WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.780 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:20.780 that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:24.920 by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:31.520 for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.079 --> 00:00:37.939 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really, 00:00:38.179 --> 00:00:42.579 I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible, 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:48.760 they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:54.560 do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:59.340 non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't 00:00:59.340 --> 00:01:04.680 hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:07.780 types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:16.120 Standing, let's just bow our heads in prayer. Father, 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:29.680 Father, sometimes we think you have to act with more decorum. It bothers us because you do odd things. 00:01:30.800 --> 00:01:34.219 Father, you know that there are some people who really only like it when you do odd things, 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:41.320 and they get troubled when you do normal things. But Father, most of us probably get more bothered 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:47.239 when you do odd things. And so Father, we ask that this story would do a wonderful work of grace 00:01:47.239 --> 00:01:53.219 in our hearts, to open our hearts and our minds to just the bigness of what it is that you do. 00:01:53.979 --> 00:02:00.099 And as Father, we catch a better vision of your greatness and your power and your grace, 00:02:00.839 --> 00:02:05.379 that we might be formed more and more to be people of fervent prayer. And so Father, 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:09.419 we ask that you do this work in us this morning, and we ask it in the name of Jesus, 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:13.219 your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:18.500 --> 00:02:24.799 So, it'd be interesting afterwards during coffee, or maybe we'll get some emails from some of you 00:02:24.799 --> 00:02:30.339 folks about some things, but I've known, I know of at least two people, I could tell you a couple of 00:02:30.339 --> 00:02:38.000 others, but two particular stories of very, very weird conversion stories. And I should have arranged 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:44.219 beforehand to have a little line going across the stage saying, the screen saying, don't try any of 00:02:44.219 --> 00:02:50.599 these things, okay? The first one is, I know a man who had a very nominal Christian background, 00:02:51.340 --> 00:02:55.620 I think it was United Church or something like that, stopped going to church at 12, got completely and 00:02:55.620 --> 00:03:00.900 utterly caught up in the counterculture. And one day, he was out in the country, and he was stoned out of 00:03:00.900 --> 00:03:08.200 this tree on acid, and Jesus met him. And he had a conversation with Jesus while he was stoned. 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:14.860 And the result of it was that he gave his life to Christ. And when I met him about five years later, 00:03:14.920 --> 00:03:19.400 he was a practicing Christian and hadn't done drugs in five years, because he met Jesus while he was 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:28.980 stoned. Don't do this, by the way. That's not how you get to see Jesus. The second case is darker. 00:03:28.979 --> 00:03:37.399 However, I know a woman, I knew a woman who, she was suffering from depression, and she started to 00:03:37.399 --> 00:03:44.219 become interested in Jesus, but the depression was stronger than her interest in Jesus. And I mean, 00:03:44.259 --> 00:03:48.560 afterwards, you know, she was telling me afterwards, she can't imagine why she thought she should do 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:53.139 this, but she lived alone, and she didn't want to go a long time without her body being discovered. 00:03:53.139 --> 00:04:00.879 So she didn't want to commit suicide in her home. So she rented a hotel, and she had a bit of a science 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:05.699 background. So she did research to make sure that she would take enough pills to commit suicide. 00:04:06.359 --> 00:04:11.219 And because she really wanted to make sure that she committed suicide, she took 10 times more pills 00:04:11.219 --> 00:04:17.279 than were needed for her to commit suicide. And as she took the pills, she cried out to Jesus and say, 00:04:17.279 --> 00:04:23.379 Jesus, I don't know if you're there, I don't know if God exists. If you do exist and I die, please have mercy 00:04:23.379 --> 00:04:30.799 on me. But if you're real, keep me alive, and I will give my life to you. And she woke up the next morning 00:04:30.799 --> 00:04:39.639 alive. Once again, don't try this at all. It's a very, it's not how you come to Christ. These are two very, 00:04:39.779 --> 00:04:46.179 very weird ways of becoming a Christian. I mention this because the Bible text that we're looking at today 00:04:46.180 --> 00:04:53.939 is a weird God story. It's a story that God, about how God, actually, if you could put up the very 00:04:53.939 --> 00:04:58.720 first point now, that would be very helpful. This is in a sense that the big, one of the big messages 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:05.780 of the whole story. The Lord draws the unlikely close to himself. And we're going to unpack that. He 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:11.399 does it by stooping. He does it in weird ways. But the Lord draws those who are very unlikely, those who 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:15.819 are far from him, close to himself. And that's what the story is all about. It's the story 00:05:15.819 --> 00:05:20.319 of the visit of the Magi. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to look at it. And it's found 00:05:20.319 --> 00:05:27.319 in Matthew chapter 2, verses 1 to 12. And if you don't have a Bible, the words will be up on the 00:05:27.319 --> 00:05:31.839 screen. But it's good. I like it. I like my congregation to be Bereans, to look at the text 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:37.079 and read around the text to make sure that I'm trying to help us read the text together. And here's 00:05:37.079 --> 00:05:45.459 how this weird story goes. And it's really, it's one of those stories actually where if you know 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:51.680 what the words mean in the original language, it gets weirder. Not less weird, but more weird. So 00:05:51.680 --> 00:05:56.599 the more you know about the original language and the original cultural context, the weirder 00:05:56.599 --> 00:06:03.560 the story becomes. And it begins like this. Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:11.000 in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi, it says wise men in our translation, but it should be 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:18.620 literally Magi. Behold, Magi came, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:25.899 been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Now, 00:06:25.939 --> 00:06:31.199 we're going to camp on this for just a moment because it's here that we see the weirdness of 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:37.879 the story. So first of all, this is an historical story in the language. It's not, you know, there is 00:06:37.879 --> 00:06:43.360 language in the original language that could make it sound like it's a once upon a time, you know, 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:49.459 myth type story. This isn't once upon a time language. This is historical type of language, 00:06:49.459 --> 00:06:54.219 what you would see in an academic history or today, at least in principle, you'd see in a 00:06:54.219 --> 00:07:00.639 newspaper account of something that's just gone on. And so it's claiming to be history. If you, 00:07:00.759 --> 00:07:06.519 we don't know for sure who the Magi were, but if you have any Iranian friends, you can tell them 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:12.439 afterwards that we discussed a story about people from Persia coming to meet Jesus, because they're 00:07:12.439 --> 00:07:19.759 probably Persians or what we would now call Iranians. And here's where now, none of these 00:07:19.759 --> 00:07:26.319 things are particularly odd. Herod is Herod the Great, and he's a very, very well-known figure in 00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:33.599 history. He was known for his building projects all over. He, in fact, sort of rebuilt the temple. 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:39.600 So if you go to Israel today, and you go to Jerusalem, and you go to that, that the last 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:46.740 little bit of the temple, which is Lephthah's, Herod's temple that he built, he also built many 00:07:46.740 --> 00:07:52.180 temples to many of the different ancient gods. He was also known for his excessive cruelty and 00:07:52.180 --> 00:07:57.879 paranoia, killing at least one wife and several sons, because he thought they were plotting against 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:05.300 him. So he was a cold-blooded man. He was not naturally Jewish. He wasn't Jewish, and had no 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:12.240 claim to the Jewish throne. He had been appointed by his buddy, the Caesar, as the king of Jerusalem. 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:16.459 And so that's why, as we're going to see in the story, when he hears that the king of the Jews is 00:08:16.459 --> 00:08:23.759 born, he gets very, very troubled, because, you know, you can only have one king, and so if you want to get 00:08:23.759 --> 00:08:30.139 rid of one king, you have to kill the other king, and he doesn't want to die. So that's all just the 00:08:30.139 --> 00:08:37.340 history of the time, but the Magi is where it really gets weird. You see, the Magi are astrologers, 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:48.039 sorcerers, practitioners of the occult, and makers of potions, and dream interpreters, and several 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:53.339 other types of things. So that's who they are. They're pagan. Now, here's where the story gets a 00:08:53.339 --> 00:09:00.819 bit complicated to tell in Ottawa in 2024. How is it complicated? Well, just imagine, okay, 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:09.159 we use it for a Canadian thing, a Christian couple walk into the room and say, by the way, I go to 00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:16.099 church on Sunday. I believe the Bible. I trust Jesus as my Savior and my Lord. And another person comes in 00:09:16.100 --> 00:09:21.779 and says, oh, by the way, I'm a sorcerer. I'm an expert in reading dreams. I practice magic potions. 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:27.759 Who would attract the interested crowd around them? Well, we all know the answer. 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:32.540 If you wanted to make sure you didn't talk to anybody at a party, just say, oh, by the way, 00:09:32.580 --> 00:09:36.820 I'm a devout, very conservative Christian. I believe the Bible is God's word written. I 00:09:36.820 --> 00:09:41.700 believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And that would be a way to be by yourself at a party, 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:47.020 generally speaking, or to get some heated crowds. But saying, by the way, I'm a sorcerer. 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:53.980 Whoa, you're a sorcerer. Especially as in this case, these had to be men of means, 00:09:54.520 --> 00:09:58.320 because they're going to travel. If they came from Babel, if they came from Persia, 00:09:58.360 --> 00:10:03.660 they traveled at least 40 days, and they would have had a large entourage. It gets even more. So 00:10:03.660 --> 00:10:08.800 here's the odd thing, the tension in the story for us. So if you're outside the Christian faith, 00:10:08.799 --> 00:10:12.779 you probably know that Christians believe that you shouldn't have anything to do with astrology, 00:10:13.199 --> 00:10:16.899 shouldn't have anything to do with making potions, shouldn't have anything with consulting the dead, 00:10:17.279 --> 00:10:20.919 shouldn't have anything to do with anything to do with the occult. That's what you're not supposed 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:25.579 to do. So from a Christian perspective, and by the way, from the Jewish perspective, because all of 00:10:25.579 --> 00:10:32.979 these things are verboten back then, these are not the guys that you'd think that Jesus should be 00:10:32.979 --> 00:10:38.740 attracting to himself, okay? The Messiah shouldn't be attracting them. And for Canadians, 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:44.000 they're looking at it and saying, one moment, do these guys know that when they come to meet 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.959 Jesus, he's going to completely and utterly change their life and tell them they shouldn't be doing 00:10:47.959 --> 00:10:53.740 any of that stuff again? Like that would be the odd thing there. It would be as if all of a sudden, 00:10:53.819 --> 00:10:57.939 you know, the party situation, you know, I mean, Louise and I say, yeah, by the way, we're Christians, 00:10:58.139 --> 00:11:03.799 you know, we're pro-life. We're, you know, believe the Bible is the word of God, and so people don't want 00:11:03.799 --> 00:11:09.259 to talk to us. The sorcerer comes in and says, yeah, by the way, I do sorcery. I, you know, I 00:11:09.259 --> 00:11:14.500 interpret dreams. I know how to make potions that, you know, affect how things work. I talk to the dead, 00:11:14.959 --> 00:11:20.399 all of that, and you get a big crowd. And then after half an hour, the sorcerer looks and hears 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:25.339 that Louise and I are Christians and wants to come and talk to us. And everybody, the party would go, 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:32.460 does he, does he know, does he know that George and Louise don't think that anything he's doing is right? 