Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, this is Naim, and you've reached the Mosaic Church Podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and love for you to be even more connected.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: So check out our website.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content. If this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward.
Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you. Enjoy.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Well, good morning. Wow.
That is too much.
That is too much. That is too much. Merry Christmas. Y' all are gonna throw me off. That was insane. Okay, well, I'm glad you're here. Second crowd, man, y' all have had your coffee, your eggnog. I don't know what your Christmas mocktail something. You guys are ready to go. I love it. I'm here for it. We are in week three of our series, like Pastor Naim mentioned, called this Little Light of Mine. And if you missed it the first two weeks, Pastor Naim did start his sermons by singing this Little Light of Mine. Okay. The first week had this jazzy, like, little thing going on. It was pretty good.
Last week, it did take a turn, I would say, depending on what service you are here for, I would say it actually went all the way off the rails.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna let a good thing be a good thing and leave that in week one.
Okay? You with me? I know you are. I'm not gonna ask if you want any other opinions. All right. Another thing that we have done every single week in this series is that we have started with the same verse in Matthew 5. And so let's go ahead and pull that up and we can look at it and read it together. It says, you are the light of the world. Like a city on a hilltop that cannot be.
So picture this, right? A city up on a hilltop that's just shining its light. It's illuminating. It's radiating light over all of the things that are around it. And a really cool thing for us in Charlotte here especially, you may or may not know this if you're watching Online. Fun fact for you.
In Charlotte, we don't call our center city downtown like most cities. You in America do. What do we call our center city? Uptown. Uptown. Is it just because we think we're cooler than everyone else?
Yes. And also, geographically, you may not know that Charlotte was actually built on a ridge between two valleys.
So when you hit that 277 loop and you go into the city and you start driving around, you are not actually driving downtown.
Where are you going?
You are driving uptown into a city on a hill.
What a cool thing for us, especially Mosaic, to think about as we go forward. What a picture of what that means for us, for who we are and for who we can be. This light in the world that cannot be hidden.
And I don't know about you, but I feel like that is especially needed for right now, in a time and an era where everything seems not only dark, but distrusting and divisive. Where right now, I believe the thing that is actually keeping our light from shining isn't just darkness, but it's actually more and bigger than that. And the thing that's trying to control your light, the things that's trying to contain your light, is actually fear.
It's fear. And it is the same fear present now that was actually present that very first Christmas. And so where we are at this point in the Christmas story, as we've been going through for the last couple of weeks, is that Mary and Joseph have already gone to Bethlehem in the region of Judea, okay? And Jesus has already born. He has been born in the little manger, you know, in the stable with all the farm animals looking adoringly on, telling him how cute he is. That has already happened at this point. Okay, so we're gonna pick it up in Matthew, chapter two.
And it says about that time, some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to bring him presents.
No. What does it say? We have come to worship him.
Now, you can think of these wise men, also often called magi, as, like, cosmic analysts. Okay? They're cosmic analysts because they were taught and they were trained to go out and to look to the skies. They would watch the stars and the cosmos and the heavens and the planets, and they would find patterns of movement, and then it was their job to. To take those patterns and those movements and interpret them so that they could let the people in power know of what was coming. It was their way of advising them into decisions based off of what was happening in the stars. Now, what's interesting is that even though these particular wise men, magi were not Jewish, they still were following a star because it was a common belief across multiple cultures that when a brand new star appeared in the sky, it was some kind of, like, cosmic signal that a new member of royalty had been born.
So you could say that they were just doing their job, right, following the next star onto the next new member of royalty that they needed to show up and honor.
But they took it one step further with Jesus when they got there and. And decided, made the intentional choice to worship him. And not everyone decided that this is the route they were gonna go. As we see in verse three with King Herod, it says, king Herod was what? Deeply disturbed. Deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem. Everyone in Jerusalem. When I was reading this, I stopped and I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
Like, I know why King Herod was bothered. I know why he was deeply disturbed because he felt threatened that his position as king was going to be overtaken. His position felt threatened, but why was everyone else bothered? Like, why were they so upset?
And I think it's because of King Herod's leadership style.
We see that King Herod's leadership style is insecure, it's unstable, and it's rooted in fear.
And he wasn't doing those things in private.
