Can good truly come from evil intentions?
WATCH
Christmas: Impossible, 3 of 3 from December 21, 2025
“God’s impossible mission even outwits what is meant for evil.”
Matthew 2:1-23 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon delves into the darker elements of the Christmas story, showing how God’s mission triumphs through evil circumstances. Examining the visit of the Magi and Herod’s violent reaction, it highlights God's guidance, protection, and provision for His people. Listeners are invited to reflect on their response to Jesus as King, contrasting the wise men's worship with Herod's murderous intent. Jesus, born into humble circumstances, illustrates God’s presence in the lowly and unexpected. The sermon underscores that God informs those He calls, provides for their journey, and outmaneuvers evil to fulfill His redemptive plans.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What is our instinct when we hear God has sent a new Lord and King?
💬 What are we hoarding that God gave to be used for His purpose?
💬 What great ways could we meet with God if we embraced a “low” reputation?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Outline
📖 THE DISPATCH (Matthew 2:1-9)
📖 THE DELIVERY (Matthew 2:10-15)
📖 THE SECRET PLOT (Matthew 2:16-18)
📖 THE MISSION CONTINUES (Matthew 2:19-23)
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Well, good morning, church. I have to say that again. So we know where to start the video. So that's, that's what that is. We've been going through a series that we've called Christmas Impossible.
There are stories that just become familiar to us. Has anybody ever, you've been talking to somebody, maybe somebody that's older and they start to tell a story and you like immediately start to check out. It's like, I've heard this story before. Like I know how this is going to go. I know what the moral of the story is.
Is the same complaint you always do. Have you ever had that experience where you've talked to people? My son, son of the preacher is like, oh yeah, I have that all the time. I know what you're going to say.
There's times where we can get so familiar with stories that we've heard before that we really miss how earth shattering and earth changing they are. And I think that sometimes that's what's happening when we come to the same stories at Christmas time. And so we've been in a series the last couple of weeks that we've called Christmas Impossible. And, and we're taking those familiar Christmas stories and looking at them again to ask why would these stories, of all the stories that we could repeat and all the stories that we could revisit every single year, why do we keep coming back to these stories? What changed?
Why was it so significant? And is it really something that we ought to be taken for granted, Taking for granted? Or was God doing something incredible and impossible that now on the back end because we're so familiar with it, we're not even like tuned into. Right. So we've been doing that.
We saw as the angel comes and gives the announcement to Mary and gives the encouragement to Joseph to continue on in this process that God briefs those he dispatches on his impossible mission. So if God has a mission for you, he tells you about it. God's not off in a corner doing something secret and expecting you to try to imagine your way into what his plan is. If he has a plan for you, he tells you what it is and invites you to participate in it. Right.
Remember? And then last week we saw as Jesus was born and as angels came to tell the shepherds the news about Jesus birth, that God's plan benefits all that Jesus chose to be born to a blue collar worker that in a relationship and circumstances that was going to cast a lot of doubt and shame on his family. And his birth announcement was given to third shift workers on One of the lowest pay in one of the lower paying jobs. Like if that's how Jesus chooses to announce himself, then we should know confidently that God's mission benefits us all, not just the higher ups. And today as we look in Matthew chapter two, I hope that we'll see that God even uses evil to accomplish his impossible mission.
So before we get there, here's some of you navigating. That's okay if you want to navigate to Matthew 2, that's where we'll be. But I invite you to pray with us. It's our habit as neighborhood church to pray the disciples prayer. And it's not a magic spell or anything.
Like you don't get a whole bunch of blessings just for saying these magic words. But Jesus said when you pray, you should pray like this. And I'm simple enough to just do what Jesus said. So we're going to pray this together. The words are on the screen.
If you're not familiar with this translation. But more important than the words that we say, listen for how your heart responds to these words and try to align your heart with the instructions that Jesus has given for us here. So let's take a deep breath.
And let's pray together.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen. Amen. Navigate with me to Matthew chapter two in your Bibles. If you're using the blue Bibles, it's on page 1008, 1008, 1008 in the blue Bibles. And if you don't have a Bible at home, that's in an English translation, that's kind of easy for you to read.
