Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 24, 2022 | Christmas Eve 2022

Transcript

December 24, 2022 | Christmas Eve 2022 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas, everybody.
• 0:04
  unknown: Merry Christmas.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Glad you could join us here at Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we love Christmas Eve service because we love Jesus.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's exciting to be able to celebrate Jesus and the reason for the season, as we often say.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when it comes to Christmas, a lot of us, whether it's tonight, tomorrow, some other time, because you couldn't fit it in tonight or tomorrow, we're gonna be opening some gifts, right?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you might have seen this.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Google every year comes out with something called the Holiday 100, okay?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is all the top gifts every single year based upon you know what people are typing in.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This year, if you want to know, um under the desk treadmills, okay, fleece lined leggings, water-activated eyeliner, airpods, um, Traeger grills, and uh, right, all the Daz just fawned over that.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then the last one would be at-home pizza ovens, okay?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't bought your gift yet, those are the ones that are most popular this year.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about gifts, right, if we're over the age of, I don't know, like maybe 15 or so, the best part about the gift opening process is seeing somebody else open the gift that you got for them.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And ideally, it's one that you've kind of thought about, and it wasn't just you know an exchange of gift cards, right?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it was something that you put a lot of care and attention towards, seeing their eyes light up as they open this thoughtfully selected gift.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine taking all the pressure of trying to buy the perfect gift and try to buy a gift for a king, okay?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: See, when we talk about the Christmas season, we often do say, hey, it's not about the gifts, right?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's about Jesus.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: But about 2,000 years ago in a sleepy town of Bethlehem, Jesus opened gifts.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the ones who brought him gifts were wise men.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And these wise men, they had traveled from a really long way, about eight or nine hundred miles from somewhere in modern-day Iran.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when we look at the nativity scene, right?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have one out in our lobby, you probably have one at home.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at the nativity scene, there's normally, right, we have Mary and we have Joseph, we have the baby in the manger, Jesus, we have the animals, okay?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have the wise men.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the nativity scenes are taking a couple of those things for granted because the wise men, they hadn't arrived yet.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was a special time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, they were traveling from long, uh, a long distance away.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: See, the story of the nativity is one that you probably know well, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Mary and Joseph, they were, well, Mary was pregnant, and they had traveled back to Bethlehem so they could be a part of the census.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Joseph's family was from Bethlehem.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was of the line of David, of King David.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so they went back there, and while in Bethlehem, it was time to have the baby, but there was no room at the inn.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so they went into the stables, and there Jesus was born, and he was wrapped in a cloth and laid in a manger or an animal's feeding trough.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it was there that the shepherds came to bow at his feet, and the animals laid low, and the angels sang.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the magi, the wise men, they were a little bit late to the party.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: See, they were traveling, like I said, from far away, but they had stopped first in Jerusalem.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it says in Matthew 2, verses 1 through 2.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and 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?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking for a king, right?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: These who were these Magi?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know that they were probably very wealthy.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: They knew their Bible, and they had traveled the same distance as if you started walking from Topeka, Kansas, to Buffalo, New York.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the weather's the exact same in Buffalo as it is in Topeka right now, so you don't need to do it to get the experience, but you get the idea.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: What was at the end of their journey?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: What were they going towards?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they were hoping to find a king at the end.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The one, the king of the Jews, who that the Bible had said was going to be coming, had been foretold, and all the prophecies were pointing towards this.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so they arrive in the place that you would expect a king to be, Jerusalem.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so they get there and they start asking these questions.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: They say, a star has brought us to Jerusalem.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where is this king?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the king?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's not there.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was about five miles south in Bethlehem, not in a glorious city like Jerusalem, but in a little town.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who was in Jerusalem, though, was another individual named Herod.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, Herod the Great, he actually had the title that he had taken for himself.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: He called himself the King of the Jews.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so Herod says, Oh, you're looking for the king of the Jews.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's me.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so he brings the wise men before him and he says, I want to know where this child is that you're looking for, this newborn king.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to go and worship him as well.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Only he was lying.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was the furthest thing on his mind.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he wanted to end any claim that somebody could have to his throne.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to kill that king.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the wise men, they recognized that the king that they were looking for was not found in Herod.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't in Jerusalem.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The star led them five miles south to Bethlehem.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And as we see in verses nine through ten, after they had heard the king, that's Herod, 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.