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:37.399 That's what they'd be whispering, right? So there's a double type of tension in the story. 00:11:37.860 --> 00:11:43.879 The original pagans who would have heard this story, they're going, whoa, does these, what? And the Jewish 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:47.660 people hearing this story are going, whoa, they're going, whoa, for two different things, right? Opposite reasons, 00:11:47.659 --> 00:11:56.179 but they're both going, whoa, these two, these two shouldn't meet together, okay? And, and so, 00:11:56.500 --> 00:12:03.399 and, and yet it's a story about God bringing the Magi to come to meet Jesus. So you might say, well, 00:12:03.419 --> 00:12:09.120 George, like, what does it say again? After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the, in the days 00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:13.879 of Herod the king, behold, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, where is he who has been born 00:12:13.879 --> 00:12:19.379 king of the Jews? For he saw his star when it rose and had come to worship him. I don't see anything 00:12:19.379 --> 00:12:25.939 there about God trying them. Well, that comes up here with the star issue, where they saw a star. 00:12:26.939 --> 00:12:34.860 Now, I don't know if any of you are an amateur astronomers. I think I know of at least one person 00:12:34.860 --> 00:12:42.460 here who has a powerful enough, a powerful enough telescope that might go off into areas where there's 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:47.500 not much light to look at the sky. And there might be more of you. I think there's at least one of you 00:12:47.500 --> 00:12:55.280 here who would do something like that. But most of us don't really pay much attention to the stars. 00:12:55.420 --> 00:13:01.080 But in the ancient world where there's no smog and, and, and light pollution, they would see the stars 00:13:01.080 --> 00:13:06.980 all the time. But astrologers in particular, obviously, are looking at the stars. But the star in 00:13:06.980 --> 00:13:12.180 this text, and you can see it if you look at it very closely, the star in this text is not a literal 00:13:12.180 --> 00:13:23.620 star. It's a vision that comes from God to them. So why do I say that? Well, look at, look again at 00:13:23.620 --> 00:13:32.700 verse two. Where, where is he who was born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:37.660 come to come to worship him. And if you go later on, when we read the next, the rest of the text, 00:13:37.800 --> 00:13:44.720 you'll, you'll get the sense that they followed the star. Now, okay, I'm, I'm a dummy when it comes 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:51.900 to astronomy and all, but here's what I know. You can't just follow any star because stars move. 00:13:52.540 --> 00:13:58.660 Would be as if I said to my kids, uh, you know, like, or there's a, a site, you know, like, you know, 00:13:58.659 --> 00:14:02.779 so many movies from Hollywood nowadays are just dumb. They say the dumbest things in the world. 00:14:02.879 --> 00:14:09.600 I just watched a movie the other day where a hundred foot high tsunami wave hits a plane on a 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:16.019 runway and the two women in the plane who are supposedly the heroes survive. And I'm thinking, 00:14:16.179 --> 00:14:20.679 really? Like a hundred foot wave. I mean, there's just so many dumb things in movies nowadays. Like, 00:14:20.679 --> 00:14:26.240 they don't even try to make it even vaguely make any sense. But what I know is if, if somebody said in 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:31.740 a movie, by the way, you want to find me, just follow the moon. Well, okay, you wait, you wait 00:14:31.740 --> 00:14:35.700 till the moon comes up and it goes there and you walk that way. But as you're walking, the moon goes 00:14:35.700 --> 00:14:39.980 all the way over there. And the next day, it might not start at the same spot. You can't follow the 00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:47.100 moon. The moon moves. Following the moon means going nowhere. And, and, and so what's, what's going 00:14:47.100 --> 00:14:51.980 on here is the only star in the sky that doesn't move. And I looked it up in, in, on the internet. So 00:14:51.980 --> 00:14:56.100 what I'm sitting here has to be true because I read it in the internet. Actually, 00:14:56.100 --> 00:15:00.080 the North star is the only star that doesn't move, but actually literally it, it moves a very, 00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:04.000 very, very tiny amount so that it, it doesn't really matter for the point of navigation. 00:15:04.540 --> 00:15:09.700 So you can use the North star to navigate, but you can't use the other stars to navigate per se 00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:16.940 because they move, but they follow the star. So I think what happened is the implication is, 00:15:16.940 --> 00:15:21.820 is that the star appears in the sky and doesn't move. 00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:30.160 And you can just imagine the chill that goes down the hairs on the back of their neck when 00:15:30.160 --> 00:15:36.520 they realize, oh, that star didn't move. And then the next night, that star's in the same 00:15:36.520 --> 00:15:40.480 spot and it doesn't move. And they'd all know that that's impossible. 00:15:40.480 --> 00:15:51.420 And so here's one of the other things about the story that's, that's, that's very interesting. You 00:15:51.420 --> 00:15:56.539 see, I, I've made the claim time and time again that the gospel of Matthew, it's an eyewitness 00:15:56.539 --> 00:16:03.120 based biography written when eyewitnesses were still alive. And, and lots and lots of scholars 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:10.379 have puzzled over how the Magi went from seeing a star to figuring out they had to come to Jerusalem, 00:16:10.379 --> 00:16:14.860 to worship the King of the Jews who'd just been born. And, and so one of the things which is really 00:16:14.860 --> 00:16:19.740 interesting, you see, is the fact that Matthew doesn't tell us that is what would happen if he 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:23.179 actually was writing an eyewitness history, because he wouldn't have the vaguest idea in the world. 