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Jesus and the Wise Men | Sunday Message (Pastor Jonathan Laurie)

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie
The Truth Network Radio
December 22, 2024 1:23 pm

Jesus and the Wise Men | Sunday Message (Pastor Jonathan Laurie)

A New Beginning / Greg Laurie

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December 22, 2024 1:23 pm

Pastor Jonathan Laurie shares that there are gifts we can bring to Jesus. 

Notes:

Focus verse - Matthew 2
 
Jesus is for everybody. Everybody needs Jesus.
 
Read Matthew 2:1–2
 
#1 Searching for the King.
 
Christmas is about finding joy in the birth of Jesus.
 
Read Matthew 6:31–33
 
#2 Reacting to the King.
Matthew 2:3–8
 
James 1:22–25
 
#3 Worshipping the King.
Matthew 2:9–12
 
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
 
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
Jeremiah 29:12
 
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13
 
Gold is a symbol for the royalty and kingship of Jesus.
 
Frankincense is a symbol of the High Priest role of Jesus.
 
Myrrh symbolizes the death and sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.
 
The three gifts we can bring to Jesus are surrender, obedience, and trust in Him. 

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Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great film about the 40th President of the United States. We have a movie that's going to tell you the story of this man who changed the world.

Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in Jesus Christ. You're going to be inspired by it in this brand-new film starring Dennis Quaid. It's called Reagan, and it's our gift to you for your gift of any size. Available on DVD and digital download at harvest.org. Hey man, good morning Harvest. Good to see you all. You can have a seat. Welcome to church. I'm Pastor Jonathan Laurie. I want to give a special welcome to all of our campuses joining us right now.

Harvest Riverside, Harvest Orange County, Harvest Maui, those watching online, those outside in the courtyard. Everybody, so good to be with you all. Merry Christmas.

Yes, we can say that. We're thankful for this time of year. How many of you have all of your Christmas shopping done? You're done.

Wow, not that many. Well, I guess you got like three days, two and a half days left, right? Has anybody here not started their Christmas shopping yet? Like you just have not started. Yep, of course, there's a couple.

Always men, right? For sure. Well hey, I know that my dad mentioned some great stuff coming up, the new series in Nehemiah that we're all excited for. That's going to be awesome. We're also going to continue in our series Jesus and You after the new year.

That's going to also be great. That's what we're in today. Jesus and You. My message title is Jesus and the Wise Men, and we're going to be in Matthew chapter two if you'd like to turn in your Bibles there. And also, again, just want to remind you this coming Sunday, one week from today, we're going to have Levi Lusko in the house. It's always great to have Levi preaching and sharing the message. So December 29th, make sure you come and join us for that. It's going to be great.

Levi always brings a good word, and we consider him part of our extended family, and so we're thankful to have him here. Well, I hope not too many of you have to travel for Christmas. I don't like traveling in general, especially when it means I have to get to the airport extra early. But travel during the holidays is a hectic time, no question. Nobody likes it when the flight cancellations take place, right? And there's crowds, and there's just that pressure of if I miss this flight or if this flight's delayed, I'm going to miss my connecting flight. And there's just, oh, it's a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure during the holidays. Growing up, my dad was always very, very punctual, very punctual.

He still is. He kind of lives by that mantra. Some of you know it. Some of you need to know it. To be early is on time. To be on time is late. And to be late is to, okay, yeah, you all need to know this. And to be late is to never show up. To be late is to never show up. Let me say it again.

This is good. This is a good mantra to live by. To be early is on time. To be on time is late. And to be late is to never show up. And that's my dad, and that's a great thing to aspire to. Except when it came to traveling, and no matter where we were going, we would always get to the airport two hours early, two hours early. I remember we'd be getting, you know, shaken out of bed, come on, we gotta get going, let's get there. He wants to be on time.

That's a good thing. Me, personally, I like to push things to the bleeding edge. I like to see how late I can get there and how early I can arrive and then brag about how I left two hours later than they did but still showed up early. If my flight is taking off, especially when it comes to flying, if my flight takes off at 11 a.m., I started doing some math, okay, flight takes off at 11 a.m., that means it's gonna board at 10 a.m., I'm zone three, which means I'll actually be boarding, you know, 10, 15 a.m., it's gonna take an hour to get to the airport, let's do some quick math, I don't know how to do this, 930, let's leave at 930 from the house, okay, that'll be fine. And you know what, to this day, we have yet to miss a flight.

