How would you have planned Jesus' birth?

Dear Mosaic Family,

If you were Jesus' campaign manager, how would you have planned to make use of his time on earth? Would you have arranged for him to get elected or placed in a high political position? Remember, your goal wouldn't stop at creating a legacy that would last just a couple of generations.

If your goal was for everybody in the world to know who Jesus was more than 2000 years after his time on earth, how would you have planned the significant events of his life? If you wanted him to be the focal point of everybody's personal life, the person whose teachings would shape the establishment of societies and their laws, the most influential figure in the history of the world, what would you have done? How would you have planned his birth? How would you have planned his death?

Would you have tried to promote Jesus to the same position that he has today by using the same approach that Jesus Christ himself went about it in scripture?

Jesus Christ did everything wrong by the world's rules and everything right by the commands of God and yet he triumphed! His birth story tells us that he wasn't born in a powerful urban center, wasn't born in a world class hospital or hotel, he did not have regal figures, at least those of the right ethnic background, attend his birth, and he wasn't born into a wealthy family, yet he is most influential figure in history and the solution to man's greatest problems!

Christians know this, yet many of us are struggling through life because we often are not people of acclaim or in positions of power, affluence or influence. We can't sleep at night because we don't have the things that the world tells us that we need to be full and have peace. We can't sleep because the faithful church does not resemble worldly institutions of power. Though Christ has turned the wisdom of the world upside down and proven it shallow and foolish, we still are not at peace because of the influence of the world's wisdom on us.

Christmas is not a time when the "goodwill" of man is on full display, contrary to popular opinion and Hallmark movies. Rather, the foolishness of the wisdom of man is on full display and proven inadequate to help him have victory over his greatest problems. Our insufficiency to save ourselves and our need for Christ to come into our lives is on full display. When we understand it properly, Christmas is a time when we can proclaim words of the apostle Paul with confidence, "20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? " (1 Corinthians 1:20). It's a time that our hope that doing things God's way, regardless of any circumstances that we face, shall be renewed.

Join us tomorrow as we discuss how the birth of Christ puts to shame the wisdom of the world and promotes the dependability and glory of the wisdom of God, as we discuss the birth narrative of Christ in Matthew 2:1-12. 

With Love,
Pastor Andy