00:16:23.820 --> 00:16:29.980 But if he's just making crap up, he would make crap up about that. But how on earth would he possibly 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:35.580 know what 35 years ago, the Magi, what their train of thought that led them? Everything that he talks 00:16:35.580 --> 00:16:39.820 about is just things that would have been part of the public record. Like, like, let's look, 00:16:39.820 --> 00:16:47.340 if, if you jump ahead a little bit, let's just look verses three and all, and we'll see more about 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:55.580 why the star is a vision. When Herod the King heard this, he was troubled, right? Because if the King of 00:16:55.580 --> 00:17:01.420 the Jews is now been born, that implies, I mean, everybody knows that he's not Jewish and not really 00:17:01.419 --> 00:17:06.779 the proper King of the Jews. And he's already paranoid. He's killed at least one wife and several 00:17:06.779 --> 00:17:12.220 sons, because he, he worries that they were conspiring against him. And so, you know, when 00:17:12.220 --> 00:17:18.059 you have a King like that, he's troubled. Everybody in, in Jerusalem is troubled with him. Imagine, 00:17:18.059 --> 00:17:22.220 I'm not picking on Trudeau, it could be anybody, could be Biden, just picking politician. If the Prime 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:27.740 Minister of Canada gets worried about people in his, in his, in his party trying to conspire against him, 00:17:27.740 --> 00:17:32.460 somebody can kill them. Everybody's worried if the, if the Prime Minister's worried, right? So 00:17:32.460 --> 00:17:37.339 they're all worried. And, and, and assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, 00:17:37.339 --> 00:17:43.099 those are like the experts, like the scholars of the day. He and Herod inquires of them where the 00:17:43.099 --> 00:17:49.099 Christ was to be born. And they told him, verse five, in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by 00:17:49.099 --> 00:17:54.059 the prophet, and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of 00:17:54.059 --> 00:17:59.339 Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will be a shepherd of my people Israel. And so they, 00:17:59.339 --> 00:18:03.579 they, they know that there's this prophecy. David was born there, and there's this prophecy in what 00:18:03.579 --> 00:18:08.379 we now call the Old Testament, and our Jewish friends call the Tanakh, that says the Messiah is, 00:18:08.379 --> 00:18:15.579 who's going to also be the King of the Jews, he's going to be born there. So seven, Herod summons the 00:18:15.579 --> 00:18:20.940 Magi secretly, ascertains from them what time the star has appeared. And this is going to be important 00:18:20.940 --> 00:18:28.700 because we're going to find later on, he's going to kill all the kids in Bethlehem. And he wants to 00:18:28.700 --> 00:18:35.820 have a good time frame to know what to kill, because he's a cruel man. And in verse eight, he sent, 00:18:37.340 --> 00:18:42.860 he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go and search diligently for the child. And when you have found 00:18:42.859 --> 00:18:51.339 him, bring me word that I too may come and worship him. He's lying through his teeth. He knows that if 00:18:51.339 --> 00:18:57.579 they find out that he's in a murderous rage, looking for the King of Israel, people will hide. And so he 00:18:57.579 --> 00:19:02.859 uses them. But here's the thing, after listening to the King, verse nine, they went on their way and 00:19:02.859 --> 00:19:08.859 behold, the star they had seen when it was, it rose, went before them until it came to rest over the place 00:19:08.859 --> 00:19:15.659 where the child was. So the implication of the story is this. They see a star that doesn't move 00:19:16.859 --> 00:19:22.779 and stars move, but that star is not moving. And that is weird. 00:19:24.939 --> 00:19:32.219 And that would tremendously grab their attention. And that would lead them to do who knows what, 00:19:32.219 --> 00:19:36.779 in terms of studying. Maybe there's some ancient thing from Daniel, which is not in the Bible, 00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:41.339 that they had, because Daniel was from that same part of the world hundreds of years earlier. We 00:19:41.339 --> 00:19:46.619 don't know what it was. They never told. They embark on a journey that would take at least 40 days and 00:19:46.619 --> 00:19:51.500 involve quite an entourage, especially as we see later on that they're carrying some real treasure. 00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:56.059 So they want to have some armed guards, guards, they're people of means. And the implication is, 00:19:56.059 --> 00:19:59.180 is that as they get close to Jerusalem, the star disappears. 00:20:01.259 --> 00:20:05.899 And so they conclude to themselves, well, I guess Jerusalem's here, it's the capital. Where else would the 00:20:05.900 --> 00:20:12.860 king of the Jews be? So they go and ask Herod the question. And Herod tells them. And there's no 00:20:12.860 --> 00:20:17.820 implication in the text that the Herod and all the Jewish leaders say, yeah, yeah, we've been seeing 00:20:17.820 --> 00:20:22.700 that star too. It really puzzles us. So this is a vision that only they see. Only the Magi see the 00:20:22.700 --> 00:20:28.780 star. Nobody else sees it. So only the Magi see the star. In other words, it's a vision just for them. 00:20:28.779 --> 00:20:35.740 And the vision disappears. They find out that they should be heading towards Bethlehem. That's 00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:39.980 probably where the king of the Jews is. So they start to go there and they get really happy because 00:20:39.980 --> 00:20:46.379 all of a sudden the star is there again. And once again, only they see the star. And then the star moves, 00:20:46.379 --> 00:20:51.980 which stars don't move like towards a house. And then the star settles right over a house. 00:20:51.980 --> 00:20:58.620 That's not what stars or comets or conjunction of planets do. You see, from start to finish, 00:20:58.620 --> 00:21:04.059 this is a vision. This is a vision that God gives them. 00:21:06.299 --> 00:21:09.579 So once again, if you could put up the first point, that would be very, very helpful. 00:21:10.860 --> 00:21:13.900 The Lord draws the unlikely close to himself. 