And you want to take that home, just write your name in the front of it, take it home, it's yours. Let that be our gift to you. But we're on page 1008 in the blue Bibles, Matthew chapter two. And to start, I'll read the first nine verses here, Matthew two, starting in verse one.
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, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him, and assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. And after listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose, went before them until it came to rest of the place where the child was. Let's pause there.
So it's kind of interesting. You've got these wise men that show up, they're talking to the king of this. Of this Roman province, his name is Herod, and they're asking a question about where the Christ is supposed to be born. And the answer for where the Christ is supposed to be born is found in the Jewish scriptures. So if you don't know or you haven't heard yet, the Christmas story, these chapters in the scriptures that we look at every December, the Christmas story is one, one chapter in God's greater story.
Like if when you come to church, all the people at church ever talk about is the angels and the baby and the magi, these wise men coming with these gifts, or they only ever talk about the resurrection and the cross. Like, those are two very important chapters that we read every year, but they are just two chapters in a much larger and much greater story that God's trying to tell. And so when the wise men show up, the question that they ask is answered in the Scriptures. And so I just want you to know, if you aren't aware, like, there's more to church, there's more to faith, there's more to God than what's in these stories. There's a deep, deep well to dig into.
In fact, this story in particular, Matthew chapter two, has kind of a knack for touching on a bunch of different threads that I could spend a significant amount of time chasing rabbits with you. So we're going to be here till about 4:00'. Clock.
Literally, like, it's astonishing how many different threads the imagery and the things that happen in this text bring up. And so these topics. And this chapter is Worth your time to go and do some more research. More research than I'm going to be able to fit into the sermon. Look at the background about the prophecy of a star.
There's only one. And if all you know about Balaam is that he had a donkey, then you are missing out on some really incredible information. How did the wise men get copies of the Hebrew scriptures? And why did they care what they say? Because the Hebrew scriptures, Scriptures are a Jewish religious document.
And the Jewish people are a minority in the empire that they occupy. So why would somebody thousands miles away care at all about a religious text? How would they have a copy of the religious text? And why would it matter to them when that Jewish king is supposed to be born? And what is the symbolic weight of Jesus entering Egypt?
Like all I could literally give you three different sermons on any of those topics and I'm not going to talk about any of them. So you should do some more research in Matthew, chapter two. What I am going to give you though, is some background on history. Do you know that when you read the Bible, it happens in a historical setting? Like the stuff that the Bible describes actually happened in a time and in a place.
And if you study history, it overlaps with what the scripture says. So this is a map of what is known as the Roman Empire. Have you heard of it? Yeah, yeah, it's kind of. It was kind of a big deal at one point, right.
Rome kind of took over all of the land around the Mediterranean Sea. Now Rome is at this little red Marker here. And it's, it's one city, but they managed to control by taking over, by. By conquering all of these other lands all the way around and Jerusalem and nearby is Bethlehem and Nazareth. Jerusalem.
Jerusalem's at this blue Marker here. So it's a long way from Rome right? Now, if you were the ruler, the Caesar living in Rome, how is it that you're going to keep tabs on what's happening all the way over on the other side of the sea in the Mediterranean, before you have phones, no party line, even before the Internet, before you can send an email, if somebody's going to take a letter, somebody's. You're going to literally write it on paper and hand it to a human, and the human is going to walk or ride a donkey or a horse or something to deliver the letter to somebody else. If you're going to maintain and control this much land, you're going to have to designate lower rulers to rule with your authority.
Right? Okay. And so that's What Rome did, they hired up different people to control different regions. And the region that Jerusalem is in is in Judea. And it's ruled by a guy named Herod the Great.
He's kind of a pretty dude, but we call him Herod the Great, not because he was really, really fantastic, but Herod the Great because he thought he was really fantastic. He actually was kind of a jerk. He was. They actually gave him the title king, so that's historically accurate. But he was king of.
By permission of the Roman Senate. So the Roman Senate is the one that made all the laws. And they said, yeah, you can call yourself a king, but you're really just a provincial, like, governor, but we'll let you call yourself a king. Now, why would they do that? His dad was actually really, like, decent friends with the Caesar.
Julius Caesar might have heard of him. Herod the Great's dad was friends with Julius Caesar, and his mom was from a wealthy dynasty of local rulers. Like, oh, well, of course. Like, he is who he knows, right? He knows some good people, so he gets put in charge of things.
