the things that God is calling you to do.

Why? Because it exposes people's

insecurity. Because it threatens comfort.

Because they can't control your obedience or maybe don't

understand it, people can become fearful of what it might mean

for their life. If these things are true, how

might it now be demanding of me that I change?

And, and so maybe at times we try, people try to see the

change through their own lens or understand it through their own

worldview or make sense of it. But more commonly, what happens

people try to dismiss it or contain it or limit it or

explain it away or control it and use it like OK great, how

can I benefit from this scenario and situation here?

Tries to manipulate and use the magi for his own selfish

reasons. Why?

Because Jesus's Kingdom will always challenge and clash with

the kingdoms of the world. Jesus's Kingdom will always

challenge the kingdoms that are ruled by kings and would be

wannabe kings. And Jesus's Kingdom also

challenges the kingdoms that we've created in our own hearts

and in our own minds and in our own lives.

Because again, you may Here's the thing.

You may experience opposition out there, and you may

experience opposition to what God is doing in here.

Your own heart and your own mind might push against what God

wants to do in your life. You might experience opposition

that is entirely internal. Sometimes the herd we face isn't

out there, but the herd we face is in here because God's Kingdom

pushes against the kingdoms of darkness and even the little

kingdoms of darkness that exist in you and in me.

And those kingdoms don't go quietly into the night.

They don't wanna be defeated. They don't wanna be overthrown.

Hard shows us that the greatest threat to obedience isn't always

outside of us. Sometimes it's part of us that

refuses to let Jesus be King, and so internally we face

opposition of not wanting to let go of control and be like, I

finally thought I understood. Now you're telling me to let go.

Because we also fear what is unknown, and because we want

comfort given by old things, we struggle with insecurity.

Who will we become if we do the thing, God, that you're calling

me to do? How will others see me?

We sit in the shame of past wounds that we can't get out of

looping feedbacks in our brain and in our mind and heart.

And to you right says this about the Kingdom of God.

He says when God kingdoms or when God's Kingdom comes into

the world, the kingdoms that have set themselves against him

do not submit quietly. Following Jesus will mean

opposition as his Kingdom pushes against the kingdoms of

darkness. And as his Kingdom wins, there

will be opposition. John 14 says in Jesus there was

life, in Him was life, and that life was the light of all

mankind. He says the light shines in the

darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, and cannot and

will not and does not. But God's Kingdom does push

against even inside of you these little kingdoms that don't want

to submit quietly. There will be opposition.

So number one, there will be change #2 there will be

opposition #3 there will be joy. The magi still do the thing that

they came to do. They find Jesus and they worship

him. So when they saw the star, they

were overjoyed. All right, the Magi were

overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw

the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and

worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures

and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and Mer.

On the other side of change and on the other side of opposition,

internally or externally, is joy, because there is joy to be

found in Jesus and in Jesus presence.

There is joy to be found in finding Jesus, in walking toward

him along the way that he leads on the other side of change, on

the other side of opposition. Joy.

And the magi experience joy. They experience joy of presence,

the joy in Jesus presence. They're overjoyed, says when

they saw the star, they're overjoyed because they found who

they were looking for. This is the implication.

They found Jesus Henry now, and though he says this for each of

us who wants to experience joy in our life, joy does not simply

happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep

choosing it every day. This is what the Magi choose

when they choose to go, and when they choose to be the ones who

find Jesus. They experience the joy of

Jesus's presence, the joy of knowing Him.

What I want to give you is two ways to choose joy that we see

in the magis life. Two things.

Joy is and will always be the outcome of worship.

This is #1 Joy is in so many ways the natural result of

worship. Because worship centres your

life around Jesus, worship orients and points your life.

It directs your attention and your affection around the only

one who can satisfy you truly. And so as you lean into worship

and as you honour and lift high the name of Jesus and the person

of Jesus, you will experience joy.

Joy will be an outcome of worship because worship centres

you around the presence of Jesus.

And joy numbers us #1 joy is the outcome of worship.

Joy is more than an emotion. This is number 2.

It says they give gifts. They opened their treasures and

presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and murr.

Now, these gifts, they're not just any gifts.

These gifts aren't just OK, well, what do we have in our

pockets? Like, what could we pick up

along the way? It's not like OHS we forgot

something and we gotta hit up like a store on our way through

Jerusalem and into Bethlehem and find something to buy this

little baby. These gifts were gifts that were

reserved for a king. And with it, with these gifts

that they choose to bring and offer Jesus, the Magi are

declaring Jesus to be king. It's not just like, hey, we

think that you would like these things.

Like what kid is like gold, frankincense and murr.

Yeah. OK, game on.

I don't know a kid who would love any of those things.

Seriously. Like if I trust me the gold is

gonna it's a long play, it'll be OK.

They gold, frankincense and myrrh.

This is these are the magis declarations over Jesus that he

is the king of kings. One of the primary jobs that a

magi had in their religion and system was to declare the King

of Persia as King of Kings. In fact, one of the other names

for the King of Persia was King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

And So what these magi are doing is stepping away.

They're walking away from that declaration and that form of

obedience to that other king and declaring Jesus to be the true

King of kings and Lord of Lords over and above their king would

be King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And so I think what they find is

that joy, their state overjoyed, is because of the presence of

Jesus. It is because they worship

Jesus, and it is because they choose to offer and give and

submit and arrive at Jesus with their gifts to declare him King

of Kings and Lord of Lords. And there is joy for you to be

experienced in the presence of Jesus as you worship him and

declare him to be King of kings and Lord of Lords.