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's pretend that you're wise men for a second, okay?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You are dignitaries, you're royalty, you're wealthy, okay?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have gifts fit for a king.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably been in the presence of royalty before.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of somebody who is important being in their presence, it doesn't make you nervous.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking again for a king.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yet you might imagine on the way to Bethlehem, somebody says, Are you sure we have the right star?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because this definitely does not look like the place where we would be finding a king.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they arrive by this point in time, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mary and Joseph have moved out of the stables and are in a small home enjoying this newborn that they have.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the Magi, they come to the house and they look inside, and it says that they are overjoyed.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that they have traveled so far was to find this little baby.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to kind of think about, honestly, at the beginning, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Travel all of this way, all of these gifts, all this time, leave what you were doing months on end to see a baby.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't just any baby, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was Jesus Christ the King.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: As we finish, in verses 11 through 12, it says, On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: These wise men needed to lay eyes on their king.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The journey wasn't finished when they saw him, though.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: They needed to present their gifts.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And these gifts, they tell a story.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Gold, that's the same thing we have.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have gold today.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: But back then, as well as today, it represents royalty.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Telling a story.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: This child was no normal child.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: This was no baby rattle.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: These weren't gifts for newborns.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: These were gifts fit for a king.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that gold was for a king.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go to frankincense.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Frankincense is basically a type of incense that you would burn.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gum of a tree.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It would be burned during worship.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a king that we worship.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then the myrrh, kind of an odd gift.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bitter herb.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that comes up later in the story, about 30 years from the night that the wise men were bowing at the feet of baby Jesus.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was strung out on a cross with a sign above his head that said, This is Jesus, King of the Jews, the real king, not the fake king.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this real king was dying for the sins of the entire world.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when he asked for water because he was thirsty, bitter wine was given to him that had been mixed with myrrh.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a king who is worthy of worship and who sacrificed for the entire world.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is what the gifts represented.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now we sang a song a couple minutes ago.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Haste, haste to bring him laud or praise a babe, the son of Mary.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But what is so amazing about Christmas Eve, what is so amazing about this little baby, is that we have these two amazing realities that are mixed with each other.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have God who humbled himself by coming in the form of a baby, the lowest of the low, where the animals had been eating.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is where the king was born.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But yet, like we've said, he is the king.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: God covered at the incarnation, when Jesus was born, the lowest to the highest.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person was covered.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: They could relate to him being low, and some people can look to him as also being high.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we also have to see that as these wise men had bowed before the king, they recognized that he was more than just this child.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Before them, this squalling baby was the one who is going to save them of their sins.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what we celebrate.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for all of us tonight, what I invite you to do is look through the eyes of the wise men who by faith followed that star, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: They journeyed so long because the end point was worth it.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they got to Jesus, they got to the crib, they got to that baby.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't look at Mary, they didn't look at Joseph, but they laid their gifts at the feet of this child because he was their king.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we celebrate.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not just the nativity, but we worship Christ the King.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We worship a baby.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, King of the Jews, our King, the one that we worship too.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So tonight, here in a moment, I'm gonna pray for us, and then we'll sing one final song.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would invite you to do is kind of in your mind bow before the crib.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: As weird as that sort of sounds.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Bow before the crib, though, because that is what we're here to do.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're really not here, right, to um just talk about a child.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're here to talk about a child who loves you, that Jesus loves you, who died for you, and who wants to have a relationship with you.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is who we bow before.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today, and God, we thank you.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are good to us, far better than we deserve.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as God, as we come together as families and as individuals to celebrate Christmas, God, we pray that you would help us to recognize what it means to worship Jesus Christ the King, our King, the one who came laid in a manger, wrapped in a cloth, and who would later save the entire world.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is what we worship.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that as we worship together one final time this evening, that we would think about these things and in our mind that we would bow before that crib, saying, Jesus, you are worthy of our worship.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in his name we pray.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.