But it's really interesting because his family was likely forced to convert to Judaism. So they didn't grow up with a Jewish background, but they were forced to become Jews in order to survive. Somebody shows up with a sword and says, I can either cut off your head or you can become a Jew. You know, say, I think I'm Jewish now. Right?
And that's what their family did. And so that's like Herod's background. He didn't grow up with Jewish values, but they have embraced at least a form of Judaism in order to be able to have a political tool. He wants to rule over Jewish people, and so he acts as religious as he needs to be in order to convince the people that he's Jewish enough so that they listen to what he says. Says it's a good thing that politicians never use religion to manipulate people anymore.
But this is ancient text, so we're just going to give them a little bit of grace there. He was really, really successful at collecting taxes because he really liked to build things. Some of the biggest building projects in the ancient world were Herod the Great. That's why we call him Herod the Great. He built some really, really big stuff.
But he was paranoid and paranoia kind of wrecked his personal life.
His mom wasn't Jewish, and there were all these kind of things where when he got put into power, his wife, who he really loved a lot, like, the historical records show that they were really affectionate towards one another. All the tabloids talked about how in love they were, and he liked her a lot, but she would make comments about his mom and. And he was like, she doesn't think that I'm authorized to rule. And so he had her executed. Like, he had his wife killed.
And she was not the first or. No, she was the first, but she wasn't going to be the last. And anytime one of his kids started to, like, be competent and to show some propensity to be able to be a leader, he would just have him killed because I don't need anybody competing with me for the throne. So he's a little bit paranoid and, like, really trying to, like, build a kingdom here. He wants to show how powerful he is by what he builds.
All right, so that's Herod the Great. Okay, have we met him before? Is this all kind of new stuff?
Okay, maybe some. Maybe some of it's new, maybe some of it's not. And I could. I'm not an expert, but we could spend a ton of time talking about this guy, but he's kind of a weirdo.
But when these wise men come from the east, they come asking, where is the king? That is, where was the king born? They ask it of this guy. Now, Herod has some interest in this. He's got some guys that show up on his front door.
They're like, hey, where's the king that was born? And he's like, I'm here. My children are here. Why are you looking for another one? What does that mean?
He's. And so he asks, okay, where's the king supposed to be born? Where's the Christ supposed to be born? And the answers about those questions are found in the Jewish scripture, so in the book of Micah and the book of two, Samuel, and in chapter five of both of those books, there's this prophecy that talks about how the Messiah, the chosen one, is going to come from Bethlehem. So the kid is supposed to be born in Bethlehem.
And so Herod says, okay, well, you go and find this little baby king. Did you see that, Herod? And verse seven. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, you go ahead and find that king and search diligently for the child.
And when you have found him, bring him. Bring me word that I too, may come and worship him. That's so sweet.
That I may come and worship him.
Did you notice in verse three of chapter two, when Herod heard the Report from the wise men. He was troubled, and all of Jerusalem was troubled with him. So he's upset. And the rest of the city sees that he's upset, and they get upset that he's upset, because they know that things get squirrely when Herod the Great's upset. There's something more that's going on here.
Now. What is the catalyst for all of this? What is it that these wise men saw? Could it be a natural phenomenon? Some kind of a comet or some kind of an alignment of the planets that only happened one time?
It could be. It's possible. And people. There are some people who are absolutely convinced that, that that's what's going on here. I think it could be something that's natural, but I. I wonder if it could just be something that's supernatural too.
Like they see a light, they see a star from where they are thousands of miles away. And that signals to them that something different has happened. And so they travel, which was not a difficult or which was not an easy feat. Like, they had to load up supplies and they had to travel a long way before GPS and before, you know, modern banking systems. They had to carry cash on them if they wanted to, be able to buy snacks along the way, which made you a target for robbers and things like that.
This was a significant undertaking. So they see something, but then after they have this conversation with Herod, we read in verse nine, after Luke, listening to the king, they went on their way. So they leave where he is, and behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. So whether the first thing that they saw was a natural phenomenon or a supernatural one is kind of unclear. But what's happening here in verse nine is weird because stars don't move and stars don't turn on and off.
