Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Merry Christmas Village Church. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Hey, I'm all the kids in the room. I would like to just say Merry Christmas to you, and would you shout Merry Christmas back to me. You ready? Merry Christmas kids. Merry amazing. I love it. Special welcome to all of our kids this morning. And then also a village Church East is with us. So we are worshiping all together as one church this morning. And uh, so I am excited about a little bit of shenanigans and crazy in this service. Um, on the, on the front end, what I would like to do is I would like to invite up the strongest man that I know, uh, pastor Matt Soles. Would you, would you come up here? He's shaking his head. He doesn't like the introduction. And Matt, you do realize that there is like a whole bunch of men in the room right now who are thinking of themselves. I can take that guy <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:00:57 I I actually warned one of one of them. I said
Speaker 1 00:01:01 Right up front, right up front. This is, uh, so Pastor Matt, of course brought with him a 50 pound weight by request. By request. Yeah. Not just cuz he was bored. <laugh> a trick level with weight. Yeah. All great men do <laugh> for the love. I know. So I texted Matt yesterday and I was like, uh, bro, what's the most amount you can curl with one arm? And your response was,
Speaker 3 00:01:27 I'm nervous.
Speaker 1 00:01:28 I said, don't be nervous. Like
Speaker 3 00:01:29 The last time he sent me a text like that, it was how many pushups
Speaker 1 00:01:32 Could you do? How many pushups, <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:01:34 And then I had to spend two hours of a meeting doing as many pushups as
Speaker 1 00:01:37 I could. Didn't have to. You rose to the challenge. True. It was a test. It was great. You passed 500 pushups in one hour. That's guys crazy. All right. So I
Speaker 3 00:01:46 Know that's how interesting the meeting was.
Speaker 1 00:01:48 <laugh>. That was a very boring meeting. See I know, that's, that was good. So, uh, 50 pounds is where we landed. And uh, so I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to curl 50 pounds with one arm. I lefthanded, so I'm gonna use that one. Uh, I failed in practice walkthrough. I failed in the first service. I can lift it. That's a win. You got Got it. You got it. All right. Okay, so I can lift <laugh>. Boom. Okay, so boom, boom, boom. That's as far as I got. Okay, hold on. Everything you got? Okay. No, no, no. All right. Uh, I'm gonna give it my all at at the third service. Can you just, I will watch this. This is, this is so frustrating. My arm hurts now. <laugh>, this is so annoying. <laugh>. I'm sorry. Save some for the next service. All
Speaker 3 00:02:36 Right, save some for the next
Speaker 1 00:02:36 Service. We go. Oh my goodness. All right, so, so Matt, uh, you, you have a degree in, uh, exer. No. Fuck. What's your degree?
Speaker 3 00:02:45 Exercise science.
Speaker 1 00:02:46 Exercise science. I was like, there's a word. It's exercise and science together. So what's the difference between you and me that makes you so much stronger? <laugh>, uh,
Speaker 3 00:02:58 I'll strength is increased when you are exposed to heavier and heavier weights. So the, the heavier weight feels lighter as you go on,
Speaker 1 00:03:07 Right? So I have to lift probably things that are heavier than I'm used to in order to kind
Speaker 3 00:03:11 Of build that muscle. And then you get used to it and your muscle adapts to it.
Speaker 1 00:03:14 What is the most amount you could confidently curl once
Speaker 3 00:03:19 Without a, a big swing? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 00:03:21 Well, <laugh>, yeah. Bring
Speaker 3 00:03:23 It in 65. I don't know. 70 maybe
Speaker 1 00:03:25 Once. Yeah, with good form, right? Yeah, that's a probably not. So here's what's gonna happen after the service. Uh, I want to just verbally say we release ourselves from all liability for any male or female who comes up and tries to do this. Uh, if you want to be so awesome, improve your weight. We had one guy come up, uh, John Tuck. He says, I did four of 'em. And I'm like, rub it in John. He did. Um, that's amazing. All right, so, uh, are there things you can't carry? Like what is maybe the last thing that you called me and you were like, Hey man, I can't carry this. I need some help.
