Jesus & Herod
Advent 2023 - The Characters of Christmas • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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The last person in the Christmas story that I wanted to look at is the one that it is about and that is Jesus. He is our savior, the reason for the season, why we strive to live the lives we do.
It reminds me of the WWJD movement back in the 90’s. Charles Spurgeon, a famous British preacher in the latter half of the 1800s, used the phrase, “What would Jesus do?” in a sermon. If you’ve ever read any of Spurgeon’s sermons, you know he had a knack for turning a memorable phrase. A few years later, the phrase found its way into a novel by Charles Sheldon called In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? The purpose of Sheldon’s book was to inspire people to a higher moral standard of living.
One hundred years later, a Christian youth group in Michigan started a movement using the initials “WWJD,” representing the interrogative, “What Would Jesus Do?”
You know the rest of the story. The idea took off, and for the past 20 years, people still ask the question, “What would Jesus do?” How many WWJD items have you owned over the years?
WWJD may not be the most perfect phrase, but it helped a lot of people. “A better approach is to stop trying to do what we think Jesus might do and start being Jesus.”
We are to strive to be Jesus to those around us, to strive to do what Jesus did. but do we really know who Jesus is? Have we spent time really looking into the life of Jesus, which is the gospel and maybe seen How it could change our lives?
When we look to the life of Jesus we need to allow it to change our lives, and the question I will be asking throughout this is what will you do with Jesus?
Jesus and the religious leaders - anger
Jesus and the religious leaders - anger
What we are going to do is look at 3 different situations in the life of Jesus. The first is Herod and the religious leaders. What I have been thinking through when it comes to this sermon is how the acted towards Jesus and what we can learn from it. Besides anger, they missed the point, they missed the gospel.
when Herod heard from the wise men about Jesus the first thing that He did was invite the chief priests to see if what the wise men said where true.
4 So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born. 5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet:
We have already gone through this so I wont get into to much detail. The Chief priests Told Herod what the prophecies said, but they missed the point as we will see. Herod responded in anger to what He had heard, How dare this usurper try and take His place.
You see as Jesus grew up and started His ministry, the religious leaders hated Him. It may have had something to do with what He told them.
the locations of the tombs had to be whitewashed in order to clearly mark the area as off-limits. It was a long trip to Jerusalem and it would have been incredibly easy to stumble off the path to relieve oneself only to find oneself close enough to the dead to contract ritual impurity. It did make the tombs look nicer, yes, but the real purpose of whitewashing tombs was to warn people away from them.
So what was Yeshua/Jesus saying here, really? He was comparing the Scribes (a professional class of Torah experts who were employed in the drafting of contracts, the writing of documents, as well as formal decisions about how to keep the commandments), and the Pharisees (a denomination of about 6,000 members who were hyper-concerned with ritual, priestly/Temple-level purity within the home, and especially in connection with table fellowship) to the tombs looked nice on the outside, but which really needed to be avoided in order to eliminate any chance of becoming contaminated.
In other words, “Dudes, people should really avoid you–you are the opposite of what you think you are.”
They claimed to follow God but where dead inside
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. 28 In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Jesus came to bring life abundant. That is what we celebrate, that is why we do what we do. The birth of Jesus, His love for us means that we can have abundant life, but not if we stay where we are at, we need to strive to be more, to be like Jesus. But their response is very telling.
19 Then the scribes and the chief priests looked for a way to get their hands on him that very hour, because they knew he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. 20 They watched closely and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, so that they could catch him in what he said, to hand him over to the governor’s rule and authority.
Jesus loves us enough to not leave us where we are at. The pharisees and religious leaders where trying to force people to live according to their own set of rules, adding to the law but inside they where just as dead as anyone else. When Jesus called them on it some of them changed their lives and followed Him, the majority tried to kill Him.
The first thing we learn about in Jesus life is the religious leaders and herod. What will you do with Jesus? How will you respond to Him. When Jesus calls you to more, when He calls you to follow Him will you do it?
Jesus and the crowd - Missed the point
Jesus and the crowd - Missed the point
What will you do with Jesus? He tells us to change our lives and live for Him, to trade death for life. Sometimes we put on the front that we are living for God but our insides are dead, we do not have a relationship with God, we really haven't changed anything. Jesus tells us to repent and live for Him.