00:21:13.900 --> 00:21:22.300 So our Canadian friends are still gonna, you know, wonder. And all, you know, 00:21:24.060 --> 00:21:27.580 you know, all I would say to my Canadian friends is this. 00:21:29.259 --> 00:21:34.380 If something like this really happened, doesn't it show that God exists? And if God actually exists, 00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:39.660 shouldn't you want to know him? Isn't it going to be worth it to know him, even if that means that 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:45.580 everything in your life is going to change? And if there really is a God, and it's going to become 00:21:45.580 --> 00:21:49.500 even more important in a moment when I tell you about the significance of the phrase, the King of 00:21:49.500 --> 00:21:56.380 the Jews. But, you know, if it's just all a matter of, there's just, you know, life is just one dang thing 00:21:56.380 --> 00:22:00.620 after another, and then you die. Well, then, you know, why on earth would you do any of this type of 00:22:00.620 --> 00:22:05.180 stuff? In fact, why on earth would you be a Christian? It just cramps your style. Like, why on earth have 00:22:05.180 --> 00:22:09.420 certain, like, you know, too many excessive moral rules? Why to come to church on a Sunday? Why be 00:22:09.420 --> 00:22:14.779 financially generous? Why practice the ancient Christian sexual ethic? Like, why do all of 00:22:14.779 --> 00:22:19.180 those things if life is just one dang thing after another, and then you die? But if, in fact, 00:22:19.180 --> 00:22:24.300 there is a God that does exist, who has created all things and has entered into human history, 00:22:24.300 --> 00:22:30.860 and if this God does, in fact, do things to draw unlikely people to himself, wouldn't you want to 00:22:30.859 --> 00:22:40.219 be drawn to him? Now, just a couple of other things about it is, if you could put up 1A, that would be 00:22:40.219 --> 00:22:46.459 helpful. As part of this, the Lord drawing the unlikely close to himself. The Lord stoops to speak 00:22:46.460 --> 00:22:55.500 to you. The Lord stoops to speak to you. My second son, Jesse, when he went to engineering at the 00:22:55.500 --> 00:23:01.579 University of Ottawa, I don't think it was quite the same when my son, my youngest son, went to 00:23:01.579 --> 00:23:07.340 University of Ottawa for engineering, but he would often come home and complain that the teachers had, 00:23:07.340 --> 00:23:11.019 professors had such strong accents, it was hard to understand anything they said. 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:17.339 And, you know, in a sense, if you go to, at that time, if you went to university to study engineering, 00:23:17.339 --> 00:23:21.819 it sucks to be you if you don't understand. Like, I'm the professor, you're the student, 00:23:21.819 --> 00:23:25.819 sucks to be you if you don't understand. That's your problem, not my problem. And that seemed to be, 00:23:25.819 --> 00:23:32.700 in a sense, the philosophy of the administration. You figure it out. Sucks to be you. But that's not 00:23:32.700 --> 00:23:38.779 how God is with us when he speaks to us. He stoops. If you go back to verse 2 again for a second, 00:23:38.779 --> 00:23:45.180 where it says here, where is he who has been born king of the Jews, for we saw his star when it rose, 00:23:45.180 --> 00:23:50.059 and have come to worship him. Now, remember I said that the story gets even weirder the more you know 00:23:50.059 --> 00:23:56.619 what the original language is. The term, it rose, is not speaking about the movement of a body. It's 00:23:56.619 --> 00:24:03.420 speaking about an astrological term. So, in other words, if I said, Andrew rose from his seat because 00:24:03.420 --> 00:24:09.340 he wanted to stretch his legs, that isn't what this means, that the star rose. It's more like, 00:24:09.340 --> 00:24:13.820 you know, I don't follow astrology all, but you know, sometimes I've overheard people talking about 00:24:13.820 --> 00:24:21.100 something's in the ascendance and this and that. The language of rose is astrological language. So, 00:24:21.100 --> 00:24:28.380 in other words, not only did God, he stoops to the Magi. He doesn't say, I'm going to reveal to you 00:24:28.380 --> 00:24:37.260 the Tanakh in Hebrew, and you just have to figure it out, and if you can't, it sucks to be you. That's 00:24:37.260 --> 00:24:44.620 not how God deals with us. He doesn't speak to them like that. He speaks to them with a star that's 00:24:44.620 --> 00:24:52.460 astrologically significant to them. So, not only does the star not move, it is in a place which 00:24:52.460 --> 00:24:56.779 is of profound significance to them. We're not explaining what it is, but it just is. It's an 00:24:56.779 --> 00:25:07.340 astrological term. So, he stoops to speak. He stoops to speak to us. You know, those of you who are 00:25:07.340 --> 00:25:11.100 outside the Christian faith, you might not know this, but sometimes Christians of a certain type 00:25:11.100 --> 00:25:16.140 get into big debates about what the best version of the Bible is. And I'm preaching from the ESV, 00:25:16.140 --> 00:25:20.380 and it has a huge fan club of people saying this is the best version of the Bible. 00:25:20.380 --> 00:25:27.260 But the fact of the matter is that most Christians have the identical version of the Bible. It's called 00:25:27.260 --> 00:25:33.180 the dusty version because they actually never read it. So, the best version of the Bible is to read a 00:25:33.180 --> 00:25:41.500 version of the Bible that you actually read. Even if the scholars think, well, the NLT is just like a 00:25:41.500 --> 00:25:45.020 bit of a paraphrase and not very accurate. Well, you know, 00:25:45.019 --> 00:25:52.379 it's a good version. It's going to lead you to Christ. Read a version which is of the reading level 00:25:52.379 --> 00:25:59.259 for you. True confession for those of my Reformed friends who are now going to disown me. In my 00:25:59.259 --> 00:26:03.339 private devotional reading, I read the New Living Translation or the New International Version. I don't 00:26:03.339 --> 00:26:08.139 read the ESV. I find it hard to read for my devotions. Just read the version that you'll read. God 00:26:08.140 --> 00:26:13.740 stoops to speak to you. The second thing here, if you could put up 1B, that would be helpful. 00:26:14.300 --> 00:26:17.980 This is the thing that we just have to accept the fact that the Lord does weird things. 00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:25.740 The Lord does weird things. Like, you know, back when the airport vineyard movement was going on in 00:26:25.740 --> 00:26:29.900 Toronto, and there's all sorts of people bending themselves out of shape about the weird things 00:26:29.900 --> 00:26:35.180 that were going on. It's as if they said, you know, how dare God do weird things? He has to do only 00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:40.380 things that we approve. Like, really? How on earth is it going to be God if he can't do weird things? 