Religious Leaders

Good morning, chapel family. So glad to be able to connect with you whether you're here at our Cross Point Campus or watching online or on television or listening on the radio. I'm so glad to be able to open up God's word and worship him through his revealed truth today. Grab a Bible, grab a digital device and make your way to Matthew Chapter two is where we're gonna to be today as we wrap up our Missing Christmas series today. If you live in the Buffalo Niagara region then you understand the unique and maybe interesting relationship that we have with Niagara Falls. And I'm talking about the actual falls, not the city itself but one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the former honeymoon capital of the world. And it's right in our backyard, but maybe you're an exception to this, but I venture to say that you're probably like me, in that, sometimes the only time that you make your way actually to visiting the falls is when someone from out of town comes to visit you and they want to see the falls because, after the initial enjoyment of some Duff's chicken wings, what is the one thing that your out-of-town guests want to see? They want to see the falls. And so you'd take them up to the falls. You make your way there, you go to whichever side of the border you're on. You make your way to the falls and you watch this out-of-town guest or family member or friend walk up and approach. And they hear the rushing of the water before they see it. And you can sense it's kind of like they're walking into Disney world as a child, right. And they're getting the excitement, it's building as they get there. And then they see the falls, that water just pouring over the edge, and you watch as a childlike wonder takes over their face, right, and it's fun. It's great to be able to give that as an experience. And even if you haven't been there in awhile, don't you immediately turn into like the professional tour guide, right. Like, well, many people think the Canadian side has a better picturesque view, right. But state side, you get closer to the water, right. That kind of a thing. And then inevitably what happens your out-of-town guests looks at you with amazement in their eyes and they say so do you just come here all the time? This has happened to you too, okay. And you say, no. Only when you're here, right, because you realize that maybe sadly, gosh, it was last year that we had some out-of-town friends and I guess that was the last time I was up at the falls. And they can't believe it. Your guests can't believe it. How could you be this close to this incredible display of majesty and power and force and you're not just like up here all the time? And don't you feel just a little tinge of guilt at that moment? Like maybe should I be up here more? Should I just make it like a Saturday thing? Should I work remotely from the falls? I'm confused. What am I, is there Wi-Fi there? You're thinking through all of these things and you realize that it was something, here it is right in your backyard within such close proximity, and yet maybe you were too close to appreciate it. And it took some out of towners to draw attention to how amazing it is. Have you felt that way? Have you experienced that? And so, of course, the consequences, aren't all that dire. If we only make one annual visit to the falls, as beautiful as it is, the consequences really aren't all that dire if we wait until we have out-of-town guests to give ourselves the excuse to drive up and visit this natural wonder of the world. But the reason I share that is because there's a scene in the first Christmas story that oddly mirrors this one that we all know here who we live in the Buffalo Niagara region. There's a scene that stands out to me that mirrors that experience that we share as being in proximity to wonder. And so we're gonna look today at the religious leaders and their proximity to that very first Christmas. And whereas we saw last week, King Herod was prominent in the story for really all of the wrong reasons, when we turn our attention now to the religious leaders, we're moving to Jerusalem, the hub of Judaism, really there's this power struggle that's at play between Herod the propped up puppet of a political figure from Rome and the religious leaders who actually held significant sway and influence over the people. And again, whereas Herod was quite prominent in the story, these religious leaders kind of are quiet. They have a very brief entrance or exposure in the Christmas story and a very quick exit. Look with me in Matthew chapter two, the first six verses says this, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in 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? "We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. "When King Herod heard this "he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him. "When he had called together all the people's chief priests "and teachers of the law, "he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied. "For this is what the prophet has written, "But you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah "are, by no means, least among the rulers of Judah. "For out of you will come a ruler "who will shepherd my people Israel." All the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, these are the religious leaders that we're talking about and they have one question, one quote, one scene and, as best we can tell, fade into the background of this Christmas story, There's no indication from the gospels, any of them, that they pop up in the Christmas narrative ever again whether you're looking at Matthew or Luke or any of the gospels for that matter. And so what do we do with that? Such a brief participation in this Christmas story and yet their role is a significant