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Jan 01, 2024
Guess Who's Coming to Christmas | Matthew 2:13-28
Herod
The Christmas Story ends with a downer. Dead babies. Few of us know the story, and fewer of us talk about Herod’s killing of the innocents. The message is clear, though: Jesus is on a mission in a world that really knows how to hurt each other. There’s no candy-coated church person experience; we face all the same rotten stuff along with the world. Anyone who tells you differently hasn’t read their Bible. But there is hope. This Baby has something up his sleeve.
Songs for this week: Spotify
- Has anyone ever done or said something to you that was helpful when you were going through a rough patch?
- What strong emotions would a Bethlehem father or mother feel who lost their little boy? What strong emotions have you had recently? What is behind those emotions?
- Joseph got up in the middle of the night to obey God. When was the last time you obeyed God directly on something (ie, speaking to someone, forgiving someone, being generous)?
- How do you explain a loving God and a world of suffering? Those two things seem at odds with each other. Is there a rational explanation?
- Who needs you to pray for them this week? Is there a gesture of support that you could extend to someone who is suffering?
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Recent Sermons
Paul never recovered from God including the Gentiles in the salvation invitation.
Like some of us, perhaps, he felt like some people should be excluded by virtue of where they were born or how badly they have behaved.
More than included, Paul instructs that former ‘outsiders’ should be treated as precious insiders, treated even better than we would treat ourselves. What would it look like if love came to town?
Human beings need reminders about how to get along, and Christians are no exception. We especially need reminders about how to love each other while we disagree. Paul draws the believers' hearts and minds back to what Jesus has done, and that paves the way for loving each other well through conflict.
How do we live with Jesus in a society that opposes him? Paul tells us to wake up to our resurrection hope. When we do that, loving others and rejecting sin in our own lives makes sense.
Romans 12 is the description of what happens when God’s mercy overflows in a church’s life. Lifelong attitudes change, love becomes genuine, mocking enemies are not met with equal and opposite force but, quite the opposite, with peace and gentleness. Be praying even now for how God will speak uniquely to your small group.
All along, we’ve been saying that God’s heart is to see us INCLUDED. That’s why Jesus came, and that’s the subject of Paul’s letter to the Romans. At times, Christians forget God’s radical inclusion of them and go back to the old patterns of competing and comparing. Sadly, that was happening in the Roman Church. Paul has one powerful dose for that sickness.
The resurrection changed everything! The story includes an invitation, a blessing, and a commission for the first witnesses … and for us today.