We have yet to miss a flight. And so, yeah, I'm proud of that. And so my system is working pretty good.

So my system is working pretty good. But there's some appointments that you take zero risk. There's some appointments, some things that are so important you take zero risk. You take all the time you can to get there and make sure you're there before, things like your wedding, right, you don't want to be late to that, the birth of your child, that's an important one, a job interview, right, showing up for a job interview for the first time, you want to make sure you're punctual, you show up a little bit early, your clothes are nice and pressed, you want to be ready.

Church services, right, you want to show up on time for your church services, I'm talking about you 12 p.m., you want to make sure that you get there on time, how are you late to the 12 p.m. service, I have no idea. But as we talk about this series, Jesus and You, I want to look at a group of very mysterious men and a fascinating group of men that we know today as the wise men. There's a lot of legend surrounding these guys, a lot of things that's extra biblical that has somehow made it into our belief system and maybe even our theology, but the fact is a lot of it is legend. And we don't know a lot about the wise men, but believe it or not, we actually can know a good amount about them as you look at the scriptures and we see that they actually appear back in the Old Testament in the book of Daniel. Now you have heard us tell you that the wise men didn't show up at the manger scene for Jesus' birth, they weren't there with all the animals, I'm sorry to tell you. They didn't show up at the manger scene, they weren't there. They actually showed up when Jesus was a few months old. Scholars estimate somewhere between six months to 14 months old. And so if you have a manger scene in front of your house and the three wise men with the camels are in it, you need to remove them immediately, they were not there.

And so you can put them back two weeks after Christmas would be appropriate, you can include them. And so they showed up after Jesus' birth, does that mean they were late? Does that mean that they were using some Jonathan Laurie travel time math? No, it does not.

It definitely not. As you'll see in our text in a moment, there isn't a lot of immediate information about the wise men again, but as you dig around a little bit, there's actually a lot we can know about them. And as we look at these mysterious wise men from the East, we are going to see this theme of our series, Jesus and You, once again played out in these men's lives, in these wise men. We're going to see that Jesus is for everybody and everybody needs Jesus. Whether you're a sinner or a saint, whether you're a woman at the well or you're Nicodemus, the religious leader, one of the chief religious leaders, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're happy or sad this Christmas, Jesus brings hope, he brings light and he brings peace. Everybody needs Jesus and Jesus is for everybody. As the French poet, Placide Capot penned in his famous poem from 1847, which we have adapted into O Holy Night, his poem titled Midnight Christians.

I love this. He says this, and this is of course translated to English. Midnight Christians is the solemn hour when God has descended unto us to erase the stain of original sin and to end the wrath of his Father. The entire world thrills with hope on this night that gives it a Savior. People kneel down, await your deliverance. Christmas, Christmas, here is the Redeemer. This is what we are celebrating this Christmas season, our deliverance, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And so let's read together in Matthew chapter 2 starting in verse 1.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod. Now about that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem asking where is the newborn, excuse me, where is the newborn King of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and we have come to worship him.

Let's stop there. Our first point together this morning is point number one, searching for the King, searching for the King. These wise men, they understood Christmas better than a lot of people do today. They understood that it was about worship, that it was about the Messiah, let's be honest, and the hustle and bustle of this holiday, the kids' Christmas recitals, the plays, the shopping, the work parties, the hosting. Christmas can get real busy and cause us to lose sight of what Christmas is all about, which is finding joy in the birth of Jesus. That's what Christmas is all about, finding joy in the birth of Jesus. It's not in the gifts, it's not in the food, it's not in the lights, or the music, or the parties. Those things are all there, whether they realize it or not, to point to the birth of Jesus. If you're going to a Christmas holiday party with work or whatever it might be, you can know, hey, you know what, I might work for a secular company, but the fact that we are having a Christmas party at work, we are celebrating the birth of Jesus, whether they like it or not.

That's what we're doing. I love that. And so when you see happy Honda days, you know what, Honda, you're celebrating the birth of Jesus, giving us deals in Jesus' name.

That's great. And so, no, it's not in those things, it's not in the gifts, it's not in the parties, it's not in the lights. Those things point to the birth of Jesus. This is why we have gifts.