The next situation we are going to look into is a little different. In the ministry of Jesus, he healed a lot of people. Not everyone was healed. For example at the pool of Bethesda only one crippled man was healed, not all of them. The point of the healing and the miracles was the message of the gospel. But as with the pharisees and religious leaders, people missed the point. I want to go to the book Of John 6 a
In this chapter Jesus had been already doing miracles and it was starting to draw big crowds.
1 After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias). 2 A huge crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was performing by healing the sick.
It was here that Jesus performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. The crowd was so amazed they where going to take Him by force and make Him King it says in John 6:15
15 Therefore, when Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Jesus and His disciples left the area and the crowd woke up and was like, where did He go? so the took boats to the other side of the lake and found Jesus there. This is the part that I want to focus on. There is a lot of good stuff in between as well, like Jesus walking on water to His disciples. But anyways they found Jesus and asked where He had gone.
26 Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. 27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”
It is not signs and wonders that we need, it is not the miraculous but rather it is eternal life which only the son of God provides. This is the message. Jesus used signs and wonders to show He was God in the flesh, lots of people believed in God because of it. But just as many people missed the point.
Now as an aside, I am not against the miraculous. It is a miracle that God would save a wretch like me, that God would use someone like me to lead you guys. I have heard of the miraculous happen a young man who had a brain tumor disappear, an older lady go from having a death sentence for cancer given only months to live survive for years after. I have heard of these things by close friends yet I have also seen this get misconstrued and people miss the point behind the miracle.
Like the people here did. There response to the call to eternal life shows this.
28 “What can we do to perform the works of God?” they asked. 29 Jesus replied, “This is the work of God—that you believe in the one he has sent.”
They kept asking for signs, we want more, we want to do what you do. When Jesus said that He was the bread of life, the sustainer, the giver of life. even after hearing that Jesus was the giver of eternal life they grumbled not getting anything He said.
What will you do with Jesus? He is the giver of eternal life. God came down to earth as a baby named Jesus to give us the opportunity for eternal life.
Jesus told them that He came to earth to give eternal life, to do the will of God
40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Are you still looking for Miracles, signs and wonders? what more do you need then what was already given. We live in a fallen world that hurts. That church has imperfect people in it that make mistakes and sometimes hurt others. It even tends to turn us away from God. But that is sin in the world, sin getting the best of us.
The message of King Jesus I give to you, the response to them I give to you. John 6:38-40
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me but should raise them up on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
What will you do with Jesus?
Jesus and the Disciples - Struggled to follow God
Jesus and the Disciples - Struggled to follow God
Lastly I want to look to those that were closest to Jesus, His own followers. They where the closest to Jesus and they struggled as well. They where the ones who stood with Jesus, who learned under Him, who saw many of the wonderful things yet they struggled like we do.
Peter who was said by Jesus to be the rock of the church that was going to be planted denied He knew Jesus, one of the disciples named Judas betrayed Him to the religious leaders to be crucified. They struggled to follow what Jesus taught. When Jesus was crucified they struggled at first to know what to do next.
When it was evening on that first day of the week, the disciples were gathered together with the doors locked because they feared the Jews. Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
But even amidst all their doubting, all their fears they where told what to do. The great commission which many of you may know. Jesus told them what they where to do, even amidst all of their imperfections they where given a sacred task, as we are given as well.
Go and tell people about Jesus we are told. They where told to go tell the world all that Jesus had taught them. Teach them what it means to obey the word of God. This is the same task we are given now.
So What?
So What?
This is Christmas Eve day, the day before we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Whether it actually happened in December is not important but what is important is what will we do with Jesus. When we look to the life of Jesus we need to allow it to change our lives, and the question I will be asking throughout this is what will you do with Jesus?
The Religious leaders where so set on adding to the law of God, trying to live for God their own way They missed the point. When Jesus corrected them and pointed them in the right direction some changed, some got mad and killed Him, or so they thought.
We can not have things our own way, we can not do things our own way. We need to swallow our pride and get on our knees before Jesus and live His way.
The people sought for more, they wanted more signs, more miracles, more more more. They where not happy with the message.
Are we still looking for signs and wonders? Are we still looking for proof that Jesus is who he said He is? stop looking for more signs Jesus is who he said he is, we can sto looking. He is the source of eternal life, and eternal hope. He is the one true king and savior. What we need is to turn to Him and to trust in Him.
His Disciples where imperfect, made mistakes but where blessed with the task of the great commission.
What will you do with Jesus? Once are one of His followers, then the commission is ours as well. Take the message of Jesus and spread it to the world around you for all to hear.