Speaker 3 00:03:52 Uh, the Arnold's outdoor table,
Speaker 1 00:03:54 How, how heavy was it?
Speaker 3 00:03:55 It's a few hundred pounds. Yeah. Yeah. And quite long. But
Speaker 1 00:03:58 If you're being honest, could you have carried it by yourself?
Speaker 3 00:04:03 Not without damaging it, <laugh>,
Speaker 1 00:04:05 No, without damage it. Praise God. All right. Can you guys give that a huge round of applause and take that with you?
Speaker 1 00:04:14 You are an inspiration. Uh, sometimes in life we are asked to carry things that if we're being honest, we are not strong enough to carry. I wanna tell you the story of Corey 10 Boom. During World War ii, uh, her and her family hid hundreds of Jews to protect them from Nazi Germany. She was actually betrayed by a fellow Dutch citizen, and she and her entire family were imprisoned. So she wrote a book, who knows the name of the book, the Hiding Place. Good job. Um, when I was, when I was young, around seven years old, my mom started reading this book to me on a regular basis, very formation for the way I thought. Um, and so I wanna read you a section of this book. Uh, she talks about a story when she was younger and she says, seated next to my father in the train compartment, I asked him a big, difficult question about something I didn't understand.
Speaker 1 00:05:10 He turned to look at me as he always did when answering a question. But to my surprise, he said nothing at last. He stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor, and he said it on the floor, will you carry it off the train, Corey? He said, I stood up and I tugged at it. It was crammed with watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. It's too heavy. I said, yes. He said, and it would be a, a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corey, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children when you, you are older and stronger, you can bear it for now. You must trust me to carry it for you. And then she shares her response, and it's beautiful. She writes, I was satisfied, more than satisfied, wonderfully at peace.
Speaker 1 00:06:20 There were answers to this and all my hard questions. For now, I was content to leave them in my father's keeping. There's an experience in this world that no body and no soul has the strength to carry, and it is the weight of the glory of God. The Hebrew word for for glory is cvo. And literally it means weight. And, and it refers to the impact of experiencing the weight of the glory of God. And so the manifestation of God's glory, the way that you know you're in the presence of God's glory, is we always experience it as light, but it's not just any light. It is light that is so blinding and powerful. It is deadly. And therefore, the Bible says it is unapproachable. Listen to this verse from one Timothy chapter six, verse 15. He who is the blessed and the only sovereign, the king of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light God's glory.
Speaker 1 00:07:42 It's, it's so heavy that if it falls on a human being, if a human being is in the presence of it, we are utterly destroyed. If you guys ever heard worship songs where they're like, Lord, let your glory fall. And every time I hear that phrase, I go, oh God, please no, keep your glory in heaven. Because the glory of God in incinerates all impurity that it touches r revelation, um, paints a picture of the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem. And I want you to listen to the way the glory of God, the light emanating from God is described Revelation 21, 23, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its light and its lamp, its source, it is the lamb. And so here's, here's the picture that's painted. The light that is permeating the entire new earth in new creation in new Jerusalem, is literally emanating from the very presence of Jesus Christ himself.
Speaker 1 00:08:46 And the reason you could stand in that light on the new earth is because what we celebrate at Easter is because Jesus rose. One day you will be raised from the, the dead. If you have trusted in Christ, and your impure, sinful bodies will be removed and you'll be given a new one that can actually handle being in the presence of the blinding, unapproachable, glorious light that emanates from Jesus Christ. So one of the things we celebrate at Christmas is that Jesus laid aside some of his glory so that when he was born, he didn't kill everybody in proximity. And, and Jesus Christ willingly laid aside the privileges of deity, willingly became a humble boy than man, willingly allowed the creation that he designed in his own brain to murder h, murder him and execute him. And we get to celebrate this on Christmas. And then the Bible says something really striking.