one. Now Bethlehem, they accurately identify as the birthplace, the prophesied birthplace of Messiah. And for kind of some geographic context, Bethlehem was six miles, maybe a little less, from where they stood in Jerusalem. As the religious leaders, as the chief priests and teachers of law stood and recited Micah's prophecy to King Herod, they were six miles away from Bethlehem. How long does it take you to walk six miles? Like an hour and a half? Maybe two hours if you're walking with a toddler? Like I am often now or maybe two and a half, if you are carrying said toddler after the first 10th of a mile, right? I mean, it's not a long distance. Six miles from Bethlehem. Six miles from the Messiah. Six miles from the King, not of just Israel, but of the whole world. And yet as best we can tell, they don't go there. They don't make the trip. It's like less than two hours and they, all signs, all indications from the text would be they don't go. Imagine that, imagine you're the religious leaders. Imagine you not only know the answer but have the means to a six-mile camel ride, right? Like you have the means to get there. And yet, from what we can tell, they don't go. In fact, the only time that they're paying attention to Bethlehem at all is when some out-of-towners come and ask about it. That's the only time that they're actually, I mean, why aren't they just camped out at Bethlehem? Like Messiah's to be born here, why don't we just have an outpost and with a delegate who's just there and lights a flame if the Messiah is born. There's nothing of that. In fact, it seems that the only time they're even paying attention is when these out-of-towners, the Magi, come and ask about it. So what do we do with them? Well, there's some interesting things for us to discover and learn about these religious leaders. And the reason I share that is because, although we don't sit in any of the same offices or seats that they sat in, we will find ourselves in this story. So we might want to know how did they miss it? How did the chief priests and teachers of the law miss it? How did they miss Christmas? Well, some factors that we should take into consideration, the first factor is their comfort and the status that came with it. Their comfort and the status that came with it, this was more of a political aristocracy than a group of spiritual leaders, the chief priests and teachers of the law, as best we can tell from history from the gospels, from those who knew it best, was that there had been incredible corruption that had snuck in and crept in to this group of people. Of course, they were outliers. Of course, they were noble people. Of course, they were even folks like Nicodemus who would one day become counted among the faithful. But, for the most part, these religious leaders were soaked in corruption and it was a political aristocracy, more than anything else. The teachers of the law, for example, or the scribes as some translations say, their job was to copy the scriptures over and over, meticulously copy the scriptures with ink, okay. No voice to text, no dictation software. Copying the scriptures, they knew every letter of the law. And I do mean that literally, every single letter of the law because they'd copied it hundreds and hundreds of times. They also classified and taught the precepts of God. So these were systematic theologians who had a significant platform, and they didn't even have an Instagram handle to go along with it. Like they had status in ancient Israel. When you've got a nationalistic religion, like it was the case in Israel, the teachers of the law were celebritized in many cases. And we know this for a lot of reasons but not the least of which, because Jesus himself spoke to these very things. In Luke chapter 20 verse 46, Jesus said this, "Beware of the scribes, beware of the teachers of the law." Be careful around them. Why? "They like to walk around in flowing robes." "Love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces." Love to have the most important seats in the synagogues. Love to have the places of honor at banquets. They had status. There was some comfort with that status, that they were revered. And, you know what, the problem wasn't that those things happened. The problem wasn't that they were greeted in the marketplace. The problem wasn't that they were given those seats because, from the perspective of those who greeted them and those who gave them those seats, what were they trying to do? They were trying to honor, right. The problem was the scribes, the teachers of the law, they liked it. It scratched the itch of their egos. They love to be greeted in the marketplace. Why? Because they liked that somebody knows their name. They like that there's a status and there's a comfort that comes with that status. They liked it. But then we see the chief priests, and if you're paying close attention you might be thinking chief priests, plural, I thought there was only a high priest. Singular, not chief priests, plural. And you'd be right, because by the time of Jesus, by the time of the first century and right there around, again that corruption had seeped into the point that the office of chief priest was more of a political tool to be leveraged than a person who stood and represented national Israel before God as a spiritual authority. It became a tool to be leveraged. And here's some perspective on how we know that. The first temple, the temple that Solomon built which stood for 410 years, about, in that 410-year timeframe there were 18 people, 18, who held the office of high priest which, if you do the math, comes out to about 22 years. So it's a lengthy appointment to that role of high priest but that temple was destroyed. And you remember, after the exile Zerubbabel rebuilt the temple. It paled