MID WEEK MOTIVATION - HOPE "Holiday Preparations and Advent Reflections" Matthew 1 & 2

You're listening to the Midweek Motivation Podcast from DeSoto Hills Baptist Church in South Haven Mississippi.

Here's your hosts Mark Lewis, david Burgess and Pastor Grant Stegall.

Welcome to the Midweek Motivation Podcast here at DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.

I'm Mark Lewis and I'm Grant Stegall and we hope this programming can encourage folks throughout DeSoto County and beyond.

Be sure to subscribe and share our link on social media.

So I have to make a confession.

The first few episodes I kept saying midweek moment and I'm the one who came up with these titles, so, like it's my fault, we do have the devotion segment in the middle that I decided to call the Moment, but then I called the podcast Midweek Motivation.

So those of you who hear it and be like you said, Moment and Motivation, you keep mixing them up.

Yes, I keep mixing them up.

We have had a Wednesday night Bible study that your dad led, that Brother James led, that was called the Midweek Moment, oh so you could be be subconsciously stole that.

Uh, we do plan on.

Uh, maybe I'll eventually get this straight.

I wanted to let everyone know, though we plan on releasing these on Wednesdays.

The time can vary, grant, because we record it and upload it.

Um, and recording can take place whenever we get a chance the two of us to sit down together, which is not necessarily the same every week because our schedules can vary.

We can't control the exact time that Apple will upload that.

We can control what time it will go on our website.

So typically, you'll see that on Wednesday mornings early.

If it's a crazy week and me and Grant can't get it recorded until Wednesday, you'll see it Wednesday evening.

So that is our plan.

All right, Grant, the church is decorated.

It looks amazing.

We have lots of events coming up, but tell us a little bit about the decorations in the church and some of the people who helped make that happen.

Well, man, it's a big undertaking, always has been.

I've always loved Christmas here at DeSoto Hills.

The church from before I got here has always been just beautifully decorated.

Takes a ton of people.

I almost hate to list people because that's definitely dangerous, but you know, historically Miss Jennifer Rushton is always kind of led out on that.

She's kind of starting to step back from away from that a little bit on that.

So Katie Downs is really kind of been the contact person, the initial contact person for me in that, and she's she, she's really organized in it.

And then there's just a ton of other people that, like I said, I'm really afraid to start listing cause I will leave someone out.

So but, but it takes a lot of people and they do great it is, it is fantastic.

The Thanksgiving holidays were wonderful.

Y'all started pulling this stuff out, though, to get the church decorated weeks ago, on the 18th.

November, the 18th.

It's been an undertaking.

I mean, it's a lot of areas of this church.

There's a lot of trees.

Yes, and when I first came to, we did that on a Sunday.

I remember it was crazy.

So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we said, amen, see y'all next week and started pulling stuff out of closets Again.

I hate going back to this, but a change that COVID brought to us is we realized we don't have to wait until that Sunday to start decorating.

So we started pulling the trees out, not the Monday before Thanksgiving, but a week before that Monday.

We pull all the trees out first thing that Monday morning and they go up and people just kind of come throughout the week and get them decorated.

Now, on Sunday afternoon after church, the only thing hopefully that we'll have left to decorate will be the multipurpose center.

Hopefully that we'll have left to decorate will be the multipurpose center, right, so that helps a lot and it's not, as doesn't seem to be, as stressful, and so, yeah, it works.

Well, we just we.

For those who don't like to decorate before Christmas, we won't turn the lights on until that's right, thanksgiving.

But it is what it is, and, to be fair, back in the day we didn't have this other building too.

We now have three more floors and a ton more space that we are working with Correct.

So with the new building we've added one, two, three, four, at least four trees to that.

So Right yeah.

And one thing folks may not realize.

This is really cool we have different decor that we can change out year after year too, which I think is really neat.

There's years that we go more golds, there's years that they go more silvers, and we've been blessed to have some really talented people in the church through the years that allow us to have different themes and to kind of change some of what we do on our trees, which is just incredible.

So it's always exciting every year to come in and see what's been done for the year.

And I know, like this year, there's going to be a change.

I don't know exactly because you don't want me making any of those decisions, but I know they had a women's ministry event earlier this year where they painted some decorations to go on some trees, and so you know there'll be some change like that too.

So that's always fun, yeah.

I love it.

Now, I mentioned earlier, we do have lots of events coming up and we'll talk about those in the coming weeks.

I did want to mention that Carols by Candlelight is this Sunday morning and we have a time change.

Will you just give people a brief understanding of what's going on this week?

