Living life with no direction, the teenager who goes through his high school years and can’t seem to find his fit, and withdraws into alcohol and/or drugs, or the college student who graduates and struggles to find a job in a field that matches their degree which they lost interest in, in the first year of college, the woman whose kids grow up and leaves the nest and she struggles to find out who she is beyond being a mother or the man in his fifties who looses his job and waits everyday by the phone hoping someone will call and give him employment and back his identity or the marriage that just struggles with keeping the little bit of life back in it or the husband and wife who stare down vows for a lifetime even though there seems to be no life in their marriage, the depressed person who everyday struggles to have the motivation to get out of bed for a few hours.
Living without direction is a painful thing, it’s painful when we see the obvious and even more insidious when we look at what isn’t so obvious, the man or the woman who has achieved and has received everything that they have hoped for and yet find that they are still empty, lonely and hopeless inside and the only solace they find is the two or three drinks a night or their next affair or their next new toy.
Living lives without direction is painful to see and painful to experience and if you ever been there, and at one time we all have, we know what that feels like.
As we continue the series of What a Difference a Christmas Makes, we are going to look at what a difference a Christmas makes and the direction that it brings to our lives, because one of the greatest gifts that Christmas gives to us is a whole new sense of direction, a whole new understanding of the power of the right direction that is made possible for us through Christ.
Matthew tells us something powerful about direction. Before we go to Matthew let us take a moment to understand why it is important for direction
Direction Leads Us From Our Present Position To Our Desired Destination
Why is direction important? Because without it you are just standing still going nowhere or your just engaging in a frenzy of activity with no productivity behind it.
Direction Provides The Passion For Motivation And The Intention For Action
It provides the passion for motivation because if we are not passionate it is hard to be motivated, but if there is passion there is motivation and when there is motivation there is the intention that we need to engage in action.
While those are the definitions they don’t help us in the sense of where direction comes from, knowing what is the right direction to engage in. As we look at Matthew’s gospel we will look at a powerful truth that comes out of it.
Only When We Look To Heaven For Direction Do We Find Lasting Satisfaction
How many things have you thought would bring you satisfaction and so you headed in that direction only to find it at best that your satisfaction only temporary that you are still left feeling empty, lonely and hopeless because the truth is real direction can only come from the one who understands where we need to land in our destination and that is God. It is only when we look to heaven that we find the satisfaction that comes from a God given direction.
Matthew 2
2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.
Who is Herod? If you want to get a good picture in your mind of what King Herod was like, picture Saddam Hussein, because Saddam Hussein matches the image perfectly, he was a guy who was absolutely paranoid, always looking for anyone who might overthrow him, anyone who might disagree with him, anyone who might best him in any way and when he found them he would torture them and kill them in brutal and bloody ways, that is like King Herod except with Herod you have to add the insanity of multiple venereal diseases, Herod was a person who wasn't just given to drink he was a person whose parties were well know for debauchery and who would spend his time drunk running around marrying, divorcing, killing and having affairs with anyone he could, and Herod was called King of the Jews.
Herod was considered to be the leader of the Jewish people and even to hold within his leadership a sense of spiritual leadership, Herod was the most crooked politician, a puppet of Rome and he would watch the politics of the day because Roman politics would change every night because emperors would be slain and new emperors would be put in and they would be taken out.
Herod would be the kind of guy who would watch and see who was the most brutal and ruthless on the horizon and that is the person he would attach himself too in order to protect his own life and his own kingdom.
Who is the Magi? They were people who were considered to be intellectual and spiritual (even though it tended to be a cult) They were people who lived to understand what was going on, on the earth and in the stars and in the heavens. They came a great distance.
What you see with these Magi, is a total contrast with what you see with Herod, because these were people who were following a godly direction and a godly direction always overcomes intimidation. They knew who Herod was, They knew when they entered town and started asking where the new king was, that wasn’t going to go over to well with King Herod.