in comparison to Solomon's temple, but it was there. And then our friend Herod the Great, he expanded and updated and renovated it. And so that second temple stood for 420 years, almost exactly the same length of time. And do you know that in that 420 years, 300 plus people held the office of high priest? First temple, 400 years, 18 people. Second temple about 400 years again, over 300, they stopped counting. Why? Because it became more of an asset, a transaction, kind of a backscratching in a political kind of sphere that could be used to give out favors and to leverage influence and power and authority and, certainly, the status that would go with that. So there would often be a high priest who would be like high priest emeritus after serving for one year and have all of the benefits of that for life. That's why when you read the gospels by the way and you get to Jesus' trial, you see Annas and Caiaphas, and they were like, why is he called the high priest and then he's called the high priest, is this a problem? It's not because by that time Anis, who was the elder, he was the high priest and five of his sons or sons-in-law, Caiaphas being one of them, were high priests while he was alive. This is a political appointment. It was like, oh, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. I'll take care of y'all. I'll make sure you're included in the next round. I mean, it was corrupt by the time of Jesus. And so that comfort and that status had to be a factor in blinding the chief priests and the teachers of the law because this group that Herod asks, where's Messiah to be born, and they know right away. And probably, no doubt, let out by the scribes who had this memorized, they know the prophecy, Micah 5-2, Bethlehem of Judea. They knew the answer, but we can see with clarity now, even though they knew the answer, they missed the point. Could it be that because of how comfort can numb us and lull us to sleep? Could it be that their comfort actually did that for them because of their status, because of their receiving good seats at good banquets and being honored and revered and going from party to party and eating the best of food and being treated like royalty? Could it be that they had fed their hearts with material things so much that they stopped aching for Messiah because they were so consumed with the temporal that they lost focus of the eternal. Could we say rightly of the chief priests and teachers of the law that, although they certainly were on one level waiting for the Messiah, they were no longer aching for the Messiah. Their comfort and their status had to be a factor, but it couldn't be the only one because of the group that we meet known as the Magi, who were potentially even wildly more wealthy than they, and had way more influence than they and they were pursuing the one to be born King of the Jews. So that's a factor, but it can't be the only one, but it does lead to the second factor that I see. And that's what I would call cultural arrogance. There was cultural arrogance at play. How do I know that? Well, think about this scene. You've got the chief priests and teachers of the law who know all of the prophecies about Messiah frontwards, backwards and in their sleep, they know it all and then this group of out-of-towners comes into Jerusalem and starts talking about a star that they've seen. And they want to know where Messiah is to be born. Well, they know the answer, but as you read Matthew two, and if we were to take the time to read it further, we would notice just how blatant it is that they don't show up in the story. After all, why don't they go with the Magi even just to be sure? One scholar pointed out on this passage, it is a very strange thing that the Magi went alone to Bethlehem. Do you ever think about that? Not one person from Herod's court, let alone the King himself. Not one delegate or proxy from the Sanhedrin. No representative from the chief priests or teachers of law. No scribe, nobody from Jerusalem seems to accompany the Magi to Bethlehem. It's a very strange thing that they go alone. Or let me state it another way. The pagans go looking for the Jewish Messiah while the Jews themselves stay home. So what about this scene? These wise men, these Magi, come talking about a star. Well, like many in the ancient world, there were those who studied the stars and their movements in astronomy. Some took that one step further and looked for meaning and direction and guidance from the stars and astrology. And really most of those things for the Jews were an abomination because the skies proclaim God's handiwork. They were there to point to God, not replace God for meaning and direction. And so they were rightly thinking about those things. So picture the scene. You've got the chief priests and teachers of the law who see these Gentiles, and you know how they thought of the Gentiles. They had some favorite names for the Gentiles, right. One of them that is appropriate for this setting would be worthless dogs. That was how they thought of the Gentiles. They were unclean. They were at a distant from God, right. And so here comes some Gentiles who are talking about a star that they've seen and they think that that's corresponding to a divine event. Now you remember, they talk about a star which clearly has echoes of Balaam's prophecy that Pastor Edwin pointed out last Sunday. Remember that prophecy, it's here in Numbers 24 verse 17. This is what Balaam said. "I see him, but not now. "I behold him, but not near. "A star will come out of Jacob. "A Scepter will rise out of Israel." The chief priests and teachers of the law, they knew this. But what you need to remember about Balaam is who he was not, he was not an Israelite. He was a Gentile. He was a pagan. And so the Gentile star-gazing Magi