Yeah, have a time change.

Will you just give people a brief understanding of what's going on this week?

Yeah, so, carol's by Candlelight.

The past couple of years we've only done it one time.

We've only done it at one service, on Sunday morning, and just combined services.

But last year we didn't have enough seating.

There were people who walked in, didn't have a seat and left.

We did provide an overflow space in the DeSoto room but it was just watching it on TV and I think people said if I'm going to watch it on TV and do it from my recliner, why am I going to do it here?

So we said, hey, we still need to do that and we need to do that in two services.

Sunday morning just seems to be the best time for our church.

Just seems to be the best time for our church.

So, but talking to Mark Manning, there was just no way that you could flip that.

In our normal time space it's not fair for the choir because they're singing, they're standing, they're doing all that.

So there was really be no break for them or anything like that.

So the first service we're gonna make it earlier is gonna start at eight o'clock, where our first service normally starts at 9.

That Sunday, and just that Sunday only, it's going to start at 8 o'clock and come, and then the second service will start at 10.30 as well.

The concern is going to be probably if people are visiting and things like that, they're going to come to second service.

So there's still a concern, there's still a worry a little bit that it will fill up and we run into the same.

So I guess my thing is if you can, if you're able, come to that eight o'clock service and you know, we find the same thing for that as we find for um the easter service.

We have an easter service at eight o'clock and and one thing that that allows you to do is you can come to eight o'clock and you can be, you can be done, uh, after that service is over.

So that's great around the holidays, because if you have a family event or something like that, you can come and aid and and then be done for that.

There will will be no Sunday school that day either.

Okay, and again, that's this Sunday.

That is, this coming Sunday, Carol's by Candlelight.

So we want to make sure everybody is aware of that.

We have a couple of other things coming up and we're going to talk about those.

We'll talk about some of those next week.

We've got Christmas Family Night coming up on the 18th, which is going to be something different and new and it's going to be a lot of fun.

But we'll save that for next week.

If you're curious about all of our upcoming holiday events, you can swing by the church and pick up a complete year calendar.

It'll list just about everything through June 2025.

Some of the dates may be altered here and there depending on what we have to do to shift, but you can grab that calendar.

If you are here on a Sunday morning, swing down to our welcome desk.

You can find all of that information and the calendar at the welcome desk in the Grand Hall.

Okay, personal question have you got the lights on your house yet?

Yes, I do have the Christmas lights up on my house.

I put them up on the Friday after.

Thanksgiving.

What is your preference?

What kind of lights do you put on your house?

Just the old school C9.

Yes, it's on my notes right here.

Okay, my preference has always been the multicolored C9.

I don't do multicolored, I do the clear white, but I do the C9.

Okay, so my preference is the C9 multicolored bulbs, bulbs, and my wife does not care for it very much, she's real sweet about it but the the multicolor.

it reminds me of the classic, like 70s and 80s movies.

You know like it was really popular back in the 70s and 80s and, for whatever reason, it just reminds me of nostalgia.

James lewis and kathy lew Lewis did not do multicolored.

I'll say this they were white all day long.

So maybe I guess it could also be that once I got a house I was like I want to do multicolored.

Here's where I messed up though Grant when we first got married and we were in that little house in Greenbrook, I did the icicle lights, the all white icicle lights, and Jennifer loved the icicle lights, but that house had one single pitch roof line.

It was, at the most, at the most, 40 feet of lights, like it was nothing.

Yes, so I could put them up in 20 minutes, but for those of you listening and I don't know if you've ever messed with icicle lights they get tangled like nothing you've ever seen.

I've never done those.

They are awful.

Don't, because Amber and your kids will say that's what we got to have.

My girls want the icicles back and they weren't even born, but they've just heard they want the icicle lights.

Everybody seems to want the icicle lights, but the C9 multicolored man.

So running the eaves of my house is just the white C9s.

I do have a magnolia tree in the front yard that it has multicolored C9s on it.

So yeah.

I love it All right.

A few weeks ago, David talked about embracing the Thanksgiving season.

We did take last week off, since it was Thanksgiving holidays.

He referenced Psalm 95.

Today actually marks the start of the Christmas season as far as our podcasting go, and Grant is going to be focusing on Advent in a segment and I'm going to get this right this time moment.

Okay, the dictionary defines Advent as arrival, signifying the start of an event or the arrival of a person.

Now I told you before we started filming this podcast that, if I was being very honest, I have grown up my entire life not really understanding the four weeks of Advent at a church.

Nothing more than the candles are sitting up there and Mark Manning will sing a pretty Christmas carol and somebody will come up there with a lighter and light a candle, and that's as far as I've ever known.

