The Name: Behold, The King | Part 3

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

If we haven't met yet, my name is Ashley, and I get the great joy of serving as one of our pastors here at Awakening.

And I mainly get to work with our kids and our youth and our parents.

And it is such a joy to be preaching this morning because I love Advent, and so being in the middle of this Advent series is such a joy for me.

We're in this Advent series, The Name, and it brought to mind the story of how I was named.

Now, my first name isn't one that's particularly special in any way.

If you were born in the early 90s like I was, early either your name is Ashley, or you had at least two of them in your elementary school class.

It doesn't have any sort of intentional meaning or a family origin in my family.

My middle name, however, is very special to me and gives some insight on who I am, who I grew up to be.

It describes me quite well.

See, I love Christmas time.

I love Advent.

I love the celebration of the coming of Jesus.

I love the lights, the decorations, especially the music.

In October and all through November, my friends and my eight-year-old daughter love to tease me about my early celebration.

And I have finally come up with the perfect response.

I say with just the right amount of snarkiness, well, Christmas is my middle name.

You'll laugh in a second.

They laugh and they roll their eyes.

And right now you might be thinking, especially those in this room who are younger than I am, that this is the type of joke that's pretty overplayed and outdated.

However, what they know about me is what makes it a joke that I can keep saying year after year.

My middle name is Noelle, which is the French word for Christmas.

So truly, Christmas is my middle name.

Now you've got it.

Usually when I tell people that, they ask, oh, so your birthday's near Christmas.

And I respond with a quick, nope, it's in September.

There's more to the story than that.

My mom is a Christmas baby.

Her birthday is actually on Christmas Day.

And when she was born, her parents considered Noelle as her middle name, you know, because she was born on Christmas.

But then they decided to choose her dad's middle name.

All growing up, she was so disappointed to share a middle name with her dad and not her favorite holiday that she promised herself that if she had a daughter, her middle name would be Noelle.

So here I am, born in September, Ashley Christmas Panzoy.

Because I love Christmas so much, in our home we have multiple trees with different treetoppers that all represent different parts of the nativity story.

We have an angel that represents the good news being shared with the shepherds.

We have a star to represent the wise men or magi following that star to Jesus.

And then on a small tree, we have this little crown that gently sits on the top.

This is non-traditional, I understand.

But it's this daily reminder to our family that Jesus didn't just come as a baby, but we're actually celebrating the birth of the King.

This crown is a reminder to me, each Advent season, of the exact name of Jesus that we're going to dive into today.

This series is called The Name, and this morning we're going to focus on a name of Jesus found in the Matthew narrative of Jesus' birth, the King.

As we go through the traditions and the motions of Christmas, in the middle of all the added work that Christmas can be, it can be difficult to remember and to see how the arrival of this little baby really impacts our lives as our king.

At the end of the Christmas season, we drag the dry dead trees to the curb.

We pack up the lights and the ornaments in a box to be stored until next year.

We may be left reeling from a hard family gathering or feel anxious about that big credit card statement that we have to face in January because we overspent on all the things that we felt obligated to do.

We can leave this season feeling exhausted, in need of a break, disappointed from expectations that weren't met, or simply wondering what was the point of all of that?

What was all of that for?

Is that all that there is?

And we close the year feeling unfulfilled.

This morning we're going to look to the story of the Magi on their journey to find the king, and their journey might unlock something we've been missing.

Something that could make this Christmas the most impactful one of our lives.

The journey of the Magi can show us a deeper way to engage with this Advent season that will not only bring more meaning to our Christmas celebration, but will be far more fulfilling than the promises that presents and parties and decorations make.

These characters, Herod, the Jewish leaders, and the Magi, will help show us how we can avoid missing out on Jesus as our king.

This message is entitled, Behold the King.

Now, we don't use this word behold much in our daily talk, so I want to define it for us.

Behold means be sure to see.

Don't miss this.

The other morning, I hear my trash truck-obsessed four-year-old shout, Mama, come quick.

Mama, come here, come see the trash truck.

I watched him drop what he was doing, run as fast as he can, climb up all the way to the top of the couch to peek out the window, just to be sure that he was going to see that beloved trash truck.