come talking about a star that they've seen that has echoes of a pagan's prophecy, so-called, and the chief priests and teachers of the law are hearing this thinking, you've got to be kidding. You have to imagine, from their point of view, they must have a measure of cultural arrogance at work in their hearts because they have to be thinking if Messiah were really here would he have told them before he told us? Would he have announced, would God have announced the arrival of his Messiah through all of these Gentile vehicles? I mean, please, that's laughable. No wonder they stay in Jerusalem. They think it's a joke. They think that these stargazers, yeah, go right ahead. You go right and find that out. And isn't it interesting, isn't it interesting that because the Magi never returned to Jerusalem, what that might have done to the chief priests and teachers of the law. Do you ever think about this? Now, you know why the Magi didn't go back to Jerusalem. God warned them in a dream. Herod's crazy. Just no other word for it. My paraphrase. You need to make your way home. But imagine what the chief priests and teachers of the law thought. See, see, I bet you they were so embarrassed, I bet you those Magi were so embarrassed that their star was just a fluke, was just a coincidence, was just Jupiter and Saturn crossing like they do, and that they thought that this was gonna announce Messiah, and I bet you, they were so embarrassed that when they got to Bethlehem and saw what a bodunk little town it is, that they just made on their merry way back to their homeland. They were probably so embarrassed, see I told you, I told you, didn't I tell you, didn't I tell you the other day that that was gonna happen, right. So you can imagine the conclusions that they comforted themselves with because the Magi never came back. If the Magi had found Messiah, certainly, they would have come and told us. I bet you, they never found anything. Perhaps cultural arrogance was at play. And what's maybe so amazing to me about this is that it's actually the Jewish people, the people of God, who discount the miraculous in this scene. And it's the Gentiles who believe that divine intervention was at work, but more than this, more than their comfort and their status, more than their cultural arrogance, the most concerning is the last and the third and that's self-deception. They were blinded from the truth. They were blinded from the truth. They refused to come to Jesus. They refused to come to him. And I have good reason for saying it that strongly. Though not a traditional Christmas story, John tells the coming of Messiah in the beginning of his gospel in John chapter one. Look what he says in John one verse nine. "The true light that gives light "to everyone was coming into the world. "He was in the world "and though the world was made through him, "the world did not recognize him." And then most chilling to me. "He came to that, which was his own, "but his own did not receive him." This statement, to me, is a theological commentary on what we read in Matthew two. He came to his own. Nobody was more prepared intellectually for the arrival of Messiah than the chief priests and the teachers of the law. But his own did not, would not receive him. They refused to come to him. And, friends, that's why I'm speaking so passionately about the apathy or the apparent apathy of the religious leaders. 'Cause you might be thinking, man, you're going a long way from a couple of sentences in Matthew two. getting really worked up and there's nothing here. So they're indifferent. So what, they missed it in Bethlehem, right? But listen their apathy and indifference in Bethlehem or towards Bethlehem, I should say, didn't stay in the realm of apathy because as you read the gospels as it continues from that point, their apathy moves into active animosity to Jesus. This group and their successors move from apathy to active animosity. And it's not long before that moves into violent hostility. And that always is the case with apathy. It doesn't stay there because Jesus doesn't stay in the manger. He doesn't stay in little town of Bethlehem. He wants the throne and he alone is right for it. And so that apathy is dangerous, but I care deeply about what our response is to the King. And if we're indifferent or passive, it's not as harmless as we might think. Because, as the gospel record unfolds and you know this, because you've read these stories, the leaders, the religious leaders, are always trying to catch Jesus in a trap. They're always trying to ask him a question that's loaded or give him a question that appears to be binary. And he just splits right through it. Like you guys don't know what you're talking about and they just keep coming back for more, right. It's amazing. You're like, guys, don't ask him another question, you know, but they didn't give up. They were thirsty for more, okay. So they keep coming back and John five records one of those scenes where they're trying to discredit and disqualify Jesus as some way to kind of push him down and elevate themselves back up to the status that they are used to. And Jesus cuts through the smoke screen as he always does. And he says this to the very group we're talking about, these religious leaders, he says this in verse 39 of John five. "You study the scriptures diligently "because you think that, in them, you have eternal life. "But these are the very scriptures that testify about me. "Yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Literally meaning you do not want to come to me and it's in present active. It keeps on happening this way. You keep on refusing. You keep on not wanting to. I don't want to. You don't want to come to me to have life. I'm familiar with that phrase. I have a two-and-a-half-year-old son, come here. No. I don't think you hear me, come here. No. Why? I don't want to. Well, I'm so glad our two-and-a-half-year-old is so in tune with what he wants in life, right. We just want him to express himself. How about he expresses himself in obedience? Like that's how I want him to express himself, right. Come over here now, right. That's an aside. All right, so you do not want to come to me. So I'm like, yeah, I get that. You do not want to come to me. You refuse to come to me. What happened in Matthew two and what happened in John one is happening in John five. They do not want to come to him.