This is why we gather together with loved ones and why we have Christmas plays and sing songs and go to Christmas Eve services, because it's all about Jesus and finding joy in His birth. And the wise men seem to understand that better than everybody. And so who were these mysterious wise men from the East? Well, Bible scholars G. Campbell Morgan and John MacArthur both agree that these wise men, called Magi in the original Greek language, were actually a priestly tribe from the Medo-Persian empire.

They're a priestly tribe. Now, you've heard it said that, probably, I'm assuming you have, that Magi, we get our word magician from today, and so these men were sorcerers of some kind. And that may be true, but that only partly describes who they were. These men were kingmakers. These men were incredibly important in their roles.

Now, tradition today has told us that there were three of them, likely because there were three gifts. Tradition has also told us that they were kings. They were kings. And tradition has also told us that their names were Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthasar. Those are interesting names.

I don't know if anybody's naming their kids Melchior these days. But they were not kings. There was not three of them. These names were recorded nowhere in Scripture. This was a legend that was formed around them during the Middle Ages. A lot of this stuff was made up as tradition, whatever.

I'm not really sure. It doesn't give us a lot of information, a lot of stuff to go off of if you're just reading here in Matthew's Gospel. But what we don't know, a lot of information is made up, excuse me, a lot of information is provided to us in the book of Daniel.

Yeah, way back in the Old Testament, the Magi are talked about in the book of Daniel. During the Babylonian captivity, when the Jewish people were taken back to Babylon, a young man named Daniel, yes, Daniel of Daniel in the lion's den fame, began to rise through the ranks as a quality young man, a man of character and integrity. He wouldn't eat the meat that was offered and sacrificed to idols. He wanted to eat a diet strictly of vegetables and ultimately made an agreement with the king and those taking care of them.

But basically, hey, if we look healthy and we honor God in this way, you'll allow us to continue to do it. And so he was rising through the ranks at that time. And we also learn that the Magi, we read in the book of Daniel, were some of the highest ranking officials in all of the Babylonian empire. And so it was a huge empire, of course, King Nebuchadnezzar.

And so as we continue to see during the Babylonian captivity, they were then conquered by the Medo-Persians. And under the Medo-Persian rule, Daniel was appointed as ruler over the entire province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon, and that included the Magi. And so under Daniel's leadership, we can safely assume that Daniel spoke of the coming Jewish Messiah, that he would have spoken to these wise men, these mystics, these occultists, these sorcerers who would have been, you know, they would have been fortune tellers, and they were the ones that were telling the king the future and all these different things. Nobody was able to predict it as accurately as Daniel, which is why he was placed in this position. And so Daniel, he's talking to them, I'm sure, about the Jewish Messiah, telling them everything that he knows about the one true God of Israel. And so using Daniel's 70 weeks prophecy as recorded in Daniel chapter 9, they were provided, these Magi, these wise men, they had a road map to the most important event in all of human history, the birth of the Messiah. In that prophecy that Daniel recorded hundreds of years earlier, God gave Daniel a special vision exactly what was going to take place leading up to the Messiah's birth, and he gave him a pinpoint accurate timeline down to the very day, month, and year that Jesus would be born.

You go back and you read Daniel chapter 9, and you read the 70 weeks prophecy, one day is seven years. And so you do the math and you realize Daniel landed exactly right when Jesus would be born. And so these Magi, this is what prompted them to come to Jerusalem.

They knew because of Daniel's writings that the Messiah was going to be born, the most important event in all of human history. Their journey covered hundreds, maybe thousands of miles across the ancient world to come and see this newborn king, to seek truth, to come and worship, and you know 2,000 years later after Jesus has been born, he's ascended to heaven, people really aren't that much different today, are they? People are still looking for truth. People are still looking for an object worthy of their worship. People are willing to travel across the world to find what they are looking for.

Sadly many people, they never find it. They get distracted by materialism, by spirituality, by experiences, and they never find what they set out for in the first place, which is peace, which is truth, which is hope, and a true love that they'll only find in a relationship with God. It's so sad but during the holidays there's actually an uptick in feelings of depression and loneliness and discontentment and regret. Now maybe it's because they didn't get what they wanted for Christmas, they were hoping for that Stanley cup, they were hoping for that crossbody bag, that new iPhone, or it could be it was because you didn't have the picture-perfect Christmas you were hoping for, right?

The kids didn't come home, you got in a fight with your spouse Christmas morning, and oh it just ruined the entire day and it wasn't what you had built up in your mind. Well I want to remind you what the words of Jesus are in Matthew chapter 6 where he says, therefore do not worry what you shall eat or what you shall drink or what you shall wear, for all these things the Gentiles seek. Your father in heaven knows that you have need of all these things but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. So I want to ask you what are you seeking this Christmas? Are you seeking earthly treasures or are you seeking eternal truth?

