Sermon 1-10-10

Heavenly Father, we come to You this morning and, in preparation for hearing Your word, in preparation for You, through Your word, pointing out those Epiphany Stars in our lives, we ask that Your Holy Spirit would open our minds, our hearts, and our ears. We ask that we would hear what You are saying to us and that as we go through life we would see those events around us that are Epiphany Stars. We ask that through these Epiphany Stars in our lives, we would grow closer to You and that we would be able to lead others to You. We pray Your blessings as we now read Your word and we pray this in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Scripture Readings –

All our readings today point out Epiphany stars and fit in with our sermon series about seeing Epiphany Stars in our lives today.

First Reading - 1 Peter 4:12-16 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

The second reading from Colossians Chapter 3 also tells about seeing Epiphany Stars in our lives and tells us some things to do while we’re waiting for the return of Jesus Christ.

Second Reading - Colossians 3:12-14 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Today we have a bonus – there are two Gospel readings! The first one from Matthew is an account of the Wise Men seeing the star in the East and the second is from John Chapter 11 which we will talk about in our sermon today.

Gospel - Matthew 2:1-2 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."

John 11:1-4 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

Sermon –

If you remember last week it snowed like crazy and a lot of people weren’t here when we started our series on seeing Epiphany Stars in our lives today. So today we’ll bring you up to speed on what we talked about last week and then get into some new material.

Let’s just play pretend. Pretend you were one of the Wise Men. Its two thousand years ago and you are living in Babylon. You are an astronomer, looking at the stars, and all of a sudden, one night, out of the blue, a star appears in the sky that has never been there before. What do you do, what do you think? Are you going to say, “Big deal! Who cares?” If you had done that, you would have missed the star that would have guided you to your Lord and Savior, guided you to forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God and eternal life in heaven. That loss would have been big, don’t you agree? We don’t want to ignore these things that God puts in our path.

When they saw that star, the Wise Men could also have had thoughts of fear, concern, and worry. They knew that God had created a very orderly universe and now they saw disorder, a star appeared that was never there before. That could have created a certain amount of concern - maybe the star was an asteroid coming to collide with earth, or maybe it was a reflection of an invading alien space ship!

It’s interesting that the Wise Men didn’t have any of those thoughts. In fact, when they saw the star they were filled with hope, with peace, with joy. Why? Because they knew what the star was all about. And why did they know what that star was all about? Because they read the Scriptures! The Scriptures had been transported to Babylon through the captivity (God bringing good from bad circumstances – Romans 8:28) and, because the Wise Men had read Numbers Chapter 24 they knew that a star would appear and lead them to their Savior.

This is an important principle – through that star God guided the Wise Men to Jesus. And for those who have taken the Experiencing God class, how does God guide us today? He guides us through the His Word, through prayer, through circumstances in life, and through other Christians. What two of those things did God use to guide the Wise Men? He used circumstances in life (they saw the star), and His Word (the Wise Men knew what the star meant because they had read Numbers Chapter 24). See how it all fits together? That’s the great thing about studying the Bible, it all fits together, it’s so simple.

What we need to do today is put that same principle in to effect for our lives. We need to look at the circumstances God has brought into our lives that the Bible tells us will lead us to Christ or circumstances that we can use to lead others to Christ. Last week we talked about four of them. First we talked about the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments condemn us and cause us to go searching for our Defense Attorney, Jesus Christ. And the Biblical basis for this is Galatians 3:24, “The law was put into effect to lead us to Christ”.

The next thing we talked about last week were headlines in the newspaper. Two things that are often in the headlines are bad government with their bad decisions and tragedies and disasters. From Luke Chapter 24, Jesus said in regard to those bad decisions that the government makes, see that they are Epiphany Stars showing you that you need to repent and turn to God and see that ultimately it is God who rules, not the government, then you will have peace and eternal life. And all the tragedies and disasters in the headlines are Epiphany Stars leading us to Christ. Jesus says in Luke 13:4 that the Tower of Siloam fell and killed eighteen people, not because they were any guiltier than the others, but to point out to us the need for a Savior. Jesus says, “Unless you repent you too will perish.” Are we all going to live forever? No way! We need a Savior; those tragedies are Epiphany Stars that lead us to Christ.

The last thing we talked about last week was those impossible situations in life that come up where we say, “I can do it, I can’t handle it, it’s just too big for me!” Those impossible situations are Epiphany Stars that direct us to Christ. And we know that because Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who give me strength.” When those impossible situations come up this year in your life or someone else’s life, you know that they are Epiphany Stars designed to lead you to Christ.