When he called me to run over to him, he was saying to me, be sure to see this, don't miss it.

Behold the trash truck.

In his little heart and his mind, this was the very most important thing to happen, and we could not miss it.

So I come to you this morning with that same fervor, that same wonder, but something far more important than our weekly trash truck.

Be sure to see.

Church, don't miss this.

Behold the king.

When reading a narrative story from the Bible, we start by establishing some background on the story and on the main characters that we're going to encounter.

This helps give us a framework for the story that we're reading.

In this story, there are three characters that we need to know: Herod, the Jewish leaders, and the Magi.

First, we have Herod.

He was the king of Judea.

He was supported by Rome.

He was also known as Herod the Great.

He was known for his extensive building projects, including the temple in Jerusalem, but he was also known for his cruelty of his people.

Next, we have the Jewish leaders.

In the text, they will be called the chief priests and teachers of the law.

They were experts in Jewish prophecy, and they were the theological scholars of the day.

And our last character in this story is the magi, or how we might know them better, the wise men.

The magi were astrologers, they studied the stars, they interpreted dreams, they were experts in medicine, and they were the science authorities at the time who had great respect in the Greco-Roman world.

It's important to note in their character description that these men were not Jewish, that they came from the east, from Persia.

As we read this story, we will see how Herod, the Jewish leaders, and the Magi responded to the arrival of the king.

So open up your Bible to Matthew 2.

We're going to read this whole story, so get cozy.

And we're starting in verse 1.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of 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.

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.

When he called together all the people's 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 the prophet has 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 they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

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

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.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son.

When Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.

When Herod, the Jewish leaders and the Magi, encountered Jesus, they each had distinct responses, ones that reveal something in us.

We all fall into one of these three responses.

So let's start with Herod.

Here in this part of our nativity story, we see the first recorded time that someone tried to kill Jesus, King of the Jews.

Herod had been the king.

Being the king was his greatest identity.

He had been ruling over the people for over 30 years and did whatever he needed to do in order to keep that throne.

He wanted to keep his place as King of the Jews.

Herod was not a full-blooded Jew, which was already a threat to his reign.

When Herod learned of this newborn king who was fulfilling the Jewish prophecy, he was afraid that this child would interfere with his life, his title, and most importantly, his power.

We see that Herod's response to Jesus was one of hostility.

He sends an order for all little boys to be killed to eliminate this threat to his power.

Herod responded to the news of the new king with complete hostility.

The news of a new king, the name that would threaten Herod's name, brought out hostility.

Now, I started out by saying that each response to the king would reveal a response that we might have.

But Herod's level of hostility is pretty extreme here, right?

Most of us in this room aren't a ruler of a nation doing whatever we can to keep that power and hold on to that throne.

But here's where we can relate to Herod's concern about Jesus.

Herod saw Jesus as someone who would interfere with his life.

Herod wanted to be in charge and call all the shots, but Jesus being king would get in the way of that.

Don't we see Jesus that way sometimes?

We love to do what we want, what we choose, what we think is best.

We think following Jesus is gonna make my life worse.

And sometimes we think I have a plan and Jesus is just gonna mess it up.

Often the way of Jesus is harder and more uncomfortable than our own way.

Our pride, the way we do life, our own name can feel threatened by submitting to Jesus as King and putting him on the throne.

And by putting Jesus on that throne, by bowing down to him as king, we have to take ourselves out of that seat.

This can breed hostility and rejection in our hearts.

Hostility against the one who loves and who came to save us.

Herod responded with this hostility.

Now let's look at how the Jewish leaders responded.

The Jewish leaders probably have the least well-known response and are least noticed because of the drama that is Herod.

They don't appear in our nativity set on our mantle.

They might not even make it into the retelling of the story when we share it from memory.

And here's why they are an ignored piece of this story.

Once the Magi bring the news of the star and the baby king, Herod calls those Jewish leaders to confirm that the prophecy is pointing to this moment.

He asks them where the Messiah is to be born.

They respond with the prophecy that confirms that this is the anticipated ruler of the Jews, the son of promise that we heard about in week one of this series.