Only one is going to satisfy that iPhone, that Stanley cup, you're going to lose it, you're going to get tired of it, it's going to break down the battery is going to stop working after a few months and degrade so quickly like all the iPhones do these days. Only Jesus is going to deliver, only Jesus the eternal truth is going to really give you that fulfillment and give you the hope that you've been looking for this Christmas season. We see the way that the wise men worshiped, they understood better than the other groups that we're going to be looking at now as they react to the king. Point number two, reacting to the king. Let's read again in verse three of Matthew chapter two. Now King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this as was everyone in Jerusalem. He called a meeting of the leading priests and teachers of religious law and he asked where is the Messiah supposed to be born? In Bethlehem in Judea they said for this is what the prophet wrote and you oh Bethlehem in the land of Judah are not least among the ruling cities of Judah for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel and then Herod called for a private meeting with the wise men and he learned from them the time when the star first appeared and then he told them go back to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child and when you find him come and tell me that I can go and worship him too.

Let's stop there. Now a little information about Herod here. In the Bible we hear about the Harrods a lot.

Obviously in the New Testament we hear about them. It might be easier for you to think of Herod as a title rather than a name kind of like Caesar. This Herod is known as Herod the Great and he was an absolute egomaniac.

He was insane. Now Herod the Great he's known for some amazing contributions. Primarily he is known for the reconstruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem known as Herod's temple. It was the second temple and he was given the title of king of the Jews by the Romans and he was charged with the oversight of ancient Judea of all the Jewish people there and the Roman Empire and so when Herod hears from these wise men that they have come to worship the newborn king of the Jews that is not a good thing to say to Herod. He immediately the hair on his neck begins to stand up and he basically turns into a demon.

He basically turns into a madman. A Roman historian named Macrobius wrote it is better to be Herod's pig than one of his sons. Herod was a crazy person. Herod he was a Jew and so he wouldn't kill a pig.

He wouldn't touch a swine but we see that he's willing to actually kill members of his own family to protect his kingship. He killed three of his own sons one of his own wives and countless other political opponents all so that he could secure his power as the king of the Jews and so when he heard about the newborn king of the Jews the wise men were coming to worship he was hyper paranoid and he pretends to be a fellow worshiper. Oh please tell me when you find this newborn king of the Jews so I too may be able to come and worship but as we see he is intent on killing the baby Jesus. It's really interesting as you look at these three groups here the wise men Herod and the religious leaders it's interesting to see how they all react to Jesus. The wise men they were not Jewish by blood.

These men were definitely not orthodox believers. They did not worship necessarily the one true God of Daniel though he told him about him. They followed they were astrologers, they were astronomers, they mixed science with superstition and practiced these things and they were definitely not orthodox. They were outside of what the Jewish system of belief was but they came to worship.

They came to see Jesus and they traveled vast distances to come and see him. Herod was a Jew. He was a Jew. He helped build the Jewish temple a place for sacrifice.

He helped beautify it. He ruled over the Jewish people and what did he want to do to Jesus? He wanted to kill him and then you have the religious leaders. These were those that studied the scriptures that certainly knew about the prophecies.

They knew where the Messiah was supposed to be born in Bethlehem and Herod consulted them asking them about this information and what do they do? They appear completely indifferent. They don't care. They would have known about Daniel's prophecy but for some reason they just did not care.

It did not matter to them. A lot of people are like these groups today. Indifferent, angered, or worshipers. You're either a worshiper like the wise men. You recognize your need for Jesus and you come to worship him or you could be like Herod. You could be like Herod.

You hear about the idea of Jesus and the idea of making him your Lord, completely changing your desires for your life, putting somebody else in charge of the decisions you make and the desires that you have, surrendering your will and your motives to him. That sounds crazy to you and it might even make you mad and enrage you thinking of someone telling you what you should and should not do, what is right and what is wrong. You think that you're the master of your own destiny, the captain of your ship, right? God is my co-pilot. You've got that sticker on your car or maybe dog is your co-pilot.

I've seen that sticker too but it's something that just enrages you. You can't imagine having somebody else tell you what to do but really as you think about Herod, this method of living, solely living for yourself, being so selfish that you're willing to murder your own family members is actually just the fully realized version of what so many are doing today. Doing what feels good in the moment, living for today. Where does that lead you?

