Episode 1606: Signs and Power

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,606 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Deb Brown Maher: I'm Deb Brown Maher, I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world. By using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Recognizing that we are all in sales every day and learning how to do it well without compromising your values is a great reason to listen to this Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: I got a hundred people screaming out my name and I can't care no more. You come needing more when I got nothing. What can you [00:01:00] give me? Can you save me? And the answer from Matthew, the answer from Christ, the answer from Christmas is Indeed yes. Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures. For your True calling in the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Matthew chapter two, verses 13 through 23. I also talk about how even though there is no room for hope, hope comes anyway. And I share how the answer to being [00:02:00] saved is right there. Matthew chapter two, verses 13 through 23, says Now, after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet out of Egypt. I have called my son. When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Maggi, he was infuriated and sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem, who were two years old or under.

According to the time that he had learned from the Magi, then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. A voice was heard in Rama wailing. In loud lamination. Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be consoled because they are no more. When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly [00:03:00] appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel.

For those who are seeking the child's life are dead. Then Joseph got up, took the child at his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Alius was ruling Judea in place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the District of Galilee.

There. He made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled. He will be called a Nazarene. Here we are only a few days after the celebration of Christmas, and probably by now we're caught up in another struggle, another crisis. Something has gone wrong, whether that's in your own life or in your family or in the world in general.

We begin to wonder how we can find space to breathe. Because something always [00:04:00] seems to go awry in our well ordered existence. Your world shatters. There's wor words delivered like a sledgehammer to your gut. I don't know about you, but I'm often plunged underwater by news that I can barely comprehend, let alone respond to.

Those visions of a joyous tomorrow spoken out of existence by words of tragedy or denial. And sometimes I wonder how to put one foot in front of another, whether it's a mass shooting that's occurred around Christmas, whether it's a political event or a disaster, a natural one, or otherwise. We remember times that we've watched in horror when something happens to destroy the comfort and joy of a community.[00:05:00]

That moments before was quiet, that weeping that was talked about by the prophet still occurs today. And in that world we find ourselves sometimes there seems to be no room for the message of Christmas. No room for Emmanuel. God is with us. No room for grace, peace and joy. The powers that be don't wanna step aside for that kind of message, that kind of different hope and anytime we seek to follow.

That other worldly power, the powers of the world step in and seem to block that response. There's no room we're told for dissent from the social norms. There's no room to live out a true life following Christ. There's no room. And no room, of course, is a [00:06:00] well known theme around Christmas, the. Christmas pageants with the bath robed, innkeepers pronouncing in a stern voice.

There's no room. The holy couple going door to door, hearing no room again and again. We know that there was no room. We get it. It was a rough start for that Prince of Peace. But this passage, this was from Matthew and the No Room comes in, Luke's story. In Matthew, there's no trip to Bethlehem. They're already there.

There's no busy town, which lacks accommodation. No manger, no room at the end. Doesn't happen. But there's a song called No Room by Todd Agnew. It was out back in 2006 and look it up. One of the passages in the [00:07:00] song, one of the verses, says, there's no room, no room. In the end, if you were someone important, we might try to fit you in, but there's no room in here for you.

There's no room to lay your head. If you were wealthy, we might find you a bed, but there's no room in here for you. That song. Is a duet and the tone of it between the innkeeper's wife and the innkeeper sound like two tired service industry workers who don't have room in their busy lives. For one more request, one more demand, one more need that needs to be filled and in the song they go on, just like the story of Luke to offer a stable and a manger, that should be fine for that baby.

A little compassion works its way through the weariness. And see that's kind of part of the thing that we look at. We look at the innkeeper sometimes as the bad guy, but the [00:08:00] truth is he made a space even though it wasn't necessarily what the baby Jesus deserved, he still showed compassion and a little compassion.

Seems rare today. Compassion is everywhere for those we'd love already, but compassion for the world for our enemies, compassion for our leaders, for those that are making bad decisions and those that are making decisions that maybe we just don't agree with. Instead, it's about security advantage, debts cost power.

Matthew's story in that way is also about the lack of room for the Messiah. It's about a world that is hostile to that different way of being, that different set of priorities from the beginning. The world was seeking to have its way with God's plans. For us. This gospel for the [00:09:00] Sunday after Christmas is a difficult one, but it is one we need to hear.

Like Luke Matthew never outright says there was no room for them, but it seems to be written into every verse. There's no room for them. This is a world of violence and corruption. There's no room for them in this hometown ruled by a tyrant. There's no room for them in this land. That was a daily reminder of slavery and suffering.

There's no room for them in a new hometown that was out there on the edge of where the good people lived and grew up. But God was determined to make room, and so at many points in this event, it all could have come crashing down. At any point there were those that could have said no, those that could have taken the life of God's chosen instruments.

It seems like a fragile house of cards, but this is how chose, [00:10:00] this is how God chose to work in that moment. This is the world God chose to work in and through. It's a messy world. It's an enormously messy world. There's no way to really state that, but it's also a world that's in need of saving. There's a lot in this story that isn't easy to understand and Matthew doesn't explain it.

Why not send all the families with the children ready for their lives? Why not throw a bubble of protection over all these innocents who are slaughtered in the story? Why not? Why not? Why not? And we can tie ourselves up and knots trying to explain and answer for God's actions, and we can't do it. We can't do it in the gospel story and we can't do it with modern day tragedies, natural disasters, or the inhumanity of man on man.

There's no [00:11:00] answers. There's no explanation. But what is offered in this story is hope a, promise a savior, because that song goes on and says. Because I'm cold and tired of working my whole life away. Every hand needing one more thing comes knocking at my door. I got a hundred people screaming out my name and I can't care no more.

You come needing more when I got nothing. What can you give me? Can you save me? And the answer from Matthew, the answer from Christ, the answer from Christmas is indeed. Yes. Thanks for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just [00:12:00] sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there.

Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.