Advent | December 10 GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH (Matthew 2:3)

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly
with great joy. After coming into the house they saw
the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to
the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening
their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. —Matthew 2:10–11

God is not served by human hands as though he needed
anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given
by way of assistance or need-meeting. It would dishonor a
monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.

Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy
10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do
they mean? How are they worship?

The gifts are intensifiers of desire for Christ himself in
much the same way that fasting is. When you give a gift to
Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue
(verse 10) is not the hope of getting rich with things from
you. I have not come to you for your things, but for yourself.
And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by
giving up things, in the hope of enjoying you more, not
things. By giving to you what you do not need, and what I
might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically,
‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”

I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts
of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

May God take the truth of this text and waken in us
a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart,
“Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All
nations will come and bow down before you. God wields
the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever
opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and
dignity to you, and bring my gifts to say that you alone can
satisfy my heart, not these.”

© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Good News of Great Joy

Advent | December 9 TWO KINDS OF OPPOSITION TO JESUS (Matthew 2:3)

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him. —Matthew 2:3

Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship
him, and he brings out opposition for those who do. This
is probably not a main point in the mind of Matthew, but
it is inescapable as the story goes on.

In this story, there are two kinds of people who do not
want to worship Jesus, the Messiah.

The first kind is the people who simply do nothing
about Jesus. He is a nonentity in their lives. This group
is represented by the chief priests and scribes. Verse 4:
“Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the
people, [Herod] inquired of them where the Messiah was
to be born.” Well, they told him, and that was that: back
to business as usual. The sheer silence and inactivity of the
leaders is overwhelming in view of the magnitude of what
was happening.

And notice, verse 3 says, “When Herod the king heard
this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” In other
words, the rumor was going around that someone thought
the Messiah was born. The inactivity on the part of chief
priests is staggering—why not go with the magi? They are
not interested. They do not want to worship the true God.

The second kind of people who do not want to worship
Jesus is the kind who is deeply threatened by him. That is
Herod in this story. He is really afraid. So much so that he
schemes and lies and then commits mass murder just to
get rid of Jesus.

So today these two kinds of opposition will come
against Christ and his worshipers: indifference and hostility.
Are you in one of those groups?

Let this Christmas be the time when you reconsider
the Messiah and ponder what it is to worship him.

© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Good News of Great Joy

Advent | December 8 BETHLEHEM’S SUPERNATURAL STAR (Matthew 2:2)

“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?
For we saw His star in the east and have come to
worship Him.” —Matthew 2:2

Over and over the Bible baffles our curiosity about just
how certain things happened. How did this “star” get the
magi from the east to Jerusalem?

It does not say that it led them or went before them. It
only says they saw a star in the east (verse 2), and came to
Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little
five-mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as verse 9
says it did? And how did a star stand “over the place where
the Child was”?

The answer is: We do not know. There are numerous
efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets
or comets or supernovas or miraculous lights. We just
don’t know. And I want to exhort you not to become
preoccupied with developing theories that are only tentative
in the end and have very little spiritual significance.

I risk a generalization to warn you: People who are exercised
and preoccupied with such things as how the star
worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell
and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns
to blood are generally people who have what I call a mentality
for the marginal. You do not see in them a deep cherishing
of the great central things of the gospel—the holiness of
God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death
of Christ, justification by faith alone, the sanctifying work
of the Spirit, the glory of Christ’s return and the final judgment.
They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack
with a new article or book. There is little centered rejoicing.

But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is
that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it
is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.

There is only one Person in biblical thinking that can
be behind that intentionality in the stars—God himself.

So the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to
Christ to worship him. And he is doing it by exerting
global—probably even universal—influence and power
to get it done.

Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire
so that the census comes at the exact time to get a virgin to
Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery. Matthew
shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get foreign
magi to Bethlehem so that they can worship him.

This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it
now. His aim is that the nations—all the nations
(Matthew 24:14)—worship his Son.

This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work,
and in your neighborhood and in your home. As John 4:23
says, “Such the Father seeks to worship him.”

At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see”
pattern. But at the end the pattern is “go-tell.” The magi
came and saw. We are to go and tell.

What is not different is that the purpose of God is the
ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying
of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is
the reason the world exists.

The Christmas Story Week 2

The Intro – In the Beginning

Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV

• “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
• 'Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
• “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

The Christmas story is eternal not “once upon a time. ”

John 1:1-3 ESV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

With God, distinct from God the Father, but one in unity of essence.

Jesus had universal not just local significance.

This is important because people can focus on Jesus’ humanity and the location he lived or the country he called home and make comparisons and excuses that ours isn’t like that. Every location, every town, every created thing was made through Christ. He matters in every situation, at any time because he is familiar with it all. He is not confined to Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Nazareth. He is universally significant.

John 1:4-5 ESV
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Christmas story is a story of life and light.