Where does that lead you if you only live for yourself, if you only look out for yourself, if you only live for numero uno and you only care what's good for you? Well, it leads you to a very lonely existence and it leads you to a lonely death. As we fast forward, Herod the Great's life to his deathbed. As he approached the end of his life, he was experiencing such physical pain, likely from STDs and ramifications from all the debauchery that he engaged in, that he tried to stab himself to death.

That sounds pretty bad. He was stopped by his cousin from committing suicide and while he was recovering, he was sober-minded long enough to think about his death and think about the life that he lived and realize so many people hated Herod the Great that he decided that there was going to be no displays of public grief on his behalf. Nobody was going to care when he died and this struck him and he was so vain and insecure that he made a decision. His solution was to call for a large group of distinguished and respected men to Jericho where Herod was dying. He instructed his sister and his brother-in-law that once he died, that they would kill this group of men that were respected in the communities.

That way there would be public displays of sadness and grief throughout all of Judea. That's how crazy he was. Thankfully when Herod died, his sister and his brother-in-law didn't obey his wishes and we just see what a crazy person that he was. He was really just doing what he felt was best for himself.

That's all he cared about was himself. Theologian Ozzy Osbourne said in 1973 in the ever iconic album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, just take a look around and what do you see? Pain, suffering, and misery. It's not the way that the world was planned.

It's a pity you don't understand. Killing yourself to live. Killing yourself to live.

That's what so many are doing today. You're killing yourself to live. You think these things that make you feel good are what life is all about when in reality they're killing you. They're eating away at your soul. They're making you feel more empty than when you first started off. That's not what you were created for.

You were created for a relationship with the God who loves you and created this world and has a plan for your life. Putting yourself first in everything. Burning bridges, acting selfish, thinking that you're a victim when you face the consequences for these decisions.

This is what happens. You're lonely. You're isolated at the end of your life. But it's not just those outside of the faith who can be apathetic. Look at the religious leaders now. They knew the scriptures and the prophecies probably better than anybody, but they didn't act on them. They would have known about Daniel's prophecy. They would have known about this timeline. Yeah, hey, isn't the Messiah supposed to be born at some point this year?

Yeah, who knows? We don't really care. We just care about our positions here in power. It was the most important human event in all of human history. The most important thing that ever could happen is the birth of Jesus Christ. Even to this day, we divide human history by it. BC before Christ and AD, Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. Now you see today a lot of people are doing, what is it, BCE before common era and CE common era.

Guess what? It's still following the AD and the BC. They've just changed the names on it and tried to sanitize it and sterilize it of any spiritual meaning. But we divide human history by Jesus' life.

The most important event and the religious leaders could not be bothered with it. They knew the scriptures. They knew what they meant.

They knew what was going to happen. They knew where he was supposed to be born, but they did not go and see Jesus. It reminds me of what James says in James chapter one. He says, be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he was like a man who observes his face in a mirror.

For as he observes himself, he goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. I love that. Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

You know, let's be honest. It's easy to come to church on Sunday morning, sit in the service, hear a message, be encouraged by it, take home a little truth. Oh, I really love the word that the pastor had to say.

I love that point that he made. But as you think of 52 weeks of church services, how much of this are you really retaining? A lot of it goes in one ear and out the other, right? It's easy to forget these things. That is why it's so important that, yeah, we take notes, but that we are more importantly practicing what we are hearing, that we be doers and not hearers only.

Knowing the Bible, but not obeying the Bible is, excuse me, knowing the Bible, but not obeying the Bible, yeah, is like going to a doctor, right? You go to the doctor, you show up, you tell them what your problem is. In my case, I'm coughing my lungs out 24-7. And so you go to the doctor, don't worry, I'm not sick.

They tell me that I'm not contagious anymore, rather. But you go to the doctor, you tell them what the problem is, and they give you a prescription, right? And so then you go and you take your prescription, and you get it filled. And then you bring the prescription home, and then you open up the pill bottle, and you put the antibiotics in your hand.

And then you take a drink of water, and you take the pills, and you throw them in the trash. That's like going and suing the doctor for malpractice, because you're not getting better when you hear the Word of God and you don't follow it. You have the remedy, you have the cure, but for whatever reason, you're choosing to not follow it. Listen, the ails in our life, the things that plague us, the things that make life so difficult in our marriage, in our families, in our workplaces, in our personal lives, the answer to what we are going through is in the Scripture. The remedy for it is in the Scriptures. We know it, but we don't follow it.