Like, if a star turned on and off, we would think, oh, that's an airplane. But this is a time before airplanes. Like, that was not a thing that they saw. I mean, we could get into UFOs again. There's lots of rabbit trails that I'm not running down.
But this thing, like, seems to guide them to the place, not just to Bethlehem, because they knew they were going to Bethlehem, but it seems to guide them to a specific house. So something unique is going on here. So I told you, the Christmas story is one chapter in a great greater story. There's lots of background that we could get into. But whether natural or supernatural, all of creation follows its maker's Orders.
Whether God set up a natural phenomenon that was timed perfectly to coincide with the birth of Christ so that all of the stars aligned on a certain night, but that was planned out way, way ahead of time. Or God just send an angel up there and lit him up real, real bright so that he looked like a star. I don't know what is actually going on. But whether natural or supernatural, all of creation follows its maker's orders. Whatever it is that God wants to happen is what happens.
And all of creation follows his orders. Are we tracking with all that? Okay, I want to talk about Herod. Well, I mean, we're going to talk about him a little bit. A lot more than a little bit.
What is our instinct when we hear that God has sent a new lord and king?
What is our instinct when we hear that God has sent a new lord and king? Whether you're religious or not. Like, when we hear the meaning of Christmas, the reason of the season is that God is sending a baby. And you're like, okay, great. Like, babies are born every day.
But he's sending a baby that's going to be the savior of the world. Like, okay, well, good. The world probably needs saved. It's a little bit rough right now. But he's the savior of the world and he's the King of Kings and he's the Lord of Lords.
He's like, ah, I don't know about that.
What's our instinct when we hear that God is sending a king?
Because I like to think that I'm the one who's in control of my life. Like, I'm even going to be a little bit upset when I have to pay taxes because don't they know it's my money?
What is our instinct when we hear that God has sent a new lord and king? And don't. Like, I know we were in church on Sunday. You guys smell great. You took a shower.
It's wonderful. But like, for real, for real. Like, what happens in our heart when we realize that God is sending a new king? And we see in Herod that his response is, oh, let me know when you find him so I can come and worship him.
And the response of the wise men is, we've traveled all this way to worship him.
Let's see what happens. Chapter 2, verse 10.
Let's read verse nine again because it's just weird. After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child Was when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly, with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. Now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet out of Egypt.
I called my son. So the wise men bring the gifts to Jesus. This is probably, like, story that we know. Like, we got guys with camels walking across the desert, and then they get there and they bring these gifts, and they lay these gifts before Widow bb, right? And usually there's a shepherd holding a sheep.
I don't know why they carry their sheep everywhere, but they do. Maybe it's just so, you know, that he's a shepherd. I don't know. But, like, this is the part of the story that we get, right? This is the part that gets.
That we're somewhat familiar with. But did you notice that the family staying in a house, when they followed the star, it showed the place. And going into the house in verse 11, like, Mary and the baby are in a house. So I don't know if they're in a house now because they left the barn or if the barn was in the house from the beginning. And if you're like, what are you talking about?
Last week, we talked about that in the sermon. You can find that on our podcast or on. On our website if you want to catch up. But it's clear that the family, the holy family, is now staying in a house, and it's probably months later, because the thing that caused the wise men to leave was a star they saw when they thought the baby was born. So on the night that Jesus was born, a star lit up, and they were at least 1,000 miles away.
And so if you're 1,000 miles away and you see a sign, hey, you probably got to go back and do your research and figure out, like, is that actually a thing that we ought to be looking for? Should we respond to this? Because I don't really want to dip into my retirement to fund this journey if it's not really the real thing. So you're probably going to investigate, and that's going to take a little bit of time. Then you got to convince other people that what you saw is, like, the real thing.
And then you got to plan for a road trip. You got to find the camels, and you got to get people to come with you. And you got to figure out how you're going to get there. And you got to get the money out of the bank, and you got to go, right? You got to pack up all of your things.
So it probably took them months to get there, if not a year or two. So the picture of the shepherds and the infant baby Jesus is not actually a thing that happened in scripture. Sorry, not sorry.
Jesus probably was toddling at the time when the wise men came. And Joseph was probably at work because it says they came and they found Mary and the child in the house. But then Joseph came back, like, so they're staying in the house, and these wise men show up and they say, hey, we were, you know, just checking the night sky. Guy saw this crazy star and thought, oh, here was born the king of the Jews. Let's go and take him some gifts.
