Unexpected Epiphany

Thank you. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here. I want to welcome all of you in this room. We also have people next door in the venue, and tuning in on Facebook Live, welcome each and every one of you. And also want to express gratitude to the 49ers for playing later today. Because some of you wouldn't be here if they weren't. So anyway, I see people flying the colors. This is the day. This is where we get the monkey offer back today, right? After. We haven't beat Seattle since 2011, I'm told. So let's hope.

Anyway, I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful Christmas. We had the privilege of going up to Lake Tahoe over Christmas. It was like living inside one of those snow globes. It was awesome. There's myself and my kids. We got to get some skiing in. And it was just a delightful time. Again, I hope you had a wonderful week. And speaking of great Christmas moments, Kyle Pitchford, who is our college and young adult pastor, he shared something with a few of us just before Christmas. This is a little video clip of his daughter Lucy teaching her younger brother about the meaning of Christmas. Watch this. Jesus is the real person. But it's Jesus' birthday on Christmas, and Santa's for Christmas too. But Jesus is the important one. No. Oh, Jesus of Christmas Day. Oh, yes, it's Christmas evening.

Isn't that awesome? Oh, that we would all have that kind of joy. And inside too, did you hear that? Santa gets to come along, but he's not the important one. Jesus. So there we go. Well, before we turn our focus to the new year, we are going to look at one last Christmas story from our series, A Very Unexpected Christmas. And today, I'm calling this message Unexpected Epiphany. More traditional liturgical churches celebrate epiphany on January 6th, immediately following the so-called 12 days of Christmas, because epiphany refers, first of all, to the manifestation of Christ to the magi, what we also call the wise men.

And here's why that matters so much. Their appearance in Bethlehem demonstrates God making good on a promise. He's made this promise several times in the Old Testament, where he would not only bless Israel, but he would bless the world through Israel and Israel's Messiah. And in other words, Jesus came from one nation, but he came for all nations. That's the good news of that promise. And the magi are the very first Gentiles ever recorded to worship Jesus as Lord. And when it comes to the word epiphany, most of us tend to think of the second meaning, which is an illuminating discovery. We say, oh, I had an aha moment. I had an epiphany. And those two, by their very nature, are also unexpected.

And today, my prayer for all of us is that we will have an epiphany in both senses, that Christ will be manifest in our life in a very real, profound, concrete way, and that that will lead to illuminating, life-changing discovery. So are you with me? All right, well then, let's pray before we read. In fact, let's read, and then we'll pray. How about we do that? This is from Matthew 2:1–12. "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 in the east and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed in 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 Christ was to be born. In Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written. But you, Bethlehem, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people.

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said to them, go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him. After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. This is the word of God.

Now let's ask him to open our hearts and minds too. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, you promise that your word will never come back to you empty, but rather it is living and active. And so by your word and spirit, I ask that you would penetrate our souls, you would quicken our hearts and minds, you would open our eyes, and you would shape our lives. We pray this by your grace and in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and all God's people say, amen.

Well, there are three things that I want to point out to you today from this passage. Three things I believe this story invites us to see. And the first thing is this. It is the power of grace in the magi, the power of grace. You know, we're so used to this story, so accustomed to having the magi, the wise men, as part of our little manger scenes and the like, that we have lost the shock value of their appearance. I mean, first of all, when they arrive, you know, Jesus, he looks like any other infant, OK? He's not glowing. He's not levitating. He's just an ordinary infant or toddler at the time. And yet they bow down and literally worship him. And they present to him these lavish, very, very expensive gifts.

Now, outside of Matthew's account, we really don't know a whole lot about the magi. They're mentioned at times in the Old Testament, specifically in the book of Daniel, where at the time, most of the Jewish people had been hauled to Babylon to serve as slaves. And in Babylon, the magi were a very impressive elite group because they specialized in astronomy and astrology, math, agriculture, the occult. They were sought after for their knowledge, their wisdom. And so they inevitably were advisors to kings. And they wielded incredible political power. Daniel, having been brought to Babylon as a slave, demonstrates that he's got incredible wisdom. In fact, it's his ability to interpret the king's dream that he gets him promoted. Not only is he added to the magi, but he becomes their chief, their boss.