We don't want to do that. And I'll be honest, I was one of these people for many years. I sat in the front row on Sunday morning for many years hearing the truth of the Bible, hearing my dad present the gospel in a very understandable way, knowing what the true spiritual north was on that compass in my heart, knowing and understanding and even memorizing what the Bible said. But into my early 20s, I ignored it. I ignored what the Bible said. I pretended that it was just, oh, it doesn't matter, and I just tried to placate myself, make myself comfortable doing whatever. You know, I lived for myself.

I rejected and ignored what the Bible said, and I did it in pursuit of fun, in pursuit of parties, in pursuit of laughs, and man, we would laugh. I would laugh so hard until I didn't know what I was laughing at, right? It was miserable. I was miserable when I would go to bed at night after partying. I'd stay up as late as I could watching TV or distracting myself on my phone. That way, when I would finally lay down, I would be so tired, I would just fall right to sleep.

I wouldn't have to be alone with my own thoughts. Am I speaking to somebody here? I want to tell you, it wasn't until I accepted Jesus and His forgiveness that I learned what true peace and joy was. So do you reject the message of Jesus? Do you ignore it? Or are you like the wise men who come genuinely with their baggage, with their quirks, with their weirdness to come and see that which is true and to come and worship the true King of kings and Lord of lords?

That's what we should do. And that brings us to point number three, worshiping the King. Worshipping the King. Let's look at verse nine now as we wrap this up. After this interview, the wise men went their way and the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem and went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were filled with joy. They entered the house and saw the child with his mother Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him.

Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gold of gold, gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And when it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. Now I don't know about you, but I find it really interesting that there was a star leading them to Jesus. In no way does the Bible encourage us to look into astrology or astronomy to hear from God, for him to give us a sign in the stars. He doesn't ask or tell us to do that in any capacity in Scripture, but we do see that this star without question guided the wise men and helped them find Jesus.

It's wild, right? And so what this says to me is that these wise men, these magi, they were true seekers of God and God in his divine mercy met them with their limited and flawed understandings and he led them to himself. And really we see this throughout our series, Jesus and You. The woman at the well, Cornelius the centurion, Gideon's offering on a rock, Solomon's sacrifice at the high places, all of these were flawed methods of worship, but what it tells us is that God will occasionally respond to imperfect or misinformed worship with grace. But one thing that always happens is that when that does happen and he does meet these people where they are at, he does not leave them in those practices but guides them to proper worship and obedience. Jeremiah 29 11 to 13 tells us, for I know the thoughts that I have towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. See, that's what these wise men were doing. They were searching for God with their whole heart, with a limited understanding of who he was, what his character was, and they did it through the best method that they had available to them at the time, which was looking to the stars. They were looking for God with a genuine heart and God met them and he sent them a star and led them to the Messiah. See, this is what matters to God is the heart. It matters to God.

He cares about what matters most to you. So you can come and you can worship God in an orthodox manner like the religious leaders did, who were really apathetic to the whole thing, and these wise men likely had never been to a home as humble as Mary and Joseph's. In other texts, it's noted that Mary offers a turtledove as a sacrifice and that's basically the only time that that's allowed to be a sacrifice is when the family is so poverty-stricken, they're basically dirt poor and unable to afford anything. And so when they came into this home, it was probably the the poorest home they had ever seen, but what did they do? They humbled themselves, bowing before the baby Jesus in a simple home. Beautiful.

It's beautiful. In 1983, we had a visit from the royal family. Queen Elizabeth and her son Prince Philip came and they spent some time on the west coast with Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who was president at the time. They were invited to Ronald Reagan's ranch up in Santa Barbara to spend some time with the president and the first lady, and they had for lunch, which I found very interesting, enchiladas, tacos, chile rellanos, beans, rice, and guacamole.

If I knew Mexican food was on the menu, I may have considered a life in public service. But Ronald Reagan, he had constructed a large portion of the Reagan ranch, and you can visit it to this day. It's beautiful and well preserved if you haven't seen it before up in Santa Barbara. But while the queen and prince were there, Prince Philip was heard asking President Reagan, where's the palace?