John 15 Jesus says this. He says as the Father has loved

me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love.

So if you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as

I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love.

I've told you this so that my joy may be in you.

Jesus does long to give you his joy and for you to experience

it. And he says, and that your joy

might be complete, it might be full, it might lead to

flourishing of life, the fullness of it.

You listen. Learn to listen to God as He

speaks to you and obey as you move toward Jesus.

You are going to experience change, and change will always

be hard, and there will always be opposition, and sometimes the

greatest opposition will be inside your own heart and your

own mind. But on the other side of those

things, and as Jesus leads you through them, what you will find

is just more of Jesus's presence.

And with it, along with it, you will find the joy that only

Jesus can give. And it is a joy that you have to

choose over and over again. It is a joy that's found on the

road as you follow, as you live your life out.

It is joyless we found in worshipping Jesus.

It's joy to be found in bringing gifts that we have and place

them at His feet. And it's a joy that God honors,

and it's a joy that God provides for you so that it may be

complete. I love the way that this story

ends. That's not it, That's a quote.

Having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they,

the Magi, returned to their country by another route.

There are so many things that I don't have time to get into

about this passage. This one verse.

I love that they go home alright.

It's like Jesus doesn't say, OK, you're here, game on, time to

stay and stick around and have a big old party.

And just like you stay here and keep bringing me these gifts of

like gold, frankincense and Mer, the magi are sent home and

they're sent home to another country.

And T right. And his commentary says he said,

listen, don't miss the fact that what Matthew is doing here is

declaring from the very beginning, Jesus's birth is not

just for the people of Israel. Jesus's birth was for all

people. And we begin to see it declared

even here at the very beginning of Matthew's Gospel.

But having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod,

they returned to their country by another route.

That's what I want us to land on for today.

You cannot experience the presence of Jesus and go back

the same way you came. You can't experience it, the

presence of Jesus, and then just keep living life as though

nothing has changed. And yes, there's provision here.

The magi don't go back to Herod and they don't tell Herod where

they found Jesus. And there's a whole lot

happening here. But they go back by another

route because they had met Jesus and because their lives have

been changed by Jesus. And so I wonder, this is all it

is. I wonder what different route

might God be inviting you onto this season and into the next

new year and for the remainder of your life?

Let me pray. God thinks that you love us and

you do have something for each of us.

And yet again, whether this is a story that we've heard hundreds

or thousands of times, whether this is a story that we're

hearing in a new way, whether this is a story we're hearing

for the first time, there is an invitation to each one of us.

And so God, for some it is an invitation for the very first

time to surrender and to confess sins.

And our need for you, Jesus, Redeemer, One who wins back once

he breaks down darkness, One who wins over sin and death and

brings and breathes new life into into us.

Yeah, whether it's for those of us who need to hear a a new step

of obedience, like maybe we've been living in a pattern for far

too long and we know God, you're calling us out of it.

Whether it's to hear the story and to be the support for

someone along the road. Whether it's to choose finally

to go back by another route, to lay some stuff down Jesus at

your feet, and to pick up life inside your Kingdom at I pray.

Would you speak to each one of us today and as we continue to

lift high Jesus your name as we continue to sing and pray and

then as we go from this place. May we also go as people who are

changed because we met you and because we encountered Jesus

your presence. Thanks.

Let us not contained in this building.

It doesn't it's not just like oh, you gotta get to the special

place to meet you thinks that your presence goes with us

explodes into the world. Yeah.

We're so grateful that you love us.

Help us to love you in Jesus name, Amen.

You stand. With us as we sing.

God, I look to you. I won't be overwhelmed.

Give me the vision to see things like you do.

God, I look to you, you're wearing my hell comes from.

Give me wisdom. You know just what to do.

I will. My strength I will.

Lord this shit. No, my wrong forever, all my

days I will love you. God, I look to you.

I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision to see things

like you. Do what I look to you, You wear

my hell comes from. Give me wisdom.

You know just what to do. I will love you, Strange.

I will love you Lord, and now will my forever all my days I

will love you God. Yeah, how they are.

God, how dare you? God reigns forever.

All my days. How dare you?

Yeah, and I will love you. Goodbye Stray, I will love you.

Ah, she I will love you goodbye forever.

All my days I will love you God. Yeah.

They. How are you?

Every day. How they?

How? Forever.

All night days. And then please be seated and

join me for the prayers of the people.

Gracious God, we thank you for this time of Advent.

Thank you for this time we are able to slow down, to wander, to

share in the joy of the season together as a church community.

We praise you, God, for your name, Emmanuel, that you are God

who is with us as we think on this mystery and wonder.

We praise you that you so loved your wayward people.

You were not content to simply dwell in our mist in the temple,

but you actually took on skin and blood and became one of us

to be with us, to know our grief, our temptation, and our

need. Lord, in the season with the

holidays, we pray for those in our church who experience

renewed reminders of grief, of loss, of a loved 1, of hardship.

And we pray that they would know you.

Who is with them? Would you draw them close?

Would they know your tender care?

Would You equip us as Your body to bear each other's burdens and

to love each other in Word, and indeed giving to each other as

you have given to us? And Lord, when we are tempted to

look outside at the headlines raging, and we are left just

waiting in a mystery with weary questions, would you help us not

to miss You, Your Holy Spirit drawing us near, would you help

us to?