So why don't you explain to all of us a little bit?

about Advent.

Okay, well, traditionally, yes, advent it means arrival, and so typically, when we hear Advent, we think of Jesus' first arrival when he came as a baby.

That's why we call Christmas.

You'll hear it called the Advent season.

They're talking about Christmas season, when Jesus arrived and we celebrate his arrival, and so you have four Sundays that you can do that, and the Sundays are sometimes I get them out of order I hope I don't today, but it's it's hope and so you have the week of hope, the week of joy, the week of peace, the week of love, and then, typically, if you have a Christmas Eve service, you have the Christ candle that would be lit during the Christmas Eve service.

So what it is, it's just a celebration of Christmas and it's just a time where you celebrate Christ's arrival and what he has brought to us.

He's brought us hope, he's brought us joy, he's brought us peace, he's brought us love, and so it's a celebration of that.

There's also the weeks are known as the Hope.

It can also be called Prophecy.

The second week, which is Joy, can also be called the Bethlehem Candle.

I forget the other two alternate names for those.

I'll know those later, but that's what it is.

But my goal and what I try to convey is we celebrate Advent season when Christ first came.

But we do that and we see how he fulfilled the promise of his first arrival, looking forward to his second arrival, his second coming.

So, the Advent season, what I try to encourage people to do is let it be a celebration of his first arrival as a forerunner and as a hey.

He fulfilled this promise, he's going to fulfill the next promise and he is coming again, so let it push us to look forward to his second arrival.

Okay, I love it, so let it push us to look forward to his second arrival.

Okay, so I love it.

So in the next few weeks, in the midweek moment, what I want us to do is kind of focus on the weeks of Advent.

The first week is hope and also called prophecy.

When I hear that, I think of that old song Mark, and we have a show, a video.

I hear that I think of that old song Mark, and we have a show, a video.

We've shown it for years in a row with the song Come Thou Long Expected Jesus in it.

It's a great video.

It's a great video, the great song.

I'm not going to sing it, but let me read part of it to you.

It's not a long song, it's only two verses.

It says Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

Born to set thy people free From our fears and sins, release us, let us find our rest in thee, israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth, thou art Dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a king, born to reign in us forever.

Now thy gracious kingdom, bring by thine own eternal spirit, rule in all our hearts alone, for thine all-sufficient merit raise us to thy glorious throne.

And so I think this is a beautiful song for Advent because it talks about his first coming.

Come thou long-expected Jesus.

But I read a sermon by Ligonier Duncan the other day and he talked about how, in Old Testament, they were looking for come thou long expected Messiah, but they couldn't say Jesus.

They didn't know that that was Jesus.

And so now, looking back though, we can say come thou long expected Jesus.

And so just to allow that to point us to Scripture, just real quickly and I'm not going to go in depth here, my challenge will be.

As I mentioned Scripture references.

Here you go and look those up as you're listening to the podcast.

But in the book of Matthew, the purpose of Matthew's writing is he's writing to really a Jewish audience or a Jewish Christian audience, people who have become believers and are looking back, and Matthew's writing is kind of like yeah, you're believing the right thing, good job.

Or for those Jewish people who are right on the cusp of believing, and it's like come on, let me get you there, let me show you, because Matthew is full of prophecies that have been fulfilled, and even in the Christmas story, if you look and I'm not going to go through all this because it would take forever but if you read Matthew 1, the whole first part of Matthew 1 is the genealogy of Jesus, and what he does is he begins with the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, fulfillment of two prophecies the Davidic prophecy, the Abrahamic prophecy, not prophecy covenant, the Davidic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, right.

And so he's going to show how Jesus fulfills those covenants, how he is a descendant of both Abraham and of David, and so again, he's pointing to look, he can be the Messiah We've talked about, the Messiah would be this, and Jesus is this.

Then he ends chapter 1 quoting from Isaiah, chapter 4, 17,.

Isaiah 4 · chapter mention

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel.

And so again he's quoting that Old Testament prophecy.

Last year I went through the prophecies of Immanuel and how Jesus was the fulfillment of those.

And so he does that.

And then he goes into chapter 2, and he talks about the coming of the wise men and how they came.

And it's really interesting it says Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem saying when is he who has been born king of the Jews?

For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.

So the question is, how did these wise men, these magi from the east, know about Jesus?