00:26:40.380 --> 00:26:47.180 Things that you think are weird. You know, the world is awash of stories of people from Islam 00:26:47.180 --> 00:26:53.100 coming to faith because they're having dreams of Jesus. And then they become Christians. You know, 00:26:53.100 --> 00:26:58.140 the fact of the matter is, you know, obviously, for all of my kids, my prayer for each of my kids was 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:01.660 that there would never be a time they didn't know and love and trust Jesus. That's the prayer of every 00:27:01.660 --> 00:27:07.180 Christian parent for their kids. Some people don't become Christians until they're in their mid-teens 00:27:07.180 --> 00:27:13.420 or their teens or high school or anything, you know, something like that, or university. And, you know, 00:27:13.420 --> 00:27:19.420 most people, if you press into them, they might not have something as weird as being stoned on LSD 00:27:19.420 --> 00:27:27.020 and becoming a Christian. But many people have odd coincidences, things that made them pause, 00:27:27.019 --> 00:27:33.579 things they overheard, things that made them curious, things that started them on a bit of a quest. 00:27:34.539 --> 00:27:40.859 The fact of the matter is, is that God is drawing people to himself. He draws people who are far from him to 00:27:40.859 --> 00:27:48.299 himself, and he draws the unlikely to himself, and sometimes he does weird things. And the final thing, if you could put up one C. 00:27:48.299 --> 00:27:54.779 You know, I have a love for apologetics, and I have a high respect for anybody who tries to defend the 00:27:54.779 --> 00:28:01.019 scriptures and all, and this is just the one thing I would say to a lot of apologists and a lot of 00:28:01.019 --> 00:28:07.419 Christians. Embrace the miracles. Embrace the miracles. 00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:15.259 Don't try to say, well, this text of the Magi would be way better if we could account for it with a 00:28:15.259 --> 00:28:20.220 comet or a planet. Why? Like, why would that be better? Like, why would that be better than a miracle? 00:28:21.980 --> 00:28:28.860 Like, why? Embrace the miracles. There's nowhere in the Bible does God say that he's decided he would 00:28:28.860 --> 00:28:33.259 start to create the created order, and then he would lock himself out. Like, you know, like, you know, 00:28:33.259 --> 00:28:38.859 sometimes I once locked myself, more than once I've locked myself out of the car, you know? It's not 00:28:38.859 --> 00:28:44.619 as if God somehow left the keys in the car, the keys in the world, and now he can't get back in, 00:28:44.619 --> 00:28:48.859 you know, and he has to call for help. Like, God never decided anything like that. He, and in fact, 00:28:48.859 --> 00:28:55.180 the whole story of the incarnation, we looked at that on Christmas Eve, is God breaking, just breaking 00:28:55.180 --> 00:29:01.259 into the created order in the person of his Son, and the resurrection is a huge miracle. Embrace the 00:29:01.259 --> 00:29:08.460 miracles. Meditate upon them. Rejoice in them. Pray in light of them. Pray in light of the fact that 00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:14.539 the Lord draws the unlikely to himself, that the Lord stoops to speak to people, the Lord does weird 00:29:14.539 --> 00:29:22.379 things, and embrace the miracles. Now, the story, one of the things which is so wonderful about this 00:29:22.379 --> 00:29:30.220 story is it forms you to accept sort of more complicated ideas. So let's go back to the text. 00:29:31.259 --> 00:29:37.579 And we'll see, because here's the point. If you cover up the second point, and then you'll see 00:29:37.579 --> 00:29:43.259 what I'm talking about. In fact, all of the last two points, two of the last, the next two points, 00:29:43.259 --> 00:29:47.819 help to show you how the story forms you to accept an idea which is a bit more complicated. 00:29:48.220 --> 00:29:56.379 Talked about in Book of Romans with fancy words, but the stories and the more complicated ideas, 00:29:56.380 --> 00:30:02.860 they fit together. And even if you can't maybe get your mind around certain types of things like the 00:30:02.860 --> 00:30:07.260 sovereignty of God, you can get your mind around the story. Like what does the sovereignty of God 00:30:07.260 --> 00:30:13.820 mean? Oh, the sovereignty of God means is that if God decides that he wants to draw some astrologers 00:30:13.819 --> 00:30:22.460 involved in the occult to meet Jesus, he can do it. That's all it means. He can do it. 00:30:24.859 --> 00:30:29.659 He can have them have a vision of a star, astrologically significant, 00:30:29.660 --> 00:30:33.900 that launches them on a quest, a quest that will change them. 00:30:38.220 --> 00:30:43.740 So notice here, like, you know, I already read how, so Herod, he's never heard about this Lord, 00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:47.180 the King of Israel and the Messiah. He goes and asks the experts. They say, 00:30:47.180 --> 00:30:52.700 oh, by the way, verse 5, you know, he's in Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet, 00:30:52.700 --> 00:30:57.420 and they really know their Bible. You know, they probably won sword drills when they were in school, 00:30:57.980 --> 00:31:02.460 in Sunday school. And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers 00:31:02.460 --> 00:31:08.060 of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. And then Herod summons 00:31:08.060 --> 00:31:13.259 the Magi privately and says, you know, go find them. I just want to worship him too. And he's lying 00:31:13.259 --> 00:31:18.859 through his teeth, all the way through that. And then verse 9, after listening to the king, they 00:31:18.859 --> 00:31:24.619 went on their way. And behold, the star they had seen when it rose went before them until it came 00:31:24.619 --> 00:31:30.099 to rest over the place where the child was. And when the Magi saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly 00:31:30.099 --> 00:31:38.059 with great joy, verse 11, and going into the house, they saw the child. They saw the baby Jesus 00:31:38.059 --> 00:31:45.819 with Mary, his mother. And they fell down and worshipped him. Then opening their treasures, 00:31:45.819 --> 00:31:53.339 they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. And being warned in a dream not to return 00:31:53.339 --> 00:31:58.220 to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way. And the next story after this is the 00:31:58.220 --> 00:32:04.299 story of Herod killing the children in Bethlehem. So here's the thing, is that 00:32:04.299 --> 00:32:12.700 that beware you can know about the Lord without