Now, today we want to look at four more Epiphany Stars and why these are important. Sometimes we are tempted to say, “I already know all this stuff, we’ve gone through it before”, but what would have happened if the Wise Men, when they were reading the Scriptures, said, “Well, we’ve read Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and we’ve got the jist of what’s going on, let’s just skip over to Deuteronomy. We know what God is saying, we know what Numbers is all about”. If they would have said that, they would have missed the Epiphany Star in Numbers Chapter 24; they would have missed their Savior. It’s so important that we keep going through this because all of these things will come up in our lives during 2010 and we need to remember.

Our next Epiphany Star is a question mark. For those events that come up in 2010 where you say, “I just don’t know what to do; I don’t know what direction to go. I just don’t know what God wants me to do.” Well, do know this - that question mark is an Epiphany Star leading you to Christ. Now if I’m going to say this, I need proof from the Bible. So we’ll look at a very well-known Bible verse and apply this to our lives, II Chronicles 20:12, Jehoshaphat’s prayer. He said, “Lord, I don’t know what to do but my eyes are on you.” Those situations where we just don’t know what to do are there to lead us to Christ who does know what to do!

An interesting thought came up this week and we talked about it in our Bible Studies. When God told Noah to build the ark He gave him some very specific directions but missing from those directions were instructions for making a sail, a rudder and an anchor. Why do you think those instructions were missing? Because God is in control and it would be Him that leads and directs. It wasn’t important for Noah to know where to go, God would guide. And it’s the same for us. When a situation comes up and we don’t know what to do, relax, God knows, just relax. All we have to do is be directed to Christ and follow Him. He will guide us through Scripture, through prayer, through circumstances in life and through other Christians. It all fits together like a hand in a glove!

And the obituary section in the newspaper is an Epiphany Star designed to lead you or designed so that you can lead other people to Christ. We read in John Chapter 11, our Gospel Lesson, that when Lazarus died Jesus said, “"This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." Sickness and death are all Epiphany Stars; the obituary section is an Epiphany Star designed to lead you to Christ or designed to help you lead others to Christ. In John 11:25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life..He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

Our next Epiphany Star is this frowny face, an unhappy face. When you and I are like this, or we see other people like this, it is an Epiphany Star designed to lead us to Christ. All those irritations, all those things that people do that really bug us and hurt us are Epiphany Stars to lead us to Christ. Colossians 3:13 says, “Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.” So when someone does something that irritates you, hurts you, bugs you, or makes you mad, don’t get mad about it: see it as an Epiphany Star designed to lead you to Christ. Remember how much God has forgiven you for and remember that now you have the opportunity to forgive someone else. Then all of a sudden there is meaning and purpose in the action that hurt you or made you angry. The Wise Men were overjoyed when they saw the epiphany star; don’t let those things that bug you get you down, they’re Epiphany Stars leading you to Christ so that you too may be overjoyed.

No one likes to suffer and you can bet your bottom dollar, because you read the Bible, that sometime during 2010 all of us will suffer. But 1 Peter 4:16 says, “If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear the name of Christ.” Then in your suffering we can be led to Christ and understand that He suffered for us. Do we choose to suffer in this life? No, we try to avoid suffering! But remember, Christ chose to suffer to pay for your sins and my sins; He chose it! When we suffer, we are then led to the Someone Else who suffered for us, Jesus Christ. He willingly suffered for you and me because He cares about us. Know that in that time of suffering and difficulty, you are being led to Christ and He cares about you, He suffered for you.

These events are all Epiphany Stars designed to lead us to Christ and over the past two weeks we have talked about eight of them. When they happen, we could look at them all and say, “Well, who cares? I’m just going to ignore it.” But if we do, we will miss the star that leads us to Christ. Or we could get concerned, shook up and anxious, and worry about them. But if we do, we will miss the star that leads us to Christ or that we could use to lead someone else to Christ. Or when these events happen we could have the reaction of the Wise Men - we could be overjoyed! As we look over this list, the Ten Commandments, bad government, accidents, impossible situations, uncertainty, the obituaries, irritations, and suffering, you can imagine what kind of year you are going to have. If all those things lead you or someone else to Christ, what are we going to say? “Praise God! It’s going to be a great year!” Amen.

Prayer -

Heavenly Father, we come to You this day and thank You for the principles you have given us in Scripture; that we can look around us and see what you are doing, that we can look in the Bible and see what it says about those situations and see them as Epiphany Stars that lead us to you. Heavenly Father, help us to do that and help us to get that news out so other people see it. Thank You for the eight examples that we can use to help other people see Christ in 2010. Help us use those examples, God and we pray this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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