And so it's not a big stretch to think that Daniel would have shared the Hebrew Scriptures. He would have also told them about the prophecies of this anticipated Messiah king. But by the time you get to the New Testament times, magi is hardly a positive term. Let me give you one example. In Acts 13, Paul and Barnabas are telling people about Jesus. And it says at verse 8, "But Elimas, the sorcerer," for that is what his name means, "opposed them." Paul goes on to call Elimas a child of the devil. That's not exactly a flattering term. And "sorcerer" here in the English, in Greek, it is the word magas. We get our word in English, magic from it. This is exactly the word that Matthew calls the magi. You could just hear it, magi. The point is these guys are full on pagans. They are so outside the box. They are so foreign.

I mean, I want you to imagine the most unlikely person you could ever expect to come and worship Jesus. Now, don't get too judgmental here, but just think, what would it look like? Maybe you know, or you've seen them on TV, or whatever the case is. And they come walking into this service, and they sing with all of their heart and tears streaming down their faces. And they can't even wait for the offering to come because they want to give their very best to Jesus who they are worshiping. And you're standing there just absolutely stunned. Never in your life did you expect for that person to be worshiping Jesus. That's the magi. That's how absolutely unexpected they are. And in fact, the fact that they are acknowledging Jesus as the Christ, but as a divine person, the magi, not exactly like the greatest PR.

And yet Matthew makes no effort to clean this up. Doesn't have to include this story. He does. And he does so because it fits a theme. If you were with us for the series back in chapter 1 of Matthew when he provides the genealogy of Jesus, you'll recall he goes out of his way to highlight the misfits in the family tree of Jesus. People whose names are synonymous with sin. Genealogies were there to present kind of your credentials, your purity. And yet they've got all these sinners in there. And the magi is just kind of fit with that ongoing theme. In fact, you've probably heard the saying, wise men still seek him. In fact, this is kind of one of those typical graphics with the magi traveling. Probably more than three. But anyway, I don't disagree that wise men is wise to seek Jesus.

But here's what I really want to emphasize. The magi seek Jesus because they're under the power of God's grace. Listen, there are a lot of people who are smart, who are wise in the ways of the world. And they have no interest in the things of God. And this is where I think a lot of sermons on this passage, including ones I've preached, can place all the emphasis on how each of the different human beings are responding to Jesus as if that's the only thing going on. And when we place all of that emphasis there, the outline pretty much goes like this. Magi, they're the good guys. We put the white hats on them. Herod, he's the bad guy with the black hat. And the chief priests and religious experts, they're somewhere in between. So in conclusion, be like the magi, that sermon goes.

But again, while those responses are what they are, it can lead-- if that's our sole focus-- it can lead to the notion that if I just try hard enough, if I'm sincere enough, wise enough, I, in my own strength, my own wits can find my way to Jesus. Problem, that's not the gospel. John says, we love because he first loved us. And if we forget that, we can become smug in our faith. Like, we figured out things that other people just can't seem to figure out. So what I'm saying is, we can't just read this story from the bottom up. We have to read it from the top down and be trying to see what is God doing in the smiths. And clearly, his grace is drawing these magi from this obscure pagan place, drawing them like a magnet, or in their case, a star, to bring them to Jerusalem, where then it is God's word that will lead them to Bethlehem and the Christ.

It's the fulfillment of a promise that God makes in Hosea 2. And this is just one example, where he says, I will say to those called not my people, you are my people. And they will say, you are my God. Now, this promise wasn't just fulfilled in the magi, of course. It's been fulfilled all throughout this room, hasn't it? Most of us have no claim originally on the covenant God made with Israel, but by extension, because it was God's plan to bless the world through Israel, we are the recipients of his grace as well. And I mean, I don't know about you, but speaking personally, when all this was going down in Bethlehem, my ancient ancestors were very likely sacrificing their own in some peat bog in Europe. I mean, that's how enlightened my family tree goes to.

