Who Sits on Your Throne? Jesus as King

And so the Magi are warning the dream to go a different route. Now Joseph is warned, get out of Bethlehem. Go to Egypt because Herod's trying to find him. He's trying to kill him. And so Joseph follows orders faithfully, which is amazing, because we never see a single word recorded that Joseph says in Scripture. But what we do see constantly is him just being faithful in his actions. And that's what he does in this situation. So they go to Egypt and they stay there until Herod dies, which fulfills that prophecy. [00:32:08] (28 seconds)  #JosephsQuietFaith

Herod's angry. And here's something that I'm reminded of, is oftentimes anger is a reaction of fear. So if you're like me, who maybe has an anger streak in you, oftentimes our anger comes from fear that creeps into our lives. And this is mostly what's taking place with Herod. He's fearful of losing his status. He's fearful of losing his throne and his rule and his reign. And when his plans aren't working to snuff out that opposition that he thinks is rising up, he gets angry. [00:33:03] (29 seconds)  #AngerMasksFear

That we needed rescue and restoration in our broken world back to what God intends for our world. That we need forgiveness and grace for our sins. And that's what Jesus came to do. He came to die for the sins of Herod as well. And Herod didn't realize it. Jesus came to bring a new kingdom to this earth. Heaven meeting earth. And Jesus was meant to be that final king forever. But here's what's kind of crazy. Herod wasn't wrong. He just responded wrong. [00:35:52] (30 seconds)  #RescueRestoreThroughJesus

``Herod, what he thought was this new, he thought this new king was a threat to his position and power. And the reality was, Jesus was. It was a threat to his power. It was a threat to his rule. It was a threat to everything Herod thought. It was a threat that made Herod realize that maybe he wasn't the most important person in his life and in this world. And this is what we can't miss. At Christmas time, the birth of Jesus declared war on the powers of this world. His birth changes everything. [00:36:22] (29 seconds)  #JesusChangesEverything

And it meant war against the way the world does things. Now, it wasn't with a sword. It was with the way he lived his life, his teachings, his miracles, his death and resurrection. He lived his upside down life to bring this upside down kingdom to this world. But Jesus showing up was a threat to those in power with status. And here's the scary truth. You and I are more like Herod than we probably like to admit. Now, I don't believe anybody here watching online is someone who is so paranoid that our reaction is going to make sure babies are being killed. [00:36:50] (34 seconds)  #UpsideDownKingdom

And what we can do with Jesus is we can react similarly to Herod and say, you know what? Jesus, I don't want you messing up my life right now. I don't want you taking my status and changing my power and changing my roles and my reign. And so we look at the Christmas story and wonder, why Herod? Why was he like that? Herod was in this story to show that Jesus' arrival isn't good news for those who don't want Jesus in their lives. And that's the reality of it. [00:37:53] (27 seconds)  #JesusThreatensStatusQuo

And so for some of them, it's not good news. And the hope is we can show them it is good news. But Jesus didn't just show up to be savior. We like him as savior. We love the idea of Jesus as dying for our sins and forgiving us. That sounds wonderful. But he didn't show up just to be savior. He showed up to be king as well. And the magi, the wise men, they had it right. They came to worship the new king that had been born. [00:38:49] (25 seconds)  #JesusSaviorAndKing

And Jesus came to save people from our sins. Absolutely. But he also came to rule as God's final king and God's forever kingdom. This kingdom of heaven coming to earth. And to follow Jesus is to acknowledge and follow him as king. For Jesus to be king, though, we have to give up ruling our own lives. Or we have to replace Jesus with whatever we have in our lives, whatever that person or that thing is that rules our lives, we have to replace that with Jesus. [00:39:15] (29 seconds)  #FollowJesusAsKing