It's not like he kept his fears and his anxieties in the inner workings of his court. There are many public, documented, historical documents showing and chronologizing. What is that word?
Telling?
Documenting.
Okay. The way that he would lead his people. There was documentation of him overreacting with violence and with extremism when he didn't get his way.
So the people of Jerusalem knew one, what Herod's leadership style was like and the way that he would react when his power was threatened. And they also knew that they would be the ones to pay the price.
So everyone else was deeply disturbed because they were living, just waiting to see what the next act of chaos would be that he would unleash on people.
Because when leadership is rooted in fear, everyone lives anxious lives.
When leadership is rooted in fear, everyone lives anxious lives. And this applies to across the board, okay? If you are a parent or you are a spouse or you are a roommate and there are other people in your home, and you operate from a place of fear, you are creating a bubble of anxiety for your family and the people that you love that are around you, if you are an employer or Some kind of team lead. Even if you are a coworker with maybe a little bit of influence just in the chit, chatting with the person next to you in the day to day, and you operate out of fear, you are turning your workplace into a bubble of anxiety where sometimes maybe the people that show up are late because they actually got there on time, but they had to sit in their car for a couple minutes and give themselves a pep talk to go in because they know what an anxious presence it's going to be in all of our relationships, friendships, situationships, when you're trying to make things happen.
If we operate and make decisions out of fear, we are creating anxiety for all of the people that are involved.
When you're led by fear, everyone around you will live an anxious life. And this is certainly true for people in positions of power and authority over others.
So we know King Herod was a fearful leader, right? Documented fearful leader. But also King Herod represents fears in our lives.
He represents the places that we are tempted to react when we feel threatened. And that's what we have to be honest enough to look at today.
Fear is something that for me growing up has always been present in my life. Fear has been there for decades, just kind of underneath, like underlying the surface right there, just kind of waiting for many, many years. Every decision that I made, every thought that I had was rooted in fear.
And it dictated and it changed the way that I lived my life.
Still to this day, if I'm not conscious of it and I don't really pay attention to the things that fear does within me, those irrational fears can still take me into a really dark place and run away with my thoughts, into a spiral of like, what ifs and worst case scenarios.
If you've ever woken up in the middle of the night terrified because you realized that your foot is hanging over the edge of the bed, you know exactly what I'm talking about with irrational fears, right? You snatch that foot back up into there, into like the safety of your warm blanket. This is what happens when our fears, they don't have to make.
And we all have our own fears. Not only are they deep, but they're also personal. Our fears are deep and they are personal.
And so even though my fear is telling me not to tell you about what my fears are, because my fear is that you're going to think of me differently and the way you think of me is going to change, I will go ahead and be honest and not ask you to do something that I would not do.
And I will tell you that one of my all the time underlying fears is aging.
A couple giggles of people that are uncomfortable, but I think agree with me, that's fine. This is a hard one to admit out loud.
Okay, Aging now. I am grateful for every single day that I have on this earth. Okay, that is true.
What is also true is that I have hit that magical age where my body nor my mind can come up with words. And as we saw about two minutes ago, where they will not do what they're supposed to do, they will not do what I want them to do, and I can no longer control them the way that I used to control them so that they will just please function appropriately.
What happens is fear comes in and it tempts me to react in all kinds of outrageous ways to try to fix and control what I am afraid of.
Another thing that I worry about is my children. I have two daughters and when I'm not worrying about my wrinkles and my hair loss, I am actually fearful for them and for their futures. I worry if the structures are going to be in place to protect their best interests as they grow up as females in the world. I wonder if they are going to have the agency that they need for all of the things in their hopes and dreams for their futures. As very, very smart and bright kids who need just a little bit of extra neurological support from the education system.
I worry what will happen if those supports go away and they won't be able to show up and thrive as their best bright selves. And so in that case, fear tempts me to panic and to anticipate only worst case scenarios for their futures.
See, fear wants to reign in my heart and control my life.
So we have to ask ourselves, what or who wants to reign king in your life?
What or who is trying to be king? Whether it's your bank account or the news cycle, or a parent or a politician, if they are operating in fear, they are trying to control you.
If they are operating in fear to get you to listen or comply or appease them, they are trying to control you.
