Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. But these Gentile kingmakers come from Persia at tremendous cost and time. The scribes are in Jerusalem. Herod says where is he going to be born and they say he's going to be born in Bethlehem. Five miles from where they are. They could care less. I'm not going five miles. Why would I walk five miles?
These guys would come hundreds and hundreds of miles. You see, why would I go there? That's where he's going to be born.
I don't really care. That gives you the idea of the spiritual climate of Israel at the time. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.
Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Mary, unbelievable submission shows immediate obedience.
Does that describe you? I submit to the Lord if I don't understand. If the Lord says that, I obey. See, God's telling us something here. How should we respond to this idea of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us? God becoming one of us?
What should our response be? Go with me now to Luke chapter two. Luke chapter two in verse eight. Luke two and verse eight. You know the story. It says in the same region, there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over a flock of sheep by night.
It's a pretty picture, isn't it? I mean, we like that. I mean, if I what do you think the PR is if you're a shepherd? How do people think about Shepherds? We like shepherds. I mean, they're kind of cool in their own way. You see, I mean, you see all the stuff.
I mean, look, you know, you've seen all the school plays. You want to land one of those parts. You want to be a shepherd. You know, you just get dressed up really nice and. That's not this world. The idea that shepherds are in this story is an enigma. I think the average Jew would say, what in the world is going on here? Why shepherds understand no one in Israel ever said, oh, I hope my little boy grows up, he becomes a shepherd. You see, no one like shepherds. They didn't like them at all. Shepherds were ceremonially unclean.
They didn't like that about them, but it's worse than that. The other thing about shepherds that you find over and over again is that shepherds. Children are not allowed to speak to shepherds. They're not allowed to talk to. Shepherds are not allowed to testify in court.
They're considered unworthy. Shepherds are not allowed to be in the temple grounds. The Talmud, the Jewish writing in the Talmud says, give no help to the heathen or shepherds. Shepherds are distasteful to Jews.
You see, they're very distasteful. They don't like shepherds. The shepherds are amazing, though. They're the first human beings that see and worship Jesus.
Notice who it's not. No religious leaders, no prophets, no scribes, no priests, no dignitaries, no kings, no one, shepherds. Let's do the shepherds first. Wow, what is God doing?
Why does He tell us that? Think of their job. How lonely a job is being a shepherd? Countless days, weeks, just countless. You and the sheep, day and night, 24-7.
You're just out there, alone, and the people back there don't even like you. But maybe being a shepherd for a young man like David is where David learned to write music, play an instrument and sing. David was amazingly talented, but he was a shepherd. Now you get an idea of what Moses must have went through when he spent 40 years in the land of Midian being a shepherd. Isn't it ironic that God takes someone like David, a shepherd, and He makes him Israel's greatest king? Then He takes the greatest king of the universe and He makes him a shepherd. Jesus Christ. That's what God does here.
Notice then what happens. An angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terribly frightened, I'll bet. And the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. For today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord, and this will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.
Now, five minutes ago, it was jet black dark. In a lonely place. Hoping the sheep were quiet in the solitude of silence, an angel talked, and now the heavenly host proclaiming to you. Just just imagine what that would feel like.
For a shepherd. This isn't something they expected at all. And it says, When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, Let's go straight to Bethlehem and see this thing which has happened, which the Lord has made known to us. Let's go. Immediately again. And so they came in a hurry and they find their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they had seen this, they made known the statement which was told to them, the child. They started talking.
Anyone and everyone. It says and all who heard it notice and all who heard it. I got a hunch the whole way there. They talked about it.
They ran into anybody anywhere. They're talking about it. You should have seen what just happened to us. The angel said this. We're on our way to Bethlehem. You ought to see what happened to us.
Here's what he said is happening. It says and all who heard it wondered at the things which were told to them by the shepherds. Mary treasured these things in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and see, just as had been told them.
Well. The least educated, ceremonially unclean, usually covered with their own sweat and the stench of sheep. And they become the very first people who worship Jesus Christ. The first ones. They are the first worshippers.
That's how they respond. And secondly, they tell everybody they run into about him. They're the first evangelist for Jesus Christ.
The first ones. Mary, submissive. Joseph obedient. The shepherds, the first worshippers and the first evangelist. That's how they respond to Christmas.