And he brings him gifts. Now, there's three gifts, right? Gold and frankincense and myrrh. But there's never any count of how many wise men there are. So there could be two or there could be ten.
I don't know. But the good news is, if you have multiple, like, nativity scenes, you can just borrow extra wise men and throw them in there. Because Bible didn't say how many there are right now. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These are not like the traditional gifts that you give to a baby.
Normally you give babies, like, rattles and stuff that they can chew on and stuff that they can throw up on. Like, that's what people give to babies. Blankets and clothes and things like that. Not hard metal and precious spices. So what's going on?
Gold. Now, gold is traditionally like, the tradition around the gift of gold is that this is a symbol of Jesus divinity because all of the furniture in the temple was covered in gold. At the very least, gold is a symbol of his Kingship. Like, they came to worship a king born king of the Jews. And so they are giving him.
They're showing him honor by bringing. Bringing him tribute. Gold worthy of a king. Frankincense was a really, really valuable spice that was used as an ingredient in incense, which was used in worship in the temple. So they've got this frankincense incense.
It's in the word. They've got this spice that they would burn as a representation of the prayers of the people. So that's kind of nice. You've got a really valuable spice that's kind of a symbol of prayer. But then you've got myrrh.
And myrrh was a spice that you used for embalming dead people. It was. It was. It was a very strong thing. And they primarily used it for that.
But if you weren't dead yet, you could take myrrh and you could mix it with wine, and it would become some kind of a sedative, like a really, really strong sedative, like myrrh. And wine was the kind of thing that they gave Jesus to alleviate his pain when they were crucifying him. That's not something you give to a baby, unless the baby is the king of the Jews who's come to make it possible for our prayers to be heard by the God of the universe through his sacrificial death.
If Jesus home indicates something of his priorities, then what do these gifts indicate? Was the story told before the life was lived?
So the wise men come and they deliver their gifts, and then God makes sure that the family likewise is delivered. Now, even if you didn't know Herod before, now I've given you a description of Herod. You're like, something's up with this guy. Like, there was some trouble brewing. He had even a seat.
The whole town was concerned when they heard that he was upset. And then he had a secret meeting with the wise men. He didn't want anybody to know that he was commissioning the wise men to go and find another king, because what would that be like if that got out in the papers, right? But now there's a warning and an escape. So the wise men are told, don't go back to Herod.
Just go home. So skip the return trip up to the headquarters and just go home. And Joseph is warned in a dream that he's supposed to move to Egypt. So this is now the second dream that Joseph has gotten. And so even though the gifts from the wise men, I think, carry a heavy amount of symbolism, practically what those gifts meant is that they now have money to relocate.
They have gold enough to be able to move. These are not wealthy people to begin with. For them to be able. They were not staying in a home that they could sell. They were staying in a.
They were staying with Family in a home, so they didn't have a bunch of property that they could get rid of to be able to finance moving to a different country. But these wise men show up just in time to give them enough money to able to leave and move.
God is providing in the direction he's guiding.
He won't call you in a way that he's not going to be with you on the way.
And there's times where, not always, but there's times where we can look at what are the ways that God is blessing and should I spend more time in that direction?
But the temptation is when God begins to provide, we choose to stay where we're at and heap up the treasure.
When we get a little bit extra, I was like, okay, sweet. A little bit more room in the budget. Okay, sweet. I can buy that extra gift that I was thinking of. It's Christmas time.
We've got to buy extra gifts. Okay, sweet. We can buy that extra whatever. We can upgrade the widget.
So I just wonder if God is providing in the direction he's guiding. What are we hoarding that God gave to be used for his purpose?
Verse 16. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious. And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah, reaping in loud lamentation.
Ra Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more.
We don't usually talk about these verses, but just in case you're like, yeah, Michael, you're just kind of exaggerating the amount of danger that the holy family was in. Like, no, it was legitimate. Herod didn't want to come and worship. He wanted to come and murder. And he wanted to murder the one who.
Who was born the King of the Jews. And when he couldn't figure out which one it was, he killed them all.