Speaker 1 00:09:49 The Bible says that we are to give God glory. Now, that's confusing to me because I don't have any glory to give. I don't have any like emanating light coming out of myself. And, and, and, and so here's what the Bible is communicating, that God has given you things of weight and value. And what he wants you to do with those things is to give them back to him in worship. So open up your Bibles with me, Matthew chapter two, this Christmas Eve, we're gonna explore the story of the wise men, and we're gonna watch them give their glory small as it might be. Back to back to Jesus, Matthew chapter two, verse one. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the east, they came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews, for we saw his star when it rose, and we have come to worship him.
Speaker 1 00:10:51 Okay, when I read that, I've got a lot of questions about 38, I'm gonna share with you my top four. Number one, who are these wise men? Number two, what is this star really? Number three, how did they know it was the king of the Jews and not some other king? Number four, why would they risk their lives and worship this Jewish king over their current king, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away? I I wanna take a few moments and look at each of these questions briefly. Number one, who are these wise men? You might have heard of them being called the Magi and the wise men. They're a centuries old class of widely respected Persian astrologers. Uh, they are from what is now known as modern day Iran. They were fortune tellers, dream interpreters, politicians well-studied, knowledgeable of sacred writings from various faith traditions.
Speaker 1 00:11:45 They were unrelenting pursuers of wisdom. They were looking for truth anywhere. And anyhow, they could find it. Now what's interesting is that by Jewish standards, these wise men are evil because what these wise men do is they participate on a regular basis in activities that the Old Testament says are punishable by death. Let me show you this in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 10. Anyone who practices divination tells fortunes, interprets omens, a sor, a charmer, a medium, a ne commander, or one inquirers of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. Now the book of Matthew, it is written to Jews. So when the Jews hear that God, Yahweh is pursuing wise men, how do you think they feel about this? Probably not. So, probably not so thrilled.
Speaker 1 00:12:46 This doesn't probably make sense to a lot of them. The second question, what is this star? Is it a star? Is it a planet? Is it a miracle? They don't really have the same kind of categories that we do, but they were very smart and they paid very close attention to what was going on up there. Here's what we do know, whatever it is, it's new. Uh, it comes out of nowhere it seems. And it really caught all of their attention. Uh, as the text unfolds, we see that it seems to move and it seems to move at a pace that they can follow. And the last thing we really know for sure is that whatever this thing is, their interpretation of it is that it wants them to follow it. Now, I imagine there's a whole bunch of wise men in Persia and somebody sees this for the very first time and they begin a debate amongst themselves, what is this?
Speaker 1 00:13:45 Where is it from? What does it mean? Minimally? All of them know this. Whatever it is, it is surely from God. Question number three, how did they know that it was gonna lead them to the king of the Jews? Doesn't that feel really specific? Like how might a star have communicated that? Well, what's interesting is that these wise men, they were not new to the scriptures or old. They were, they, they, they've been studying the scriptures for a while, particularly one of their very own five to sixth centuries prior wrote a book of the Bible. Do you guys know who that was? Daniel. Daniel was actually one of these wise men. And Daniel wrote in an incredible book, a whole series of prophecies. And what these prophecies did is they plotted out, uh, his history from about the sixth, seventh century BC all the way up to the coming of the Messiah.
Speaker 1 00:14:49 And so they had one of their, of their historical prophetic writings from one of their very own that actually made its way into the Bible itself. And based on Daniel's writing and the stars and the leading of the Holy Spirit, here's what they knew to follow this star is to follow God's will for their life. And we, we don't know how many wise men there were, traditions says three, there could have been 300. We have no idea. But we knew this. There was a group of these men who understood that God himself was summoning them and they were going to follow. But number four, why would they worship this Jewish king over their current king? I mean, that's a big deal to actually leave where you come from travel hundreds of miles and to give your worship and adoration to a foreign king. What's interesting is they, they actually knew from the book of Daniel quite a bit about the nature of this king.
Speaker 1 00:15:43 Let me read you two passages from Daniel that informed these wise men about the nature of the king that was gonna be born in Jerusalem. Daniel seven 14 to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Daniel 7 27 says this, and the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high. His kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominion shall serve and obey him. They knew that this star was bringing them to the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel to the king of kings, to the king by which all other king's, lord's, governor's emperors would ultimately submit to.