Eugene Peterson paraphrased this passage this way, this is so great how he says this. "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly "because you think you'll find eternal life there, "but you miss the forest for the trees. "These scriptures are all about me. "And here I am standing right "before you and you aren't willing to receive "from me the life you say you want." Jesus isn't downplaying study of the scripture. Don't miss that. Don't misunderstand that or misinterpret it. He's not downplaying that. He's saying that there is a kind of consumptive intelligence that does not lead to righteousness. There is a kind of study that you can so convince yourself that you have the knowledge and all the knowledge and all of the answers, but you miss the forest through the trees. And you can sit and consume a message Sunday after Sunday and many times throughout the week, and it doesn't move or result in change. You miss the reason the knowledge is given because the whole point of that knowledge was to lead you to God. That's what he's telling the chief priests and teachers of the law, but they missed it because knowledge became an end to itself. The benefits that came from the knowledge they possessed made them feel really good about themselves. In fact, their preference for self is at the root of their unbelief, at the root of why they don't come to Jesus. How do I know that? Because Jesus continues in that John five text this way. "I don't accept glory from human beings." But I know, you guys. "I know that you don't have the love of God in your hearts. "I've come in my Father's name and you don't accept me. "But if someone else comes in their own name, "you will accept him. "How can you believe since you accept "glory from one another, "but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" What's Jesus saying there? I don't accept glory from human beings. He's saying I don't have this void that I seek to fill with the praise of people, but I know you guys, and that's exactly what you do. I already share in the perfect glory of the triune Godhead. I've got all I need because I am a part of Father, Son, and Spirit, co-eternal three persons existing in one god. I've got that. But you guys, you keep trying to fill your tanks with the praise that you give each other and that backscratching political craziness. And you think that that's gonna satisfy you, but that's also why you don't have any room in your hearts for what I am here to give you. Your preference for self and for what each other can kind of give and take, it's causing you to miss it. You're deceived. You're deceived. So it's no wonder that Jesus says in another place in Matthew 16, beware. "Be careful," Jesus said to them. "Be on your guard against the yeast "of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Be awake, be vigilant, be sober about this, the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Why does he say yeast? 'Cause it only takes a little to work through and have a huge impact. It only takes a small amount. It can creep in so slightly almost imperceptibly and cause devastating results. Be on your guard against their kind of thinking getting into your heart, your mind, 'cause it will reek havoc. Paul says something similar in his second letter to Timothy. Here's a selection from verses two through seven of chapter three. Paul says, "People will be lovers of themselves "rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness." An outward resemblance to godliness. "But denying its power. "Have nothing to do with such people. "They are." And who does this sound like? "They are always learning "but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." Is this not a commentary on the chief priests and teachers of the law? Preference for self instead of God, missing out on what God has for them, having an outward resemblance, a moral conformity to godliness but no actual transformative power and always learning, always accumulating, but never arriving at the reason for the truth in the first place. Paul says, be careful, Jesus says, be on your guard, because we see ourselves or can in this story. The whole reason for this series friends, the whole reason for Missing Christmas is because we can see ourselves in these stories because some are distracted. Like the people of Bethlehem, some are threatened at Jesus' claim to be King, like King Herod, but others are suffering from the indifference and self-reliance of these religious leaders. You say, Jonathan, I'm not a saint. I'm no saint, okay. So maybe it doesn't come in the same religious packaging, but your heart is still the same because, just like them, you think you don't need God, at least, not as much as some people do. Self-reliance, indifference to Jesus and what he's here to do, you refuse to come to him to get the life you say you want because you'd rather figure out how to do life your own way. Thank you very much. And so it is possible that these people could honor God with their lips, but their hearts could be far from him. And so the danger, the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that works its way into our lives into our thinking is that we could actually fall