They confirm this for Herod, and then they seem to disappear from the story.

They didn't go to seek out the king.

Now they had no reason to disbelieve the Magi's report of the star.

They had been waiting and anticipating the promised king and messiah.

They were only five or six miles away from Bethlehem, and yet in this moment, they didn't do anything.

We see their response is one of indifference or apathy.

They could have gone to worship the Son of God, and yet they let this good news of great joy just pass them by.

Here's the thing the Jewish leaders were intellectually correct.

They had all the knowledge.

When Herod asked them about the prophecy, they were right.

The prophecies did point to this being the king of the Jews.

They were intellectually correct, but they were indifferent to the king when they didn't let what they knew move from their head into their heart.

They went right back to what they were doing before.

Now this reaction might be more likely where we land in this room.

They knew the prophecy, they knew the promise.

They were going through all the motions of temple life, and yet the coming of Jesus didn't make a single difference in their lives.

Their familiarity of the prophecy and the promise was actually the thing that was blocking them from responding.

They continued on as if nothing had happened, and they disregarded Jesus as king.

When we've heard this nativity story over and over, year after year, it can become background noise of Christmas rather than this main event.

I know I'm guilty of that.

We come to church on Christmas Eve, we sing along with the songs about the holy night Jesus was born, and the angels singing glory to God.

We set up our nativity scene in just the right way.

We maybe even read the few chapters in Luke, and we do all of this for the tradition.

And as we do that, we miss it.

Our familiarity and our intellectual knowledge blind us to the wonder and the importance that Jesus is our king.

Behold, don't miss it.

But we miss it.

Herod responded with this hostility.

And Herod's hostility showed a recognition that Jesus was the rightful king.

Herod wouldn't have felt threatened otherwise.

Herod cared more about holding on to his throne than he cared about his own soul.

But the Jewish leaders' reaction was even more dangerous for their souls.

They didn't care that Jesus was the king that they had been waiting for.

They were committed to the scripture.

They were committed to keeping all of God's laws and holding tight to this religion that defined them.

But when the very God they claimed to be so committed to actually physically showed up on the scene in the form of this little baby, they missed it.

The indifference that the Jewish leaders had was the beginning of breeding such a prideful spirit in their hearts.

They could have gone to seek out the king, this son of promise.

But instead, they did nothing.

And this moment contributed to their attitude later in Jesus' life, which was to test him and eventually be a catalyst for his death.

What Herod attempted, trying to kill Jesus, the Jewish leaders later accomplished.

Their indifference grew into rejection over time that led to their hand in Jesus' death.

Another prophecy fulfilled.

Indifference, because of great knowledge, breeds pride.

That pride is what made the Jewish leaders so certain that they knew God better than anyone else, even Jesus himself.

Herod responded with hostility.

The Jewish leaders responded with indifference.

Both of these were a form of rejection of the king.

Let's go back to the scripture now to see how the Magi responded.

In verse 10, it says, When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, they bowed down and worshipped him.

They opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

The Magi's response to the king is summed up in these two verses, starting with when they saw the star.

Remember, they studied the stars.

So if anyone would notice that there was a new star in the sky, it would be these guys.

We don't know what star it is.

There's some theories out there, but we can't really know for sure.

But what we do know is that in the middle of the unvarying order of the universe was some heavenly demonstration that a king had been born.

When the Magi arrive to Herod back in verse 2, they don't say a baby who will be the king of the Jews.

They say, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?

Who has been born the king?

This is already Jesus' identity and position.

Not one he will grow up to have.

It's not the future king was born.

It's the king of right now has been born, so tell us where he is.

There's no question in their minds whether this is the right star or the right baby.

They were confident of King Jesus' arrival and they went looking for him.

Says when they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

They were so overjoyed that they immediately journeyed to Jerusalem to find and worship the king that had been born.

They weren't Jews, and yet they dropped everything to come and worship the King of the Jews.

When they arrived at the house in Bethlehem, they saw Jesus and they bowed down and worshipped him.

They immediately had this reaction of adoring worship.

They bow down at this little child's feet and they worship him.