knowing the Lord. The story shows three different 00:32:12.700 --> 00:32:21.180 ways of people knowing about the Lord. Herod learns about the Lord, and the result is he wants to kill 00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:29.379 him. He hates him. I mean, this is one of the things, is that we can tell people about Jesus, and we can 00:32:29.380 --> 00:32:35.220 actually get to the point where we make it very, very clear. I've had this one, this one person that I had 00:32:35.220 --> 00:32:41.860 quite a few conversations with, and I got to the actual point where they asked me, George, you're saying 00:32:41.860 --> 00:32:46.500 that if I give my life to Christ, every sin I've ever done in the past, and every sin I've ever done in the 00:32:46.500 --> 00:32:54.420 future has been dealt with by him? And I said yes. And they said, that's an absolutely repulsive idea. 00:32:54.420 --> 00:32:59.860 Why would I ever do a good thing again for the rest of my life if I believed that? 00:33:02.660 --> 00:33:10.100 And they weren't interested in going any further. So you can hear about Jesus and know accurate things 00:33:10.100 --> 00:33:16.500 about him, but the response is to reject him even more fully. And then you also have the chief priests, 00:33:16.500 --> 00:33:25.140 all the experts. They hear all about Jesus, and their response is, I wonder what's for lunch. 00:33:28.099 --> 00:33:34.180 I wonder if there's, I wonder if that street baker's made some really good pita bread, and they really 00:33:34.180 --> 00:33:38.099 have fantastic falafel with that spot. I wonder, can we go there? Like they're completely, utterly 00:33:38.099 --> 00:33:45.059 indifferent about him. And then there's the right way to know him, which is to go to him, 00:33:47.219 --> 00:33:57.299 and to worship him, to acknowledge who he is, to give him gifts. In a sense, the worship is a 00:33:57.299 --> 00:34:05.539 position of submissive and trusting offering of yourself to him. You set aside your armor and 00:34:05.539 --> 00:34:12.500 all of those things to give yourself to him. And that's the challenge for us. 00:34:13.619 --> 00:34:21.940 You know, here's the thing, brothers and sisters. I, you know, when I started my first year of theology 00:34:21.940 --> 00:34:25.860 at St. Paul University, the person who taught the Gospels course, 00:34:25.860 --> 00:34:34.340 she just did everything she could to help you not believe the Bible. And I could have gotten into an 00:34:34.340 --> 00:34:38.260 argument with her within one minute of the first class, and every minute of every class. 00:34:39.300 --> 00:34:47.380 And she'd studied at Rome. She was fluent in like five languages. Her IQ was probably double my IQ, 00:34:47.380 --> 00:34:54.740 but she didn't know the Lord. And she alternated between complete indifference about him and hostility 00:34:54.740 --> 00:35:03.940 to him. And so, you know what? It's not a matter of IQ. You know? I mean, if it was a matter of IQ, 00:35:03.940 --> 00:35:07.780 just in relationships in general, people with the highest IQs would have the best marriages. 00:35:08.740 --> 00:35:13.380 That's definitely not the case. You know, it's not a matter of being able to be really smart or know 00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:16.980 a whole pile of things. Don't be intimidated by people who are way smarter than you. It's a matter 00:35:16.980 --> 00:35:24.180 of knowing Jesus. That's what's going on in the text. It's very important. Now, the other thing I 00:35:24.180 --> 00:35:33.000 said, you know, I have to watch my time. There's this very interesting little, oh, there's a name for 00:35:33.000 --> 00:35:37.320 it. I should have asked a younger person what it is. Is it a cookie? I don't know if it's a cookie. 00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:44.100 There's a little thing that Matthew puts in his story that's there, by the way. He doesn't just 00:35:44.100 --> 00:35:51.380 artificially put it. That leads you to an even more profound sense of why Jesus, like why it is 00:35:51.380 --> 00:35:56.580 that you should want, even if you don't believe that Jesus is the Savior and Lord, you should want 00:35:56.580 --> 00:36:02.660 him to be the Savior and Lord because of this profound thing that he does. And by the way, I think 00:36:02.659 --> 00:36:07.420 he is the Savior. I think he is the Lord. I think he did, these things really did happen. I think he 00:36:07.420 --> 00:36:11.319 really did rise from the dead. I think these are reasonable historical things to believe, 00:36:11.639 --> 00:36:17.239 and they're life-changing things to believe. But when the Magi come and say to Herod, 00:36:17.859 --> 00:36:21.920 where is he who, what does it say again, literally in verse 2, it says, 00:36:22.940 --> 00:36:29.259 where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Now, here's the thing which is really interesting. 00:36:29.260 --> 00:36:33.940 Do you know that for the entire rest of the Gospel of Matthew, I hope I wrote this down, 00:36:34.940 --> 00:36:42.400 for the entire rest of the Gospel of Matthew, you never again hear the phrase, the king of the Jews. 00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:53.720 You never hear it once. Not once. Until chapter 27, verse 11 of Matthew. 00:36:53.719 --> 00:37:07.419 Matthew. And in Matthew chapter 27, 11, Jesus has been captured, and it's a couple of hours before his crucifixion, 00:37:08.259 --> 00:37:12.379 and Pilate asks Jesus, are you the king of the Jews? 00:37:12.380 --> 00:37:21.099 And then the next time you see the phrase, in the Gospels, is Matthew's Gospel is verse 29. 00:37:22.220 --> 00:37:26.619 And now it's when the decision has been made to crucify Jesus. 00:37:28.260 --> 00:37:33.680 And the soldiers, in verse 29, kneel before Jesus and mock him, saying, 00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:35.840 Hail, king of the Jews. 00:37:35.840 --> 00:37:42.700 And then there's one more time in the Gospel of Matthew where the phrase, the king of the Jews comes. 00:37:43.340 --> 00:37:45.360 And it's in verse 37. 00:37:47.940 --> 00:37:53.559 And over his head, he's hanging on the cross, and over his head they put the charge against him which read, 00:37:54.100 --> 00:37:58.460 This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. 00:37:58.460 --> 00:38:06.940 See if you could put the point up. 00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:13.260 Jesus is the king who dies for people, so as to make a people for himself. 00:38:14.579 --> 00:38:20.920 Herod was willing to kill piles of children to stay the king himself. 