The beginning of all life. Physical, spiritual, moral, all life. If you are alive today, and I hope you are, then this story relates to you. And the life was the light of men — He who is essential life, and the giver of life to all that live, was also the light of men; the fountain of wisdom, holiness, and happiness, to man in his original state. People are looking for significance and the meaning of life. They want a full life. A happy life but many find loneliness and darkness.

John 1:6-8 ESV
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

Two important things to remember about John the Baptist:

1.
1. He was sent from God.
2.
2. He was not the light.

It is easy for us at times to replace the true light with not the light.

John 1:9-11 ESV
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

He came — In the fullness of time, to his own - Country, city, temple: And his own - People, received him not.

It is possible to miss the light.

John 1:12-14 ESV
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In our darkest times we need the grace and truth of Christ.

This shows how well qualified he was for the work of our redemption and salvation.

Next Steps

• Today I commit to read and meditate on John 1 this week.
• Today I commit to give grace and truth to others in any situation.
• Today I commit to receive and believe in Jesus as Lord of my life.

Advent | December 5 NO DETOUR FROM CALVARY (Luke 2:6–7)

And while they were there, the time came for her to
give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son
and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him
in a manger, because there was no place for them in
the inn. —Luke 2:6–7

Now you would think that if God so rules the world as to
use an empire-wide census to bring Mary and Joseph to
Bethlehem, he surely could have seen to it that a room was
available in the inn.

Yes, he could have. And Jesus could have been born into
a wealthy family. He could have turned stone into bread
in the wilderness. He could have called 10,000 angels to
his aid in Gethsemane. He could have come down from
the cross and saved himself. The question is not what
God could do, but what he willed to do.

  God’s will was that though Christ was rich, yet for your
sake he became poor. The “No Vacancy” signs over all the
motels in Bethlehem were for your sake. “For your sake he
became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

God rules all things—even motel capacities—for the
sake of his children. The Calvary road begins with a “No
Vacancy” sign in Bethlehem and ends with the spitting
and scoffing of the cross in Jerusalem.
And we must not forget that he said, “He who would
come after me must deny himself and take up his cross”
(Matthew 16:24).

We join him on the Calvary road and hear him say,
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will
persecute you” (John 15:20).

To the one who calls out enthusiastically, “I will follow
you wherever you go!” (Matthew 8:19). Jesus responds,
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the
Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
Yes, God could have seen to it that Jesus have a room
at his birth. But that would have been a detour off the
Calvary road.

Advent | December 4 FOR GOD’S LITTLE PEOPLE (Luke 2:1-5)

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that all the world should be registered. This was the
first registration when Quirinius was governor of
Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own
town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from
the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David,
which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the
house and lineage of David, to be registered with
Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. —Luke 2:1–5

Have you ever thought what an amazing thing it is that
God ordained beforehand that the Messiah be born in
Bethlehem (as the prophecy in Micah 5 shows); and that
he so ordained things that when the time came, the Messiah’s
mother and legal father were living in Nazareth; and
that in order to fulfill his word and bring two little people
to Bethlehem that first Christmas, God put it in the heart
of Caesar Augustus that all the Roman world should be
enrolled each in his own town?

Have you ever felt, like me, little and insignificant in a
world of seven billion people, where all the news is of big
political and economic and social movements and of outstanding
people with lots of power and prestige?

If you have, don’t let that make you disheartened or
unhappy. For it is implicit in Scripture that all the mammoth
political forces and all the giant industrial complexes,
without their even knowing it, are being guided
by God, not for their own sake but for the sake of God’s
little people—the little Mary and the little Joseph who
have to be got from Nazareth to Bethlehem. God wields
an empire to bless his children.

Do not think, because you experience adversity, that
the hand of the Lord is shortened. It is not our prosperity
but our holiness that he seeks with all his heart. And to
that end, he rules the whole world. As Proverbs 21:1 says,
“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the
Lord; he turns it wherever he will.”

He is a big God for little people, and we have great
cause to rejoice that, unbeknownst to them, all the kings
and presidents and premiers and chancellors of the world
follow the sovereign decrees of our Father in heaven, that
we, the children, might be conformed to the image of his
Son, Jesus Christ.

© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Good News of Great Joy

The Christmas Story Week 1

About the Author

Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV

The Christmas Story, how it changes my story.

IDEA:

If you can trust the Author you can trust his words.

God gave it to us for a reason. He told it to us to guide our hearts and path.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Scripture has inspired, transformed, empowered, and enabled, us to do the good that needs to be done.

God is the author of the Christmas Story.

What it the Author (God) like?

An attribute is not a part of God but what is true about God in his very nature.

Although the purpose of the next few minutes is to give a peek at some of the Attributes of God, I must apologize because all I can share in the words of Job are "the fringes of His ways and how faint a word we hear of Him!" God’s attributes are to be learned over a lifetime and digested slowly, purposefully and personally and at times we will find ourselves still and knowing that He is God. But to not touch on who God is today would be a shame and a loss since he is the author.