The Magi did this without any fear of intimidation they walked right into a viper’s nest. That is the benefit of a Godly direction, it’s the only kind of direction that you can receive in life that can help you overcome your fears and overcome your intimidation in life. We believe in a message that can’t be scared away by intimidation, we believe in a message that isn’t afraid of fear because perfect faith and love cast out all fear.
What you see here is one guy who is king who is deathly afraid of everybody and lives in paranoia because his direction comes from his own ambition, and then you see a group of men whose direction comes from heaven and they are not afraid of anything.
Where does your direction come from? What really directs your life? Wall Street? Main Street, what you can buy and accumulate?
These Magi followed a start, These men have heard a story about a coming king, about a king who was coming and was sent from God to redeem his people, and when they saw this star they knew something supernatural and historic was going on and they left everything and they followed it because their faith was stronger than their fears.
4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
What does heavenly direction do for us? not only is it to overcome intimidation but it provides recognition over confusion. Here is Herod called the king of the Jews and he doesn’t know the words from his own prophets. Here is guy who is king of a people who were called by God to be a blessed nation, chosen nation, special people and this guy has no clue who he is or what he is about. He has to go and run and ask his leaders/people what he should already know. If you look to God for a godly direction you will not walk in confusion.
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.
Godly direction will always bring you satisfaction. God will not lead you to where he will not take you to. If you are willing to believe and to trust and to follow God you will get to where he wants you to be and that is one of the hardest things in the world for us to understand. Because most of us get too caught up in where we want to be and the thing we forget to ask ourself is how does that end? Not well. What we should be asking ourselves is “God where do you want me to be?” You can be exactly where God wants you to be and you could be unemployed, divorced, or alone. because as long as you are with him you will find completion and satisfaction in life, you can broke and yet be the richest person around you. Only when we follow a Godly direction do we find satisfaction. Most People who receive direction only from the cues of this world will end up dying lonely, empty and hopeless.
Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Godly direction will always bring you to satisfaction and celebration.
12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
Heavenly direction brings us protection. You don’t have to worry on how it is going to turn out. God always brings you home.
Can you kill a christian? No. You can bring an end to their body but not their lives. You can take away their ability to walk the earth but not to walk the streets of heaven, you can’t kill a life that is protected by God, in fact
you can’t even take a life unless God determines it is that life’s time and for his purpose.
When christians fear and when we start planning for the end of the world and preparing for a disaster, this is not of God. If anyone had a right to start worrying for their lives and go hide in bunkers it would of be the first century christians. They were hunted down like animals. We are free and fully protected by God and we can live every single day not worrying about death only seeking to maximize life, if we can understand that psychologically we would have no anxiety no fear. because ultimately when you bring anxiety down you do not fear death and as christians you should not fear death.
Where do you get your direction from?
I. Your Destination Is A Person:
Your destination should be about God. Am I getting closer to Christ every day? If I am, then I know my life is directed by God by Heaven itself. If your destination is anything else than a person(God) than it will end badly.
II. Your Mission Is Redemption:
Your mission is not to make a lot of money to be comfortable, to go on a lot of vacations and have fun and gather around a lot of friends so you get lonely, that is not your mission your mission is redemption salvation to share the good news of Christ, you spend the rest of the week that they hear from you about the Gospel of Christ and they come to celebrate the good news.
III. Your Actions Are Means of Celebration:
In what I’m doing today, in the actions I am engaging today are they in celebration in act of worship to God? If they are not then I know that my direction does not come from heaven.
Do the actions you engage in, the conversations you engage in bring forth celebration? When people talk to you are they inspired?
What is the gift of Christmas? Satisfaction in knowing you have a direction, in knowing that your destination that you meet every day is in a person, it
is about moving closer to God and his will for your life that never turns out badly it will make the cheap person generous, the angry person calm it will make the lustful person pure, if your are willing to take your direction from Heaven like the Magi if you are willing to look up to see where you should go.
Notes taken by: Lorelllawrence@comcast.net The notes is for you to have for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.
God Bless,
Sermon by: Pastor Frederick Williams