Grace That Gives - Grace That Overflows

Begin in Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. Very familiar story that many of us have been through. This is a story that we're going to look at. There's always different ways that you can preach these stories, but today we're going to look at grace in real time and we're going to look at how God shows up to an unlikely group of people. He shows up to an unlikely group of people who are not expecting it.

He shows up in such a way that he fills them with the grace of his love that fills them with joy. And it leads them to lead their life differently and leads them to a life of giving and generosity. And so today we're sharing this message today called Grace that gives Grace that overflows. We are going to receive a Christmas offering at the end of this message today. And we're not here to surprise anybody.

So this may be your first time. We just want you to know what to expect. We're not here to get you. Gotcha. At the end of our service.

We don't always do this. We do this on the 1st of each month, but we're actually going to pass buckets up and down the aisles, up and down the rows to receive our Christmas offering. I'll share more about that if you've been here a while. You know, we do this each and every year and we're excited about it. And I'm excited to share more about that later.

But today, this kind of leads into where we're going. Grace that gives, grace that overflows from this story that we find in Matthew Chapter two. Now I have to tell you something that many of you don't know about me. This little thing that many of you don't know about me, that I happen to be a big Denver Broncos fan. And I know that comes as a surprise to so many of you.

But I was faced with a dilemma about four years ago. About five years ago. It was the Chiefs first Super Bowl. Super Bowl 54. It had been 50 years since they had been to the super bowl before, and I was hoping it would be another 50 years before they would go back.

Because I'm a Broncos fan. I don't expect anything less of you as a Chiefs fan. I know you don't root for me. I know you don't root for my Broncos. I don't root for your Chiefs.

Every fiber within my being hates Chiefs now. I love Chiefs fans. I mean, I love you guys, but I love all Centers. And so five years ago, I was faced with a dilemma when every fiber in My being is going to root against the Chiefs just like you root against the Broncos. I would expect nothing less than you to root against my team.

And I was all prepared, every fiber in my being. Everything that I had, I was going to root against against the Chiefs. But I had a problem. My brother in law is a huge Chiefs fan. Now I'm not going to root for them because my brother in law is a huge Chiefs fan.

By the way, he pastored in Colorado for about 10 years as a Chiefs fan. Just like I'm in Chiefs country and pastor from. It's just God has a great sense of humor. I think he's just really funny sometimes. My brother in law's dad was dying of congestive heart failure and in 2020, actually two months after the super bowl, he did pass away on April 11th of 2020.

And I knew that this was the first super bowl that they were going to watch as father and son because he was probably four or five years old the first time. And I also knew that my nephew was going to be their son. There was going to be three generations of Chiefs fan watching the Super Bowl. So this is on, I believe Super Bowl Sunday. There's three of them.

He's very sick at this point, but they're excited. They're going to watch the super bowl together. And so I did something completely out of character, something that is just far, far from who I am. I rooted for the Chiefs in Super Bowl Liv. And I didn't root for them because I love the Chiefs.

I rooted for them because I love them and I wanted them to experience this joy together. And they did get experience. Like with many of you, you got experiences, incredible things. And it reminds me of God's grace, how he shows up to the most unlikely places and roots for the most unlikely people. You and me grace always starts with love for unlikely people.

These wise men that we're going to look at, these magi, they were the most unlikely to be brought into the Christmas story. They were far from God. They were from a distant land, they were pagans, they were outsiders.

Most scholars think that it was Persia that they came from, which today is modern day Iran. And so they're outsiders, they're far from God. They live in a distant land. And yet in one of the two biggest stories, Luke 2 the shepherds and Matthew 2, the wise men, God brings the most unlikely into the Christmas story. And we have an awesome God because he does the same thing today.

He still brings the most unlikely people, people who are far from him, people who are distant from him, people that are pagans and lost and broken. His heart is for those who are far away from him. And he's always seeking to draw those that are far from him, close to himself. Grace always starts with love for the most unlikely people. And God likes to bring us into his story just like he brought these wise men into this story.

Matthew, chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. Very familiar to most of us. 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 when it arose and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all Jerusalem with him.

When he had called together all the people's chief priests and the teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. In Bethlehem and Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written. 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. Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them and the exact time the star had appeared. 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 may too go and worship him. And of course, this we know, and this isn't the story today, but Herod did not want to go and worship Jesus. He wanted Jesus dead because he was a threat to his earthly kingdom and to his life. And so. And by the way, the magi was probably two years or so old when, when they found Jesus.

I mean, it wasn't like, you know, hey, the next day he was born and the shepherds show up one day, and the next day the wise men show up. It was probably a two year journey before they found Jesus. And after they heard the king, they went on their way. And the star they had seen, when it rose ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

You think of times when you were overjoyed. Overjoyed. The birth of your child, children, the birth of your grandchildren, your great grandchildren. Those are moments that you're just. You can't contain it because you're overjoyed.

These wise men were overjoyed. And on coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and they worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and they presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route or another route. Potato, potaho, tomato, tomahto.