Then they open their treasures and give him the most noble gifts they could bring.

The Magi were overjoyed.

They believed Jesus was the king.

The Magi were people who weren't even anticipating his arrival because remember, they weren't Jews, and the anticipated Savior King was expected to be for the Jews.

But the Magi represent all people following King Jesus.

I can hear the echo of last week's sermon, All Who Belong.

The Magi dropped everything.

They journeyed far.

And then when Jesus wasn't at the palace in Jerusalem, they journeyed farther to Bethlehem.

And when they arrived, they were overjoyed.

They bowed down and worshipped him.

Behold, the king.

They did whatever they could to get to him and then were overcome in wonder and praise.

They knew that Jesus was the king and they chose to worship him.

The question for us this morning, it's not about Jesus' kingship.

That part is established.

Jesus is the king.

The question is, how will we respond to his position as king?

What if we had the same response as the Magi this Christmas?

What if when we heard the name of Jesus, our hearts were drawn to lay everything down at his feet and worship him?

What if we chose to behold, to not miss it this year, to be sure that we see Jesus the King?

Like my little boy dropping everything to run and climb up the couch just to look out the window to be sure to see that trash truck and not miss it.

Like my little boy shouting to me to come see what he was in awe of.

He actually said, Mama, don't miss it.

There's an urgency to this.

There's a wonder that we have an opportunity to allow our hearts to be overtaken by.

Let's be a church that doesn't miss it.

Let's be a church that is sure to see Jesus as our King.

Let's be a church that bows down in worship at the feet of Jesus with our entire hearts, and we hand him every treasure we possess.

Let's be a church that beholds the king.

This Christmas, God is inviting us to respond to the king, to behold, to create enough space to notice the ways where we're holding on to our own throne like Herod, to notice the ways that we're so familiar with Jesus, like the Jewish leaders, that we're indifferent to caring about his rightful place in our lives.

The Magi created enough space to notice, to be sure to see, to behold the King.

They set aside time in their lives to seek out Jesus the King.

This week, sometime between now and Christmas Day, let's follow their lead.

Let's create space in our lives to notice the ways that we have given Jesus the place as King in our lives and the places where maybe we don't.

I'm not gonna pretend like this doesn't cost us something.

Following and worshiping Jesus as our king costs us a lot.

It cost the magi.

They took a significant portion of their lives to follow that star, and then they gave Jesus all of their treasures.

This worship really cost them.

But if we do that, if we respond the way the magi did, we can begin being that church right now.

Our services are intentionally crafted with a worship song at the end to give us time to respond to what the Lord has taught us this morning, to respond to his scripture and his word.

I want to challenge us to lean in differently this morning, to prepare our hearts for celebrating the arrival of Jesus next week.

You have already carved out time to be in this room this morning.

You have already created that space, that margin that's needed.

Take a step during this song to respond to Jesus as King.

If you normally stand quietly, you can try singing along.

If you don't normally lift your hands during worship, just try opening them in front of you.

You can try kneeling down in reverence like the Magi did.

This time of worship at the end of our service, it's not the closing music.

It's not the time to sneak out and go to the bathroom or get another cup of coffee.

Church, this time is sacred and it's set aside for us to worship the King Jesus together.

It's an opportunity for us to pause our own way of doing life, to take a step off of that throne.

It's an opportunity to overcome indifference, and we do that by pressing in.

It's an opportunity for us together as a church to behold the king.

Church, this morning, let's not miss this.

Don't miss it.

Let's pray.

Jesus, may you be glorified in this space.

May you be glorified in our hearts.

This Christmas, would we see you as King?

Would we see Jesus?

Would we see you?

Would we be sure to see?

Would we not miss who you are as King in our lives?

Jesus, would you help us lean in right now?

Would you help us overcome indifference?

Would you help us overcome hostility?

Jesus, would you break through rejection that we have in our hearts?

Jesus, would you help us to see you, to behold, to not miss it?

We hope you are blessed by this message.

Please subscribe to our podcast for access to every episode as they're uploaded.

And hey, we'd love to connect with you.

Take a next step by filling out our virtual connection card at awakeningchurch.com slash card.