Does that describe you? One more group, Matthew, chapter two. Matthew, chapter two, and you don't have to tell me because you've heard me say it so many times, but I'm going to talk about the wise men, not because they were there. They weren't there. OK, categorically, they weren't there. But I do know you love wise men.
You know, I do know you. There are cool. I don't deny that you can dress them up in unbelievable garments. They're always very well dressed, you know, and they look great at the nativity, especially when they take their camels, which they didn't ride. They didn't have camels. They're Persians. They rode horses.
They're not on camels. OK, so I know all that, but they're part of the birth narrative. It says, Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem. They are Magi is the English word they've said. Some have said they're magicians. Some say they're ambassadors. Some say they were kings.
We had him. We three kings. They weren't kings, but they are king makers. In Persia, there were a group of learned men who were philosophers and astrologers. And based on the stars, based on the stars, if someone was going to be king, they had to be the people that affirmed them as king based on how they read the stars.
That's what Magi are. They're Gentile, all the way Gentile, and they're the ones who show up. And it says they show up in Jerusalem and they say, Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have saw a star in the east and have come to worship him.
Now, please understand the first thing here. This is a long, long, long, long trip. Usually, if there's a group of them, like a small caravan, they made about 20 miles a day. This took months, months, months and months to get there. This it wasn't like they left on Thursday, showed up Saturday night.
This isn't like that. This is a long trip. When Herod heard here, the king heard it. He was troubled in all Jerusalem with him and gathering together the chief priests and the scribes and the people. He inquired of them where the Messiah would be born. Now, watch the scribes say to him, they're going to be he's going to be born in Bethlehem of Judea. For this is what was written of by the prophet Micah. And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means last among the leaders of Judah. For out of you shall come forth a ruler who will shepherd my people, Israel. Can't miss this. Here's three Gentile kingmakers, but there's probably not three, by the way.
Sorry to ruin that for you. There may have been 10 or two. We don't know. But these Gentile kingmakers come from Persia at tremendous cost and time.
The scribes are in Jerusalem. Harris says, where is he going to be born? And they say he's going to be born in Bethlehem. Five miles from where they are. They could care less. I'm not going five miles. Why would I walk five miles?
These guys would come hundreds and hundreds of miles. You see, why would I go there? That's where he's going to be born.
I don't really care. That goes to the idea of the spiritual climate of Israel at the time. Notice then, then Herod secretly called the Magi and determined from them what was the exact time the star appeared. He needed to know that.
So that when he wanted to kill all the little boys that were born, he wanted to go from a certain age under. And it was two years. This could have taken a long, long time before they got there. A long time. That's why Herod killed everyone two years and under.
OK, he's a paranoid lunatic, no doubt about it. And it said he sent them to Bethlehem and he said, go and search carefully for the child. And when you have found him, report to me so that I, too, may come and worship him. Wow. After hearing the king, they went their way and the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them until it came and stood over the place where Jesus was. Now, let me just say something here about stars. OK, I've read all kinds of natural explanations of how they got there, and none of them make any sense at all.
OK, now we'll say this. Stars, by the way, stars travel from east to west. OK, now they don't travel. But I don't want to scare you, but the Earth is spinning. OK, the Earth is spinning.
And so the stars move because we're spinning and they move east to west. Now, Bethlehem is five miles south. Of Jerusalem. So there'd never be a star that moves east to west that you could look at in the sky is going to lead you five miles, not just in Jerusalem, but over to the exact house where Jesus is. This is not a star, in my opinion, this is the kind of glory of God that he used in the Old Testament. It's just the presence of God who led him right to the house.
It says, And when they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And after coming into the house. And now that's the word, the word is house. The Greek word means house. OK, they're not in a stable.
There's no stable here. This is a house. And then it says something even more insightful. They saw a child. The Greek word for child is not the word for baby, which was used earlier. It's a word for toddler. He's a toddler. OK, Jesus is in the house and he's a toddler and two to 10 guys showed up riding horses. OK, so I know your manger scenes are just a wreck with this.
I get this. But the point of it is, is that they come to the house and it says they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell to the ground and they worshiped him. Pagan gentiles, kingmakers.
Now notice who's not there. No high priest, no priest, no Pharisees, no scribes, no Sadducees, no one. The only people that have showed up that are Jewish are shepherds who are unclean.
And then the Magi. And it says, And then opening their treasures, they presented him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. These gifts are extremely important to understand. The first gift is gold.