My Australian brother up here who is playing the electric guitar, they've been with us for about a year. He said, I'm so glad that you pronounced route or route the proper way. I don't know what is the proper way in Australia, but I hit both of them. So whether what the point, they changed direction, they went a different way. And what can we learn today from the wise men?

What can we learn about grace? And if you want to follow along in your notes today, I just have five quick things I want to share with you this morning. The first is that grace leads us to ask good questions that lead us to Jesus.

Grace leads us to ask good questions. They help lead us to Jesus. You may be here this morning, you may be here recent in recent days. And you come to church with more questions than you have answers. You come with more doubts than you have certainty.

And I just want to commend you and say, keep doing what you're doing because you're actually doing something really wise. You're continuing to ask questions. And if you have doubts, you're continuing to ask and to ask questions about those doubts. Jesus, one of his 12 inner circle disciples, one of them was a doubter, one of them struggled with faith. And I just want you to know you're in a church that is a safe place to bring your doubts.

It's a safe place to bring your questions. And I think it's really wise when you ask questions. What's unwise is to stop asking questions. So if you're in a place today, you're asking questions. Grace leads us to ask good questions that lead us to Jesus.

I was just trying to think of a few that people might be asking. One might Is the life I'm living giving me the life I want? Is it giving me the happiness and joy and the peace? Is why do I feel empty when I have everything I need? Some today may find that you've got everything that you could possibly want in this world in relationship and finances and stuff and things.

But why do I feel empty when I have everything I need? Or who is Jesus really? It's a good question to ask. Who is Jesus? Is he God?

Is he a good teacher? Is he a good person? Who is Jesus really? And if God is drawing me to him, why am I resisting That's a question I think that sometimes we have to ask ourselves. And be like, man, I feel like God's drawing, but I'm just having a tough time stepping over into faith.

If God is drawing me to him, why am I resisting? And what is missing from my life? I think these are good questions to ask of ourselves and the wise men who were far. They were far. They were in the Far east, they came from a great distance.

They were the most unlikely. But they were wise enough to keep asking good questions. Where is this one born? King of the Jews. The second thing, Grace that finds us fills us with joy.

Grace that finds us fills us with joy. I know many times we say something like, I found Jesus. We didn't find Jesus. No one finds Jesus. Jesus finds us.

And then we choose how we're going to respond to his finding us and his invitation to us. And we respond with a yes or a no or a faith or not faith. But make no mistake about it, Jesus has never been lost and he's never needed to be found. He finds us, and we choose how we respond. And when we do find him, though, we find that he fills us with.

With this joy. From my experience, I can't tell you what yours was, but from my experience, it was when I was 10. For my dad, it was when he was 19. For his dad, it was when he was 72. But when I was 10 years old, I was laying in the bed on a Sunday night getting ready for school the next day, and I felt a conviction in my heart that I was a sinner.

I don't feel like I had done a lot of hellish things. Not too many things. Maybe it was the week of the famous throwing the rocks at the church bus with the music director's son or the music pastor's son. You gotta watch out for them. So Duane and I, we took some rocks in that rock parking lot and we busted out every single window in that church bus that had my dad's name on it, the Reverend Roy Peterson.

Because back in the day when my dad was a pastor to humiliate the pastor's family, they put the name of the pastor on that ugly church bus and we busted out all those rocks. I watched Duane, he got lifted by his mom, Jolene, about 15ft off the floor. And it just. I mean, you would have thought probably Child Protective Services probably should have been called back then. I was thinking, what's going to happen to me?

Because my dad did not spare the rod. But this was one night I don't have time to tell it all. Some of you have heard it. I didn't get the spanking that night. I received.

For the first time, I understood what grace was. I didn't get mercy. I didn't get what I deserved. And I was given something I didn't deserve. I was given grace and forgiveness.

But I kind of got sidetracked from the real point of the story. When I was 10, laying in that bed on a Sunday night, I felt a conviction in my heart that I now know is the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin. It didn't matter if I'd done one thing wrong or a million things wrong. We're all sinners that fall short of God's grace. There is none of us that are righteous.

Not one. And I was confronted with my own sinfulness. And normally I would go in and wake my parents up when I had a bad dream. But on this night, I went and awakened my mom and my dad, and I asked them to pray with me. And on that night, I made the best decision I've ever made in my life.

I gave Jesus Christ my heart and my life. And I made him my Lord and my Savior. And I went back to my room that night, and I couldn't go to sleep for a different reason, because I was filled with joy. I was overjoyed that I had become a child of God, a child of the King. And I know there's people that say we're all God's children.

And I don't believe that to be true. We are all God's creation. And God loves us and loves all his creation immensely, and he's rooting for all of his creation. But we're not a child of God. But until we receive him as our Lord and as our Savior, and then he makes us a child of God.