And yet, the fact that now I'm a Christian, that I'm a pastor, that has absolutely nothing to do with anything good or wise in me, it has everything to do with the grace of God. And the same is true for you. And every single person throughout time who has had enough of a spiritual epiphany to call Jesus their Savior and their Lord. Amen. Well, the second thing this story invites us to see is the power of sin in Herod and company. Power of sin. You know, when the magi show up, like I said, there's very likely more than three, and they're impressive, and they're exotic, and they're powerful, they're flanked by soldiers and likely a whole caravan, and it is no wonder this rattles Herod's cage, okay?

And not only that, but Herod was famously paranoid. Herod actually killed one of his wives and three of his own sons because he didn't trust their loyalty. And even though he was kind of a psychopath in that way, it would be a mistake to kind of simplify him just down to that, because in addition to that, he was also incredibly brilliant. He was shrewd as a politician, and he was somewhat of a genius when it came to building things, to engineering things. For example, his renovation of the temple in Jerusalem was one of the largest construction projects in the entire first century. Imagine building something that you could say, yeah, within 100 years, that was one of the most impressive. He also built the mountain fortress Masada. And just a couple miles south of Jerusalem, he built his own palace called the Herodium on a man-made mountain, so he could look down at Jerusalem from his mountain fortress.

He also built the seaport city of Caesarea of Meritima. He was so far ahead of everyone else when it came to building and engineering. The list just goes on and on and on, but the thing is, it doesn't matter how powerful you are, how successful you are, how accomplished or brilliant you are. No one can overcome the power of sin in their own strength. I mean, that's the natural state for all of us, what scripture sometimes calls the flesh. It's how we all operate apart from God's grace, and here's how the apostle Paul describes it in Romans 8. Listen to this, he says, the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God, period.

And you see this in Herod, don't you? You see this with the chief priests and teachers of the law and the result of this effective sin on them, the result is either hostility or indifference. Hostility and indifference. I mean, there are people like Herod. They see Jesus as a threat to their own little kingdom, their rule over their realm and their life, and so they oppose him actively. They are hostile to either his message, his ministry, his people, who he is. For example, right now there's an organization called Open Doors, estimates that one in nine Christians around the world right now are facing significant persecution. One in nine, that's more numerically than ever in the history of the planet. In Asia, that drops down to one in three. In fact, you might be aware, right now in China, there's estimated to be one million people who belong to a group called the Uyghurs who are being interned in so-called re-education camps. Some of them are Christians.

In fact, one of them, through sources I can't reveal, related a statement that a man made after being held in chains for years, literally in chains, for being a Christian. And he says this, this is one of your brothers in Christ. He says, "Although I had no physical freedom, no one could stop me from having close fellowship with Christ." It's like something out of the book of Acts, and it is here now. "While the spirit of Herod is alive and well, so is the spirit of Christ reaching into these dark places and giving people meaningful hope and joy." Now, we're not accustomed in our country, in our culture to this level of persecution, but what we see very typically is the second result, which is indifference, right? Just indifference, like, yeah, it's not really relevant to my life.

And you really see this with the religious experts and the chief priests. When Herod says, "Hey, tell me where the Bible says this king is going to be born." It's like a no-duh question to them. They don't like, "Oh, give us a moment, we gotta go hit the books." No, they're like, "Herrard, read your Bible. Matthew 5, it's Bethlehem." Everybody knows that, except for you, apparently. I probably didn't answer quite that way. But my point is, do they bother to go and check for themselves? I mean, no, it's six whole miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Any of you ever run in the wharf de wharf? Walk in the wharf de wharf? Drive your car from one wharf to the other? Okay, it's eight miles. So this is even less than that, and yet these guys, do they check out Jesus? Nope. Now why? Because they're so dumb? No, they're not dumb. They're actually very well-educated, intelligent people, but they are indifferent because of the power of sin in their lives, which has darkened their eyes.