So King Herod, right, is like, all right, I gotta figure out what is up with this new king. And so we pick it up. In verse seven it says, then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them what did he want to know. Interesting detail.
The exact time, the exact time that the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the child.
As soon as you find him, give him a present.
Worship him.
No, no. As soon as you find him, do what you report to me.
Report to me so that I, too, may go and worship him.
Right, okay. Again we see the inner workings of Herod's leadership here. Why did he need to know the exact time that the star appeared? Because it was threat assessment.
It was threat assessment. At this point in the story, it has actually been months since Jesus was born. Months. It would have taken time for the star to appear. It would have taken time for the Magi to see it and then to follow it and to talk to Herod and be on their way. It is months now after Jesus has been born. But knowing the details, I would help King Herod to narrow down into the right time and place that the star appeared.
As soon as you go out and find him, report to me, he says. And that is also what fear says in our lives.
Hey, once you go out and start doing things, once you start to find good things, I need you to come back and report to me.
See, I think you and I are actually the Magi in this story today.
Maybe there's something that you've been looking for, and God maybe has even revealed something to you. Maybe it's a star, Maybe it's a dream. Maybe it's a feeling. Maybe it's a message that you got through someone else, but you're still conflicted because you're getting two different messages. On one hand, God is showing you something and he's telling you something, but also fear is coming in and telling you a different version of the story.
Maybe God is saying to you, hey, I want you to trust me with your finances and start tithing.
And then fear comes around from the other side and says, yeah, but if you do, you're no longer gonna be able to live the life that you're accustomed to.
Maybe God wants you to accept his invitation for rest and to just slow down a little bit in life, but then fear comes up behind him and says, yeah, but if you do, you're gonna miss opportunities. And if you slow down and rest, you're not gonna get what is meant for you. And not only that, but you're gonna disappoint all of the people who expect you to, like, do something great.
Maybe God is calling you to honesty and to name what's true and to name what hurts. And fear is trying to silence you. And fear is saying, there is safety in silence, and it is easier to just ignore it and look the other way.
See, God says, I want you to live in freedom. Freedom from worry and freedom from anxiety. Fear is the one that says, no, you come back and report to me because I'm in charge.
Just as King Herod used his power irresponsibly only to protect his own best interest.
Fear will try to do the same thing in your life because it knows that its power only comes in agreement that you will keep coming back when it calls you.
Fear only has power when you agree to keep coming back and keep answering when it calls you and say, hey, come back and report to me.
We have to be able to start recognizing the voices in our minds and. And the thoughts that we're having, that maybe they're not just thoughts on our own. Maybe it's the voice of fear, the voice of the enemy. What is the voice of God in the Holy Spirit. We have to pay attention to what we're hearing and who we're listening to, because it will change the way we live our lives and the way we show up in the world.
So the Magi followed the star, remember, not to the nativity. I think what we all need to do next year, now that we know this was months later, is when we set up our nativity sets, right? We have the holy family here. Also the donkey, because he's the most special. He gets to be right there by Jesus. We put the shepherds over here, and then we usually, like, have the wise men over here. I think next year we all need to put them in the kitchen so that we remember, you know, a more accurate depiction of what this actually looks like. The wise men were not there the night Jesus was born, but when they do come is when they give Jesus their gifts for extra credit. What are the gifts that the Magi brought? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Such an easy one. You guys are so smart. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Now, as a mom, these are not the gifts I would have chosen. Okay? I'm just saying. Hey, wise men, do you have any pacifiers for this toddler?
Do you have a playpen that we can just, like, contain sweet baby Jesus just for, like, a minute? Cause if he's not walking, he's definitely crawling around. You know, some nice, loose, like, postpartum pants would be great if you got them. Okay.
This is what we would need, right as parents. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh instead is what they showed up with, because these are gifts they would have been carrying anyways. These were portable gifts that they would have brought with them. Remember when they went to follow the star to the next royal birth, they would have already had them on them and they were expensive. So these were high value items that they would have been able to use in trade, like as currency along the way as they went from place to place.
So I think we do have to give them maybe a little bit of credit that they didn't have the option of swinging through Walmart to check Mary's registry to bring the things that she actually wanted when they got there.
