May I Have Your Attention Please? (Epiphany 2014)

Epiphany: The revelation of Immanuel. (Is 9/Matt 4/Gideon)

Message Title: May I Have Your Attention, Please.

Message Text: Matt 2:1-12

Attention: Notice taken of someone or something; the regarding of someone or something as interesting or important.

Synonyms: Awareness/Notice/Observation/Heed/Regard/Scrutiny

• Matt 2 quotes OT where the Messiah would be born
• Matt 2 quotes OT Hosea 11 (Out of Egypt) Where he’d hide
• Matt 4 quotes Is 9 (Great Light will be seen in Gentile region of Zebulun/Naphtali...Where he’d begin ministry.

The Great Epiphany AND mystery is not that the Messiah came to Earth

The Great Epiphany is that the Messiah came to the despised people first!

This isn’t new!!!!

Deut 7.7 states:

7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous(A) than other peoples, for you were the fewest(B) of all peoples.(C)

• The moment that the Eternal Word is uttered outside the bosom of the Trinity and steps forth into the human condition, the Word gives himself to all creatures. . He ceases to be alone and becomes, by virtue of his creative activity, totally involved in the human adventure. He cannot be indifferent‣. Any theology that suggests that he is unconcerned is not the revelation of Jesus. On the contrary, the meaning of the life and message of Jesus is that the reign of God is "close at hand": the whole of God is now available for every human being who wants him.

Seekers: Herod/Magi‣

✔Epiphany as a literary style: moving from ignorance to insight....In a spiritual sense it is moving from human oblivion an denial to Holy transformation

• As Thomas Merton put it, we are "to become what we already are."

✔Epiphanies come in order to display what has been hidden. We are to draw conclusions from the Epiphanies and determine what God is saying to us.... We are then to act accordingly.

✔Epiphanies build trust (reliance upon the nature of...) by demonstrating the Father’s good nature.

✔God want us to see His so that we can understand Him & imitate Him.

✔Epiphany came to those who were outsiders of the faith! (This may be a good time to look at the unlikely candidates of God’s grace and affection i.e. Bathsheba, Rahab, Moses, Abraham.....Gideon). This is not shocking because God told Israel that He chose them because they were the smallest...not because they were powerful. (Deut 7.7)

Most people would have trouble following God’s logic. You can’t!! You must follow His nature.

Gideon:

Where is God?! (Judges 6:13)

• That was long ago!
• What has He done lately?

Ephiphany reveals that God did something crazy in order to get our attention!

Israel had been so beaten down by Kings....Jesus, the King, couldn’t look like one to the eyes...but had to act like one in the heart in order to catch them off guard!!!!

John 1:10-12 (NIV)

10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him,(A) the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.(B) 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed(C) in his name,(D) he gave the right to become children of God(E)—

Questions: #1 Where are you on the continuum from oblivion to revelation? #2 How can we help you move to revelation? #3 Will you take light to Zebulun?