I mean, and even after, whether it's, even after God's grace breaks into our hearts, it's still a struggle, isn't it? I mean, let's be honest. Why is it sometimes so hard to pray? Why is it sometimes, the last thing we wanna do is draw near to God? Why is it so easy to fall into self-destructive thinking and behaviors? It's because I don't care how mature you are as a Christian, sin does not go down without a fight. It just doesn't. I can remember several years ago, René and Laurie, myself, my wife, Laura, we had the privilege of taking Jeanette Kraft out to lunch. If you've been here for some time, you know that Jeanette was the wife of René's predecessor, Roy Kraft, who was the senior pastor here for 47 years, both just the most godly couple, and anyone who knew Jeanette just held her. I don't know if you can hold someone in higher regard.

And so we got to take her out, it was probably a year or two before she passed away and went to heaven. But we're sitting there at lunch, she's sharing wonderful stories about when the church was over by the harbor, and by the way, that's why we're called Twin Lakes. And then she turns to me and René and she says, "Well, now that I have you two fine theologians here," and she was being very kind with the whole fine theologians part, very gracious. She goes, "But I want to ask you a question." We kind of sit up like, "Oh, the theologians are ready for your question." She says, "Why is it that after so many years of walking with the Lord and growing with Christ, I find that my struggle with my old nature, with my flesh is actually more difficult, and you'd think it would get easier and easier, but it doesn't. Why is that?"

And I kind of gesture and say, "Well, allow me to defer to the fine theologian on my right, René." And truth be told, between the two of us and with much help from our wives, we eventually kind of cobbled up some kind of answer. I'm sure we didn't say anything that Jeanette didn't already know. A much better answer comes at the end of Romans 7, when the apostle Paul of all people says this, "I have discovered this principle of life, that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God the answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord." Wow, that's Paul. Can anybody relate? I can.

And listen, this week, when you find yourself tempted by sin or defeated by sin, I want you to remember the answer is Jesus Christ. It's not you kind of redoubling your efforts. It's in Jesus Christ, because listen, what Jesus came and started in you, he is going to finish, okay? Jesus is going to finish, not just what he started in the world, but what he started in you, what he started in me. Do you believe that? Then run to him when you feel a sense, a power in your own life. Now, how can we be assured of this? How do we even know that all of this is true? Well, I think it comes down to this third thing that the story invites us to see, and that's the passion of God in the Christ child. Passion.

You know, it's like a two-sided coin, right? Because one side, passion is about love, desire, longing. But the other side is about suffering. And those two meanings come together in their ultimate expression in Jesus Christ. Man, if you ever doubt God's love for you, just imagine what it must have been like for God to become one of us. I mean, talk about love motivation. The eternal Son of God needs to be fed, needs to be changed, needs to learn how to walk and talk. He's stubbing his toes and skinning his knees, suffering bug bites and runny noses and cold nights. In fact, right after this passage, Joseph will be warned in a dream. They get up in the middle of the night, they flee to Egypt, where Jesus will spend his first tender months or years as a refugee in a foreign land. Why? Because he loves us. And because it's a fulfillment of what the Lord has promised. They will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. Not just over us, with us. That's how much he loves us. That's how much he loves you.

You know, at a recent pastors conference, Rick Warren, you've probably heard of him, pastor at Saddleback Church. He said this to a room full of pastors. Listen to this, he says, "Your first job in ministry is to let God love you." God made you to love you. Too many pastors either don't believe this or don't live, as if they believe this. And I heard those words, I read them actually. And I thought, man, there is a lot of truth and wisdom to those words. That my first job is to let God love me. And so I've been pondering that ever since, asking myself, Mark, what would it look like for you to let God love you more? What are the areas, those little pockets of your life where you resist his love? In fact, you are hostile to his love or indifferent to his love because you wanna hold that to yourself. And I might say that those words that he said to those pastors don't just apply to pastors. They apply to all of us here today.