Speaker 1 00:16:39 Here's what they understood. God was being born the king of kings, and he was gonna reign over the entire world. How amazing is it that they finally in their life got to fulfill or got to see and experience the fulfillment of what these wise men have been seeing in the book of Daniel for centuries? Now look at Matthew chapter two, verse nine. Behold the star that they had seen when it rose, they went before them. It came to rest over the place where the child was when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 600 years in the waiting and, and going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and they worshiped him. What do you give God the first time you see him? Everything to give God glory or worship is really to give him three things. These three things are the weightiest most valuable things. Every single one of us has. Number one, you give God your heart, your ultimate allegiance, your your ultimate loyalty. Whoever has your heart, has your life above your spouse, above your parents, above your best friends, above the person you love. God wants your heart and your allegiance. Number two, you give them your soul. You, you give them your eternity. I, I don't know about you, but I I don't feel like my soul is in good hands if it's just in my hands, right?
Speaker 1 00:18:35 You wanna make sure that you give your soul one of the weightiest most glorious things that you have, that you give that back to, to God. And then number three, I think intuitively we understand this, he wants your treasures. He, he wants the things that are the most valuable to you in this world, laid at the foot of the cross. And he wants you to say they're yours first. What do you want? Because where your treasure is, is what, where your heart is. And these wise men give, get it to give God glory, to give them weight. They're giving back to God, the weightiest things that they have. They're giving him their heart. They're giving him their soul, and they're bringing to him their treasures. And in fact, the word, the word worship here is prosecute nao. And, and I've wondered like what does it mean?
Speaker 1 00:19:28 Like how did they worship? And the word itself tells us what they did when they worshiped prosecutor. Naomi means to bow down and to kiss the feet of a king. And how weird would that be if you're Mary, to have these people show up at your house, royalty, if you will, from foreign lances. And they come and they bow down and kiss the feet of your baby and they worship him and adore him. And verse 11 says this, then opening their treasures. They had offered him gifts, gold, frankincense and mer. Their treasures aren't just meaningful and valuable to them. They're actually deeply symbolic. Gold is the medal of kings symbolizing that Jesus' authority is not just over a nation, but over the entire world. Through this gift of gold, they were declaring that Jesus is the king over all kings. Frankincense, this is the scent of worship where these kings came from.
Speaker 1 00:20:33 It was used in their temple worship. And through the gift of frankincense, the wise men were declaring that Jesus isn't just a king, but he is divine and he is worthy of giving glory and worship. He is worthy of giving their heart and their soul and their treasures. The the last one, it's a little confusing because you don't know to what extent they understood the implications of this gift. But mer is, is the symbol of death. It's an embalming oil. Even if they didn't know. Do you know who knew exactly what this meant, Mary? Because shortly before this event, there was a prophet Simeon who told Mary, your son is going to be murdered and you are going to watch it. And through the gift of murder, these wise men were declaring that Jesus is not just the divine king, but he's the suffering servant who was going to die for sins in our place there.
Speaker 1 00:21:36 There is just so much that we don't know about these wise men. Here's what we do know, God, hundreds of miles of way used evil practices to actually meet these people where they were and to bring them to the very feet of Jesus Christ in worship where they gave glory to Jesus, they gave that which had the most weight and value in their life. They gave Jesus their heart. They gave Jesus their soul, and they gave Jesus their treasures. Th there's a couple reminders for me. Number one is I know many of you, there are people who, um, live far away, live close who your heart wants them to know Christ. And here's what we learn. The Lord has worked through history in hundreds of years to prep these men for this moment in time. We have no idea the plans that God has put in motion to bring those whom we love the most to the foot of the cross in worship and adoration.