victim, we could willfully plow into the same errors that they themselves made because, like them, we may not be in a hurry to come bow the knee before the manger. Maybe some of us that's comfort and status, just like them. Now, I know 2020 has been a rough year. I'm not ignoring that, but I pray that you would also be able to, at times, zoom out and get a global perspective on the comfort that we enjoy in our country. I hope you can still zoom out for a moment on that. This has been a hard year. It is a hard year for many, but don't be mistaken about the fact that you and I had a choice of what shirt we were gonna wear today. You and I had a choice of what we were gonna have for dinner last night. Most of us had choice, a choice of which car we were gonna drive to come for worship today. And so when we see on Our Kingdom Come Sunday, Lamech in India handing out a slice of wonder bread to children on the streets and know that that's the calories that they'll have for that day, let's put a little bit more perspective on this year. I'm not ignoring that or trampling over it. We have immense comforts and those are blessings. I don't take those for granted, but, listen, comfort can numb you to your greatest needs. It can. It can be sneaky and it will numb you and lull you to sleep and distract you and pull you away because the longer you meet soul longings with material things, pretty soon you stop longing for the eternal things. And just like the chief priests and teachers of the law, we might be waiting for Jesus to return and call us home, but we aren't aching for it. We aren't longing for it. We aren't echoing the words of John, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Because I'm still building my life here and I don't want you to mess with that. It's a dangerous spot because we can be deceived into thinking that, as long as Jesus is in the background in Bethlehem, that's fine. But if he tries to move into the foreground where I'm at just like he moved from Bethlehem into Jerusalem one day and flipped tables in Jerusalem in front of the chief priests and teachers of the law, do you think they thought, hmm, we have to address this. This is a threat to us. Beware of the yeast of the religious leaders that, when comfortable, you think you don't need God or maybe it's the arrogance. Theirs was cultural, for sure. Maybe yours is of a different kind. Maybe it's chronological arrogance. Because you've accumulated some knowledge. You studied a bit, you've learned a lot, you've progressed. And so maybe for you, it's a chronological arrogance that you've got a list of people that you are willing to receive truth from and it's a small qualified list. And what can happen, just like it did for them, is you will only receive truth from God on the terms that you've decided. And you will miss truth that he's trying to teach you because of the package that it comes in. That's a dangerous spot to be in. You know why? Because over time if you've just got your qualified list of who you're willing to receive truth from, over time as life moves on, that list, you know what happens, it becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, until guess what? You're the only person left on the list. You're the only person left. And so you'll miss the truth that God has for you because of the package that it's coming in. You'll be dismissive. You'll be dismissive of a sermon a week ago because what could that kid possibly have to teach me? Maybe you're thinking that this week of a less younger person? And you'll miss it. Look, that's scary. That scares me, scares me about me, it scares me about you, that we would get to the place where we become kind of this arbiter of truth, standing over this word, not under this word, accountable to God but instead we try to be accountable to self. Beware of the yeast of the religious leaders because accumulated knowledge without obedience doesn't make you privileged. It makes you vulnerable. It makes you vulnerable. Or maybe it's self-deception, you're blinded from the truth. You can fool yourself into thinking that this close to God is close enough. After all the Jewish leaders, six miles from Bethlehem, pretty close, this close is close enough. If anything happens, we'll hear about it. And so maybe you try to stay on the periphery of the community of faith. Just close enough to be a part of the wave that is The Chapel. Just close enough to be a part of what great things your church did, but you actually never get close enough to God for him to change you, for him to transform you. And so it's easy to sit in the shadows in the background but it's quite another thing to deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow him. This close is close enough, but the good news for you, for me, for all of us is that it's not too late. Your story can have a different ending. That's the best news. Your story doesn't have to follow the same path as the religious leaders who completely missed it. You see, they weren't just in danger of missing the first Christmas, they already had. You know how I know that? The text, look at Matthew two again where we started in Matthew two, verses one and two says this, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in 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?" Did you catch that? They had already missed it. Wouldn't it have been great for the story to have a different outcome? Wouldn't it have been a great thing for those who knew the scripture best for the story to have gone like this from the record of Matthew, and Herod asked all the chief priests and teachers of the law, where is the one who is to be born Messiah? Where's Messiah to be born? Where's the King of the Jews to be born? In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied. For this