So let me ask you, what would it look like to allow God to love you more in this next year? What are those pockets in your life where you resist his presence, you resist his love? And as you think about those things, I wanna close with a story I read this last week that really touched my heart. It comes from a seminary professor named Timothy Paul Jones. And when Timothy and his wife, Rayanne, adopted one of their daughters, they knew that she had been previously adopted by another family, but tragically that adoption had been dissolved. And so it's already a very sad story, but then once they adopt her, they learn something else really bizarre. They learn that this family would on occasion make trips to Disney World, but when they did that, they would only take their biological children with them. This little girl would be left behind in the care of family or neighbors.

And learning that, they wanted to kinda reverse that, and so they quickly made plans to bring this little girl to Disneyland with her. I mean, she was like a modern day Cinderella, right? The way she'd been treated. And something interesting happened as the days approached. Her behavior began to become worse and worse as the date became closer. She would lie, she would steal, she would do everything she could to defy them, and eventually Timothy sits her down, and before he could even say a word, she blurts out, she goes, "I know what you're doing. You're not gonna bring me to Disney World, are you? You're gonna leave me behind." And he thought it never really occurred to him what he was tempted to say in that moment, which is, "Well, I just might if you don't start behaving better." But instead of saying that, he says, "Is this trip something we're going to do as a family?" She nods, tears start to well up in her eyes. He says, "And are you a part of this family?" She nods, and he says, "Then you are going to Disney World." He goes, "Now, there may be some other consequences to remind you of the difference between right and wrong, but you are coming with us."

Now, he hoped that that conversation might bring about a reversal in her behavior, but it continued. In fact, during the drive down, and the very first day at Disneyland, she was a total brat. Until that night in the hotel, he's tucking her into bed, and she looks up at him, and she says, "Daddy, I finally got to go to Disney World." Then she adds, "But it wasn't because I was good. It's because I'm yours." See, that's the gospel. You think God loves us because we're so lovable? I think we all know better than that. He loves you because he made you, because he chose you. He loved you so much that even it meant needing to become one of us. And not only that, but that he would be willing to live in the same world we live in and experience things we experience. And yet, without sin, then he would ultimately, he would die on a cross, but not even death or sin or the grave could stop him. And if none of those things could stop him from loving us, do you think there's anything left that can? I mean, seriously?

And so in closing, I just wanna invite you to think of this last question. Ask yourself, where do I need an epiphany? Where do I need Christ to be made manifest in my life in a real way? Where do I need his illuminating presence or insight? I mean, maybe it's in a relationship, your marriage or with your kids, a coworker, a neighbor, whomever. Maybe it's an area of deep anxiety. Night after night, you are worried about something. It could be your health, it could be a situation, whatever, maybe you don't even know where you need an epiphany, but you can come to Jesus and ask him. Say, Lord, just open my eyes. Help me to see and experience more of what you have for me. We can do all of that as we go to him in prayer. Please join me.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your presence in our midst here today. We thank you for the blessing of being able to gather together as your people. We thank you, Lord, because, you know, we're not here because we figured it out. We were like those magi, alienated from you, far from you, and yet you drew us to yourself. And we praise you, we thank you for that. We are humbled by that. And Lord, I pray for those, I pray for all of us. Lord, would you make yourself manifest in our life in a new and necessary way? Would you illuminate our minds and our hearts in such a way that we would be drawn ever closer to you? And Lord, for those, again, who, they need the reassurance of your presence, of your love, of your grace, your forgiveness. They need to be encouraged, they need to be strengthened, they need to be healed. Whatever the need is, Lord, would you meet them because of who you are and because of your love for each of us. We pray this in the matchless name of Jesus Christ. And again, all God's people said, amen, amen.