God is faithful.

Psalm 100:5
For the LORDis good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Deuteronomy 7:9
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

We don’t care how much you know until we know how much you care.

God has, from the beginning, faithfully invested himself in humanity. He has relentlessly chased us and called us to himself. He even says we can call him Father which helps convey a picture of a faithful parental figure.

God is Omnipotent - He can do it.

Jeremiah 32:17
‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.

God is Omnipresent - He is here.

Psalms 139:7-12
⁷Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ⁸If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. ⁹If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. ¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” ¹²even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

God is Omniscient - He knows it.

Daniel 2:21
He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

1 John 3:20
If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.

God is immutable - He never changes

Malachi 3:6
“I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

God is truth.

John 17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

Truth - That which coincides with reality. God cannot lie, that is reality and so he is truth.

God is love.

Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

“The Bible is a whole series of highways, all leading toward God. And when the text has been illuminated and the believer of the text knows that God is the end toward which he is moving, then that man has real faith.” ― A.W. Tozer

30 Days of Praying the Names and Attributes of God

So when we trust the Author, and we trust the facts, then we can trust the story.

Infinite/eternal/limitless - Psalm 90/147

God is just. Balance the scales morally. His nature and character is the standard by which he judges. Why is lying wrong? Because, God is truth.

God is good. Psalm 119 shows God exercising his goodness and provokes praise. Do not grow weary in doing good. No matter how we respond God keeps exercising his goodness.

God is love. Not does he loves, but God is love. The more I learn of him the more I love him. Jeremiah - I have loved you with an everlasting love. Christ’s love is uninfluenced. Nothing made it happen. Nothing triggered it.

God is faithful - Psalm 119 and Deuteronomy 7:9, knowing that God is faithful increases my confidence in him.

The greater we know God, true God, the greater he will be glorified in our lives.

“When Jesus died on the cross the mercy of God did not become any greater. It could not become any greater, for it was already infinite. We get the odd notion that God is showing mercy because Jesus died. No--Jesus died because God is showing mercy. It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary that gave us mercy. If God had not been merciful there would have been no incarnation, no babe in the manger, no man on a cross and no open tomb.” ― A.W. Tozer

Trusting God’s word benefits us and glorifies Him.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 12:2
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

NEXT STEPS

• Today I commit my life to Christ, the author and perfecter of faith.
• Today I commit to read the Christmas Story with an open heart and mind.
• Today I commit to let God’s word equip me and complete me.

Advent | December 3 THE LONG-AWAITED VISITATION (Luke 1:68-71)

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited
and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of
salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as
he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies and from
the hand of all who hate us…” —Luke 1:68–71

Notice two remarkable things from these words of Zechariah
in Luke 1.

First, nine months earlier, Zechariah could not believe
his wife would have a child. Now, filled with the Holy
Spirit, he is so confident of God’s redeeming work in the
coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense. For the
mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done.
Zechariah has learned to take God at his word and so has
a remarkable assurance: “God has visited and redeemed!”

Second, the coming of Jesus the Messiah is a visitation
of God to our world: “The God of Israel has visited and
redeemed.” For centuries, the Jewish people had languished
under the conviction that God had withdrawn:
the spirit of prophecy had ceased, Israel had fallen into the
hands of Rome. And all the godly in Israel were awaiting
the visitation of God. Luke tells us in 2:25 that the devout
Simeon was “looking for the consolation of Israel.” And
in Luke 2:38 the prayerful Anna was “looking for the
redemption of Jerusalem.”

These were days of great expectation. Now the longawaited
visitation of God was about to happen—indeed,
he was about to come in a way no one expected.

© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Good News of Great Joy

Advent | December 2 MARY’S MAGNIFICENT GOD (Luke 1:46-55)

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me
blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” —Luke 1:46–55

Mary sees clearly a most remarkable thing about God: He is
about to change the course of all human history. The most
important three decades in all of time are about to begin.

And where is God? Occupying himself with two
obscure, humble women—one old and barren (Elizabeth),
one young and virginal (Mary). And Mary is so moved by
this vision of God, the lover of the lowly, that she breaks
out in song — a song that has come to be known as “the
Magnificat” (Luke 1:46–55).

Mary and Elizabeth are wonderful heroines in Luke’s
account. He loves the faith of these women. The thing that
impresses him most, it appears, and the thing he wants to
impress on Theophilus, his noble reader, is the lowliness
and cheerful humility of Elizabeth and Mary.

Elizabeth says,“Why is this granted to me that the
mother of my Lord would come to me?” (Luke 1:43). And
Mary says, “He has looked on the humble estate of his servant”
(Luke 1:48).

The only people whose soul can truly magnify the
Lord are people like Elizabeth and Mary—people who
acknowledge their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by
the condescension of the magnificent God.

© Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Good News of Great Joy