Pretty funny. He's coming to this beautiful place, this beautiful ranch, and you see he's so used to this beautiful estate that he was living in, the beautiful palace, all the dysfunction of the royal family to take in, and he asked Ronald Reagan, where's the palace? Well, thankfully, thankfully, even though Mary and Joseph's home was humble, I seriously doubt the wise men would have been foolish enough to ask a question like that. I'm sure Mary and Joseph's home, though it was not palatial and beautiful and decorated to the comparison of the magi, I'm sure that their home was warm, and that it was loving, and it was filled with love. The gifts that the wise men brought with them, it's been pointed out that gold, frankincense, and myrrh are really odd gifts to give to a baby, right? Usually it's like a crib, some baby clothes, a diaper tower, some pacifiers, but it's been pointed out by scholars that the symbolism of these gifts is remarkable, and there's no way that it's just a coincidence. Gold is a gift that is fit for a king, that is symbolic of royalty, and that ultimately points out that Jesus was royal.

He was a king. Gold was fit for a king, and that was Jesus. Frankincense is a symbol of Jesus' high priestly role, offering prayers and sacrificing on our behalf. It was an incense that was burned inside the Holy of Holies in the temple when the high priest would offer those sacrifices to atone for the people, and myrrh is an embalming element symbolizing Jesus' death and ultimately his sacrifice on our behalf, an element similar to formaldehyde.

You would never give a baby formaldehyde, right? But these wise men, they understood why the Messiah had come, why this baby Jesus had been born at this time in this place perhaps better than anybody because of that prophecy in Daniel 9. This was genuine worship. It was not ritualistic, it was not reluctant, and it was not apathetic.

It was genuine. In the same way, the wise men brought those three gifts. The three gifts we today can bring to Jesus would be surrendering, our obedience, and our trust.

Those are the three gifts that we can bring to Jesus today. Our surrendering, our obedience, and our trust. Surrendering our desires, our lordship of our own lives, and laying that down for Jesus. Obeying his commands, his worldview, and his commissions, and trusting in him as our Lord and our Savior. These reasons that we can do this is because, yes, Jesus is worthy of these things, but also because Jesus himself modeled this behavior.

He modeled this behavior for us, and he gives his followers the power to follow him. Jesus surrendered his will to the Father. You remember when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he was crucified, and he said, Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass for me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Jesus was about to take on the sin of the world. The Father would turn his face away, and Jesus became the embodiment of sin, and he was punished on our behalf when he was hung on that cross. Jesus didn't want to be crucified.

News flash, he didn't like this idea. I'm sure he was afraid. He sweat great drops of blood, but he did it for us. He laid down his will.

He surrendered his desires. This is why he is worthy of our worship today. Jesus obeyed even to the point of death on a cross. Philippians tells us he is the Messiah. He is God. He is our Savior, but Jesus, he's not living in some ivory tower of theory.

He is our template. He is our model because he attempted in every way that we were, and yet he did not sin. He lived our lives.

He breathed our air. He suffered our pain, and he laid down his life for you, and so in closing this morning, I want to ask you, how will your life look after encountering Jesus? Will you be like Herod? Will you be like the religious leaders, or will you be like the wise men? Will you bow before the newborn king who takes away the sin of the world? Look back at verse 12 as we close now.

It says, when it was time to leave, the wise men returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod. I think that's great because you know what that tells me? God does not leave you the same way when he finds you. The Bible says that we are new creations in Christ. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. He sends you on a different path.

He puts you on a different trajectory, and it's to come into a relationship with him. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you. We thank you for sending your son Jesus to die on a cross for our sin.

We know that this special holiday, Christmas, it's the most wonderful time of the year. It is so true because hope has come into the world. Jesus has come into the world. Forgiveness has come into the world, and Lord, we are so thankful for your son. We are thankful for the hope that we have, and we love you.

Well, our heads are bowed, and our eyes are closed. We're praying. I know there may be some today who have not yet put their faith in Jesus Christ. If you would like to do that, if you would like to know that when you die, you're going to heaven, if you would like to have that hope that your sins are forgiven, that that guilt is removed, that your shame is gone, you can have that today. The best Christmas present you could ever hope for.

It's so true. If you'd like to have that, would you just pray this prayer out loud after me? Would you just pray this?

Say this. Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but I know that Jesus is the Savior, and I want to be a true worshiper like those wise men were. So I turn from my sin now, and I turn to you from this moment forward. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-22 14:08:54 / 2024-12-22 14:25:29 / 17

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