00:38:21.099 --> 00:38:23.220 He was willing to kill his wife to stay the king. 00:38:23.300 --> 00:38:25.940 He was willing to kill his own sons to stay the king. 00:38:25.940 --> 00:38:34.460 And, you know, you look at Assad in Syria, he was willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people for him to stay, in a sense, the king. 00:38:34.539 --> 00:38:39.700 You look at Putin, he's willing to kill countless numbers of people to stay the king. 00:38:40.119 --> 00:38:41.720 And that is the way of the world. 00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:46.940 And the king of the Jews is Jesus, and he is the complete opposite of all of that. 00:38:47.079 --> 00:38:50.619 He is the king who dies for ordinary people. 00:38:50.619 --> 00:38:56.219 He dies the death that they deserve as their substitute. 00:38:58.679 --> 00:39:03.000 And when you put your faith and trust in him to accept what he has done for you, 00:39:03.839 --> 00:39:07.659 you become his people, a citizen of his kingdom. 00:39:08.460 --> 00:39:13.279 He becomes your king, and he will never leave you or forsake you. 00:39:13.280 --> 00:39:17.000 And no one can strip you of your citizenship in his kingdom. 00:39:17.720 --> 00:39:23.500 And he will be with you every day of your life until you die or until he comes again and you see him. 00:39:23.560 --> 00:39:26.980 And when you see him, he will welcome you into his kingdom. 00:39:26.980 --> 00:39:32.360 And he will say, I have been longing for you and I to see each other face to face. 00:39:32.560 --> 00:39:32.860 Welcome. 00:39:33.480 --> 00:39:33.920 Welcome. 00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:36.000 Into my kingdom. 00:39:36.140 --> 00:39:36.760 Your kingdom. 00:39:37.420 --> 00:39:38.240 Your true home. 00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:45.139 When I was in Kenya for the first time, and I went to this church way out in the countryside, 00:39:46.099 --> 00:39:52.399 and I discovered this is how evangelical Kenyan Anglicans and all, they did a thing. 00:39:52.459 --> 00:39:55.519 They asked everybody who was there for the first time to get up and introduce themselves. 00:39:56.899 --> 00:40:01.039 And, you know, some of them would say, I'm visiting from this country or this country. 00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:05.719 But all of them, every one of them said, my home is, you know, whatever. 00:40:06.079 --> 00:40:11.159 But my true home, my true home is heaven with Jesus. 00:40:11.380 --> 00:40:12.360 That is my true home. 00:40:13.779 --> 00:40:15.360 That is my true home. 00:40:17.039 --> 00:40:19.000 Just one thing in closing. 00:40:19.139 --> 00:40:21.159 If you could put up the fourth point, that would be helpful. 00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:26.879 Knowing the sovereignty of God and the grace of God grows your prayer to him. 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:31.739 Knowing the sovereignty of God and the grace of God grows your prayer to him. 00:40:32.579 --> 00:40:39.059 You know, some of us have loved ones who are very, very, very, very far from Christ 00:40:39.059 --> 00:40:42.339 and seem to be going even farther away from him all the time. 00:40:43.480 --> 00:40:47.859 And some of us know people who just, there might not be a loved one, they just might be a friend. 00:40:47.980 --> 00:40:50.099 Maybe it's somebody that, you know, God's put in your path. 00:40:50.099 --> 00:40:51.339 Maybe it's your neighbor. 00:40:51.539 --> 00:40:52.539 Maybe it's your mechanic. 00:40:52.759 --> 00:40:56.199 Maybe it's your dentist or your doctor or somebody you've met at a grocery store. 00:40:56.719 --> 00:41:03.420 And they just seem to be so completely and utterly vastly, far gone from God. 00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:08.019 And we might, humanly speaking, we think, well, there's no hope for them. 00:41:08.319 --> 00:41:09.980 We wouldn't even pray for them. 00:41:10.059 --> 00:41:12.339 But stories like this tell us to pray for them. 00:41:12.340 --> 00:41:25.620 Because God can make a whole pile of occult astrologers in Persia see a star and lead them to Christ to worship him. 00:41:26.579 --> 00:41:29.360 He can do things in other people's lives as well. 00:41:29.360 --> 00:41:33.380 This is to strengthen our prayers, brothers and sisters. 00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:39.220 This is a profound encouragement as these stories become more real to our hearts, 00:41:39.320 --> 00:41:44.000 to know that we can pour out our heart and pray for even the most impossible people. 00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:46.620 And pray for them. 00:41:47.019 --> 00:41:48.420 Pray that they will come to Christ. 00:41:49.380 --> 00:41:51.360 I invite you to stand at this point in time. 00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:56.579 Bow our heads in prayer. 00:41:58.700 --> 00:42:02.300 I think Chris will be leading intercession when I finish this. 00:42:02.340 --> 00:42:02.740 Let's pray. 00:42:04.780 --> 00:42:07.140 Father, we thank you for this beautiful story. 00:42:08.500 --> 00:42:15.640 And we thank you, Father, that you, throughout history, have drawn very unlikely people to yourself. 00:42:15.640 --> 00:42:21.340 Father, we even, I think of Abraham, who was a worshiper of the moon, of all things. 00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:27.120 A moon worshiper, when you called him to be, in a sense, the father of the faith. 00:42:29.420 --> 00:42:32.700 From whose seed, Father, the Messiah would come. 00:42:34.160 --> 00:42:39.960 And so, Father, we thank and praise you that you draw the unlikely to yourself, those far from you to yourself. 00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:45.920 We ask, Father, that the stories of your sovereignty and the wonders of your grace, 00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:48.300 that those would become more and more real to our heart. 00:42:48.300 --> 00:42:53.680 And as they become more and more real to our heart, that you would help us, Father, 00:42:53.840 --> 00:42:56.000 that these would help us to be people of prayer. 00:42:57.060 --> 00:43:00.940 To pray for the lost and the lonely and those who are very far from God. 00:43:01.700 --> 00:43:05.660 Knowing, Father, that you do draw those who are far from you to yourself. 00:43:06.200 --> 00:43:07.600 Knowing that you drew us. 00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:13.719 Some of us, some of us, Father, are those very unlikely people that others would have said would never become Christians. 00:43:14.420 --> 00:43:15.299 And yet, here we are. 00:43:16.139 --> 00:43:19.559 And so, Father, bring this story deeply home to us. 00:43:19.799 --> 00:43:22.759 And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. 00:43:23.539 --> 00:43:23.940 Amen. 00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:24.059 Amen. 00:43:24.559 --> 00:43:24.659 Take a closer look. 00:43:24.659 --> 00:43:25.079 Amen. 00:43:25.079 --> 00:43:25.500 Take a look. 00:43:25.800 --> 00:43:25.820 Take a look.