However, when they showed up, they worshiped Jesus. They chose to worship Jesus and in so doing gave him what they already had.
And isn't that so often what it looks like actually when we start following Jesus that we don't have to show up with anything fancy, we don't have to be something that we're not. We don't have to pretend to bring something that we don't have. We get to just look at what we're already carrying and, and surrender to Jesus what we've already got.
So when the time came for everyone to move on, you know, they did their gifts. I don't know if it was like a baby shower or a birthday party situation, I'm not sure which they did. But they hung out for a little bit. And then when it was time to go, God appeared in a dream to both the Magi and Joseph to warn them of the violence that Herod had planned.
And so they all took it very seriously. The Magi decided to go on their way by a different route, not going back by where King Herod was. And Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt to a different country because they would have been out of King Herod's jurisdiction.
We're going to pick it up in verse 16.
Herod was a little bit kind of upset. No, Herod was furious.
When he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were 2 years old and under.
Based on the wise men's report of the star's first appearance. Remember King Herod's question?
Remember that question of when exactly would the star appear? Because it helped Herod to narrow down the scope of the threat to to a two year window.
Herod's fear driven leadership was a perfect picture of toxic masculinity.
It was insecure leadership and irresponsible decision making that became socially destructive for all of the people around him.
It's toxic masculinity as leadership.
It was his fear that convinced him and an entire other part of the population that one part of the population, the most innocent part of the population was so Much a threat that it was okay to go ahead and get rid of them.
And he justified getting rid of an entire part of the population in the name of self protection.
Now, scholars agree that we don't know exactly how many families this affected. Okay, it was likely not hundreds and hundreds because of the size of the area where they were.
But my hunch is that if we talked to the mothers of those sons, they would tell us that the exact number doesn't actually matter because even one child killed to protect the powerful is too many.
It's too many.
Sometimes in situations like this, fear will say to us, if I get involved, what will happen to me?
But love comes in and says, if you don't get involved, what will happen to them?
Fear focuses on ourselves and self protection.
Love says, if you don't act, if you're not compelled to move by love, what will happen to the other people that God cares about?
Our fears, when they are allowed to reign, when they are allowed to reign in our lives and become king, never stay contained. They always grow until they affect more than just us.
And Herod believed that his rule, his reign, would actually bring him security, stability, and peace.
But ultimately, it was fear that ruled him.
It was fear that ruled him. It didn't save his reign. It actually destroyed him from the inside out.
If darkness can convince us that it's keeping us safe all tucked in and contained and cloaked, then it can quietly and unassumingly come in and take its place, King in our hearts.
Like many kids, my kids went through a season of life where they were afraid of the dark. And from time to time, I would go into their rooms in the morning and I would find one of these tucked up under their pillow. You guys familiar with these little glow sticks? Okay. I would find one. Not a whole bunch. It was never a whole pack. They weren't trying to, like, light up their whole room, but they would just be one here or one there. Because my girls knew, they understood that it just took one little light to disrupt the power of the darkness in their rooms. And so if you're familiar with these and how they work, we trust that there's light in here, right? We know there is light inside of this glow stick even when it looks dark.
But if we want the light to shine, we have to do more than just say, look at this little light of mine.
I believe that it's here. I know that it's in there. If we want to actually glow, we have to take a step of faith and activate the light that's inside. We have to break this glow stick in order for the light to appear.
See, light is the solution to the fear in your life.
This is the only thing that can disrupt the power of darkness and the hold that it has on you.
That's why John 1:5 gives us this reminder. It says that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
Not that the darkness is like, oh, look at your cute little glow stick. The darkness isn't like, okay, well, I'm still a lot bigger than you. No, no, no.
The darkness has not overcome it. Because as soon as you put a light into the darkness, even a little one, even a small little light into the darkness, you disrupt its power.
And I think some of you today, this is a good picture of the light that's within you. You know it's in there. You're like, I have a light within me. I know it's in there. I believe it. I trust it. I know that it's there. But you have not yet tapped into the power of that light of Jesus within you.
It is there, but have you allowed it to be activated in your life?