Speaker 1 00:22:41 But this is the second thing we learned from this, which is some of you, you're here. It's Christmas Eve. So here's what I know. And at this I think it's hilarious and wonderful. Some of you are here because you were dragged here because you were guilted here because your mother forced you here, your father, your friend, your grandma, your grandpa, the person you're staying with, they said, if you're gonna be in our house, you're gonna go to our church and you're here. I'm just really glad you're here. I hope at the very least you feel loved and you can learn a little bit more about what the Bible says and some things. But maybe you are here and you have never ever given Jesus your ultimate allegiance, your heart and your soul or your eternity. And I gotta tell you guys, I I love being a Christian.
Speaker 1 00:23:20 I'm gonna tell you why becoming a Christian has never been about the accrual of good works. Nobody's ever good enough. The way you know a religion is false is number one, they ignore Jesus and they change his identity and name. But number two, they almost always do this. They always tell you that good people go to heaven. Bible does not teach that good people go to heaven. Bible teaches the forgiven. People go to heaven. And one of the things that I love is, is that Jesus Christ, even if you were as wicked as the wise men were, Jesus Christ by his blood, has the power to forgive any single human being. Not who is good enough, cuz no one's gonna be good enough. But any person who believes in Jesus Christ. So you, you might be here, you've never heard that before. Like you mean I could be forgiven and saved.
Speaker 1 00:24:06 I can be given confidence of my salvation right here and right now. I can know that I'm gonna go to heaven when I die and be with God forever. What good thing do I have to do here? Here's what Jesus says. Believe, do you believe that you're a sinner? Do you believe Jesus is God? And that he died in the cross for your sins and was raised from the dead? If you believe that, ask him to forgive you of your sins and save you. There's no magical formula. The heart that wants to be forgiven by God and believes in Jesus Christ 100% of the time will be forgiven. And God's promises that anybody who trusts in him, your sins are removed from you as far as the east is from the West. You know that block you have when you pray, you're like, God, can you even hear me?
Speaker 1 00:24:49 Jesus says that your words go straight to the Father. There is nothing that stands between you and God. When you place your faith in Jesus, the gift of the Holy Spirit, immediately yours, can you ever lose your salvation if it is real and genuine? Absolutely not. It is the most permanent thing in your life. And it is God's gift, not to those who are good enough, but to those who make the decision to believe in Jesus Christ. And so maybe you're here and and you're like, I didn't realize that. I didn't, I didn't know it was actually that straightforward. I thought it was more economic. If I do this, then you'll do that if I'm good enough. No, the good news of Jesus Christ is that anybody can be saved if they believe in Jesus Christ. And so before you leave here today, if, if that is a decision you wanna make, tell somebody you came with.
Speaker 1 00:25:35 If you've got questions, you can come talk to myself or anybody up front after the service. We'd love to encourage you and pray with you and help you take a next step in your walk with the Lord. Now this is a, um, a candlelight service. So some of you have candles with you, and I'm gonna ask the ushers, they're gonna come forward and I'm gonna pray. And when I say amen, we are gonna light some fire in this place. <laugh>. There are also electric candles for those of you who don't trust yourself. And kids parents, we trust them to you. There's like a few like basic etiquette rules. Number one, don't set the person in front of you on fire <laugh>, okay? Uh, number two, when you blow out the candles after the end of a couple songs, just remember there's wax. So be be thoughtful about the direction you blow the wax <laugh>, that would be super duper.
Speaker 1 00:26:20 Um, I wanna take a moment and uh, I want to pray for you. And again, when I say amen, the ushers will be there. And then if you can just light the candles and then, uh, to the person next to you and pass along the, the fire. And we're gonna worship Jesus together. Father, thank you. You have given us your son and Jesus, thank you for willingly becoming flesh and laying aside your brilliant blinding glory out of mercy and grace to us. Thank you that salvation is free for anyone who believes in Jesus. Lord, it was very costly to you. But for us who have no glory, who have no goodness works, you offer to us through faith in Christ. Thank you for that. Thank you for not making us try to labor and labor and be good enough. You knew that we could never be. And so Lord, it is our honor and privilege to give you back our heart, our soul, our treasure. And may our words be a reflection of our desire to give you glory. We love you and we worship you and we do this now in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen.
