Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Threatened By Success? | New Testament | Matthew 2

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in 2023. Get your FREE reading plan here. How do you react to other people's victories and failures? Are you trying to be king of your own life? Who has ultimate authority over you? In today's episode, Tanya discusses Herod's reaction to Jesus's birth in Matthew 2. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Matthew 2

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. I grew up in Missouri, I went to college in Missouri, and I live in Missouri. I probably wouldn't win a contest in the most amazing state to live category, but I do love the city where I live. It's fun, it's eclectic, it's outdoorsy, and we also happen to be the home of the Missouri Tigers. Now, there's an ongoing tradition of rivalry between Missouri and Kansas. The tiger, and the Jayhawks. And much like the classic college rivalry, it's always fun when they're matched up against one another. We used to be in the same conference and played each other at the time, but now we're not, and it's a big deal when the two schools do come together. Now, when the teams match up,

the stadium is a electric, whether you're in Lawrence or Columbia. The students come out with their best signs and body paint. The older fans come out with their best tales and stories. Everyone collectively booze and gasps and chance. And it's all in good fun until somebody starts winning and somebody starts losing. And guess what? This always happens. No surprise, right? But it always seems like a surprise to the team that's losing.

And what happens is incredibly predictable. The losing side starts to degenerate. The comments get more personal. The chance get more aggressive. In other words, we really start digging to the bottom of the barrel to find ways to insult the other team when it's not going our way. In the gospel of Matthew, Matthew tells the story of Jesus' birth from the angle of the losing side. Or to put it another way, he tells the story through the lens of what was happening with King Herod when Jesus was born. From our perspective,

it's obvious who comes out on top of this story, and thankfully so. But at the time, I wonder who would have felt like the biggest threat. Matthew starts by telling us that Jesus was born. born in the days of Herod the king, or as we know him, Herod the Great. This would let us know that Herod was on the throne, as he ruled over Israel and Judah from 37 to 4 BC. While Herod was ruling, the wise men saw a star rising in the east, and they inquired about it, probably because they knew the Old Testament prophecy from Numbers 24. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. So they were asking, where is he?

Where is this one born King of the Jews, the one that was promised, the one we've all been waiting for? Now, this really troubled Herod when he heard about it. And this wasn't a surprise either, as Herod was a firm and ruthless ruler. Herod didn't let anything get in his way. He even had his own wife and sons killed to make sure his absolute power wasn't challenged. What a great guy, right? Now, thinking Jesus was a threat that could be, handled, Herod summoned the wise men to find out more about the star, and then he sent them

to Bethlehem on kind of a reconnaissance mission. He thought he was being cunning in his supposed eagerness to have the wise men help him find the king so that he could, quote, greet and worship him in person, right? But the wise men met Jesus, and the wise men worshipped him themselves, and the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod and not to share Jesus' location. so they took off in a different direction. This caused Herod to degenerate even further, and he went from being troubled to furious when he realized that he'd been tricked by the wise men.

He didn't just want to handle the situation. He wanted to obliterate the situation. And so he called for all the baby boys in Bethlehem under the age of two to be murdered, so he wouldn't have to worry about another king threatening any of his power. Jesus would have been a victim of this genocide, except that God warned Joseph in a dream about Herod's intentions,

and Joseph took his family and he fled to Nazareth, where they would hide out until Herod's reign came to an end. Thus, the Messiah was safe from the hands of Herod, and, oh, by the way, Matthew wants you to know, all of this was to perfectly fulfill what the Old Testament prophecy said would happen. So why? Why was Herod so threatened by Jesus? Was it because he knew deep down, that what God's word said about Jesus was true,

that he was God in the flesh come to earth? Was it because Herod felt insecure about his own flesh and his own ability to hold on to the throne? We understand the ways we degenerate when we diminish the image of God in other people, when we see their success as a threat to us, when we allow their mistakes to actually boost our egos. but the real threat to Herod was not a king born in a manger.

In fact, the way Jesus entered the world in this upside-down sort of way illustrates the truth about what really does eat away at our flesh. It's the sin, the sin in us that wants to be the king instead of submit to the king. And this is exactly the problem that Jesus came to solve. King Herod's reaction to Jesus is a picture of each of us, and how we would respond to Jesus apart from the grace of God. We tend to think of ourselves as good people who occasionally need forgiveness, but the Bible teaches that we are enemies of God that need to be rescued completely.

In Romans 8, Paul says, The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. At the core of our hearts, we all want to be on top, the center of the universe. We are a self-centered prideful bunch. We can train and educate ourselves to respond differently, though we cannot rescue our hearts from their enmity toward God.

We need a king that is powerful over sin and death, and he came as a baby to be born in a manger. The way he came into the world is an illustration of our salvation. We think we need to look good and smell good, and Jesus contradicts our impulses to be strong and pull it together. He came for the weak, and for those who admit that they are weak. Just like Herod, our greatest threat is the sin of our flesh that prevents us from submitting to King Jesus. Can you think of times you've been ruled more by your desires and fears than by your submission to Jesus? I can be ruled by people-pleasing, image-producing fears.

I can be ruled by desires to be something, to have something. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you keep saying yes to something that eats away at your family or your relationships. Maybe you subtly throw people under the bus. Maybe you allow your ego to craft your image. Matthew is writing to all of us to shout the good news about Jesus. Because he came to rescue us, we have a new opportunity to say no to our flesh that wants to distort and defile the image of God in ourselves and in others.

Let's do some compare and contrasts for a moment and see how differently King David responds to the promises of Jesus than King Herod did. See, in Psalm 27, King David says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is my stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? David understands the peace and assurance that God assures into our lives when we submit to his plan for salvation.

David had real enemies too. He had people that pursued him and wanted to kill him several times throughout his life. But David understood that his greatest threat had been solved by the promises of salvation in Jesus. His heart had been rescued from slavery to pride and self-righteousness. His flesh that wanted an earthly kingship had a desire for something greater. He wanted ultimately to surrender to God's authority and find his rest there. This is the opportunity we have today. Yeah, we're still going to mess it up, but because of Jesus,

we have a new opportunity to live against our flesh and surrender to him. You have an opportunity to place your negative and insecure thoughts in the hands of Jesus. If you're exhausted by a desire for control, you have an opportunity to take. take your worries to the feet of Jesus. If you feel far from God because of your words and actions, you can remember that you have a Savior that comes to rescue you, a Savior that never leaves you. The only things Jesus truly threatens are our real enemies,

our enemies of pride and insecurity, of trying to be our own rulers and our own rescuers. We have no reason to fear when we surrender to King Jesus. So, TNBT has a really cool resource to help you out this year. Our team created a downloadable reading plan for the New Testament. And when you download it, you'll be able to read a chapter and then listen to the episode that corresponds. It's really easy to find in our show notes. So take a sec, download it, and even share it with a friend.

It's a great way to learn more and talk more about Jesus together.