is what the scripture foretold and this is what we have seen and heard for ourselves. Wouldn't it have been great for them to look more like the shepherds, the lowest of the low in society who returned to Bethlehem praising God and telling people of all that they had seen, wouldn't it have been great for those who knew Jesus best from the standpoint of what prophecy surrounded his birth to be ready for his arrival? It didn't go that way. They missed that first Christmas. They missed Christ himself. Instead of that theoretical outcome, they doubled down, they dug in their heels. They hardened their hearts, but you don't have to. While you're breathing, your story's still being written. And so my encouragement to you would be don't miss Christmas. Don't miss Christ. There's still time. Nobody said it better than C.S. Lewis in his book "Mere Christianity". He says this, I wrote it down. I wanted you to see it as well. "We all want progress, but progress means getting nearer "to the place you want to be. "And if you've taken a wrong turning, "then to go forward does not get you any nearer. "If you're on the wrong road, "progress means doing an about-turn "and walking back to the right road. "And in that case, the man who turns back soonest "is the most progressive man. "There's nothing progressive about being pigheaded "and refusing to admit a mistake. "And I think if you look at the present state of the world," and C.S. Lewis wrote this in the mid 1940s, "It is pretty plain that humanity "has been making some big mistakes. "We are on the wrong road. "And if that is so, we must go back. "Going back is the quickest way on." He's talking about repentance, to turn around. To be truly progressive is not to double down on the path that you're blazing for yourself and you'll just figure it out. In that case, your self-reliance looks no different than the chief priests and teachers of the law, even if it comes without some of the same religious packaging. But to be progressive is to get nearer to our destination, to the life you say you want. And friends, I'll tell you the only way to find the life that you say you want is to come to the author of life himself, Jesus. He said, I've come that you might have life and have it to the fullest. And so the best decision you and I can make at Christmas is to not dig our heels in or to harden our hearts and, in so doing, miss all that he has for us but to willfully, joyfully, feverishly, urgently come to him. His arms are open. Let's bow together for a word of prayer. With your heads bowed and your eyes closed before we leave, I'd ask if you don't have to move right now, that you don't, just so you're not a distraction to those around you, nor that you'd be distracted yourself. If you're here and you don't know God personally through Jesus, it's no accident you're here. God wanted you to hear from him. And it has next to nothing to do with me, the mouthpiece, and has everything to do with the fact that God loves you. And he loves you so much that he's not content for you to remain at a distance from him. And maybe you picked up on this today that there's a world of difference between simply knowing about someone and truly knowing them. 'Cause you can know a lot about somebody without ever having met them, but Jesus doesn't want to stay in the realm of the people you know about. He wants you to know him and he wants you to be known by him. He wants you to move from that distance to right here. And he is not far from any of us. So for you today, if you sense, yeah, Jonathan, I need Jesus, enough games, enough playing around, enough acting like I've really been searching for myself when really I've just been trying to please myself, enough of that. I'm ready to follow Christ. If that's where you're at today, then when we dismiss in just a second, if you come by the fireside room, it's just clearly marked in our atrium, you'll see it as soon as you get out of this room, you'll see fireside room labeled on the wall, and there's some pastors and prayer partners who are there who would love to pray with you, put something in your hand to help you on your journey of faith and let you know that you're not alone. We can do this together. With your heads still bowed and your eyes still closed, if you're here and you'd say, yeah, Jonathan, I've been walking with Jesus for some time, but I'm afraid that I've been missing the forest through the trees. I read my Bible often or even daily, but maybe you'd admit you're reading to just complete the task. Instead of reading to meet the author, you've lost that sense of nearness, but the good news is he's not far. So renew your commitment to him, ask him to forgive your blindness and your willful disobedience at times. That's what we all need and he will assure you of his presence in your life. So father, I pray that you will draw us all closer to you, that this isn't just the sentimentality of Christmas for us, but the awakening of our hearts to our true love in Christ. And I pray wherever complacency has set in, God, that you would disrupt enough things in our hearts that we wouldn't be content there. wherever routine and formula has robbed us of an opportunity to hear your voice clearly, I pray that you would cut through the fog, real lesson, God, closer to you. And I pray God, even for those who are here and listening, whether in this room or even those that are watching online, that they would respond to the promptings of your spirit. God, that we would be the kind of people who don't settle for knowledge just for knowledge sake, but that we would see what it's pointing to, you, the knowledge giver. And we want to know you and be known by you. We trust that you'll do that through your spirit in our lives. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.