See, the unique thing about the light of Jesus is that it's not finite like this glow stick. It's not a finite thing that we just have a little light of and that we have to move around to the different fears in our life. We don't have to take it over here when we're afraid for our families and. And then pick it up and move it over here when we're afraid for the injustice in the world, and then pick it up and move it over here for our finances and then move it back over here for our health. The light of Jesus does not work that way.
What we actually get to do is allow the light to push back the darkness in all areas of our life.
And so what happens is we can put the light of Jesus in our finances, and we put the light of Jesus into our families, and we put the light of Jesus into the other members of our family and the relationships. Maybe we add a couple more for the ones that are not as easy and not as fun and not as hopeful and really don't feel like they have a lot of light in them right now. And we can put the light of Jesus into our hopes and our dreams and the things that we have for our futures.
We can put the light of Jesus into the marginalized and the oppressed and the systems of injustice.
We can put the light of Jesus into our worries and anxieties that control our thoughts and into our aging perimenopausal bodies.
We can put the light of Jesus into every fear that is trying to control us.
And then when the lights go out, this little light that is within you shines brighter than you ever expected it to do. And it can light up so much more space than you ever anticipated.
And this little light that's within you will push the darkness to the far corners, disrupting the power that fear has over you.
And then when the lights come back on, Good cue, guys. Good job. When the lights come back on and you are living in the light again, here's what's gonna happen. You're not gonna walk around with your bracelets and your glow glasses and your crowns and your necklaces and all the things you might for a little while. And then fear's gonna come back. Cause it's not gonna be so happy. And it's gonna tell you, hey, guess what? That light doesn't actually shine bright enough. So you might as well take them back off.
And you might take them back off and it's gonna say, hey, what you're doing doesn't actually make enough of a difference in this world. And so you're gonna feel like your light is starting to dim again.
But here's what I need you to remember.
Even if that happens, once that little light of Jesus is activated within you, darkness will never overcome it.
Dark. This is all you need.
And so in the seat back pocket in front of you, I have gifted you all your own glow stick.
Or in the seat crack, I'm not sure.
And I want you to take this. You can activate it now or you can take it with you and you can save it for later. It's totally up to you what you want to do with it. But I want this little light of yours to remind you that it is enough to disrupt the power that fear tries to have over you and in your life.
In just a second, we're going to sing another song. And one of the things that you can do, we call this our response time. On either side of the room, there are candles that you can light a candle for someone to represent a prayer, a prayer request for them maybe. There's also communion on either side of the room that you it is open table you are welcome to take.
And then on this side of the room there's a cross with some post its. And if you're watching online, we've got private prayer rooms as well if you want to jump into one of those. And maybe what you need to Write on a post it today is the thing that feels like it always brings darkness to your life.
Maybe it's that fear that is always underlying.
And also, don't let fear tell you that it's too small to write down and leave at the cross.
I told you mine and it was embarrassing, but it's also real, so there is no fear that you have to keep holding onto out of shame that it's not big enough to lay at the feet of Jesus.
Maybe as you sing, you want to just stand with your glow stick and ask God, hey, where are the places in my life that I've allowed darkness to come in? Where are the places in my life that I'm actually not trusting you, that this light is enough to push back all of the things that are trying to control me with fear?
Let's pray.
God, I pray for the people right now, Father, who feel like their light is just dim. God, they believe that it's in there, Lord. They've seen it shine bright in the past, but right now they're really just struggling to know if it's kind of gone out.
God, I pray that you would give them hope, God, I pray that you would illuminate the places in their lives, God, where you are still present and you are still working.
God, I pray for the people right now, Father, who have maybe never activated the light of Jesus within them and they really don't know what it means to not live a life of darkness, to not live a life where hope seems hard to find.
So, God, for those people, I pray that they would be able to acknowledge God, the things that they have allowed to control them.
God, whether it's a person or an allegiance they've pledged elsewhere, God, if it's other relationships or even just fears in their minds, God, I pray that they would be able to recognize those and surrender them to you, God, that they would say, I don't know what it looks like to carry the light of Jesus within me, but I'm willing to give it a try.
God, I pray that you would meet them with supernatural peace and grace, God, and thank you for the community that's around them to walk with them and show them what it looks like to carry the light of Jesus into the world.
Jesus, would you remain supreme, be the king of our hearts.
Amen.
Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.