Herod was a guy who on his deathbed, made a decree that when he died, the police were to go around and to kill somebody from every family in his region so that at his funeral everybody would be legitimately upset. Said it was a law on the books when he died that nobody carried out. But lest you think that this is all just a fabrication, this guy's a real person in history, actually. Is that sadistic?
And Herod felt like he had been outsmarted but we should know that God's impossible mission even outwits what is meant for evil.
Herod knew that the Jewish people believed a supernatural king would be born. And whether he believed that or not, he wanted to use the information because he knew that this was a threat to his own Kingship and his own dynasty, and he wanted to destroy it. His worship would have been to kill God as a sacrifice to make himself king.
So what's our instinct when we hear that God has sent a new Lord and king?
Jesus was older, maybe up to 2 years old. And so Herod ordered all babies in and around Bethlehem of that age to be murdered.
But God's impossible mission even outwits what is meant for evil.
And I don't know how to sit with this in a way that's meaningful. I don't want to gloss over that.
But there were people in Bethlehem that watched Jesus grow up and were bitter because their children did not.
Let's read and close out this chapter, starting in verse 19.
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life or death. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 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.
So following God does not negate seeking him for wisdom. Like Joseph is given a dream, and he said, go back to the land of Israel. He goes back to the land of Israel, but he hears that Archelaus, who is the Kanakooki son of Herod the Great, is in charge over Judea. And he's like, I don't really want to put myself under him now. After Herod's death, they divided his territory under three of his sons.
So it seems like Joseph is concerned about being under Archelaus and so is afraid and asks God, like, hey, where do we go? And so he ends up landing back in Nazareth. God uses wisdom in following God's plan, and he uses his fear not to run away from God, not to be angry at God, not to be mad. God, you brought me this far, and now you're bringing me back into danger. But he uses his fear to drive him to seek God.
And God answers him. And now the fourth dream that Joseph has had in the story.
He comes back to Israel. He's wise in how he chooses where to place his family. But I just wonder why there aren't more songs about Joseph. There's not a lot of verses about him. I get that.
But for a guy who leads well in terrible and terrifying circumstances, like, we should have some more Joseph songs. And where they end is back where they started. You ever feel like you've been working really, really hard and you just end up back where you started again?
And Nazareth wasn't like a great place to land.
There's a verse in, in, in the scriptures, but it reflects the attitude towards Nazareth, the city in John 1:46. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Like, it was not a town that people had respect for.
I thought about naming some towns to see what your reaction was, but I really didn't want to get in trouble.
And so he was a Nazarene, not a Nazarite. There's a Nazarite thing in the Bible that's a different thing. He is not taking a vow. He's Nazarene from the city of Nazareth. But no matter how you slice it, like, Jesus came from a city that nobody had any expectations of.
It was low reputation, kind of a backwater town, a bunch of blue collar workers just scraping to get by.
And Jesus could have chosen to be born to any family in the world at any time in the world, and he chose to be born then and there in a city of low reputation.
So I wonder what that says about the heart of God.
And I wonder what great ways we could meet with God if we embraced a low reputation, if we stopped looking at the newest and greatest and best as the world gauges it and said, God, wherever it is that you would send me, I'll go.
Your presence is the prize. If you're in Nazareth, that's where I want to be.
So whatever you're feeling this holiday season, if you feel like, man, we've really had to tighten the belt this year and it's just not as sparkly as it used to be. Or we're missing people and it just doesn't feel right.
Just know that God meets us in places of low reputation.
God meets us in places that nobody else would desire to be.
And his impossible mission even outwits those things that are meant for evil. Let's pray.
Jesus, this is a hard story to tell. It's a hard story to hear. Lord, I imagine it was a difficult story to live and so I thank you for the ways that you have worked through your people.
I thank you for the gift that it is to us for the courage to stand up to a crazed ruler for the wisdom to follow you in the place that you directed and God there's a thousand different ways I think that we in this room could interpret and apply this text and Lord it's beyond my skill or my ability to be able to articulate those and so I surrender this congregation to you. Jesus would you shepherd your people?
Would you bring to mind that evil that you intend to outsmart and outwit and overcome?
Would you bring to mind those places where we have taken your gifts and just hoarded them for ourselves.
Or used your word as a tool to manipulate others.
Or God doubted that you're doing anything at all?
Jesus, would you shepherd your people and lead us in the direction we ought to go? It's in your name we pray.