He loves all his creation, but he longs for us to become a child, a son or a daughter of him by receiving his love and forgiveness and being filled with joy. The third thing, grace that fills us overflows into worship. It said that these shepherds, they bowed down and they worshiped him because they were overfilled with joy. It led to a place of worship. I shared my dad's story.

At different times. His was a little bit different than mine. At the age of 19, he'd been a year removed from high school. He played one year of junior college football in Nebraska. He would tell you that he scored four touchdowns in a Nebraska football game.

And then everyone looks at him like, you're a big liar. And then he'll come back and say it was a junior college football game, but it was in Nebraska. He had a great freshman year, but as things go, you recruit to make yourselves better. And he saw the writing on the wall and he knew he wasn't going to touch the field his sophomore year. So he left brokenhearted.

And he said, I'm just going to go back and be a good farmer and farm with my dad in western Nebraska. And he found himself in that summer, lost, confused, broken, not knowing what to do with his life. But on one particular Sunday night, he went driving down to Main street and he was gonna go drag Main with his friends. And you'd go down in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. You would take a left to do that.

But there was something that was drawing him to turn right. And he turned right on Main street and he walked in. The service was over on a Sunday night at a small little church of the Nazarene and Scott's left Nebraska. And a lady came outside, a saintly lady came out and said, roy, wouldn't you like to come in? The service is over, but wouldn't you like to come in and give your heart to Jesus tonight?

And that confused, broken, searching young man went in with confusion, and he walked out with clarity. Because he'd become a child of the King. And he was filled with a joy that led to a life of worship. Giving his life to God in worship through the call of ministry, giving him in every way that he can, even in things that he's not good at. So my dad cannot sing at all.

I'm just going to say it. I don't know why I'm saying this. I'm going to regret this later, but I'm already there. I actually sang to my wife at our wedding so I can at least carry a tune. My dad can't carry a tune to save his life.

To graduate from college, he had to take a General Corps class. And he waited till his senior year before he took it because he was dreading taking it. It was a music class, and he got done with his presentation for a big part of his grade in that music class. And the professor said to him, roy, some of us have it and some of us don't. You can guess he did not have it.

But you know what something my dad does have? He has a heart of worship. He loves to worship. He loves to worship God. Because worship isn't the matter of how our voice sounds.

Worship is more than singing. Worship is how we live our life. Monday through Saturday, grace that fills Us overflows into worship. And these wise men, they bowed down and they wanted to worship him because they'd been filled with this joy. And once they were filled with worship.

Worship opens our hearts to the grace of generous giving. These. These wise men, they opened up their treasures. These were expensive gifts. The gold, frankincense and myrrh were some of the most expensive commodities of that day that had been brought from a distance.

And they carry great significance. Gold is something that you would give to a king. It was worthy of a king to receive gold. Frankincense was an incense that you would burn for a deity. And myrrh was.

Myrrh was an anointing or oil that you would put on a body at burial preparing for someone's death. And it's no accident that Jesus was given gold as a king. He was given frankincense as incense as him as a deity, as he was God. And he was given myrrh, an expensive ointment, knowing that one day he would die for our sins and be broken. His body broken for us, his blood shed for us, that we might have forgiveness of sin.

These guys didn't know fully what they were doing, but they recognized that they were with God. They were with the King of Kings. And they brought these expensive gifts and they opened up their hearts to the grace of generous giving. They did it. Not they had to.

They did it because they wanted to. Worship opens our hearts to the grace of generous giving. Our hearts open before our hands do. We don't ever give with our hands until God opens up our hearts first. God wants us to give from our hearts.

He wants us to give because we get to, not because we have to. And he always opens our hearts as he did the wise men before. He opens up our hands. And lastly, grace leads us to go a different direction. Being warned in a dream, these wise men, they turn and they went a different direction.

And I don't think that's just in there by accident to just kind of tell us what happened. I believe there's a message for us today that wise men today still go a different direction when they come to Jesus. We can't keep going the same direction. Christ changes our hearts from the inside out. And we can't help but walk in a different direction.

Walk towards God. When we used to be walking away from Him, Walking in and in step with him versus away from Him. Does that mean we're perfect? No. Does that mean we don't still sin and mess up?

No. Does that mean we won't make mistakes? No. But there is a different direction for the believer that follows Jesus Christ. God puts us on a different path, on a different direction.

And I just love this story because it just reminds us that God still comes to the most unlikely of people. He comes to people who are far from him, who are distant from him, who are pagans, who have not given him thought. And he incorporates us and brings us into his story. Our God is a great God that brings us into a story of love and forgiveness. And he's still doing that today.

So what can we learn from these wise men and what path can we get on? I think this is the path of the wise men. It's a response of the grace that they received, that they were filled with joy, they were compelled to worship, and they led a life of generosity. They gave towards others. Generosity is more than money.

Generosity is our words. Generosity is our actions. Generosity is our time. And these wise men have something to teach us today, that when we really understand the grace that we've been given, forgiveness, a new life, a new heart, that it's going to fill us with joy. That leads us to worship, that leads us to a life of generosity.