Now, that's not hard for us to understand, but understand this in Israel. At the time of Christ, in Israel, at the time of Christ, common people never had gold. No one had gold. Kings had gold. When you went to another kingdom and you had to stand before the king, you gave him a gift of gold. But the average person didn't have bracelets and rings of gold.
They didn't. It was a very rare item. It's a kingly item at the time of Christ. They bring him gold.
We have no idea how much, but they bring him gold. Secondly, they bring him frankincense. They say, well, why frankincense? Frankincense is known as holy oil. Now, frankincense means whiteness. It's white. Why frankincense?
Well, you have to understand. If you were a priest, you'd know what frankincense meant. It's the smell of the temple. When you went into the temple, into the holy place, you know what you smell? Frankincense. You see what did the priest burn in the holy place? Frankincense. When you smelled frankincense, you knew you're in the presence of God.
You see, that's the point. The frankincense is to let you know you're in the presence of God. He gets gold because he's a king. He gets frankincense because he's the presence of God. And the last thing he gets is myrrh, which is tragic in one way and good in another. Myrrh is embalming fluid.
That's how you embalm. And so the baby got myrrh, but he got myrrh because at future they knew he was going to die. But more importantly, too, is that you use myrrh to anoint kings. Samuel used myrrh to anoint David. And so they're anointing the king or the Messiah of Israel. Now, because they gave gold, frankincense and myrrh, we decided there must be three of them.
Because you wouldn't show up without a present. Right. And you see what I mean? That's how we did it. And by the way, about took about eight hundred thousand years. And then the church named the three we have. They have names for the three guys. Well, which are may not even be three.
That doesn't matter at all. But they got that the idea that there is three because of this. And it says, and having been warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the Magi left for their own country and they went another way. So what did they give? They gave, they responded to Jesus. They gave their time. How much time?
Maybe about one and a half to two and a half years. They've got to go back. They give years of time. They had time. They gave it to Jesus.
This baby. They gave Jesus their talents. What are they? They're kingmakers. They said, let's go and make the king. You see, they gave him the talent and they gave him their treasure.
That's what they gave. Now, let me ask you something. Do you have time?
Do you have talent? Do you have treasure? What have you given to the king? What do you give him? You see, what do you give him?
How do you respond to Christmas? I'll give him my I'll give him my time. I'll give him my talent.
I'll give him my treasure. That's what God wants to tell us. Remember the angel said, Behold, I bring to you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people. All the people means you and me. All of us. Great news.
Now, I know that Christmas means a lot of different things to all of us. All of us will handle this next few days differently. But I'm begging you, don't be distracted. Everything that's out there is a distraction.
It's intentional. Everything that's out there is a distraction. All the things that we hold dear. And I'm not even saying those things are bad. I am saying those things are distraction. We have turned it into all the things I said earlier. Office parties, you know, getting gifts for ourselves, you know, and then giving it to the other people we really like. You see, we've done decorations, Christmas. We do everything out there.
You see all of it. And I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm just saying don't let that distract you. You're a child of God. How does God want you to respond to what's going on at Christmas? I think he wants you to have Mary's submissive attitude.
I'm your slave. May it be done to me according to your word. Joseph's simple obedience in spite of what everybody would think of him.
The shepherds worshipping and their evangelism, the joy they experience of telling others about Christ, and the wise men gave their time and their talents and their treasure. All of us can respond to God that way. Not one of us can't respond to God that way.
The truth of it is this. Mary had a little lamb. John the Baptist said, Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
That's why he was born. This isn't a story about a baby. This is a story about a savior. It's a very, very different thing. Christmas is just the first step to Easter. That's all it is. It's the first step when the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
That's why it's good news of great joy. Jesus Christ deserves my submissiveness. He deserves my obedience. He deserves my worship. He deserves my time and my talents. And my treasures.
And he deserves my desire to tell everybody I know about him. That's how we should respond to Christmas. Let's pray. Father, my prayer is simply this. There are so many things that distract us and get in the way.
So many responsibilities to meet, so many opportunities to have, so many things to get done. I just pray for each and every one of us would just take the moment and respond to the fact that God stepped into time and space. Born in Bethlehem in great humility so that he could live a perfect life and die as a substitute on the cross for us. We are forever grateful. Thank you for the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. In his name we pray.
Amen. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift.
Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online. Or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.
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