And it's a little speculation here, but John MacArthur makes a very compelling argument that the magi, they were a group of people, they were really kind of priests, astronomers, astrologists that date back to the 7th century BC, and so from the area of media, and these priests became advisors in both Babylon, the Babylonian Empire, and the Persian Median Empire, which, if you read your Old Testament, thucydidean empire, which, if you read your Old Testament, daniel came up in that point.

And it's Daniel the first time, when Nebuchadnezzar has this dream and he wants it interpreted, and he brings the magi in who can't interpret it, and so he's going to kill them all.

And Daniel comes in and says, hey, if I can interpret it, would you not kill them?

And he says, yeah, so Daniel then interprets the dream, saves the Magi's life and gets moved to their leader, to the leader of the Magi, and so now you see Daniel kind of in this elevated leadership position and they possibly come to respect him.

We know later Daniel's thrown in the lion's den, but that was not related to magi.

The magi that was related to civil servants, to civil leaders, not priestly leaders.

And so MacArthur makes this very compelling argument that the magi could have seen the star and known teachings of Daniel.

Star and known teachings of Daniel.

And that is a fulfillment of a prophecy, possibly from Numbers, chapter 24, verses 15 and 17,.

Numbers 24:15

Possibly from Isaiah, chapter 60.

Isaiah 60 · chapter mention

We don't know exactly when, but both of those prophecies talk about a star rising in Israel and it's very possible, like Daniel taught them about these things and they saw the star and said, hey, that's the star, let's go check it out, and so, but even if not, even if that's not where they got it, there's this fulfillment of a prophecy, that this star has risen in Israel.

And he quotes from Micah, chapter 5 to.

Micah 5 · chapter mention

He quotes from Hosea 11 one.

He quotes from Jeremiah 15.

And then he has this kind of obscure prophecy at the end of chapter two.

He says in verse 23, and he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

And there's no, at least in the Old Testament that we have, there's no specific prophecy that says the Messiah would be a Nazarene, but there are definitely teachings that talk about a Nazarene rising and things like that.

And so you see, here, just in the beginning of Matthew, you have the star prophecy, you have Isaiah 7, you have Micah, you have Hosea, you have Jeremiah, and then you have this Nazarene six prophecies in the first two chapters of how Jesus is the fulfillment of that.

And so what that does is, if you look and you place yourself in the feet of those Israelites at that time.

They have been hoping the first week of Advent is hope.

They have been hoping for Messiah to come and deliver them.

They have been hoping for this and looking for it and Matthew's saying, hey, he's come.

How?

many years do you think they've been waiting for this?

If historians would be able to guess.

Well, I mean, you could take prophecies even back to Genesis.

In Genesis, when Adam and Eve sinned and he told Eve that and he told the serpent that a seed would come from woman, who was going to crush his head.

So I mean, prophecies go back to the beginning of time and if you go back, but the whole time, I think with the Abrahamic covenant.

The covenant was land descendants and a blessing to the nations.

Well, that blessing to the nations was Messiah, who's going to come.

Even if you don't go to there.

The Davidic covenant talks about someone from the line of David is going to come, even if you don't go to there.

The Davidic covenant talks about someone from the line of David is going to reign, and I mean the Old Testament, from Old Testament to New Testament.

You're 400 years.

This prophecy.

I mean the Magi and Daniel.

I mean you're talking about 600 years 700 years.

hundreds of years They've been waiting for this.

Yes they've been waiting for Messiah and probably passing down this knowledge.

Yes passing down this.

Yes, this is what we should be looking for.

And so here he is in Matthew saying here's the hope.

Jesus is this hope that we have.

And so now for us, real quickly, to turn that back, because we want to look at Advent and how he fulfilled that.

And now let that provide us hope.

And so, if all through the Old Testament some, some of their own doing, but Israel has gone through so much and they're looking for someone to make that right, to someone to fulfill these prophecies of a Messiah who's going to come, and Jesus has come Now for us we look back at those and celebrate his first coming to say, hey, man, and sometimes of our own doing, but sometimes our world just is crashing in on us, but he has promised he will return and so, just like he fulfilled all this stuff the first time, all these prophecies, we can allow that to give us hope that he is coming again and he is going to sit all right, and we can find hope in that.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for listening.

We'll look forward to hearing about the other three weeks coming up, so you definitely want to look for that next Wednesday.

If you don't have a church home, we'd love to see you here on Sunday morning.

You can catch our services online at desotohillscom.

Our YouTube channel is at Desoto Hills Baptist Church.

For all of our church family, we love you and we can't wait to see you here on Sunday morning.

God bless.

This has been your Midweek Motivation.

We'd love to have you join us in person on Sunday mornings.

Our services are at 9 and 1030 am.